This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here

Category: Military issues

  • A Brief Public Service Announcement . . . .

    Jonn’s article yesterday about the recovery of MOH recipient LTC Don Carlos Faith Jr’s remains brought to light something I didn’t know – and which may not be common knowledge.  Some of TAH’s readers may be interested.

    The Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) is the DoD entity having the mission of accounting for US POWs/MIAs.  They often use maternal-line mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) in the identification of recovered remains.  That much is fairly well-known.

    However, the JPAC also maintains lists of unaccounted for US personnel from three conflicts for which they still need maternal-line mtDNA samples.  These lists are reportedly reasonably complete, and are available in PDF and Excel formats; the PDF versions are linked below:

    Excel versions of these lists may be found here under “Search”.

    Additionally, the JPAC maintains a partial list of World War II unaccounted for personnel for whom current investigations have a critical need for mtDNA samples.  Unfortunately, the list from World War II is not complete due to the sheer magnitude of US personnel still not formally accounted for (78,000+) and the relatively limited scope of JPAC’s work to date on World War II casualty cases.

    General contact information for JPAC can be found here; an explanation of who can give a useful sample can be found here.  If you or anyone you know have a relative who never came home, please consider seeing if you can help JPAC  find them.  Even if you can’t give the sample yourself, you may be able to help them locate someone who can.

    Everyone deserves a proper burial – if possible, in their homeland.

  • Breathalyzers: Not Just for the Navy Any More

    Well, it looks like the USMC is beginning to bend to the same PC whims as the rest of DoD.  And it’s doing so by following the Navy’s lead regarding breathalyzers and mass screenings.

    The USMC has announced something called the “Alcohol Screening Program”.  Under that program, all Marines will be screened at random twice yearly while on duty – war zones included.

    Show any measurable amount of alcohol, and you’re in “deep doo-doo”.  Sure, the program guidance is that any Marine showing between 0.01% and 0.03% BAC will receive “counseling”.  (You and I all know that in reality it means they’ll be put on “that list”.  And with end strength going down . . . . )  Blow 0.04% or above, and you get a trip to the medics for “evaluation”.

    Program guidance authorizes commanders to discipline Marines “should the situation warrant”.  How many want to bet we see a de facto “no tolerance” policy – complete with NJPs for violators – before too long?

    The program requires the appointment of coordinator at unit level, of course – as well as annual reporting requirements.  Gee, that’s just what every unit needs:  another extra duty position for unit leadership, another statistic to be tracked, and another mandatory annual report.

    Look, I’m NOT condoning people showing up for duty impaired.  But this program is a freaking waste.  Virtually everything the program mandates already exists except for the coordinator and reporting requirements.  Almost every installation I’ve ever seen either has a breathalyzer or can get access to one through coordination with local LE.  A commander can already order someone he suspects to have alcohol in their system to go get tested.  And an NCO can already counsel some Joe Schmoe who shows up for duty smelling like a brewery about showing up to duty in that condition.

    As a taxpayer, I object to the waste.  And as a former member of the military, I object to the micromanagement.  Both are counterproductive as hell.

  • The return of STRAC

    The Stars & Stripes warns that the services are returning to the days of spit and polish, style over substance because everyone is trying to convince us that the war on terror is over;

    Troops who have become accustomed to more relaxed standards on dress and behavior in combat zones can expect to be corrected for any breaches of the military’s many regulations designed to govern the most minute aspects of their work, appearance and personal lives, given garrison leaders’ well-known obsession with physical appearance.

    The Army, for example, is reviewing its grooming standards for troops with changes proposed for rules governing such things as facial hair, tattoos and cosmetics.

    An increased focus on discipline in garrison is not without its risks.

    Former Secretary of State Colin Powell, writing about garrison life in the Strategic Army Corps (STRAC) in the early 1960s, said the acronym became Army slang for a well-organized, well turned-out soldier, but that style ended up overrunning substance.

    “STRAC was a state of being, a sharpness, a readiness and esprit de corps … [but] as often happens in the Army, we over did it,” he said. “Being STRAC came to mean looking sharp more than being combat ready.”

    Last I checked, there’s still two more years of deployments to Afghanistan, and then there’s Africa and Arab Spring to deal with, but I guess none of that matters when everyone in the media is convinced that this has gone on too long to be newsworthy.

    As far as this talk about garrison duty, what does anyone really expect when the pogues are running the Army these days? But, my heroes were the Vietnam veterans who put up with the Volar (that’s what we called Jimmy Carter’s Volunteer Army) bullshit and focused on teaching me the lessons they learned in combat. Those of you who choose to stay through the next few years will be the heroes of the next generation’s soldiers. We need you to stay, but you can always come here to bitch about it.

  • Puzzle Palace: No MOH for Peralta

    Those dinguses at the Pentagon have decided, from their years of enduring paper cuts and ass rashes, that Marine Sgt. Rafael Peralta doesn’t deserve to have his Navy Cross upgraded to a Medal of Honor according to Stars & Stripes;

    Peralta was killed during a firefight in Fallujah on Nov. 15, 2004. As his team entered a home overtaken by insurgents, Peralta was shot in the head and fell to the ground.

    Eyewitness accounts state that before he died, the 25-year-old Marine reached out and pulled an enemy grenade under his body seconds before it detonated. His final sacrifice saved most of his team, those troops insist.

    But after he was first nominated for the Medal of Honor, a panel of forensic pathologists reviewing the case found that Peralta could not have consciously grabbed the grenade because of the brain injuries from the gunshot. They also questioned whether the grenade detonated under Peralta’s body, or simply near his corpse.

    So, CSI:Crystal City made the decision contradicting eyewitness testimony. Brilliant.

  • Medal of Honor recipients on suicide

    The Daily News of Jacksonville, N.C. reports that two Medal of Honor recipients talked to Marines at Camp Lejeune about suicide. Retired Maj. Gen. James Livingston and retired Army Maj. Drew Dix attempted to reduce the stigma attached to PTS and seeking help;

    “The strength of the Marine Corps is in the camaraderie of the Corps,” Livingston said. “We are the most unique brotherhood in the world; there’s no bigger brotherhood — no bigger fraternity — than the U.S. Marine Corps.”

    Dix took a different approach, reminding the Marines of the resources available to them on base and telling them to take advantage of the programs designed to help.

    “You have the responsibility for your actions completely,” Dix said. “You’ve got so many programs in front of you, you’ve just got to take advantage of them.”

    Both Livingston and Dix commended the troops for their actions in Iraq and Afghanistan, saying some of the battles, especially the initial invasion of Iraq in 2003, are on par with the most historic battles of World War II and Vietnam.

    “You are the absolute best there is in the world,” Livingston said. “You aren’t going to let your buddies down, and you aren’t going to let the country down.”

    Like I’ve said a million times on this blog, the key to breaking this suicide thing is old soldiers talking to the younger soldiers. We’re the ones who’ve survived our own demons and we need to tell the younger folks how we did it.

  • Reimer and Chiarelli on the troops’ guns and suicide

    For some reason, retired generals Dennis J. Reimer and Peter W. Chiarelli thought they had something important to say today in the Washington Post. They decided that we wanted to hear from them on the subject of the troops’ guns and disguised it as concern about the suicide rate;

    One of the most effective measures of suicide prevention is to ask those perceived to be under duress: “Do you have a gun in your home?” If the answer is yes, we might then suggest that the individual put locks on the weapon or store it in a safe place during periods of high stress — things that any responsible gun owner should do.

    Unfortunately, that potentially lifesaving action is no longer available to the military. A little-noticed provision in the 2011 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) has had the unintended consequence of tying the hands of commanders and noncommissioned officers by preventing them from being able to talk to service members about their private weapons, even in cases where a leader believes that a service member may be suicidal.

    Why would a commander need to know if a soldier had a gun in their home unless it was that commander’s intention to relieve that soldier of his weapon? Because, instead of asking a soldier if he owns a gun, a commander would simply need to tell that soldier that “if” he owned a gun, perhaps he should lock it up away safely. Asking me if I own a gun would only force me to lie.

    How many hypothetical circumstances do commanders present to their units in weekly safety briefings? Why not just tell the entire unit to lock their guns away safely – if safety briefings work, like commanders seem to think they do, that should be sufficient.

    As we’ve discovered here, less than half of suicides committed with a gun are committed with a personal weapon. So it seems that commanders would do well to keep soldiers at risk away from their service weapons. In fact, if the statistics are to be believed, they could cut suicides in half by doing that. So why aren’t these two generals advocating for that action rather than pursuing privately owned weapons – if all that needs to be done to prevent suicides is to take weapons from the troops.

    Will commanders also be asking the troops if they have a length of rope or razor blades at home? If the soldiers reply in the affirmative, will they be advised to lock their ropes and razor blades somewhere safe?

    I guess it’s just easier to blame the troops’ guns than it is to just get them the treatment they deserve.

  • Fat Force

    Pat sends us a link to the Washington Post which complains that the military is booting folks who are overweight. It shouldn’t really be news. the first time I ever heard of an overweight program in the Army was in 1977. They published height and weight standards, but along with the standards, the Army issued waivers hand over fist. No one took the standards seriously because of the waivers. But when the Jimmy Carter Volar (Volunteer Army) ended and the Reagan Era began, along with our equipment, pay raises, training and training time, they began enforcing the standards. Quite a few of our remaining Vietnam veterans fell victim to it.

    Apparently, the Obama Administration sees it as a way to reduce the force;

    In 2010, 86,183 troops, or 5.3 percent of the force, received at least one clinical diagnosis of obesity, according to the Armed Forces Health Surveillance Center.

    The trend has prompted the military to reexamine its training programs and is driving commanders to weed out soldiers who are deemed unfit to fight.

    “A healthy and fit force is essential to national security,” said Cmdr. Leslie Hull-Ryde, a Pentagon spokeswoman. “Our service members must be physically prepared to deploy on a moment’s notice anywhere on the globe to extremely austere and demanding conditions.”

    During the first 10 months of this year, the Army kicked out 1,625 soldiers for being out of shape, nearly 16 times the number discharged for that reason in 2007, the peak of wartime deployment cycles.

    My problem with the Washington Post article is that somehow they conflate obesity with criminal behavior and make it sound like the Bush Administration was pumping the ranks up with fat criminals;

    As the Iraq and Afghanistan wars strained the military, the Army granted waivers to recruits who would normally not be eligible, for example taking on overweight soldiers and those with criminal records.

    It’s not like the Army was taking 350-pound serial killers or anything. It seems to me that there were certainly enough volunteers while the war was progressing that they didn’t need substandard enlistees. So, the Washington Post makes it sound like Obama is only separating the wheat from the chaff. But, I doubt that there are 80,000 overweight troops to bring the number down to the 490,000 goal. Well, unless they start tossing the wounded troops, like they mention in the article.

  • The trade off

    Yesterday I wrote that a doctor was rescued by special operations troops. At the time we didn’t know that it was SEALs or that one of those SEALs lost his life in the endeavor. Associated Press reports about Dr. Dilip Joseph of Colorado Springs, Colo. and his organization, Morning Star;

    Morning Star, a relief group that helps rebuild communities in Afghanistan, said in a statement that Joseph was uninjured and would probably return home in a few days. The group also said two of his co-workers were freed by their captors about 11 hours before the rescue, after hours of negotiations were conducted over three days.

    Morning Star said the three workers were abducted by a group of armed men while returning from a visit to one of the organization’s rural medical clinics in eastern Kabul province. The group said the three workers were taken into mountains about 50 miles (80 kilometers) from the Pakistan border.

    The relief group said it would not reveal the identity of the other two men because they live and work in the region. The group said it did not pay ransom to obtain their release.

    Not to sound heartless, but I’m pretty sure that the loss of this special operator is a bigger loss than if we had lost the doctor instead. The use of special forces operators to rescue civilians is not the reason they’re in that country. If Americans are more accepting of the death of soldiers than civilians who were fully aware of working in the areas where they volunteer to work, then we have a big disconnect between those two worlds.

    “He gave his life for his fellow Americans, and he and his teammates remind us once more of the selfless service that allows our nation to stay strong, safe and free,” Obama said in a statement.

    In a separate statement Sunday, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said, “In this fallen hero, and all of our special operators, Americans see the highest ideals of citizenship, sacrifice and service upheld.”

    Yes, it is selfless service, and the ideals, but it’s just not acceptable that we equate the life of a warrior worth the life of someone who ignores warnings ill-equipped for the dangers he’s about to face.

    While I admire this unnamed SEAL for his selfless sacrifice, I also impress upon our military leaders that it’s incumbent on them to measure carefully the circumstances into which they send our armed forces.