Free Republic

Since at least the time of Abraham Lincoln, presidents have sent letters of condolence to the families of service members killed in action, whether the deaths came by hostile fire or in an accident. So after his son killed himself in Iraq in June, Gregg Keesling expected that his family would receive a letter from President Obama. What it got instead was a call from an Army official telling family members that they were not eligible because their son had committed suicide. “We were shocked,” said Mr. Keesling, 52, of Indianapolis. Under an unwritten policy that has existed at least...

WASHINGTON, D.C. (Aug. 10, 2009) — House Armed Services Committee Chairman Ike Skelton (D-Mo.) sent a letter to Defense Secretary Robert Gates expressing serious concerns regarding the consideration of Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, as a potential site for detainees transferred from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Skelton, a long-time advocate for Professional Military Education, raised concerns that a number of Muslim countries would stop sending students to the Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth if Guantanamo detainees were transferred there. Skelton also noted that the United States Code precludes the proximate detention of American and foreign individuals, so any plan to...

WASHINGTON, D.C. (Aug. 2, 2009) — I consider myself blessed to serve as chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, which from my perspective is the best committee in Congress. The committee’s 62 members come from every corner of the country and reflect diverse political philosophies, but together we find common purpose in our efforts to do our very best to provide the necessary resources to keep Americans safe and protect U.S. national security interests. Each year, the House Armed Services Committee plays its constitutional role by preparing a defense authorization bill. While many people may immediately think of the...

WASHINGTON, D.C. (July 24, 2009) — House Armed Services Committee Chairman Ike Skelton (D-Mo.) sent a letter to the Chief of the National Guard Bureau to request information on the National Guard’s current state of readiness to respond to natural disasters in the United States. Skelton also strongly urged the Department of Defense to consider U.S. domestic needs when planning for the redeployment of U.S. forces and equipment from Iraq. “When floods, tornadoes, or hurricanes strike, Americans depend on their neighbors in the National Guard to keep them safe and help with disaster response. In virtually any type of national...

Thanksgiving Day for soldiers in this valley ringed by towering snowy peaks began with a 6-mile (10-kilometer) slog to aid village schools without desks and windows, and promises to end with five, once scrawny local turkeys soldiers have been fattening up for the past month. "Just another day, another mission," several soldiers said as a 25-man patrol from Able Troop, 3-71 Cavalry Squadron, 10th Mountain Division, set out on a cold morning under brilliantly blue skies. Others let sentiment seep through their matter-of-fact, stoic shells. "We're with our family just like we would be at Thanksgiving back home," said Staff...

WASHINGTON, D.C. (March 29, 2009) — As I have examined the economic crisis and the legislative solutions to it, I have paid particular attention to its effect on U.S. national security. According to recent Congressional testimony delivered by the Director of National Intelligence, Admiral Dennis Blair, the global economic crisis and the political and social instability associated with it have become the greatest threat to American security. As the Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, this concerns me a great deal. Throughout history, we have witnessed how economic crises can have consequences on national security. Hyper-inflation in Germany was...

Western Baghdad is the location of nomenclature and force composition oddities that indicate further Iraqi Army expansion. Only two of the nine Iraqi Army brigades in western Baghdad are numbered and assigned in accordance with the standard brigade numbering system. Those seven brigades are the only seven non-standard designations in the entire Iraqi Army.

FORT LEONARD WOOD, Mo. (Nov. 20, 2009) — The 7th Weapons of Mass Destruction Civil Support Team completed two days of internal training that focused on mission essential tasks this week at Fort Leonard Wood. The Missouri National Guard team responded to an “incident” at Abrams Theater and another at the training tunnels at the 1st Lt. Joseph Terry Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear Responder Training Facility. The first exercise was coordinated by 1st Lt. Richard Sambolin, the unit’s reconnaissance section officer in charge. In this scenario, the theater was set in Anywhere, USA. A chief of a fire department requested...

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (Nov. 20, 2009) — Michelle Hartmann, of Jefferson City, has been named the Missouri National Guard's first-ever director of psychological health. Hartmann oversees the Missouri Guard's psychological health program. The program, which is funded through the National Guard Bureau, is designed to promote readiness through psychological fitness. Hartmann said the program's guidelines are intentionally vague, which allows each state's director to tailor it to the specific needs of each state. Hartmann said one of her goals is to make mental health a more normal part of conversation. To some extent, Hartmann said, the stigma associated with psychological...

Fort Hood soldier currently deployed in Iraq calls for giving guns to American soldiers and families on base One of the readers of this column, even before I began writing about the November 5th Fort Hood massacre the day after it occurred, is Sgt. Brian Singer, a U.S. army soldier currently deployed to Iraq, but whose home station is Fort Hood. A few days after the Fort Hood shootings Sgt. Singer wrote a letter-to-the-editor to Stars and Stripes. An edited version of that letter was published in Stars and Stripes on Thursday, November 19th. You can read Sgt. Singer’s letter...

<p>FORT BRAGG, N.C. — Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin promises to limit her enthusiasm during her visit to North Carolina's Fort Bragg.</p> <p>The former Republican vice presidential candidate planned to sign copies of her new memoir at a post store Monday. Army officials say Palin will not make a speech, pose for photos, or personalize notes in the books she signs.</p>

FORT LEONARD WOOD, Mo. (Nov. 20, 2009) — A Missouri National Guardsman in training to become a military truck driver faces charges of making a terrorist threat in a school near Whiteman Air Force Base. According to court records, the trainee, Pfc. Michael John Frederick, 19, went into a Sedalia high school during a Saturday evening event and told the superintendent that the Army had told him to warn area schools that escaped prisoners might be trying to kidnap students. Frederick was wearing his military uniform when he made his warning about escaped inmates. However, there were no escaped inmates...

What's more imortant to the US Army than the lives of 13 soldiers? Apparently, the commitment by the US Army not to offend Muslims. Obama and his merry band of hangers-on, led by the US Army and General Casey, continue to hem and haw about the Ft Hood attacks and simply refuse to call it terrorism, but any reasonable look at the pre-slaughter work of psychia-terrorist Major Nidal Hasan shows us what he really is. The amazing thing is that he was so public and obvious about it... and that 13 soldiers are dead because of the US Army's fear...

Nov. 20 (UPI) -- The U.S. Army recently funded a five-year, $50 million study by the National Institute of Mental Health to examine the factors possibly associated with suicide, including combat-related trauma, personal and economic stress, family history, childhood abuse, a military unit's cohesion and general mental health. With all due respect to the eminent scientists at NIMH, I wonder if much of that information is available already from civilian sources, both online and in paper-bound publications. I would doubt that surveying hundreds of thousands of recruits and interviewing soldiers will, in the end, provide that eureka moment they seem...

We shut the aircraft down and what we saw was 350 plus people ranging in ages from 6 months to old and gray standing silently at a fence watching our every movement. I walked around the nose of my aircraft a mere 150 feet away from this crowd, I gave a simple smile and raised my arm up over my head and was greeted with the most substantial roar of levity that I have ever heard in my life. 350 plus people were cheering. Not because I play an instrument in some notable band, acted in a big Hollywood movie,...

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) - The U.S. Army plans to prevent media from covering Sarah Palin's appearance at Fort Bragg, fearing the event will turn into political grandstanding against President Barack Obama, officials said Thursday. Fort Bragg spokesman Tom McCollum told The Associated Press that Bragg's garrison commander and other Army officials had decided to keep media away from Palin's book promotion. He said the Army did not want the Monday event to become a platform to express political opinions "directed against the commander in chief." "The main reason is to stop this from turning into a political platform," he said....

The U.S. Army now says it will allow media limited access to Sarah Palin's appearance at Fort Bragg. The Associated Press and The Fayetteville Observer objected and the military changed its position slightly on Thursday night. It will grant a pool of reporters restricted access to Monday's appearance. Buckner said the setup will allow reporters their right to access .

The U.S. Army plans to prevent media from covering Sarah Palin's appearance at Fort Bragg, fearing the event will turn into political grandstanding against President Barack Obama, officials said Thursday

Daring soldier was awarded Medal of HonorBy Adam Bernstein Washington Post Staff Writer Wednesday, November 18, 2009 Lewis L. Millett, 88, a career Army officer who was briefly and somewhat misleadingly court-martialed for desertion during World War II and went on to receive the Medal of Honor for leading a bayonet charge during the Korean War, died Nov. 14 at a veterans hospital in Loma Linda, Calif. He had congestive heart failure. Col. Millett, who sported a red handlebar mustache, cut an audacious and unconventional path during his 35 years of military service. He led daring attacks in two wars...

FORT LEONARD WOOD, Mo. (Nov. 12, 2009) — Tammy Duckworth is now a major in the Army National Guard, a former Democratic Party congressional candidate, and an assistant secretary in the Department of Veterans Affairs. But on Nov. 12, 2004, Duckworth’s life was likely saved by the quick action of other National Guardsmen when she was piloting a helicopter that insurgents shot down in Iraq. Those Missouri National Guardsmen assigned to helicopter duty at Fort Leonard Wood attended Duckworth’s fifth “Alive Day” Thursday in Washington, D.C. Staff Sgt. Christopher Fierce, a Dixon resident who was also wounded that day, has...

FORT LEONARD WOOD, Mo. (Nov. 9, 2009) — Even for a combat medic like Spc. Erin Raymond, knowing how to clear a room is a fundamental soldier task. “I have to be a soldier before I’m a medic,” said Raymond, who lives in Saint Robert. “It’s important because, even though I am a medic, if I’m put in a situation where one of our members is wounded and I have to help clear a building, I need to know my basic soldiering skills before being a medic. Also, if by chance I ever need to go into a building to...

Bipartisan Effort to Enforce Reforms They Enacted in Wake of Hurricane Katrina. Washington, D.C. ­– Two years after enacting critical reforms of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, U.S. Senators Russ Feingold (D-WI) and John McCain (R-AZ) are asking the Administration why little progress has been made to implement them. Those reforms, passed in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, made key changes to strengthen the Corps and ensure that it uses its limited resources wisely. One of those reforms was a requirement that the Corps’ planning guidelines, Planning Principles & Guidelines (P&G), be modernized. In a letter sent today to...

<p>Contact your Senators and let them know what you think!</p> <p>U.S. veterans or subsidies for United Nations (U.N.) bureaucracy.</p>

Nov. 18 (UPI) -- According to the Sept. 18 report from the U.S. Army Diversity Office (yes, there is one) titled "Military Leadership Diversity Commission," diversity is defined as "the different attributes, experiences and backgrounds of our Soldiers, Civilians and Family members that further enhance our global capabilities and contribute to an adaptive, culturally astute Army." Those are wonderful words with which we can all immediately agree. Unfortunately, the remainder of the report regresses to the standard affirmative action success criterion comparing the percentages, according to rank, of the selected racial or ethnic groups, "API, Black, AI/NA, White, Hispanic" i.e....

There won't be 72 virgins in paradise for Fort Hood madman Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan -- but he spent his nights enjoying earthly carnal pleasures at a no-frills strip club. The girls of Starz -- an off-base jiggle joint in Killeen, Texas -- remember Hasan well for his unusual interest in their personal lives and his self-restraint with alcohol. Hasan, the Army shrink accused of killing 13 people and wounding 42 two weeks ago in an Islamic terror-inspired rampage, had visited the club at least three times, the dancers say. He paid particular attention to a 31-year-old blonde named Jennifer...

This is a summary of significant items concerning Iraqi Security Force (ISF) Developments reported in the September 2009 Quarterly Report to Congress: Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq released 13 November 2009. Author’s comments and analysis is in italics. This report’s data is dated 31 August 2009 and there are changes since then. This report is also the unclassified version and thus excludes Iraqi classified data. The budget issues and legislative delays continue to impact Iraqi Security Force development. Limited funds, the resulting hiring freeze and competition for resources exacerbated services cooperation. More recent developments than the information in this...

Thought this definitely deserved a mention - the U.S. Army is looking at using virtual worlds to provide social therapy and smooth the adjustment process for amputee soldiers. If it helps them build a community and adjust to their new environment, I say it's worth it.

In his first interview with a journalist since the Fort Hood rampage, Yemeni American cleric Anwar al-Aulaqi said that he neither ordered nor pressured Maj. Nidal M. Hasan to harm Americans, but that he considered himself a confidant of the Army psychiatrist who was given a glimpse via e-mail into Nadal's growing discomfort with the U.S. military. The cleric said he thought he played a role in transforming Hasan into a devout Muslim eight years ago, when Hasan listened to his lectures at the mosque in Virginia. Aulaqi said that Hasan "trusted" him and that the two developed an e-mail...

Medal of Honor recipient Lewis Millett of Idyllwild died Saturday morning at Jerry L. Pettis Memorial VA Medical Center in Loma Linda. He was 88. .... According to his Medal of Honor Citation, then-Capt. Millett distinguished himself "above and beyond the call of duty in action" in Korea, after he and his men came under heavy enemy fire on Feb. 7, 1951. He ordered and led a bayonet counterattack up the hill, killing enemy soldiers in hand-to-hand assault during which he was wounded by a grenade blast. But by early afternoon, his company had taken the hill. He was presented...

As Secretary of State Gen. Colin Powell, a self-professed man of simple tastes, often stayed at Holiday Inns while traveling the globe to confab with world leaders. As such, he has a personal list of gripes and suggestions for Holiday Inn owners. Gen. Powell rattled off that list ...when he was at State he had professed his affinity for cheeseburgers and the Holiday Inn. His points elicited chuckles and nods of agreement: “I don’t want to go to astronaut training to figure out how to set a clock radio,” Gen. Powell said, adding later, “I’m only there for the night....

The Iraqi Special Operations Force (ISOF) is still organized and configured as reported in June. However, it appears that the ISOF is starting to form eight light armored special forces battalions. The integration of Federal Police elements into the Counter Terrorism Bureau also appears to be starting.

Suicides reported among active-duty soldiers more than doubled in October, according to Army data released Friday. The Army is investigating 16 potential suicides for October in comparison to the seven suicides reported to Army officials in September of this year. The Army is still investigating four of the suicides reported in September. The newly released October data brings the number of reported suicides in 2009 to 133, 18 more cases than were reported between January 2008 and October 2008. Among soldiers in the Reserve component of the Army, who are not serving on active duty, there were eight potential suicides...

WASHINGTON – Morale has fallen among soldiers in Afghanistan, where troops are seeing record violence in the 8-year-old war, while those in Iraq show much improved mental health amid much lower violence, the Army said Friday. Soldier suicides in Iraq did not increase for the first time since 2004, according to a new study. Though findings of two new battlefield surveys are similar in several ways to the last ones taken in 2007, they come at a time of intense scrutiny on Afghanistan as President Barack Obama struggles to come up with a new war strategy and planned troop buildup....

WASHINGTON - The U.S. Army says morale has fallen among its forces in Afghanistan, where troops are seeing record violence in the 8-year-old war. A new battlefield survey taken several months ago found instances of depression, anxiety and other psychological problems about the same as in 2007 — but there was a significant drop in unit morale. The Army also says there is a shortage of mental health workers to help soldiers, partly because of the troop buildup started this year by President Barack Obama.

A radical Muslim cleric alleged to have inspired the Fort Hood gunman has been praised in the past as “a preacher of peace” by a prominent SNP candidate with close links to Alex Salmond. The FBI is investigating communications between Major Nidal Hasan, who killed 13 people at the US Army base in Texas, and Imam Anwar al-Awlaki, a US-born Muslim cleric now based in Yemen. Mr Awlaki has a large following in Britain and counts prominent mainstream Muslims among his supporters. In 2006 Osama Saeed, who has been selected as the SNP candidate for Glasgow Central for the next...

Elaine Donnelly at NRO goes overboard in castigating the Army for allowing a Sikh doctor (and potentially a Sikh dentist) to retain the beards and turbans their faith requires of them. Donnelly (whose work I usually admire) compares this dispensation to the Army's deliberately turning a blind eye to the blatant jihadism of Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan. The two are in no way comparable. The latter was an egregious dereliction of duty on the part of the authorities, while the former is merely bureaucratic nitpicking of the sort that Paul Fussell characterized so accurately as "chicken****." (My edit with the...

"As a senior-year psychiatric resident at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Maj. Nidal M. Hasan was supposed to make a presentation on a medical topic of his choosing as a culminating exercise of the residency program," reports the Washington Post. Hasan went a different way. He opted to give a bizarre PowerPoint presentation in which he defended suicide bombing and explained that nonbelievers should be beheaded, burned alive and have boiling oil poured down their throats (presumably not in that order). He argued that all Muslims should be discharged from the military. One slide concluded: "We love death more then...

There's nothing more offensive to the memory of those who die while serving our country than using them as props for a nonassociated political cause. Yet that is precisely what both the Army and our president have done repeatedly since the terrorist massacre of 13 American troops at Fort Hood. First, the Army. On Sunday, Nov. 8, the U.S. Army's top general, George Casey, appeared on "Meet the Press" to discuss the killing spree by radical Muslim and al-Qaida sympathizer Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan. Casey did not use the program as an opportunity to come clean about the Army's role...

Nov. 11 (UPI) -- In 2004, 64 active-duty U.S. soldiers killed themselves. In 2006 the figure jumped to 102. The following year it rose again, this time to 115. Last year it was 140. That 2008 figure crossed a disturbing threshold, where the suicide rate among soldiers exceeded the rate among their civilian counterparts. The October 2009 suicide figures show that at least 134 active-duty soldiers have taken their own lives, putting the U.S. Army on a pace to break last year's record. If Reserve and National Guard troops are included, the 2009 total has reached 193. The total number...

At the Daily Standard blog, FDD's Tom Joscelyn is doing his usual stellar work, this time detailing the FBI's shocking lapses in the failure to investigate Nidal Hasan. See Tom's posts here and here. In particular, I want to highlight the blog written by Anwar al-Awlaki, the al-Qaeda recruiter who ministered to two of the 9/11 hijackers and whose numerous communications with Hasan were dismissed by the Bureau as insignificant. As Tom recounted, on Monday, "Awlaki posted a blog entry titled 'Nidal Hassan Did the Right Thing' on his web site. In the post, Awlaki calls Hasan a 'hero.' Awlaki...

Robbers return Army ID, Thanked him for service.

A few weeks ago a friend of mine in the National Guard contacted me, frustrated by the lack of physical security of the military in the continental US. More specifically, he complained that every time he transports millions of dollars in automatic weapons and other supplies he is prohibited from carrying even a sidearm to protect the equipment. He was angry and quite vocal about it. “When I’m a civilian I can carry a pistol to protect myself, but when I’m on duty, the military disarms me!” I don’t blame him. I just always assumed that soldiers transporting millions of...

The FBI and other federal authorities are reportedly still trying to figure out Maj. Nidal M. Hasan’s motive for opening fire at Fort Hood. Let’s take a look at Hasan’s June 2007 50-slide presentation to senior Army doctors to see if we can unravel this mystery. According to the Washington Post, Hasan was “supposed to discuss a medical topic during” the presentation, but instead “he lectured on Islam, suicide bombers and threats the military could encounter from Muslims conflicted about fighting wars in Muslim countries.” Hasan’s presentation was titled, “The Koranic World View As It Relates to Muslims in the...

A Milwaukee Army reservist says four muggers returned his belongings when they discovered his military identification. The 21-year-old college student says he was walking home from work about 1:15 a.m. Tuesday when he was pulled into an alley and told to lay face down with a gun to his neck. Four men took his wallet, $16, keys and his cell phone. But the reservist says when one of the men saw an Army ID in the wallet, he told the others to return items. He also apologized and thanked the reservist for serving. The reservist says one robber gave him...

5:00 min clip set to heavy metal music sound-track --video maker shows knowlege of basic editing. This string of short color video clips shows US Army and USMC performing small infantry unit tactical ops, small arms, mortars, etc. This is not a short, black-and-white clip of a Predator launching a hellfire against some hajis. http://www.apacheclips.com/media/11596/Now_ZAD_2009/

Everyone has heard of separation of church and state, but what about separation of mosque and state?

At the end of Sunday’s Face the Nation on CBS, host Bob Schieffer offered commentary on the cause of the mass shooting at Fort Hood: “That doctor [Major Nidal Hasan] should not have been at Fort Hood. I don’t care how hard-up the Army is for mental health professionals....sadly, this shows the Army still does not take protecting soldiers’ mental health as seriously as it does training them to shoot.” Schieffer went on to argue: “And then there is the other part that often happens in government. Don’t deal with the problem, shuffle it off to somewhere else. When he...

The warning signs were all there: the justification of homicide bombings; the spewing of anti-American hatred; the efforts to reach Al Qaeda ... But the U.S. military treated Major Nidal Malik Hasan with kid gloves, even after giving him a poor performance review. And though he was on the radar screen of at least one U.S. intelligence agency, no action was taken that might have prevented the Army psychiatrist from allegedly gunning down 13 people and wounding 29 others in the Fort Hood massacre last week. - - - "There were definitely clear indications that Hasan's loyalties were not with...

Staff Sgt. Gilberto Mota, 35, and his wife, Diana, 30, an Army specialist, had returned to Fort Hood from Iraq last year when he used his gun to kill her, and then took his own life, the authorities say. In July, two members of the First Cavalry Division, also just back from the war with decorations for their service, were at a party when one killed the other. That same month, Staff Sgt. Justin Lee Garza, 28, under stress from two deployments, killed himself in a friend’s apartment outside Fort Hood, four days after he was told no therapists were...