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Ask a Vet
Author: TriSec    Date: 09/21/2010 10:27:36

Good Morning.

Today is our 2,743rd day in Iraq and our 3,271st day in Afghanistan.

We'll start this morning as we always do; with the latest casualty figures from on ongoing wars, courtesy of Antiwar.com:

American Deaths
Since war began (3/19/03): 4421
Since "Mission Accomplished" (5/1/03): 4282
Since Handover (6/29/04): 3562
Since Obama Inauguration (1/20/09): 193
Since Operation New Dawn: 4

Other Coalition Troops - Iraq: 318
US Military Deaths - Afghanistan: 1,282
Other Military Deaths - Afghanistan: 803
Contractor Employee Deaths - Iraq: 1,487
Journalists - Iraq : 348
Academics Killed - Iraq: 448

We find this morning's cost of war passing through:

$ 1, 083, 107, 800, 000 .00


There's been an awful lot of alarming stories I've saved over the past few days. While I am loath to do a Bob Ryan-style "cleaning out the drawer of the blog mind" column for Ask a Vet, I'm feeling that I have no choice this week. I wouldn't want anyone to miss these stories.



Right out of the gate, let me start by crushing everyone's spirit today. I sat for a long time staring at the computer screen after reading this one; it's utterly unfathomable what this family must have gone through. Here at "AAV", we've been following the story of the mishandling of our honoured dead at Arlington for quite some time. One family has had their faith shattered.


ARLINGTON, Va. — Scott Warner never thought he would have the strength to push officials at Arlington National Cemetery to disinter his son's body and then handle the remains to verify them.

But that's what he did Wednesday, nearly a year after he first heard hints of mismanagement at Arlington. That and problems with his son's burial records convinced him there was only one way to be sure Marine Pvt. Heath Warner's burial was done right.

"I never in a million years thought I'd have to walk what I just walked," Warner said at the cemetery after driving with his wife, Melissa, from their home in Canton, Ohio. "I never thought I'd have the stamina to do with my wife what I did today, to make sure this was our son."



Moving on, we find that the living are faring no better. For most of our history, we have recognized that there are young men and now women who are willing to give the best years of their lives to the service of their country. When they do what we call upon them to do, many are rewarded for their efforts and heroics. Unless of course, they get an injury you can't see. Then they don't even get a Purple Heart.


The U.S. Army honors soldiers wounded or killed in combat with the Purple Heart, a powerful symbol designed to recognize their sacrifice and service.

Yet Army commanders have routinely denied Purple Hearts to soldiers who have sustained concussions in Iraq, despite regulations that make such wounds eligible for the medal, an investigation by NPR and ProPublica has found.

Soldiers have had to battle for months and sometimes years to prove that these wounds, also called mild traumatic brain injuries, merit the honor, our reporting showed. Commanders turned down some soldiers despite well-documented blast wounds that wrenched their minds, altered their lives and wracked their families.

The Army twice denied a Purple Heart for Sgt. Nathan Scheller, though the aftereffects from two roadside explosions in Iraq have left him with lasting cognitive problems, according to the Army's own records.



Like every profession, you'll find a wealth of personalities among your comrades-in-arms. Reading much on WWII, as I am wont to do, the common thread in those days was watching out for your buddy, getting the job done, and getting the hell home. War tends to be like that; most of our troops just want it over and done with. But how do you account for bloodthirsty savages like this?


A US military investigation reported that the group randomly targeted civilians for sport. In one incident, a soldier is alleged to have thrown a grenade to feign an ambush as a pretext to shoot dead an innocent villager. Bodies were cut up and photographed and the soldiers are said to have kept bones and a skull as trophies.

A military pretrial hearing will review evidence later this month and decide how to proceed with the case, which could see the men jailed for life. All the accused deny any wrongdoing.

American commanders fear details of the incidents could cause widespread anger in Afghanistan, where civilian deaths have fostered deep resentment against coalition forces.

The five soldiers are accused of forming a “kill team” and murdering three people in Kandahar province between January and May this year.

Seven others are charged with attempting to impede the military investigation, as well as assaulting a private who blew the whistle on their activities.


Finally, I leave you with the home front. Soldiers coming home from all our previous wars (except for Vietnam, one would gather) generally found receptive and thankful citizens, and a booming economy for them to re-enter society with. These days, not so much. It's starting to be more widely reported that soldiers coming home often face bigger challenges than they did in war. As a result, the suicide rate, crime rates, and "risky behaviors" for soldiers have been steadily increasing over time. The army is struggling to deal with this, even with the limited resources that they have available. Yet another legacy of the Bush regime.


WASHINGTON — When Lt. Col. Dave Wilson took command of a battalion of the 4th Brigade of the 1st Armored Division, the unit had just returned to Texas from 14 months traveling some of Iraq's most dangerous roads as part of a logistics mission.

What he found, he said, was a unit far more damaged than the single death it had suffered in its two deployments to Iraq.

Nearly 70 soldiers in his 1,163-member battalion had tested positive for drugs: methamphetamine, cocaine and marijuana; others were abusing prescription drugs. Troops were passing around a tape of a female lieutenant having sex with five soldiers from the unit. Seven soldiers in the brigade died from drug overdoses and traffic accidents when they returned to Fort Bliss, near El Paso, after their first deployment.

"The inmates were running the prison," Wilson said.

What Wilson had to deal with, however, was hardly an isolated instance.

With the U.S. drawdown in Iraq, the Army is confronting an epidemic of drug abuse and criminal behavior that many commanders acknowledge has been made worse because they'd largely ignored it during nearly a decade of wars on two fronts.

The Army concedes that it faces a mammoth problem.


I've really got nothing more to add.

 

33 comments (Latest Comment: 09/22/2010 00:26:13 by Mondobubba)
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