Memorial Day Message from Brig. Gen.Lewis A. Craparotta

Commanding general, Task Force Leatherneck/2nd Marine Division (Forward), currently assigned to Helmand province, Islamic Republic of Afghanistan.



CAMP LEATHERNECK, Helmand province, Islamic Republic of Afghanistan — As families across our great country gather this Memorial Day weekend, the men and women serving in Afghanistan will also pause to reflect on those who have gone before them. They will celebrate our heroes, past and present. These men and women serving in southwest Afghanistan are reminded daily that freedom and “justice for all” doesn’t exist everywhere, and that it comes at a cost.

Just a few nights ago I was reminded of why we fight today when a young Marine struck an improvised explosive device while on patrol in southern Helmand. Gravely injured, the team’s corpsman on scene stabilized him and called for a medical evacuation helicopter. Weather was a problem, however, and the evacuation helicopter could not reach the scene, though the pilots refused to stop trying. An adjacent unit was contacted and, without concern for themselves, a convoy of Light Armored Vehicles rushed to aid the young Marine. They made it their mission to get to a Marine in trouble. They pushed through driving wind and blowing sand to link up with fellow Marines. After link-up, they wound up stuck in the sand, now in desperate need to evacuate the wounded Marine.

Throughout their efforts the Army helicopter pilots were doing their best to help as well. Convinced they could get through the weather, they put the most experienced aviators in the cockpit. As Marines and Navy corpsmen on the ground continued to provide critical care, the helicopters launched again and a break in the weather allowed them to evacuate the wounded to safety.

This scenario encompassed more than five hours. With each passing moment the urgency to evacuate the wounded increased. Coordination at every level never stopped and there was never any thought of not being able to help. Fighting against the odds, these soldiers, sailors and Marines banded together to save one of their own. They refused to give up, and their efforts kept one of America’s sons alive.

So as we pause to celebrate this Memorial Day, we reflect on those who have gone before us. We reflect on their service and their sacrifice on behalf of our great nation. We should also remember those serving today who embody that same commitment of service and sacrifice. They are committed to something greater than themselves, and they muster the physical and moral courage to accomplish extraordinary feats in battle. They do it for one another and the country they love, asking little in return.

Sincerely,
Brig. Gen. Lewis A. Craparotta
Commanding General
Task Force Leatherneck/2nd Marine Division (Forward)
Helmand province, Islamic Republic of Afghanistan

Veteran Advocate Kills Self After War Tours

WASHINGTON – Handsome and friendly, Clay Hunt so epitomized a vibrant Iraq veteran that he was chosen for a public service announcement reminding veterans that they aren't alone.

The 28-year-old former Marine corporal earned a Purple Heart after taking a sniper's bullet in his left wrist. He returned to combat in Afghanistan. Upon his return home, he lobbied for veterans on Capitol Hill, road-biked with wounded veterans and performed humanitarian work in Haiti and Chile.

Then, on March 31, Hunt bolted himself in his Houston apartment and shot himself.

Friends and family say he was wracked with survivor's guilt, depression and other emotional struggles after combat.

Hunt's death has shaken many veterans who served in Iraq and Afghanistan. Those who knew him wonder why someone who seemed to be doing all the right things to deal with combat-related issues is now dead.

"We know we have a problem with vets' suicide, but this was really a slap in the face," said Matthew Pelak, 32, an Iraq veteran who worked with Hunt in Haiti as part of the nonprofit group Team Rubicon.

After news of Hunt's death spread, workers from the Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors met with veterans visiting Washington for the annual lobbying effort by the nonprofit Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans, or IAVA. A year earlier, Hunt had been with other veterans in dark suits calling on Congress to improve the disability claims process.

He had appeared in the group's ads encouraging veterans to seek support from an online network of fellow veterans.

Snapshots posted on Facebook reflect a mostly grinning Hunt. In one, he has a beard and is surrounded by Haitian kids. A second shows him on the Capitol steps with fellow veterans. There's a shot of him from the back on a bike using his right arm to help push another bicyclist who is helping to guide an amputee in a specially modified bike.

Friends and family say Hunt suffered from depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. But with his boundless energy and countless friends, he came across as an example of how to live life after combat.

"I think everybody saw him as the guy that was battling it, but winning the battle every day," said Jacob Wood, 27, a friend who served with Hunt in the Marines and in Haiti with Team Rubicon.

But some knew he was grieving over several close friends in the Marines who were killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"He was very despondent about why he was alive and so many people he served with directly were not alive," said John Wordin, 48, the founder of Ride 2 Recovery, a program that uses bicycling to help veterans heal physically and mentally.

In 2007, while in Iraq with the Marine's 2nd Battalion, 7th Regiment, Hunt heard over the radio that his 20-year-old bunkmate had died in a roadside bombing. Hunt later wrote online about sleeping in his bunkmate's bed. "I just wanted to be closer to him, I guess. But I couldn't — he was gone."

A month later, Hunt was pinned by enemy fire in his truck as a fellow Marine, shot in the throat by a sniper, lay nearby. Hunt wrote that seeing his friend placed in a helicopter, where he died, is "a scene that plays on repeat in my head nearly every day, and most nights as well."

Three days later, a sniper's bullet missed Hunt's head by inches and hit his wrist. He didn't immediately leave Iraq. His parents say Hunt asked to fly to a military hospital in Germany a day later so he could accompany a fellow Marine who was shot in both legs.

"I know he's seen some traumatic stuff in his time and I guess he holds that to himself," said Marine Sgt. Oscar Garza, 26, who served with Hunt in Iraq. "He was a very compassionate Marine, a very passionate person, one of the few people that I know that has a big heart and feels a lot of people's pain and makes it his own."

Hunt's mother, Susan Selke, said after Hunt was wounded, she'd hoped her son would get out of the military. Instead, he went to school to be a scout-sniper and went to Afghanistan. He seemed to do well. He was honorably discharged in 2009, married and enrolled at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles.

He was frustrated by the Veterans Affairs Department's handling of his disability claim. He also piled up thousands of dollars in credit card debt as he waited for his GI Bill payments. Hunt found an outlet to help improve the system by doing work with IAVA. He helped build bikes for Ride 2 Recovery and participated in long rides.

Using his military training, he went to Haiti several times and Chile once to help with the countries' earthquake relief efforts. He proudly told his parents of splinting an infant's leg, and after meeting a young orphaned boy in Haiti named D'James, tried to persuade his family to adopt him.

"If I had one thing to say to my fellow veterans, it would be this: Continue to serve, even though we have taken off our uniforms," Hunt wrote in an online testimonial for Team Rubicon. "No matter how great or small your service is, it is desired and needed by the world we live in today."

Hunt's friends say he was an idealist and voiced frustration that he couldn't make changes overnight. He also questioned why troops were still dying.

"He really was looking for someone to tell him what it was he went over to do and why those sacrifices were made," Wood said.

Last year, Hunt's life took a downward spiral. His marriage ended, he dropped out of school and he began to have suicidal thoughts, his mother said. She said Hunt sought counseling from the VA and moved in temporarily with Wordin in California.

Things seemed to improve for Hunt in recent months after he returned to his hometown of Houston to be near family.

He got a construction job, leased an apartment, bought a truck and began dating. He called friends to discuss the possibility of re-enlisting. In the days before he died, he hung out with friends, and he had plans the following weekend to do a Ride 2 Recovery bike ride. He even told Garza he couldn't wait to see him at a Fourth of July reunion with other Marines.

Then he was dead.

"Clay was always a fighter," Wordin said. "He was always a guy to stick things out and he basically quit life, and I was mad that he felt he had to do that at that particular time."

Hunt's friends and family count him a casualty of war — just like his buddies who died in the battlefield.

Invisible Tanks?

British military scientists plan to develop an army of "invisible" tanks ready for use on the battlefield within five years

By Sean Rayment, Defence Correspondent

Armoured vehicles will use a new technology known as "e-camouflage" which deploys a form "electronic ink" to render a vehicle "invisible".

Highly sophisticated electronic sensors attached to the tank's hull will project images of the surrounding environment back onto the outside of the vehicle enabling it to merge into the landscape and evade attack.

The electronic camouflage will enable the vehicle to blend into the surrounding countryside in much the same way that a squid uses ink to help as a disguise.

Unlike conventional forms of camouflage, the images on the hull would change in concert with the changing environment always insuring that the vehicle remains disguised.

In Helmand, for example, all armoured vehicle have desert sand coloured camouflage, which is of little use in the "Green Zone", an area of cultivation where crops are grown and the Taliban often hide.

Up until recently such concepts were thought to be the stuff of science fiction but scientists at the defence company BAE Systems now believe battlefield "invisibility" will soon become science fact.

Scientists at the BAE hope the new technology will be available to use with the British Army fighting in Southern Afghanistan and in future conflicts.

The concept was developed as part of the Future Protected Vehicle programme, which scientists believe, will transform the way in which future conflicts will be fought.

The programme is based around seven different military vehicles, both manned and unmanned, which will be equipped with a wide variety of lethal and none lethal weapons.

The unmanned vehicles or battlefield robots will be able to conduct dangerous missions in hostile areas, clear minefields and extract wounded troops under fire.

The vehicles include:

* Pointer: an agile robot which can take over dirty, dull or dangerous jobs, such as forward observation and mine clearance.

* Bearer: a modular platform which can carry a range of mission payloads, such as protected mobility, air defence and ambulance;

* Wraith: a low signature scout vehicle;

* Safeguard: an ultra-utility infantry carrier or command & control centre;

* Charger: a highly lethal and survivable reconfigurable attack vehicle;

* Raider: a remotely or autonomously controlled unmanned recce and skirmishing platform – similar in design to the "Batmobile"

* Atlas: a convoy system which removes the driver from harm's way.

BAE's Future vehicle project is, in part, a reaction to the Ministry of Defence's (MoD) 'Capability Vision' for armoured vehicles, designed to spur development along different paths from the MoD's previous research.

Commanders are aiming for a prototype within four years and an experimental operational capacity by 2013.

The brief is for a lightweight vehicle, weighing 30 tonnes, powered by a hybrid electric drive, with the same effectiveness and survivability of a current main battle tank.

The UK's current tank, the Challenger 2, weighs 62.5 tonnes, and runs a 1,200hp V12 diesel engine.

Britain's current fleet of armoured vehicles are also close to approaching the end of their service life and armoured vehicles designed specifically for use in Helmand, such as the hugely successful Mastiff, may be inappropriate for use in other operational theatres.

Scientists at BAE are also looking at a number of revolution battlefield inventions which will increase troop protection as well as making the vehicles more lethal.

One concept being developed is to develop technologies, which will cut the use of fuel on the battlefield. In Afghanistan, the cost of fuel is 50 times that of the pump price.

All fuel currently used by NATO troops comes in via road convoys which are often attacked by insurgents which are responsible for 80 per cent of US casualties.

Scientists are close to developing a form of transparent armour - much tougher than bullet proof glass – which could be used in turrets of on the sides of armoured vehicles which would improve the situational awareness of troops inside.

Also being developed is a technology known as "biometric integration which uses advanced algorhythms to analyse crowds and to search for potential threats from suicide bombers by analyzing suspicious behavior in groups or individuals.

Electronic scanners would search for suspicious behavior, inappropriate clothing or individuals on wanted lists who can be identified through facial or iris recognition.

The information would then be displayed on screen within vehicle or handheld vehicles carried by dismounted troops.

Hisham Awad, the head of the Future Protected Vehicle project said: "The trick here is to use machines to do what they are best at (and humans are not) - ploughing very quickly through dull, repetitive data to strip out the overwhelming bulk which is of no use and would take a long time and enormous human resources to process.

"Then you can quickly bring human intelligence to bear where it excels - making life-or-death decisions based on 'real time' information on suspicious activity flagged up by the machines."

R. Lee Ermey Lobbies for Bill Naming Marine Department

By: Roxana Tiron


The actor who played the drill sergeant in “Full Metal Jacket” is coming to Washington, D.C., next week to lobby Congress to pass a long-stalled bill.

R. Lee Ermey is the national spokesman for a growing grassroots effort behind legislation sponsored by Rep. Walter Jones (R-N.C.) and Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) that would rename the Department of the Navy as the Department of the Navy and Marine Corps.

Ermey, who was in the Marine Corps for 11 years, has been in over 100 movies, including “Apocalypse Now,” “Dead Man Walking” and “Leaving Las Vegas,” according to imdb.com.

Over the past decade, Jones has repeatedly pushed his colleagues to pass his bill. Jones’s bill has 367 co-sponsors. Roberts (R-Kan.), a Marine Corps veteran, introduced companion legislation last year.

The Marine Corps League, which is orchestrating the grassroots effort with Ermey, has started a petition-writing campaign and is bringing supporters of Jones’s legislation to Capitol Hill on Thursday.

“Marines have fought and died with their Navy brothers and sisters for more than 200 years,” said Michael Blum, Marine Corps League executive director in a statement. “It’s finally time to give the Marine Corps the recognition the branch has long deserved.”

Although the Marine Corps has been a separate service since the National Security Act of 1947, it does not get equal billing with the Navy, Air Force and Army, each of which has a Pentagon department named after it. Since the Marine Corps’s earliest days, it has operated under the Department of the Navy.

Former Sen. John Warner (R-Va.), a former secretary of the Navy, was Jones’ biggest obstacle in the upper chamber. Year after year, Warner refused to back the change as part of the defense authorization bill.

But even after Warner’s retirement two years ago, Jones’s efforts gained little traction in the Senate.

Jones wants his bill to get a vote on the House floor and in the Senate. House Armed Services Committee Chairman Ike Skelton (D-Mo.) said he would help Jones bring up the bill as a standalone once he had 350 co-sponsors, Jones's spokeswoman said. It is unclear when the bill will hit the House floor.

The origins of the Marines date back to Nov. 10, 1775 when the Continental Congress called for the creation of two battalions to serve as landing forces with the fleet during the Revolutionary War. It was not until July 11, 1798 that Congress officially passed an act to establish the Marine Corps. On June 30, 1834, Congress passed another act placing the Marines under the umbrella of the Navy.

The Corps functions in war and peacetime as a separate branch in nearly every way. It has its own military command structure.

The running joke has been that the Marines constitute the “men’s department” of the Navy. Yet the issue of receiving recognition is no laughing matter to many who serve in the Marine Corps. The families of those who die in combat and are awarded service commendations receive letters from the secretary of the Navy, with no mention of the Marine Corps on the letterhead.

Families of those dying in combat also receive the condolence letters on Navy letterhead with no explicit mention of the Marine Corps anywhere in the letter, according to a sample of a letter posted by the Marine Corps League.

Supporters of changing the name are quick to note that the effort does not signal that the Marine Corps wants to break away from the Navy, nor would the change cost more than the immediate change in stationary sent to families. The name change also would not alter the responsibilities of the Navy secretary or how resources between the Navy and Marine Corps are allocated, the supporters argue.

The bill is backed by FedEx founder Fred Smith, a former Marine and former secretary of the Navy Lawrence Garrett.

Gates Tries to Get F-35 Program Back on Course

by: Christopher Drew
Article provided by:



The Joint Strike Fighter was supposed to be the program that broke the mold, proof that the Pentagon could build something affordable, dependable and without much drama.

But rather than being the Chevrolet of the skies, as it was once billed, the fighter plane, also called the F-35, has turned into the Pentagon’s biggest budget-buster. And with worries growing that the rise in costs could overwhelm other programs, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates fired the general in charge this week and said he would withhold $614 million in fees from the prime contractor, Lockheed Martin.

The decision was an embarrassment for Lockheed Martin, the nation’s largest military contractor, which could eventually draw at least a quarter of its sales from the F-35. But Pentagon officials said they wanted to make sure they avoided the kind of death spiral that had caused so many other weapons programs to collapse.

The Air Force, the Navy and the Marines are planning to buy more than 2,400 of the planes. But any delays could force them to spend billions of dollars on less advanced fighters to avoid a shortfall. That, in turn, would reduce their orders for the F-35, driving up the price for each plane and forcing them to cut orders further.

The main problem, some analysts say, is that even with recent improvements in acquisition practices, the military persists in buying new weapons systems before all the kinks are worked out.

At the Pentagon’s behest, Lockheed Martin has already started building production models of the F-35, even though only 2 percent of the flight test program has been completed. “Unless they convert the program to a fly-before-you-buy approach, they will continue to have pain,” said Winslow T. Wheeler, an analyst for the Center for Defense Information in Washington.

But Pentagon officials said that given the rapid changes in technology, they could not afford to take such a gradual approach without systems becoming outdated before they rolled off the line. Lockheed Martin executives said that they had gotten the message about picking up the pace, and that they believed they would be able to start delivering the planes faster than the government now projects.

“They have been very clear that they intend to hold us to more aggressive standards, and we intend to perform to those,” Daniel J. Crowley, one of Lockheed Martin’s project managers, told reporters on Tuesday.

Mr. Crowley acknowledged that the program, which has been adjusted several times, was running six months behind the latest schedule. But he said that after building the first few planes, the company had been able to sharply reduce how much time and money each one required. And that has given it more confidence that it can get back on track.

Mr. Gates also said on Monday that he knew of “no insurmountable problems, technological or otherwise, with the F-35.” But he added a year to the development phase of the program, and slowed plans to increase production, to give the company a chance to catch up.

Still, that solution is basically a gamble that the company will do better. The program, which is by far the Pentagon’s largest, is expected to cost nearly $300 billion if all of the 2,456 planes are purchased in the next 25 years. Eight allied nations have also invested in the program and could buy hundreds of additional planes.

Some senators sounded skeptical in questioning Mr. Gates at a hearing on Tuesday. “I’m still concerned about whether the services will get the J.S.F. when they need them,” said Senator John McCain, Republican from Arizona, referring to the plane.

Other senators criticized Mr. Gates, who promoted the coming of the F-35 as a reason to kill the more costly F-22 fighter program last summer, for not having a handle on the problems sooner.

Many of the concerns were outlined in a report by a special Pentagon assessment team in late 2008. Mr. Gates said at the hearing on Tuesday that he did not recall that report. He said he had intervened now to try to head off the dire projections in a similar assessment completed in the fall.

That study found that the development of the plane could be delayed by two and a half years and cost an extra $16.6 billion if no changes were made. Mr. Gates has also said that he replaced the head of the program, Maj. Gen. David R. Heinz of the Marine Corps, to show that officials would be held accountable “when things go wrong.”

When the Pentagon began thinking about the F-35 in the mid-1990s, the Pentagon was building the F-22, the world’s stealthiest fighter, for aerial dogfights, and it expected to buy 650 to 750 of them. The F-35, which also has stealth features to avoid radar, was meant to focus more on attacking ground targets. Creating three versions with a similar core — one each for the Air Force, the Navy and the Marines — was supposed to make it more affordable.

But while delays and overruns pushed the cost of the F-22 so high that only 187 are being built, the projected costs of the F-35 program have also risen to $298.8 billion from an early estimate of about $200 billion.

Counting all the development costs, each F-35 is now projected to cost about $122 million compared with about $350 million for each F-22. Another concern is that additional problems often appear in flight testing. And a recent Navy study concluded that the F-35 could be significantly more expensive to operate than older fighters.

But Mr. Crowley, one of Lockheed Martin’s top managers on the project, said the company had greatly reduced the parts shortages that delayed the first planes. He said the company was talking to the Pentagon about adding another plane to the flight test program, and it was much closer to finishing sensitive systems, like the software that operates the plane and its sensors, than it was at a similar stage on the F-22.

He added that it was “our intent to outperform” projections for the program, enabling the government to buy more planes than it expected to over the next few years.

Other industry officials said they had heard that Mr. Gates was likely to name Vice Adm. David J. Venlet, commander of the Naval Air Systems Command, to succeed General Heinz in overseeing the program. And given that Mr. Gates has had to backtrack from his praise for the program, he now has even more on the line in holding it together.

Pregnant Soldiers Could Face Court-Martial

(12-18) 14:27 PST WASHINGTON, (AP) --


A U.S. Army general in northern Iraq has added pregnancy to the list of reasons a soldier under his command could be court-martialed.

The new policy, outlined last month by Maj. Gen. Anthony Cucolo and released Friday by the Army, would apply to both female soldiers who become pregnant on the battlefield and the male soldiers who impregnate them.

Civilians reporting to Cucolo also could face criminal prosecution under the new guidelines.

Army spokesman George Wright said the service typically sends home from the battlefield soldiers who become pregnant. But it is not an Army-wide policy to punish them under the military's legal code, he said.

However, division commanders like Cucolo have the authority to impose these type of restrictions to personnel operating under their command, Wright said.

Cucolo oversees forces in northern Iraq, an area that includes the cities of Kirkuk, Tikrit and Mosul. His Nov. 4 order was first reported by the military newspaper Stars and Stripes.

Cucolo's order outlines some 20 barred activities. Most of them are aimed at keeping order and preventing criminal activity, such as selling a weapon or taking drugs.

But other restrictions seemed aimed at preventing soldiers from leaving their unit short-handed, including becoming pregnant or undergoing elective surgery that would prevent their deployment.

Under Cucolo's order, troops also are prohibited from "sexual contact of any kind" with Iraqi nationals. And, they cannot spend the night with a member of the opposite sex, unless married or expressly permitted to do so.

Source: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2009/12/18/national/w142710S58.DTL&tsp=1

I Served My Country- and Ended Up Living In My Car

by: Jennifer Crane, as told to Lynn Harris

I woke up around 7:00 A.M. to the sound of someone knocking on the window of my Volkswagen. It was the police. They asked if I was OK, then asked me to move on. I'd spent the night parked outside a shopping center—not because I'd been too sleepy to drive home, as I'd told the officers, but because I was home. I was living in my car.

When the police left, I sat for a minute, watching churchgoers walk into a nearby restaurant for breakfast. Sweating in the Sunday-morning sun, I glanced in the rearview mirror and saw someone I hardly recognized. I didn't see a 22-year-old war veteran; I saw a piece of garbage.

I thought back to how it had all started, five years earlier, with a blue-eyed female Army recruiter who had come to my small-town high school in Downingtown, PA, when I was 17. I looked at her and thought, If she can do it, so can I. My first day of basic training came on September 11, 2001, the day the World Trade Center fell.

On that day, I was sitting in the Army reception office at Fort Jackson in South Carolina, when suddenly the drill sergeants started running around like crazy. Soon after, they put me into formation with the other new recruits, called attention, and said, "America has been attacked, and the Twin Towers have fallen. We're going to war." Then they said, "Left face," and we marched. We were instructed to call home to let our families know we were not in harm's way. During that call, my mom told me a little about what had happened on 9/11, but over the next three months, we weren't allowed to watch television or read any newspapers or magazines, so I didn't see the footage from that terrible day until I went home for Christmas break. I was shocked when I did.

I arrived in Afghanistan in March 2003. When our plane landed, the hot sun hit us hard in our full gear—boots, flak jackets, long-sleeve shirts, Kevlar helmets, rucksacks. I looked around and saw...nothing. We were in the middle of the desert; it was 122 degrees.

My unit got attacked two weeks later. It was 2:00 in the morning when the first explosion rocked the base. I ran out of my tent and saw a huge flash of light—a mortar that had been launched from the mountains surrounding us, likely by the Taliban. Over the next few weeks, these attacks became a regular occurrence.

I saw so many gruesome sights. Wooden wagons would roll by carrying wounded civilians—some with brain matter hanging out of their heads—to the hospital on our base. After about a month-and-a-half, the stress started to take its toll. I fell into a deep depression and stopped eating. I became profoundly dehydrated. One day I fainted, hit my head on the bathroom floor, and wound up in the hospital. I had gone from 180 pounds to 106. My heart rate lying down was over 150, meaning my heart was working way too hard. The doctors said I could die of a heart attack by age 20. As I lay on my cot, I looked over at the young boy next to me; he had no arms or legs, and blood poured through his bandages as he screamed. Beyond his bed lay rows of children with missing limbs.

The doctors sent me to a medical center in Germany. On the flight, I watched my colonel, who was also on his way to the center for treatment, go into cardiac arrest and die right beside me.

After two weeks in Germany, in mid-October, I got shipped off to Washington, D.C., and then to Fort Dix in New Jersey, where I received an honorable discharge, on December 20, 2003.

That's when my problems really began.
When you come home from war, you don't know where you fit in. My friends and family in Downingtown didn't understand what I'd gone through, so I slowly began distancing myself from them. If nobody's going to understand what you're saying, why say it?

Nighttime was another issue. I would relive my war experiences the second I closed my eyes—I'd have visions of that first attack on my base, those screaming children, my dying colonel.

In January 2004, someone offered me cocaine at a party. The coke kept me awake all night. Suddenly, I saw a solution to my nightmares: I would simply stop sleeping. I quickly drifted into the life of a druggie, living with a boyfriend in a rented room, bartending, dealing. I didn't tell my family what was going on.

A year-and-a-half later, in August 2005, my friend Steve, a Marine who'd fought in the Gulf War, died in a motorcycle accident. His death devastated me. He had been the only person who could understand me as a soldier. I attended his funeral in my military uniform, high as a kite.

"The cocaine kept me awake all night. I saw a solution to my nightmares: I would stop sleeping."

Then one afternoon, I ran into an old friend while buying a McDonald's Dollar Meal, the only thing I could afford. I admitted that I was in a bad way, and she said, "You're a vet—contact the VA!" I knew there was a Veterans Affairs office just 10 minutes away; I'd been there briefly when I'd first come home, but I didn't know about the VA substance-abuse programs. I thought about what Steve would want me to do and about how far I'd fallen. And I decided to make the leap. So, more than two years after becoming an addict, I admitted my problem to my mom and checked myself into a VA drug-treatment center. First, though, I finished a bag of cocaine in the parking lot. The idea, of course, was that it would be my last.

I completed two weeks of rehab, and then went to a three-month VA program for people with post-traumatic stress disorder. But after only one month there, the doctors, unbelievably, asked me to leave. They said the treatment wasn't really helping me—although I disagreed—and that as one of only two women in the group, I was distracting the male patients, who apparently found me attractive. I begged them, literally on my hands and knees, to let me stay; I knew I wasn't ready to go back into society. I knew what would happen if I tried. Incredibly, they said no.

I left the VA Medical Center and went straight to my drug dealer's house. I told him I needed something strong to get rid of my pain. That day, I started smoking crack. I hit bottom so fast, it was amazing. I went from being happy with my progress to having no hope at all. I used all day, every day. I tried to hold down jobs—bartender, waitress, receptionist—but I was so strung out that I couldn't get out of bed to go to work. When I was at work, I was high. I got fired from every job. At one point, I just quit trying.

I couldn't afford rent, I couldn't go to my mom's house unless I was clean, and I couldn't stop fighting with my boyfriend long enough to stay with him. That's how I wound up living in my car.

For several months, in exchange for drugs, I ran errands for my dealer and cleaned his home. He also asked me to be a "dancer"—in other words, dance privately for his friends and customers. Clinging to my last shred of dignity, I said no. But not long after, I had sex with him for drugs. I felt so disgusted afterward, I took out a lighter and burned the clothes I'd worn that night.

Then, in August 2006, as I was driving away from my dealer's house, seven police cars suddenly surrounded me. I was handcuffed and arrested for possession of the crack cocaine I had with me. But when I wouldn't give them the name of my dealer (which would be suicide), they eventually gave up and let me go.

The very next day, my old friends held a reunion on the anniversary of Steve's death. When I showed up, everyone stared. I was emaciated, with my eyes darting around and contusions all over my face from picking my skin, out of anxiety. When I spotted one of my oldest and dearest friends, Jason, he gently whispered, "What's wrong?" With his Timberlands, tattoos, and crew cut, he made me smile, and his simple question moved me. I told him, "I have to change my life, and I don't know how to do it."

Jason sat up with me all night. I didn't get high. I cried and I shook, and he held me, saying, "I'm not letting you leave." That night—those words—changed everything. I finally felt ready to let someone help me. I began to imagine getting clean.

Turns out, the court actually helped me in my mission. I happened to learn that the police had a warrant for my arrest, and I ended up entering a court-ordered drug program to avoid jail time. The program required me to stay gainfully employed, do random drug screenings, undergo counseling, and keep in touch with a judge. I felt determined to make it work this time. I got a job waitressing and bartending at a local restaurant, and, for the first time in years, managed to stay clean.

Six months later, I ran into Jason again, and we started seeing each other regularly. But then my drug-counseling program ended, and I couldn't afford the fees to extend it. So my counselor told me about a program she was working with in Bethesda, MD, called Give an Hour, which provides free mental-health services to military personnel. I started seeing her through the program, at no cost. I honestly don't think I would've survived without her help.

Today, I'm a spokeswoman for Give an Hour, speaking publicly about soldiers and mental-health issues. I'm married to Jason, who owns a race-car body shop, and we have an 8-month-old daughter, Hailey Marie. Yes, I still have nightmares. And if a helicopter flies overhead when I'm sitting on my porch, my mind flashes right back to those attacks on my base. It's like an out-of-body experience. The only way to control it is to breathe deeply and remind myself that I'm safe at home, which I really am. I'm back to my old self—and I'm also a new person.

Without my experiences, I wouldn't be able to reach out to troubled war veterans, especially women, and say, "If I can turn my life around, so can you." I hope that when soldiers meet me—not your typical war-veteran poster child—they will see that there is life after war, and after more personal battles, too.

Source: Marie Claire Magazine January 2010 P. 84

History of the United States Marine Corps

Fort Victims Had Different Reasons for Enlisting

By: CARYN ROUSSEAU and ROBERT IMRIE, Associated Press Writers

The 13 people killed when an Army psychiatrist allegedly opened fire on fellow soldiers at Fort Hood, Texas, included a pregnant woman who was preparing to return home, a man who quit a furniture company job to join the military about a year ago, a newlywed who had served in Iraq and a woman who had vowed to take on Osama bin Laden after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Here is a look at some of the victims.

Francheska Velez

Velez, 21, of Chicago, was pregnant and preparing to return home. A friend of Velez's, Sasha Ramos, described her as a fun-loving person who wrote poetry and loved dancing.

"She was like my sister," Ramos, 21, said. "She was the most fun and happy person you could know. She never did anything wrong to anybody."

Family members said Velez had recently returned from deployment in Iraq and had sought a lifelong career in the Army.

"She was a very happy girl and sweet," said her father, Juan Guillermo Velez, his eyes red from crying. "She had the spirit of a child."

Ramos, who also served briefly in the military, couldn't reconcile that her friend was killed in this country — just after leaving a war zone.

"It makes it a lot harder," she said. "This is not something a soldier expects — to have someone in our uniform go start shooting at us."

___

Pfc. Aaron Thomas Nemelka

Nemelka, 19, of the Salt Lake City suburb of West Jordan, Utah, chose to join the Army instead of going on a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, his uncle Christopher Nemelka said.

"As a person, Aaron was as soft and kind and as gentle as they come, a sweetheart," his uncle said. "What I loved about the kid was his independence of thought."

Aaron Nemelka, the youngest of four children, was scheduled to be deployed to Afghanistan in January, his family said in a statement. Nemelka had enlisted in the Army in October 2008, Utah National Guard Lt. Col. Lisa Olsen said.

___

Pfc. Michael Pearson

Pearson, 21, of the Chicago suburb of Bolingbrook, Ill., quit what he figured was a dead-end furniture company job to join the military about a year ago.

Pearson's mother, Sheryll Pearson, said the 2006 Bolingbrook High School graduate joined the military because he was eager to serve his country and broaden his horizons.

"He was the best son in the whole world," she said. "He was my best friend and I miss him."

His cousin, Mike Dostalek, showed reporters a poem Pearson wrote. "I look only to the future for wisdom. To rock back and forth in my wooden chair," the poem says.

At Pearson's family home Friday, a yellow ribbon was tied to a porch light and a sticker stamped with American flags on the front door read, "United we stand."

Neighbor Jessica Koerber, who was with Pearson's parents when they received word Thursday their son had died, described him as a man who clearly loved his family — someone who enjoyed horsing around with his nieces and nephews, and other times playing his guitar.

"That family lost their gem," she told the AP. "He was a great kid, a great guy. ... Mikey was one of a kind."

Sheryll Pearson said she hadn't seen her son for a year because he had been training. She told the Tribune that when she last talked to him on the phone two days ago, they had discussed how he would come home for Christmas.

___

Spc. Jason Dean Hunt

Hunt, 22, of Frederick, Okla., went into the military after graduating from Tipton High School in 2005 and had gotten married just two months ago, his mother, Gale Hunt, said. He had served 3 1/2 years in the Army, including a stint in Iraq.

Gale Hunt said two uniformed soldiers came to her door late Thursday night to notify her of her son's death.

Hunt, known as J.D., was "just kind of a quiet boy and a good kid, very kind," said Kathy Gray, an administrative assistant at Tipton Schools.

His mother said he was family oriented.

"He didn't go in for hunting or sports," Gale Hunt said. "He was a very quiet boy who enjoyed video games."

He had re-enlisted for six years after serving his initial two-year assignment, she said. Jason Hunt was previously stationed at Fort Stewart in Georgia.

___

Michael Grant Cahill

Cahill, a 62-year-old physician assistant, suffered a heart attack two weeks ago and returned to work at the base as a civilian employee after taking just one week off for recovery, said his daughter Keely Vanacker.

"He survived that. He was getting back on track, and he gets killed by a gunman," Vanacker said, her words bare with shock and disbelief.

Cahill, of Cameron Texas, helped treat soldiers returning from tours of duty or preparing for deployment. Often, Vanacker said, Cahill would walk young soldiers where they needed to go, just to make sure they got the right treatment.

"He loved his patients, and his patients loved him," said Vanacker, 33, the oldest of Cahill's three adult children. "He just felt his job was important."

Cahill, who was born in Spokane, Wash., had worked as a civilian contractor at Fort Hood for about four years, after jobs in rural health clinics and at Veterans Affairs hospitals. He and his wife, Joleen, had been married 37 years.

Vanacker described her father as a gregarious man and a voracious reader who could talk for hours about any subject.

The family's typical Thanksgiving dinners ended with board games and long conversations over the table, said Vanacker, whose voice often cracked with emotion as she remembered her father. "Now, who I am going to talk to?"

___

Sgt. Amy Krueger

Krueger, 29, of Kiel, Wis., joined the Army after the 2001 terrorist attacks and had vowed to take on Osama bin Laden, her mother, Jeri Krueger said.

Amy Krueger arrived at Fort Hood on Tuesday and was scheduled to be sent to Afghanistan in December, the mother told the Herald Times Reporter of Manitowoc.

Jeri Krueger recalled telling her daughter that she could not take on bin Laden by herself.

"Watch me," her daughter replied.

Kiel High School Principal Dario Talerico told The Associated Press that Krueger graduated from the school in 1998 and had spoken at least once to local elementary school students about her career.

"I just remember that Amy was a very good kid, who like most kids in a small town are just looking for what their next step in life was going to be and she chose the military," Talerico said. "Once she got into the military, she really connected with that kind of lifestyle and was really proud to serve her country."

___

Kham Xiong

Kham Xiong, 23, of St. Paul, Minn., a 2004 graduate of Community of Peace Academy, enjoyed hunting and fishing.

"The sad part is that he had been taught and been trained to protect and to fight. Yet it's such a tragedy that he did not have the opportunity to protect himself and the base," his father, Chor Xiong, told KSTP-TV through an interpreter.

Xiong's 17-year-old brother, Robert, described Kham as "the family clown, just a real good outgoing guy."

Community of Peace Academy Principal Tim McGowan told the AP that Chor Xiong informed the charter school of his son's death. Family members picked up pictures of Xiong on Friday for a memorial service, McGowan said.

"He was just a well-rounded individual with a great personality. He was very fun-loving, one who brought a smile to everyone's face he came across," McGowan said.

___
Associated Press writers Amy Forliti in St. Paul, Minn., Jennifer Dobner in Salt Lake City, Richard Green in Oklahoma City and Sophia Tareen, Michael Tarm and Amy Shafer in Chicago contributed to this report. Rousseau contributed from Bolingbrook, Ill., and Imrie from Wausau, Wis.

"These aren't all the 13. I don't know why only 6 are in this article. Either way, may God bring comfort to the victims, their families, our military, and the State of Texas for what has happened. May God bring justice to the enemy that strives to defeat our Nation. May God continue to bless America." - THRILL

Morale Dips for American Marines in Afghanistan

by: Stephen Grey in Khan Neshin

In a remote part of Helmand, troops are dismayed by the ambivalence of locals and a sense that the Taliban can outlast them.

A mile from South Station, an outpost of US marines in Helmand province, the tribal chief was openly hostile. “The Americans threaten our economy and take our land for bases. They promise much and deliver nothing,” he said.

“People here regard the American troops as occupiers,” said Haji Khan, a leader of the Baluch tribe, who rules like a medieval baron. “Young people are turning against them and in time will fight them.”

Inside South Station, soldiers are proud of the progress they have made. Until they arrived, this remote part of Helmand had not had a government presence for years. But many are pessimistic about where the conflict is heading.

“I’m not much for this war. I’m not sure it’s worth all those lives lost,” said Sergeant Christian Richardson as we walked across corn fields that will soon be ploughed up to plant a spring crop of opium poppy.

A New Yorker who joined the marines after 9/11 and served two tours in Iraq, Richardson, 24, said his men had achieved much. “You can see we are making progress, slowly. But when we leave, the Taliban and Al-Qaeda will surely return.”

With enough effort, resources and time, the marines are confident the population can be won over. But, with the platoon’s influence limited to a small area around their base, many soldiers wonder if the Taliban and Al-Qaeda may simply outlast them, or if the US and Afghan governments have the resolve to send enough troops to win.

Third Platoon, Charlie Company of the 2nd Light Armoured Reconnaissance Battalion, came last July to Khan Neshin, as far south as Nato soldiers have reached in Afghanistan. It was part of a summer offensive by more than 4,500 troops of the Marine Expeditionary Brigade, which has joined British and other forces trying to turn the war in Helmand.

Although they have read the manuals on counterinsurgency and heard generals speak about how to defeat the Taliban, the reality has been bloody, painful and frustrating.

The platoon knows there are at least 20 booby-trapped bombs on the high ground around the base. More than half the men have already been caught in blasts. One marine explosive expert was killed; others suffered broken legs and amputated feet. Three have survived two explosions and come back to fight again.

General Stanley McChrystal, the US and Nato commander in Afghanistan, says the mission is to protect the population and isolate them from the Taliban, but the marines are finding it no easier to defeat the Taliban than it has been for the British, who have fought in the province for three years. Villagers are rarely willing to express a simple opinion, let alone inform soldiers where the enemy is hiding. One marine described the way the Taliban blended with the population as “unbelievably frustrating”.

In terrain crisscrossed by canals with weak and narrow bridges, the platoon has to approach villages on foot. Even when they have surrounded the Taliban, the marines have found the enemy has an uncanny ability to slip away in the ditches. All this adds to the strain of facing improvised explosive devices, which are the main threat.

“We are all brothers here,” said Lance-Corporal Corey Hopkins, 22, from Georgia. “And it hurts to see your brother hurt or put him in a bag for the last time. It pisses you off. It makes you mad. You know people out here know what’s going on, but they won’t tell you.”

Corporal Gregory Williams, 22, from North Carolina, said: “It’s going to take a lot of proving out here to make them talk to us. It’s working so slowly.” The marines are trying to implement a strategy dictated from Washington that bids them separate the population from the insurgents.

But attempting that means a battle not only against the Taliban but against a feudal system that places real power in the hands of landowners such as Haji Khan.

When we talked to the grey-bearded men in the village, in the shade of one-room mosques, most appeared friendly. Asked if they wanted a school or more doctors, all said such questions were a matter for those who own the fields.

The marines hope to open a school and provide medical facilities. They are also offering to pay Khan and others to provide jobs to improve the canal system.

At a shura, or village meeting, at South Station last Friday, Khan showed up with 40 elders and heard Captain Chris Conner, commander of Charlie Company, promise development. “From the bottom of my heart, I want to say that we are here to help you,” he said.

The villagers welcomed the canal scheme and the idea of making use of a doctor at the base. But Khan and another landowner rejected the idea of a school. “Security is still too bad. We’ve seen how they are burnt down [by the Taliban] elsewhere.”

Some marines were unconvinced about paying money for the canal to a tribal leader and drug baron who gave them almost no help and would probably keep the cash.

Later, a marine intelligence officer said the drug economy and the feudal system made the strategy of winning hearts and minds extremely complex. As drug producers, men such as Khan had a “working relationship with the Taliban”.

Nobody knew of the announcement last week in Kabul of a new round of national elections. Nobody voted in the first round. “We never even heard of elections. If we had, I suppose we might have voted,” said one villager.

Marine Jailed for Sex With Widow

January 14, 2009

SAN DIEGO - A U.S. Marine sergeant has pleaded guilty to adultery and received a 90-day sentence for having sex with the widow of a young man he had recruited.

Stephen Kuehler, 30, a recruiter in St. Louis, was court-martialed Tuesday in San Diego, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported. The base there regional headquarters for recruiters in St. Louis.
Amy Patton testified that Kuehler got in touch with her after her husband, Michael Patton, was killed in Afghanistan last year, less than a year after their marriage. Patton joined the Marines in 2007 immediately after his high school graduation.

"He was very helpful," she testified. "I considered him kind of a big-brother type."
The sex occurred at Patton's house after she had drunk tequila on top of a prescription anti-depressant.

David Ahn, Kuehler's lawyer, said that his client made a "mistake" while he, like Amy Patton, was grieving over Patton's death. But Capt. Tyler Hart, the prosecutor, said that he was guilty of an act of betrayal.

"Most of all he betrayed the trust of a fellow Marine," Hart said.

...and what a ho.