The BBC's Timewatch program provides a fascinating history lesson on the last moments of WWI, where new research has pinpointed who the last soldiers to die in combat were -- even though the armistice had already been signed by the higher-ups.  The document was signed around 5 a.m. on the morning of November 11, 1918, but didn't go into effect until 11 a.m..  In fact, the BBC tells us that on the graves of French soldiers killed after the war's end, earlier dates were inscribed out of embarrassment for their avoidable deaths.  And then there's these facts about the last day's casualties:

The respected American author Joseph E Persico has calculated a shocking figure that the final day of WWI would produce nearly 11,000 casualties, more than those killed, wounded or missing on D-Day, when Allied forces landed en masse on the shores of occupied France almost 27 years later.

While much of Iraq remains mired in war, the semiautonomous Kurdish region in northern Iraq has enjoyed relative safety and prosperity, thanks to a no-fly-zone imposed by the United States in 1991 after the first gulf war. So instead of repairing oil fields and burying their dead, Iraqi Kurds have been erecting shiny hotels, opening amusement parks and trying to figure out how to lure tourists.

There is even a Ministry of Tourism, with a staff of more than 400 and a bare-bones Web site (www.tourismkurdistan.com) with color pictures and links to the region’s thin infrastructure. And to show that it means business, it has broadcast a series of television commercials in the United States called “The Other Iraq” that depicts high-tech factories and happy children greeting American soldiers as liberators.

The larger issue, of course, is the continuing violence. As recently as last March, a bomb went off in Sulaimaniya, the second-biggest city in Iraqi Kurdistan, killing a security guard. A truck bomb in May 2007 outside a government office in Erbil left over a dozen dead and several more wounded. And earlier this month, the long-simmering tensions between Turkey and Kurdish separatist rebels erupted again when Turkish warplanes entered northern Iraq and bombed remote rebel bases, killing at least 15 Kurds.

A study released today by the VA's National Center for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder found that 15 percent of the Iraq/Afghanistan vets seeking treatment at VA facilities report experiencing some kind of sexual trauma while serving in the military.  Additionally, these veterans are 1.5 times more likely require mental health care.  These numbers are derived from the nearly 40 percent of recent war veterans who've sought general medical care since being discharged from the military.  Screening all vets coming through VA medical facilities for sexual trauma is a standard practice.

Here are more statistics referenced in the report [via Reuters and USA Today]:|

• 76 percent of women who've had previous sexual trauma reported mental health problems, 51 percent of which include some form of PTSD.
• 47 percent of women without a history of sexual trauma reported mental health problems, 22 percent of which include some form of PTSD.
• Women with military-related sexual trauma experiences have a 59 percent higher risk of mental health problems.
• Men with military-related sexual trauma experiences have a 40 percent higher risk of mental health problems.
• One in seven female vets reported an instance of military sexual trauma.
• Just under one percent of male vets reported an instance of military sexual trauma.

The study covered 125,000 veterans seeking treatment from the VA between October 2001 and October 2007.  Active duty soldiers were not included because the VA is not involved with their care.  Additionally, the specific types of sexual trauma were not included, only the number of occurrences.

Reuters spoke to the new report's co-author Rachel Kimerling:

Kimerling said in a telephone interview the term "military sexual trauma" covers a range of events from coerced sex to outright rape or threatening and unwelcome sexual advances...

..."If you think about military service where you are living and working so closely with the same people, that even if it is not sexual assault ... it is possible that severe sexual harassment is just as traumatic," she said...

...Kimerling said that may mean many veterans are unaware they can be helped and she said she hoped more would come forward to seek treatment.

"There are dedicated health care services for military sexual trauma at every VA facility across the nation," she said.

Sexual trauma can lead to depression, anxiety, substance abuse and post-traumatic stress disorder, Kimerling said.

"We know there are effective, evidence-based treatments for them that are used in VA," she added.

Many women are afraid to report the assaults, says Anita Sanchez of the Miles Foundation, a non-profit that provides services to victims of military-related trauma. Fewer than a third of women who come to Miles for help after sexual assaults say they've told the military, she says.

"A typical scenario is it's either a supervisor or someone at her level, in the same military unit. If you come forward, you're tattle-telling on a comrade. Women have told me about the sneers, the sarcastic comments. They can find themselves ostracized," says Sanchez, and when other women see this, the lesson isn't lost on them.

It's hard to believe much of anything happens along most of Iraq's border with Syria. For hundreds of miles a modest sand berm that marks the dividing line between the two countries snakes through flat desert, with occasional villages or Iraqi Border Police forts providing the only human contact.  When I traveled to the border in August to cover U.S. Army troops advising border police units, it seemed these soldiers had a thankless task.  They lived at a small outpost with few creature comforts, executing a mission that often involved day-long humvee drives along the border that could be tedious, exhausting, and sometimes downright boring.  The nearest city, Mosul, was a roughly 40-minute helicopter ride to the west.  The Army combat outpost's close proximity to the border was underscored by the fact that helicopters had to immediately bank left upon takeoff; otherwise, in mere seconds, they would have crossed into Syrian airspace.

Yesterday came news of a cross-border raid by U.S. special forces into Syria aimed at striking a staging point for insurgents traveling into Iraq via the Anbar province.  The Associated Press took a look at the current state foreign fighters moving into Iraq:

The flow of foreign fighters into Iraq has been cut to an estimated 20 a month, a senior U.S. military intelligence official told the Associated Press in July. That's a 50 percent decline from six months ago, and just a fifth of the estimated 100 foreign fighters who were infiltrating Iraq a year ago, according to the official, speaking on condition of anonymity in order to discuss intelligence reports.

Ninety percent of the foreign fighters enter through Syria, according to U.S. intelligence. Foreigners are some of the most deadly fighters in Iraq, trained in bomb-making and with small-arms expertise and more likely to be willing suicide bombers than Iraqis.

Foreign fighters toting cash have been al-Qaida in Iraq's chief source of income. They contributed more than 70 percent of operating budgets in one sector in Iraq, according to documents captured in September 2007 on the Syrian border. Most of the fighters were conveyed through professional smuggling networks, according to the report.

In recent weeks, military commanders have increased their focus on the threat from militants in Syria who are blamed for cross-border attacks in western Iraq and for fueling violence in Mosul.

"The Iraqi security forces and the Iraqi intelligence forces feel that Al Qaeda operatives and others operate [and] live pretty openly on the Syrian side," Marine Maj. Gen. John Kelly, commander of U.S. troops in western Iraq, said at a briefing for reporters last week. "And periodically we know that they try to come across."

Among IBP forces all along the border, the single common denominator is almost always the same: fuel is scarce. Out here, having enough fuel means being able to fill a vehicle to a quarter tank. Without fuel the IBP’s machine gun-mounted Chevy pickup trucks cannot patrol the border, or deliver supplies. Generators which could provide electricity for recharging radio batteries and spotlights sit idle. Major James Moses, head of a transition team responsible for the southern portion of Ninawa’s border, recounted with amusement seeing one border policeman mix small amounts of gas and kerosene to make diesel fuel.

“I don’t know how he knew what to do, and what amounts to mix, but he did it” Moses said. “These guys know how to make something out of nothing.”

Moses also pointed out that even if the border police were able to strengthen their numbers to fill in the unguarded gaps along the border, there wouldn’t be enough fuel to sustain the larger force.

Iraqi Colonel Abed Al Karem, head of a local IBP battalion, expressed hopelessness over his unit’s fuel shortages. The problem, he said, exists at the IBP’s higher levels, and is beyond his own control.

“Sometimes I just sit down and I think: why [do we have this problem], it’s only fuel,” he said. “Iraq is all fuel. It is the first nation of fuel. Here in Iraq the fuel is more than water.”

Fuel and power shortages affect not only the IBP, but also the civilian populace. As one drives along the border road at night, the differences are quickly evident. Across the berm in Syria, nearby villages appear as clusters of bright lights while on the Iraqi side only the occasional porch light powered by a generator is visible.

The last public news of him came in February 2007, when a Shiite militant group called Ahl al-Bayt Brigades released a 10-second video of him on the Internet.

The military is committed to bringing al-Taie home, said U.S. Navy Lt. Cmdr. David Russell, a spokesman for the Multi-National Force-Iraq.

“The universal expectation that no one will be left behind is a fundamental article of faith that underpins the motivation and confidence of every U.S. service member deploying to a foreign duty location,” Russell wrote in an e-mail.

Russell declined to release any details of the search for al-Taie, citing policy.

Al-Taie’s parents, who live in the Michigan college town of Ann Arbor, declined to be interviewed.

...Keith Maupin says al-Taie's relatives have to have faith that he's still alive and coming home.  Maupin says prayer helped sustain him and his family as they rallied public attention to help find their son, Army Reserve Staff Sgt. Matt Maupin, who was missing for nearly four years.

At the time of al-Taie's dissaperance in 2006, the New York Times wrote of his unique position as an Iraq-born new American citizen who passed up a chance to return home from Iraq, instead choosing to serve another six months.  The article also tells of al-Taie's occasional practice of sneaking out of Baghdad's Green Zone, changing out of his uniform, and visiting his wife's family.

For half his life, Ahmed Kousay al-Taie has been a man of two worlds, one being this leafy college town west of Detroit, where he joined the Army, and the other being the crumbling avenues of western Baghdad, where he grew up...

...After the attacks of Sept. 11, Specialist Taie felt his prospects growing darker, his parents said. As an Arab immigrant who was not yet a citizen, he found it hard to get meaningful work, his parents said. In November 2003, he returned to Iraq for the first time, along with his mother. “I was thinking to find a girl for him to marry,” she said.

Indeed, postwar Iraq had drawn back several members of the Taie family. Specialist Taie’s father, an engineer, returned to Iraq in June 2003, to help with reconstruction.

When his parents returned to the United States, in June 2004, the son remained in Baghdad. “He said, ‘I am very comfortable with the people here. I have my friends. People respect me,’ ” Mr. Taie recalled his son as saying.

He had also met Ms. Abdul-Satar.

He returned to Ann Arbor, and in September 2005 he enlisted in the Army. Completing basic and specialized training to become an interpreter in Fort Hood, Tex., he was sent to Iraq last November, a military spokesman in Baghdad said.

Manion, 54, said he was inspired by his son's death to seek public office. His Web site, though, has drawn criticism for its focus on his son's life rather than on his qualifications.

"Just who is running for Congress: the father or the son?" asked an editorial in the Bucks County Courier Times.

At a recent forum in Langhorne, there were signs Manion might be having trouble connecting with voters on issues other than Iraq. Questions on topics including Iran, North Korea and funding for Medicare and Social Security yielded answers with few specifics.

Joe Linus, a Republican unhappy with both Murphy and the Bush administration, said he thought Manion's presentation was lacking but expressed optimism that the challenger would crystallize his platform.

He said the United States has essentially played "referee" for more than five years in a religious civil war while neglecting Afghanistan. He favors a 16-month phased withdrawal, with redeployment of some troops to Afghanistan to help train that country's army and secure the border with Pakistan.

In blog posts over the past few weeks I've made reference to various campaign ads featuring veterans who support either Sen. Obama or Sen. McCain.  They contain powerful imagery and messages: veterans of Iraq, Afghanistan, and past wars -- including some who are wounded -- talk about their frontline experiences and deride the opposing candidate for his platforms on Iraq and/or domestic veterans issues.  No matter which candidate is being supported in an ad there are common threads that appear as the veterans speak of their service, yet at some point messages divide and the criticism begins. 

According to Gallup polls, present and former members of the military historically vote along Republican lines.  At the same time various pro-Obama groups are vocal over what they see as McCain's substandard record on veterans issues.  Both candidates have count support among veterans. Remember that moment during the first debate when each candidate referenced a bracelet he wore to remember fallen soldiers.  The important thing to note here is that while veterans can be seen as a group with a unique shared experience, their views are as widespread and nuanced as that of any American. 

Below is a collection of eight video advertisements featuring veterans as they promote their chosen presidential candidate. Watching them all in succession gives an interesting look at how they draw in their combat service as they promote either McCain or Obama.

Pro-McCain/Anti-Obama


Pro-Obama/Anti-McCain


Pro-McCain/Anti-Obama


Pro-Obama/Anti-McCain


Pro-McCain/Anti-Obama


Pro-Obama/Anti-McCain


Pro-McCain/Anti-Obama


Pro-Obama/Anti-McCain

The Humvees were taken Aug. 19 during Russia’s assault on the Georgian port of Poti, said Lt. Cmdr. Corey Barker, a spokesman for U.S. European Command. The vehicles were in Georgia awaiting commercial transport back to the U.S. following Operation Immediate Response, a multinational training exercise in July involving Georgian and U.S. forces. [Marine Corps Times]

Chris Biener, 21, Bohemia, Long Island:

New York: So you leave for Army Reserves boot camp next Monday. What'll you do until then?
CB: Hang out with some friends.
New York: What have you been doing up to now?
CB: I went to Stonybrook University and played football there for the first semester, then I went to Suffolk Community College, then I started working and going to school, back and forth, then I decided to do this.

New York: Why didn't you stay in college?
CB: I kept switching my major, which kept putting me back. So I worked at a swimming-pool store.
New York: Why are you joining the military?
CB: I almost did it straight out of high school, but my parents wanted me to go to college. I always wanted to join growing up.
New York: Why?
CB: I've always played sports, but there's no team after high school. So this is a big team to join.
New York: What's your big dream?
CB: I'm going to be an LPN, a nurse. So when I get out [of the military], I know I'll get a good job. And if I stay in, there'll always be people who need help.
New York: We're in two wars right now. You may go and be seriously physically or mentally damaged or die. Does that affect your decision?
CB: I used to think about it, but then I realized I'll be trained enough to probably get away from that situation, so if it happens, it happens.
New York: How would you characterize the situation [in Iraq] right now?
CB: We should be there, but the people don't want us there. It's kind of up in the air.
New York: Should we reinstitute the draft?
CB: No, I think the turnout's positive enough with volunteer people. With a draft you have an Army with people who don't want to be there. If it's volunteer, you'll get 100 percent out of all of them.
New York: Would you pick Iraq or Afghanistan to be deployed to?
CB: Iraq. There seems to be more going on. It'd be more fun. As a nurse, there'd be more jobs for me to do.
[Daily Intel]

Handman began basic training Aug. 29 at Fort Benning in Columbus. He soon wrote a letter to his parents in which he said, “I have just never been so discriminated against/humiliated about my religion.” He told them he feared for his safety.

Handman’s parents contacted U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., who forwarded their concerns to the Army. Four days after commanders interviewed Handman about being harassed, he was beaten in a laundry room near his barracks and treated at the Army post’s hospital.

Manganaro said investigators don’t believe religious bigotry was the motive for Handman being attacked, though she could not explain why...The investigation of Handman’s allegations of harassment found that one drill sergeant had ordered Handman to remove his yarmulke, which he wore with his uniform, as he ate in a dining hall. Another had called him “Juden,” the German word for Jews. [AP]

A new campaign ad by the group VoteVets criticizes Sen. John McCain for skipping a crucial GI Bill vote.  In the ad the veteran remarks: "Vet to vet, Senator McCain.  When you put money from your rich friends ahead of vets like me how is that country first?"



A few weeks ago I posted a pro-McCain ad featuring a wounded Iraq veteran.  I'm reposting it here for you to compare how veterans from two different ways of thinking voice support for their respective candidates.




The widow of an Iraq veteran who committed suicide after returning from the war is suing the federal government for negligence.  The deceased veteran, Donald Woodward, 23, made three suicide attempts and was seeking treatment at a VA hospital.  His wife said VA doctors were slow to diagnose her husband's psychiatric condition and did not schedule follow-up visits.  Woodward, at the time, was in VA out-patient care for depression.

"I intend to make them make changes," said his mother, Lori Woodward. "I have too many friends whose kids are in Iraq. I have a nephew now in Iraq, in the same unit, and I can't have my family go through this again."

Alison Aikele, a VA spokeswoman in Washington, said the agency does not typically comment on pending litigation. [AP]

From their flag lapel pins to their yellow ribbon bumper stickers, every politician in America wants you to believe they “support the troops.”  But actions speak louder than words.  When veterans’ issues actually came to a vote in Washington, what did your representatives do?...How did Congress do this year?  Over all, they scored very well.  From the passage of the landmark Post-9/11 GI Bill to fully funding the Department of Veterans Affairs, we have tremendous progress to celebrate this year. More than 150 legislators earned a perfect score, a grade of A+.

The accusation against Obama regarding troop funding came up in the first presidential debate, where Obama defended his vote as a reflection on his position seeking a timetable for withdrawal. "Senator McCain opposed funding for troops in legislation that had a timetable, because he didn't believe in a timetable," Obama pointed out. "I opposed funding a mission that had no timetable, and was open-ended, giving a blank check to George Bush . We had a difference on the timetable. We didn't have a difference on whether or not we were going to be funding troops." Factcheck.org, meanwhile, reported in response to a McCain campaign ad released in July that while Obama did cast one "no" vote on legislation providing money for combat efforts, he voted at least 10 times in favor of increased funding.

As for the committee Obama chairs, it does not, in fact, have direct oversight of the war in Afghanistan. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee's Subcommittee on European Affairs does have jurisdiction over NATO affairs, and NATO has played a large role in the conflict. But hearings on Afghanistan have been held in front of the full Foreign Relations Committee, headed by Obama's running mate, Joe Biden . ABC News reported in July that Obama has attended one of the three full committee hearings on Afghanistan held within the last two years, while McCain has missed all three.

The report concludes that environmental considerations—including clean water, sanitation, hazardous-waste management—can be important for achieving overall U.S. objectives during reconstruction and post-conflict operations, including both short- and long-term stability. If not properly addressed in planning or operations, environmental considerations can increase the costs of an operation and make it more difficult for the Army to sustain the mission. Yet, environmental considerations are not well incorporated into Army planning or operations in any phase of an operation. To address these shortcomings, the Army should take additional steps to ensure that environmental considerations (from strategic to tactical) are appropriately incorporated into planning, operations, training, and research.

• A contractor hired by the Defense Department dumped waste oil in a landfill in Iraq and then sold the barrels.

• U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan buried several drums containing unidentified liquids, which later turned out to be hazardous, posing a risk of soil and groundwater contamination.

• In Iraq, an airfield sits over an old airfield with leaking fuel tanks. “Major health issues arise whenever it is necessary to dig.”

• Commanders in Iraq have set up hazardous-waste disposal areas close to camp perimeters, creating a force-protection issue since they were potential targets for hand grenades and IEDs.

• High-grade diesel fuel was spilled in a lake in Iraq that was used for drinking water at a base. The lake is no longer used as a source of drinking water.

• U.S. forces in Iraq improperly dumped insecticides, batteries, oil products and other hazardous material. Soldiers joked that fuel spills were “replenishing the oil wells.”

• Troops in Iraq fell ill after rolling leaking drums of industrial-strength pesticides out of a building.

“It’s a pretty significant problem,” he said. “I think most soldiers are more concerned about the mission … and may not be as concerned about the environment. But it’s not just [a] … tree-hugger thing.”

Force-protection risks can also be increased by environmental issues, as illustrated in a case from Iraq. Because of the hostile environment there, commanders set up their own hazardous-waste accumulation points inside their base camps. These field-expedient satellite accumulation points were located too close to camp perimeters, creating potential targets for hand grenades and improvised explosive devices (IEDs).

Environmental issues can affect the military mission in yet another way. Poor U.S. environmental practices in host nations in the region that support U.S. forces can cause diplomatic problems that affect operations. In OIF, a contractor in a host nation dumped waste anti-freeze from a U.S. base camp and sold the drums. This incident caused a major diplomatic problem that is still being negotiated. Although it has not reached the level where it is affecting operations in this case, host nations have restricted U.S. activities in several non-contingency operations in other parts of the world because of environmental concerns. For example, restrictions were imposed on Army training in Germany, and an Army training range was closed in Okinawa.

Finally, military operations can be affected by the ability of the logistical systems to support them. If base camps and military equipment have large requirements for resources, the logistics system must supply them for military operations to continue. By taking steps such as developing local water sources and reusing engine oil to reduce logistical needs, the Army can reduce the logistical burdens of an operation, either by providing more logistics capacity for warfighting or by reducing the size of the logistical tail needed for an operation.

Among the report's recommendations for military leaders are to cultivate an "environmental ethic" throughout the Army; to better incorporate environmental considerations into strategic planning; and to train soldiers about environmental issues that could arise in the field before they deploy.