Navy will soon let women serve on subs

Part of gradual shift in combat roles; 30 days for Congress to weigh in

WASHINGTON - The Pentagon has moved to lift a decades-old policy that prohibits women from serving aboard Navy submarines, part of a gradual reconsideration of women's roles in a military fighting two wars whose front lines can be anywhere.

At issue is the end of a policy that kept women from serving aboard the last type of ship off-limits to them. The thinking was that the close quarters aboard subs would make coed service difficult to manage.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates notified Congress in a letter signed Friday that the Navy intends to repeal the ban on women sailors on subs. Congress has 30 days to weigh in.

"He supports the Navy's efforts to change their policy," Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell said Tuesday.

Physical changes would be made
A defense official told The Associated Press that numerous physical changes to submarines would have to be made, but that cadets who graduate from the Naval Academy this year could be among the first Navy women to take submarine posts.

The change was first reported by ABC News.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity because Congress has not yet had a chance to consider the Navy's recommendations.

The Navy's plan would phase in women's service, beginning with officers aboard the larger subs that are easier to retrofit for coed quarters. Women would never serve solo.

Because of the length of time required for training, it would be more than a year before the first women joined subs, assuming Congress raises no major objections that slow the schedule.

Women began serving aboard the Navy's surface ships in 1993.

Changing roles
Since then, many of the distinctions between who is in combat and who is not have been erased.

Women are formally banned from combat posts in the Army, for instance, but routinely serve in jobs such as medics, pilots and drivers that place them shoulder to shoulder with men serving in "combat" jobs.

Army Chief of Staff Gen. George Casey told Congress on Tuesday that he supports a reconsideration of women's combat roles.

"I believe it's time that we take a look at what women are actually doing in Iraq and Afghanistan. And then we take a look at our policies," Casey told the Senate Armed Services Committee. While no organized effort is under way, "I think it's time," he added.

The War Within

By Nancy Gibbs

What does it tell us that female soldiers deployed overseas stop drinking water after 7 p.m. to reduce the odds of being raped if they have to use the bathroom at night? Or that a soldier who was assaulted when she went out for a cigarette was afraid to report it for fear she would be demoted — for having gone out without her weapon? Or that, as Representative Jane Harman puts it, "a female soldier in Iraq is more likely to be raped by a fellow soldier than killed by enemy fire."

The fight over "Don't ask, don't tell" made headlines this winter as an issue of justice and history and the social evolution of our military institutions. We've heard much less about another set of hearings in the House Armed Services Committee. Maybe that's because too many commanders still don't ask, and too many victims still won't tell, about the levels of violence endured by women in uniform.

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1968110,00.html#ixzz0gsgfeytH

The Pentagon's latest figures show that nearly 3,000 women were sexually assaulted in fiscal year 2008, up 9% from the year before; among women serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, the number rose 25%. When you look at the entire universe of female veterans, close to a third say they were victims of rape or assault while they were serving — twice the rate in the civilian population.

The problem is even worse than that. The Pentagon estimates that 80% to 90% of sexual assaults go unreported, and it's no wonder. Anonymity is all but impossible; a Government Accountability Office report concluded that most victims stay silent because of "the belief that nothing would be done; fear of ostracism, harassment, or ridicule; and concern that peers would gossip." More than half feared they would be labeled troublemakers. A civilian who is raped can get confidential, or "privileged," advice from her doctors, lawyers, victim advocates; the only privilege in the military applies to chaplains. A civilian who knows her assailant has a much better chance of avoiding him than does a soldier at a remote base, where filing charges can be a career killer — not for the assailant but the victim. Women worry that they will be removed from their units for their own "protection" and talk about not wanting to undermine their missions or the cohesion of their units. And then some just do the math: only 8% of cases that are investigated end in prosecution, compared with 40% for civilians arrested for sex crimes. Astonishingly, about 80% of those convicted are honorably discharged nonetheless.

The sense of betrayal runs deep in victims who joined the military to be part of a loyal team pursuing a larger cause; experts liken the trauma to incest and the particular damage done when assault is inflicted by a member of the military "family." Women are often denied claims for posttraumatic stress caused by the assault if they did not bring charges at the time. There are not nearly enough mental-health professionals in the system to help them. Female vets are four times more likely to be homeless than male vets are, according to the Service Women's Action Network, and of those, 40% report being victims of sexual assault. (See pictures of an army town coping with PTSD.)

Experts offer many theories for the causes: that military culture is intrinsically violent and hypermasculine, that the military is slow to identify potential risks among raw young recruits, that too many commanders would rather look the other way than acknowledge a breakdown in their units, that it has simply not been made a high enough priority. "A lot of my male colleagues believe that the only thing a general needs to worry about is whether he can win a war," says Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez of the Armed Services Committee. "People are not taking this seriously. Commanding officers in the field are not understanding how important this is."

But there are some signs that both Congress and the Pentagon are getting serious about this problem. It is now possible for victims to seek medical treatment without having to report the crime to police or their chain of command. More field hospitals have trained nurse practitioners to treat the victims; more bases have rape kits. "More than ever," Sanchez says, "I believe that our leadership at the very top is beginning to realize that they need to be proactive."

According to a report by the Defense Task Force on Sexual Assault in the Military Services, the progress made so far remains "evident, but uneven." The failure to provide a basic guarantee of safety to women, who now represent 15% of the armed forces, is not just a moral issue, or a morale issue. What does it say if the military can't or won't protect the people we ask to protect us?

Military retirees volunteer for active duty

Sgt. 1st Class Elbert "Rusty" Coleman, center, returned to the Army to serve with his sons, Spc. Sean Coleman, right, and 1st Lt. Myles Coleman. "It's awesome to see my Dad back on active duty," Myles Coleman said.

By Jeff Schweers, USA TODAY

Air Force, Army, Navy and Marines get extra hands on deck through this volunteer program

Elbert "Rusty" Coleman put in 23 years with the U.S. Army in various administrative positions, retired as a sergeant first class in 1989 and got on with his life, working and raising a family in West Melbourne, Fla.

Twenty-one years later, he has returned to active duty, answering a voluntary recall notice for retirees, in part to serve with his two sons — 1st Lt. Myles Coleman and Georgia National Guard Spc. Sean Coleman — and to finally get a taste of combat.

"I never before had the real opportunity to serve in a war zone during my previous years of service," Coleman, 61, wrote via e-mail from Victory Base Complex in Iraq, where he's currently stationed. "I thought this would be a good opportunity to 'redeem' myself by serving a tour or two in a battle zone."

Coleman is one of 974 current U.S. Army enlisted men and officers who volunteered to return to active duty after retirement, said Lt. Col. Maria Quon, public affairs officer for the Human Resources Command.

"It's awesome to see my dad back on active duty," said 1st Lt. Myles Coleman in an e-mail from Afghanistan where he's deployed. It's also inspiring to see the value of the experience that retiree recalls bring to young soldiers, he said.

Positions not permanent

Similar volunteer programs exist for the Air Force, Navy and Marines.

• The Air Force, which accepts only officers, had a voluntary recall program January through December 2009 and had 386 return, said Kenneth Pruitt, media relations chief for the Air Force.

• The Navy had 378 retired enlisted personnel and officers return to duty last year, Lt. Laura Stegherr said. Most are very specialized, such as chaplains and doctors, she said.

• The Marines had a limited voluntary recall program from February 2008 to February 2009, Maj. Shawn Haney said. It filled all 300 available senior non-commissioned officer positions, she said.

The Army started accepting small numbers of retirees in 2002, after the start of Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan in October 2001, Quon said. It opened the door to even more retirees in 2004 when then-secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld authorized the mobilization of up to 6,500 Individual Ready Reserve soldiers to fill vacancies in units mostly bound for Iraq and Afghanistan, Quon said.

Last summer, the Army opened the voluntary recall to retirees over 60 who hadn't begun receiving a pension after Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced plans to increase the Army's active duty strength by about 22,000, she said.

"At this time we are advertising about 100 tours for officers and about 100 tours for enlisted," Quon said. "A tour is not a permanent position, but a temporary position that usually lasts 180 days to one year."

For Sgt. Maj. Daniel Emmons, the return to service was deeply emotional. He was drafted the first time around in 1969 and shipped to Vietnam where he served as a military policeman. He stayed on active duty until 1994, followed by six years in the Reserve.

Almost 40 years after he was drafted, the St. Louis native volunteered to come back more than a decade after retiring from active duty. Emmons has done classified work related to troop mobilization for nearly three years since.

"I had a feeling the kids in right now were beat up too much with mobilizations and redeployments," Emmons said. "I care a lot about what it is to be a soldier, what they go through, what younger soldiers face with their families and their deployments."

Small part of forces

Since the 9/11 attacks, 3,077 U.S. Army retirees have returned for periods of active duty, Quon said. Two returned retirees have been killed in action: Maj. Steven Hutchison, 60, of Scottsdale, Ariz, was killed in Iraq on May 13, 2009; and 1st Sgt. Jose Crisostomo, 59, of Inarajan, Guam, was killed in Afghanistan on Aug. 21, 2009. Both were killed by improvised explosive devices, according to the Defense Department.

Voluntary retiree recalls make up a small fraction of today's 539,675-member Army, but are essential because of their skills and experience, Quon said.

Anyone discharged after 20 years or more of military service, up to age 70, can apply for recall at the Army Human Resources Command website (www.hrc.army.mil), she said.

Retirees face a rigorous screening process, Quon said. "Applicants must meet our health and fitness criteria, qualify for a security clearance if need be, and we must be able to match them to a valid opening for their rank, experience and skill set," she said.

Master Sgt. Austin Asher, 62, who had spent 31 years in the Army, faced the challenge of finding an opening that fit his experience when he tried to go back in 2007. A mess sergeant, Asher's job was not a high-demand position, he said. But after two years of letter writing, the Berea, Ohio, resident got his wish.

"I'm the old man that can," Asher said this month by phone from an Army post in Washington a day after returning from Iraq, where he again worked in food services. "Would I do this again? Yes, I would."

Roadside bombs taking bigger toll in Afghanistan

By Deshakalyan Chowdhury, AFP/Getty Images

Dutch soldiers check for unexploded IEDs during a patrol in Chora valley in Afghanistan's southern Uruzgan province on Jan. 21.

By Tom Vanden Brook, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — Winter weather failed to deter insurgents from stepping up roadside bomb attacks in Afghanistan, as both blasts and casualties among U.S. and allied troops in January more than doubled from a year earlier, Pentagon data show.

Coalition troops found 727 bombs in January compared with 276 in the same month of 2009. Blasts killed 32 U.S. and allied troops and wounded 137 others, compared with 14 deaths and 64 injuries in January 2009, according to the data. These bombs are the top killer of U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

In previous years, winter was a slow season for Taliban and insurgent attacks in Afghanistan.

Over the weekend, U.S.-led forces launched the largest offensive in the eight-year war to oust the Taliban from their southern stronghold of Marjah. Coalition and Afghan troops encountered only sporadic resistance from insurgents Sunday. The biggest threat to them: hundreds of mines and roadside bombs planted by the Taliban before the offensive.

British Army Maj. Gen. Gordon Messenger said Sunday that coalition troops had found a number of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and local residents had provided tips on where others were buried.

It appears that the Taliban have been forced into relative inactivity, although in the next few days they could get their breath back," he said. "There is also the residual IED threat."

Lt. Gen. Michael Oates, director of the Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization, said in an interview that combating IEDs may be a "tougher nut to crack" in Afghanistan than in Iraq because Afghan insurgents who plant the devices are motivated more by allegiance to local power brokers than by money, as is the case in Iraq.

"The workforce is loyal to its boss," he said.

The current fighting is taking place in an area that has few roads, so troops often must leave their vehicles to patrol villages. Insurgents target those troops with bombs that detonate when stepped on.

The coalition command said one U.S. soldier and another from Britain had died in the offensive so far. Oates said the insurgents' tactics will likely result in more casualties in the "mid-term." After security is better established, residents will be more likely to provide tips on bombmakers and device locations, he said. In the meantime, Oates said troops will rely on bomb-sniffing dogs, metal detectors and surveillance of problem areas by aircraft to avoid blasts.

'Triple Nickles' recall days of segregated Army

By KRIS GONZALEZ, Fort Jackson Leader Photo credit Courtesy graphic

FORT JACKSON, S.C. -- In 1946, 18-year-old Charles Stevens enlisted in the Army to provide a better life for his wife and new baby.

He trained to be a medical administrator and was sent to Alaska for his first assignment in an all-black battalion.

The North Carolina native had been dealing with the cold for six months when one day he walked into his first sergeant's office and saw a flyer that read "Volunteer for airborne duty."

"I finished that application before I even left that office," Stevens said.

Within a month, Stevens flew to Fort Benning, Ga., to jump from the sky.

Stevens said he remembers all too well what it was like training to be a black paratrooper in a segregated Army.

"If a white Soldier completed airborne training, he got all the stuff he needed, then was assigned to a nice, big combat division or regiment," Stevens said. "When I got mine (airborne status), people wanted to tell me, 'I don't want you to have that type of thing,' because of the color of my skin. That hurt."

Despite the racial tensions, Stevens earned his parachute wings and landed at Fort Bragg, where he became a member of the 555th Parachute Infantry Battalion.

"I finally felt like I belonged to something," Stevens said as he recalled his first days serving in the all-black battalion.

The unit, commissioned in December 1943, had not seen combat during World War II. Racist leaders viewed black Soldiers as both physically and mentally unfit to fight, often assigning them to menial jobs in support of white Soldiers. But the "Triple Nickles" - before Stevens joined their ranks - had become known as "smoke jumpers" for parachuting into West Coast forests and putting out fires set by Japanese incendiary balloons.

One morning in December 1947, the Triple Nickles were ordered to march to an area designated for the 82nd Airborne Division. There, he said, they were to participate in one of the most significant milestones in military history.

"We were in battalion formation, and our battalion commander presented us to the commanding general," Stevens said. "In that formation, the Triple Nickles were deactivated."

The 555th had just become the 3rd Battalion of the 505th Parachute Infantry Brigade of the 82nd Airborne Division.

"Everybody was crying," he said. "I think we were crying for two different reasons. We were glad that segregation was leaving the Army and we were sad we were losing our Triple Nickle colors."

Maj. Gen. James Gavin, who became a legend for fighting against segregation in the Army, had ordered the 555th's integration into the elite airborne division.

It wasn't until seven months later, when President Harry Truman signed Executive Order 9981, that the black paratroopers got their full rights as American Soldiers. Executive Order 9981 established equality of treatment and opportunity in the Armed Services for people of all races, religions, or national origins.

It took about another five years for the Army to fully integrate, said Manuel Rucker, who enlisted in the Army in 1950, the same year the 555th Parachute Infantry Battalion was disbanded.

"Back in the old days, when your orders were cut, they had your name, and if you were black, the words, 'negro enlisted,' after it," Rucker said. "After we integrated, they stopped putting those words on orders, but instead used a code to describe who you were - 'one' for white and 'two' for black. The first sergeant at each company would have a roster of everybody with the codes. They weren't supposed to know our color, but they knew."

"And during Basic Training at Fort Knox," he said, "although every Soldier sat in the same classroom, at the end of the day, the white Soldiers went to one barracks and the black Soldiers went to separate barracks."

Standing 6-feet, 4-inches tall and weighing 200 pounds at 19 years old, Rucker said he didn't personally experience a great deal of overt discrimination.

"Not too many people messed with me too much," he said.

Rucker never finished BCT, he said. By the time he reached the 12th week of his 15-week cycle, he and 21 other Soldiers were pulled from training to become what are now called drill sergeants.

Rucker said he trained Soldiers of every color.

"A Soldier was a Soldier," he said.

Today, both Stevens and Rucker are members of North Carolina's Fayetteville-Fort Bragg Chapter of the 555th Parachute Infantry Association, which honors the legacy of the original Triple Nickles.

During the association's recent annual luncheon at Fort Jackson, the paratroopers had the opportunity to meet Gavin's grandson, Staff Sgt. Joseph Gavin, who is a drill sergeant for Company A, 1st Battalion, 34th Infantry Regiment here.

The former paratroopers spoke favorably about the "Jumping General," who earned his nickname for jumping alongside his troops during combat. The general's grandson spoke highly about the Triple Nickles.

"I'm proud my grandfather recognized the talents of these Soldiers and helped integrate them into the 82nd Airborne (Division)," Gavin said. "They paved the way for all Soldiers who followed them."

Veterans say 'The Hurt Locker' gets a lot right and wrong

By Jonathan Olley, Summit Entertainment

Exacting job: Jeremy Renner disarms a roadside bomb in The Hurt Locker.

Identifies with film: Sgt. 1st Class Andrew Graham, photographed at home in Fort Hood, Texas, is an EOD specialist, as depicted in The Hurt Locker.

By Joel Salcido for USA TODAY

By Gregg Zoroya, USA TODAY

So it rings true, they say, when the words "war is a drug" flash on screen in the Academy Award-nominated Iraq war movie, The Hurt Locker.

"When you put on the bomb suit, your life's really simple — don't die," says Army Sgt. 1st Class Andrew Graham, 33, an explosive ordnance disposal, or EOD, specialist who has done three tours of combat in Iraq and disarmed more bombs than he can remember.

"Your sense of awareness of what's going on around you, and how clearly you focus on something is pretty extraordinary," Graham says. "That's what's addictive."

This war-is-drug premise animates the film's lead character, an EOD team leader who finds meaning only in the mission he loves: defeating bombs that can kill him in an instant. It is part of what movie reviewers have said makes The Hurt Locker a tour de force as a contemporary vision of combat.

Not so fast, say those who know about the fight in Iraq and Afghanistan.

They may turn out for the movie in droves — PX's around the world, including war zones, report the video selling out — and the adrenaline rush of combat may indeed be addicting.

But filmmakers took enough liberties with war reality to cause those who know better to either grin and bear it or dismiss the movie altogether.

"Enjoying a good war movie after you've been there, done that, requires a bit of finesse," writes Alex Horton, 24, a former Army infantryman who served in Iraq from 2006 to 2007, in a Hurt Locker review on his blog, armyofdude.com.

"The casual moviegoer doesn't watch closely for errors in rank, patches, vernacular or procedure," he says. "A veteran is tortured. ... Filmmakers must walk a tightrope to appease both sides."

Despite scoffing at such scenes as three lead characters driving around war-torn Baghdad, circa 2004, unescorted by other troops, Horton believes director Kathryn Bigelow nails the addiction-to-combat element and the urge by some to keep returning to war. "That's why it's a watershed film of the contemporary war genre," he says.

Respect and care

Aware that combat veterans are the movie's toughest critics, journalist and screenwriter Mark Boal, who wrote the script, says the low budget of $11 million limited the lavishness of battlefield re-creations.

"Yes, we did do things for dramatic effect to tell the story, and hopefully we made those decisions respectfully and carefully," Boal says, noting that The Hurt Locker is "a film that's hopefully a work of art. It's not a documentary."

Bigelow held Hurt Locker screening fundraisers for the EOD Memorial Foundation, raising $4,500 for scholarships for bomb-disposal technicians and their families, says Jim O'Neil, executive director.

The Army, for its part, did not support the movie because there were "elements that were not in line with Army values," says Lt. Col. Gregory Bishop, a spokesman, declining to elaborate.

Interviews with combat veterans show them falling largely into two camps of critics.

There are those who forgive what they see as excesses and embellishments, because they recognize themes and images that authentically portray their combat experiences to an American public untouched by these wars.

"I think everybody should watch it and see how things really are," says Marine Lance Cpl. Nate Knowles, 23, who lost his left leg in Afghanistan to an IED (improvised explosive device) in June and declares The Hurt Locker "amazing."

And there are those who cannot forgive, who say the movie is ruined by inaccuracies, ranging from the wrong shade of uniform to a scene in which three soldiers run through Baghdad alleyways alone looking for insurgents.

"(No one) would go down an alley in Iraq by himself in 2004 at night. No one, not ever," writes Troy Steward, 40, a retired Army veteran of Afghanistan and Desert Storm, who panned the movie in his popular military blog, bouhammer.com. "I was amazed that a movie so bad could get any kind of accolades."

Emotions run high in this crowd because they see public perception shaped so dramatically by film.

Army Sgt. Derrick Ford, wheeling himself through the lobby of a outpatient residence hotel at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., paused long enough to say he had no interest in seeing The Hurt Locker. "I don't like the way Hollywood cashes in on the troops," says Ford, 22, who lost his left leg to a roadside bomb in Afghanistan last summer.

Walking on artificial limbs just across the room is Army Spec. Christopher Levi, 26, who says he can't wait to see the movie.

A trailer he glimpsed gave hints of the dark and irreverent humor soldiers express in combat, and Levi wants to see more. He described his own reaction in 2008 when a roadside explosive device in Iraq burned a hole through the armored vehicle he was riding in and then sheared off his legs above the knees.

"I looked at the gooey stumps and I looked over at (the soldier sitting next to him) and went, 'I got no legs,' " Levi recalled. "It was funny."

Any movie, he says, that can help explain the unexplainable about war is a good thing.

A few residents at the hotel suffering post-traumatic stress disorder from their combat experience said they were not ready to watch a movie graphically depicting events that led to their wounds.

Others said it helped them.

"It was a therapeutic journey for me. It allowed my mind to process experiences that occurred over there," says Army Capt. Steve Scuba, 34, a nurse who served in Iraq for 15 months from 2007 to 2008 and suffered shrapnel wounds from the explosion of a bomb packed into a parked car.

He found authentic the soldiers' language, their camaraderie, the street scenes, even the silhouettes of Iraqis in the windows as U.S. troops pass by, never certain if they are friend or foe.

"Seeing that explosion going off and seeing that (American soldier) fly through the air — I'm identifying with that guy," Scuba says.

Two worlds

The movie is a hot item for those in the field. Robert Lopez, merchandise director for the Army & Air Force Exchange Service, which operates PX's worldwide, including in Iraq and Afghanistan, says about 4,800 copies of The Hurt Locker DVD sold in two weeks, nearly the entire stock.

"This title just took off. It did far better than we expected," Lopez says. "It always surprises me that these war movies do as well as they do over there because they're literally living it day in and day out."

Graham saw a bootleg version early last year while serving as an EOD platoon sergeant in Iraq. He watched it again in a theater in Austin after coming home.

He found the movie accurately reflected the emotions of his job. When Graham served in Mosul, Iraq, in 2006, he had exactly the same assignment — the team leader who does hands-on disarming of roadside explosives — as the movie's main character. Like the team in the movie, the soldiers averaged about one bomb-related incident a day.

He liked the movie very much and in fact identified with the lead character played by Jeremy Renner to critical acclaim and a best-actor Oscar nomination.

"There's a sense of belonging when you're in combat, like this is where you belong, this is what you should be doing with your life, this is what you've trained for," Graham says.

If anything, he adds, the movie isn't graphic enough in showing the human carnage that is the aftermath of an IED explosion. As accurately depicted in The Hurt Locker, part of an EOD team's role is investigating the aftermath of these events.

"That's the worst part," he says. "You ride these emotions from being incredibly angry that this stuff happened to being repulsed."

For every Hurt Locker scene that pushes reality's edge, combat veterans find others that resonate.

Retired special forces soldier Donald Hollenbaugh, who received a Distinguished Service Cross for heroism in Iraq in 2004, dismissed one scene in which an Iraqi drives through a military roadblock unharmed during an EOD operation. "They would have killed him, no ifs, ands or buts," says Hollenbaugh, 45. But the re-creation of explosions was spot-on, he says. "You actually see the earth move," he says.

Army Capt. Jason Hansa, 35, who has served a tour in Iraq and Afghanistan, particularly identified with the lead character's uneasy transition home, standing in a grocery store aisle amid a dizzying array of cereal choices, before choosing one at random and throwing it in a cart.

"Very true to life was the disconnect he felt back home," says Hansa, who is married and the father of two boys. He saw the movie at an installation theater in South Korea, where he is stationed. "I remember going through that when I returned from Afghanistan. We'd just had a baby, and it seemed like my life was completely crazy."

'We're just human'

Army Spec. William Hampton, 30, shattered both of his legs when the armored vehicle he was riding in ran over an IED in Afghanistan last June. A soldier with him died. They were rolling out to the scene of another roadside blast in which three other soldiers were killed.

Over lunch at a restaurant near Walter Reed hospital, he recalled one scene in which two soldiers talk about the war. One has seen enough and wants to go home. The other wants to stay.

That happens, says Hampton.

"We're just human like everyone else. Some people want to go back. Some people don't want to go," he says. "They did what they said they were going to do, and that's it for them."

Hampton doesn't know how peers can get so exercised about a movie like The Hurt Locker. He watched the DVD at the outpatient residence hotel.

"We got to remember, movies are meant for our entertainment," he says. "I'd watch it again. It was entertaining."

Army Humvee May Soon Be a Relic

(AP) Army Staff Sgt. Tom Davis never saw the bomb that destroyed his hulking Humvee as he rounded a corner in Ramadi just a week into his second tour in Iraq in 2006.

Davis lost a leg and broke his back and both arms and can no longer walk or work. He'll never know whether he would have been less severely injured if he'd been in a different vehicle.

But his experience, and those of thousands of other Americans wounded in bomb-shredded Humvees in Iraq and Afghanistan in recent years, foretold what now appears to be the official demise of the hulking all-terrain vehicles that came to symbolize the U.S. military as much as the rugged Jeeps they replaced.

The Army provided no new money for the Humvee in the service's recent budget proposal. Lt. Col. Jimmie Cummings, an Army spokesman, says the 2,620 vehicles ordered from Mishawaka, Indiana-based AM General will be the last as the Army moves on to newer designs.

Unless the decision is reversed, the Humvee will end a remarkable 30-year run that extended beyond the battlefield into American popular culture.

The High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle, dubbed the Humvee by soldiers, got its start when the Army began looking to replace the latest version of the Jeep in the late 1970s.

AM General won a prototype contract in 1981 and the company, a spinoff of Jeep, created the boxy vehicle that was more than seven feet wide and made up in utility for what it lacked in aesthetics. Since 1985, AM General has produced 240,000 Humvees.

The vehicle attracted attention during the 1991 Gulf War, but not just in the war zone. Then-actor Arnold Schwarzenegger became so enamored that he persuaded AM General to make a civilian version, and it became a must-have status symbol for car lovers, until rising gas prices and the recession sent sales plummeting.

"Everybody points at a Hummer," said Eric Sitterle, who serves on the board of Hummer Club Inc., the vehicle's fan club. The group organizes off-road events all over the United States. "It's the most exciting thing you've ever been on - at three miles per hour."

Few would use the word "exciting" to describe the military Hummer.

It was developed as a light utility vehicle and not intended as an armored car, said James Atwater, assistant curator at the U.S. Army Transportation Museum in Fort Eustis, Virginia.

The lumbering, low-riding vehicles became an easy target for insurgents, who attacked U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan with increasingly powerful improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, hidden along roadsides.

A mounting death toll from IEDs - more than 1,700 in Iraq alone as of January 2010 - sparked calls for better protection for soldiers. The Army ordered armored versions of the Humvee, but "there were shortcomings when you added armor to a vehicle like this that's not designed from the ground up for that," said Atwater.

Davis said the Humvees were fine during his first deployment in 2003. "We rode in the back of the open Humvee at night because the IEDs weren't a real threat," he said.

But that began to change. The powerful IED that detonated under the passenger seat of his Humvee in 2006 hurled the vehicle two stories into the air, killing the vehicle's gunner and badly injuring Davis.

"Maybe if I'd been in a Bradley, I wouldn't have been hurt as much," said Davis, 32, a father of four.

(Oshkosh Defense)

Cummings, the Army spokesman, said the Army is moving to the larger and more heavily armored Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles, or MRAPs (left).

The Army budget released last week still includes $989 million for maintaining the existing Humvee fleet. And Atwater said he thinks the Army will still use Humvees for missions on which it is impractical to drive a massive MRAP, which has huge tires more often seen on trucks in demolition derbies.

AM General, the sole manufacturer of the Humvee, says it is talking with the Army and hopes to maintains vehicle production into 2011. Congressional representatives including Indiana Democrat Joe Donnelly, who represents the area, have pledged to try to maintain a military role for the Humvee. The Army purchases more than half the Humvees AM General produces, but the Marine Corps, Air Force and Navy also buy some.

AM General also makes the Humvee's civilian counterpart, the H2 Hummer, as a contract assembler for General Motors. Hummer sales peaked at 71,524 in 2006 but dropped to 9,046 in 2009. GM plans to sell the brand to a Chinese company.

By Associated Press Writer Carly Everson

Alcohol abuse weighs on Army

Gen. Peter Chiarelli By Paul J. Richards, AFP/Getty Images

By Gregg Zoroya, USA TODAY

The Army needs to double its staff of substance-abuse counselors to handle the soaring numbers of soldiers seeking alcohol treatment, said Gen. Peter Chiarelli, the Army's No. 2 officer.

About 300 more counselors are needed to meet the demand, cut wait times and offer evening and weekend services, Chiarelli, the Army vice chief of staff, said in an interview with USA TODAY.

Last year, 9,199 soldiers enrolled in treatment after being diagnosed with alcohol problems, a 56% increase over 2003, when the Iraq war started, according to Army records released Monday. Overall, 16,388 sought some type of counseling, data show.

In 2003, 5,873 enrolled in treatment from the 11,309 soldiers who sought counseling.

"There's no doubt in my mind that since 2001 and being involved in two wars ... that we probably have a higher incidence of alcohol abuse," Chiarelli said.

Brig. Gen. Jeffrey Horne, chief of Army human resources and policy, said "we need the nation's help" in finding more counselors. The service is currently down 20% from its authorized staffing level of 290, said Les McFarling, director of the Army Substance Abuse Program.

Last year, then-Army secretary Pete Geren asked Chiarelli to work to reduce the Army's record rate of suicide. Chiarelli said substance abuse has been identified as an issue in many of the deaths, which reached 160 confirmed and suspected cases in 2009.

McFarling said many soldiers are referred for substance-abuse counseling after an incident such as being cited by police for drunken driving. If counselors determine they do not have an alcohol-abuse problem, the soldiers are required to go through a two-day educational course instead of a formal treatment program.

Alcohol remains a much larger problem than drug abuse, making up 85% of the Army substance-abuse treatment caseload, McFarling said.

Last year, the Army started a program aimed at reducing the stigma associated with seeking help for alcohol problems. At three Army installations, soldiers can seek alcohol-abuse counseling without their commanders being notified. The program allows soldiers to receive counseling off the post and during nights and weekends.

The Army would require more counselors to expand the program throughout the service, Horne said. The Army wants to have one counselor for every 1,600 soldiers instead of the current target of one for every 2,000, he said. The officials did not give a cost estimate for the additional counselors.

"We'll have more counselors on the scene that can see more people quickly," Horne said.

No Penalty for Pregnant Soldiers in Iraq

Associated Press

A controversial policy that put pregnant soldiers in war zones at risk of discipline will be rescinded under an order from the top U.S. commander in Iraq.

Gen. Raymond Odierno has drafted a broad new policy for the U.S. forces in Iraq that will take effect Jan. 1, and that order will not include a pregnancy provision that one of his subordinate commanders enacted last month, according to the U.S. military command in Iraq.

Odierno's order comes about a week after the pregnancy policy issued by Maj. Gen. Anthony Cucolo triggered a storm of criticism. Cucolo had issued a policy that would permit the punishment of soldiers who become pregnant and their sexual partners.

The order listed a variety of offenses, and the punishments for them could range from minor discipline to a court-martial. But in a conference call with reporters earlier this week, Cucolo said he would never actually seek to jail someone over the pregnancy provision.

And he said the policy was intended to emphasize the problems created when pregnant soldiers go home and leave behind a weaker unit.

U.S. military leaders in Iraq conducted a full review of all existing orders as part of the ongoing transition in Iraq, and a new general order has been drafted. The order would consolidate several general orders from the U.S. commanders across Iraq. That policy, the military said Thursday, will not include the pregnancy provision.

Previously, the commanders have had the authority to draft their own restrictions.

New 2010 BAH Rates Impact GI Bill

By Terry Howell

The DoD released the 2010 Basic Allowance for Housing charts on December 15. This is potentially big news for veterans using the Post-​​9/​11 GI Bill because the living stipend (aka housing stipend) is directly tied to the BAH for an E-​​5 with dependents. Although some may see their GI Bill Living stipend increase by as much as 13.6 percent in 2010, the average increase will be more like 2.5 percent. Some veterans may see no increase or a possible decrease in their stipend because the rates for 43 percent of the military housing areas covered by BAH will actually drop in 2010.

Read the full article explaining the 2010 BAH rate changes.

When asked when veterans could expect to see a change to their housing stipend, a VA representative stated, “In order to maintain continuity of service, BAH rates will remain the same to begin the spring semester. Any recalculations that may occur will not happen until later in the spring.”

However, the question of how the VA will address cases where the local BAH has dropped remains unanswered.

There is a chance the VA will follow the DoD policy in such cases. The DoD has a grandfathering policy (individual rate protection) that prevents the decrease of a BAH rate as long as the servicemembers status remains unchanged. In the case of a veteran student this should mean that a current student will not see a decrease in their living stipend. Only new students or those changing their status would see the lower rate.

As always, with the Post-​​9/​11 GI Bill, there are more questions than answers.

Top military officer backs repeal of 'don't ask, don't tell'

As the Pentagon launches a year-long study on how the "don't ask, don't tell" policy can be repealed without a major upheaval, that idea isn't sitting well with one Republican senator.

By Gregg Zoroya, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — Repealing the policy against openly gay men and lesbians in the military "would be the right thing to do," the nation's top uniformed officer said Tuesday.

However, eliminating the current "don't ask, don't tell" policy will cause "some disruption in the force," Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the Senate Armed Services Committee.

"I cannot escape being troubled by the fact that we have in place a policy which forces young men and women to lie about who they are in order to defend their fellow citizens," Mullen said.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates told the panel that he "fully supports" President Obama's decision to work with Congress to end the policy.

Several committee Republicans, led by the ranking member, Sen. John McCain of Arizona, said they were disappointed with Obama's decision and supported retaining the "don't ask, don't tell" policy. Committee Chairman Carl Levin, D-Mich., praised Mullen's personal endorsement for lifting the ban as a "profile in leadership."

McCain said, "At this moment of immense hardship for our armed services, we should not be seeking to overturn the 'don't ask, don't tell' policy."

Gates told senators the military would need nearly a year to study how it would allow gay men and lesbians to serve openly.

Pentagon general counsel Jeh Johnson and Gen. Carter Ham, commander of Army forces in Europe, will lead the group studying troops' feelings about lifting the ban on gays serving openly in the military, Gates said.

Ham, an Iraq veteran, is rare among high-ranking military officers in talking about his experiences with combat stress. In November 2008, he told USA TODAY how he struggled to cope with a 2004 attack in Mosul that killed 22 people, including 14 U.S. troops.

"That there will be some disruption in the force I cannot deny," Mullen said of lifting the ban. "That there will be legal, social and perhaps even infrastructure changes to be made certainly seem plausible."

He also cautioned that military commanders worry about the current war stress on troops and their families. "We need to move forward (with changing policy on sexual orientation) in a manner that does not add to that stress."

Mullen is the first sitting chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to advocate repeal of "don't ask, don't tell," according to a statement from his office.

The policy bans openly gay people from serving in the military but also says that military officers should not ask members of the military about their sexual orientation if they are not engaging in prohibited behavior. The policy was created in 1993 after President Clinton sought to allow openly gay people to serve. Overall, records show, more than 10,900 servicemembers have been dismissed under the policy.

Mullen said allowing lesbians and gay men to serve openly is "an issue of integrity — theirs as individuals and ours as an institution. ... I also believe the great young men and women of our military can and would accommodate such a change."

MRAP can take fight off-road

By Tom Vanden Brook, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — The latest armored vehicles aimed at shielding troops from roadside bombs are so maneuverable off roads that they give U.S. troops an offensive advantage as they prepare for major operations against insurgents this spring, a Marine general running the vehicle program says.

The speed and maneuverability of the new Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles transform it "from simply a means of transportation to an offensive capability," Brig. Gen. Michael Brogan said.

There are about 300 of the all-terrain MRAPs being used in combat, Brogan said. Military leaders seek 6,000 more of the vehicles to protect troops from improvised explosive devices (IEDs). Last year, the number of IEDs planted by insurgents more than doubled to nearly 8,000.

The ability to travel off-road is critical in Afghanistan. The country is about the size of Texas and has rugged terrain and few paved routes. Standard MRAP trucks, which have a high center of gravity and weigh more than 30,000 pounds, have been confined mostly to the roads that do exist.

Lack of mobility makes MRAPs and other heavier vehicles easier to target for insurgents, Brogan says. Better mobility was a key requirement for the new truck.

"This vehicle offers the ability that the baseline MRAPs didn't, namely the ability to get off-road and maneuver," Brogan said. "That makes the targeting exponentially more difficult for the bad guys."

The vehicle enables troops to stay unpredictable and confound insurgents, says Dakota Wood, a military analyst with the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.

"As long as you have to travel on roads, you make yourself an easier target," Wood said. "If you broaden your options on where you can go, that's good for you."

MRAPs have proved far safer in bomb blasts in Afghanistan than any other vehicle. Troops are "tens of times" more likely to be wounded or killed in other vehicles in an IED attack, according to the Pentagon's Joint IED Defeat Organization.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates told a Senate panel Tuesday that IEDs are "absolutely the worst killer and maimer of our troops." He said MRAPs made "a huge difference" in limiting the carnage from IEDs.

Starting this month, 500 to 1,000 new MRAPs will begin arriving per month in Afghanistan, Gates told senators.

There are more than 70,000 U.S. servicemembers in Afghanistan, and about 100,000 will be there later this year as part of the escalation ordered by President Obama. There may be the need for 4,000 more MRAPs, Brogan said. The final number will be determined by the Pentagon and combat commanders.

It takes about 14 hours for Oshkosh Defense, the truck's maker, to produce the vehicle on its assembly lines in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, Brogan said. The company is about 300 trucks ahead of schedule, he said.

It's an expensive effort. The trucks cost about $1 million apiece. Demand for them requires that each is flown in by cargo jet. It costs more than $150,000 to fly each one aboard an Air Force C-17 cargo jet or $140,000 aboard a commercial flight. By spring, the Pentagon hopes to have enough of the trucks in Afghanistan to begin sending them by ship, a slower but cheaper alternative to flying, Brogan said.

Mullen says repealing gay military ban is 'right thing to do'

By Manuel Balce Ceneta, AP

Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, says eliminating the "don't ask, don't tell" policy will cause "some disruption" in the force.

By Gregg Zoroya, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — Repealing the military's policy banning the service of gays and lesbians in the military "would be the right thing to do," the nation's top military officer told a Senate committee Tuesday.

However, eliminating the "don't ask, don't tell" policy will cause "some disruption" in the force, Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee.

"I cannot escape being troubled by the fact that we have in place a policy which forces young men and women to lie about who they are in order to defend their fellow citizens," Mullen said.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates told the committee that the military would need a year to study how it would allow gay men and lesbians to serve openly in the ranks.

Gates has tapped his chief legal adviser and a four-star Army general to lead a landmark study on how the military would lift its ban on openly gay servicemembers. Pentagon General Counsel Jeh Johnson and Gen. Carter Ham, who leads Army forces in Europe, will conduct the year-long assessment.

Gates' announcement marks a measured step toward President Obama's goal of eliminating the military's policy against gays, which is based on a 1993 law.

"That there will be some disruption in the force I cannot deny," Mullen said. "That there will be legal, social and perhaps even infrastructure changes to be made certainly seem plausible."

He also cautioned that military commanders worry about the current war stress on troops and their families. "We need to move forward (with changing policy on sexual orientation) in a manner that does not add to that stress."

Mullen's statement was the strongest yet from the Pentagon on this volatile issue, although he stressed that he was "speaking for myself and myself only."

The policy bans openly gay people from serving in the military but also says that military officers should not ask members of the military about their sexual orientation if they are not engaging in prohibited behavior.

Mullen said allowing homosexuals to serve openly is "an issue of integrity — theirs as individuals and ours as an institution. … I also believe the great young men and women of our military can and would accommodate such a change."

Mullen said he has served with gay people in the military since 1968 and that many worry every day that they will be exposed and kicked out the military.

He said, however, that the military needs time to determine how to make this change.

Shift seen on role of military 'mentors'

By Orlin Wagner, AP

By Tom Vanden Brook, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Robert Gates promised "dramatic changes" in how the Pentagon uses retired officers to advise the military, as he faced scathing criticism at a Senate committee Tuesday.

Gates ordered a Pentagonwide review by Deputy Defense Secretary William Lynn of the programs in December after a USA TODAY investigation found that retired officers could make far more money as "senior mentors" than they did as active-duty officers. In addition, those officers can collect pensions and work for contractors who sell to the Pentagon.

Gates said the changes are coming although Lynn's review is not done, adding that the mentors' experience is valued by the military.

Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., a Marine veteran in Vietnam, blasted the program. A senior mentor is being overpaid "basically to do what he's supposed to do anyway. And that is to fulfill the stewardship for having spent a career in the military," he said.

A lack of oversight means the program can be abused, Webb said. "They're hired as independent contractors so they're not subject to government ethics rules," he said. "They operate outside public scrutiny."

The programs, which can pay retired officers hundreds of dollars an hour, do not represent "the military I grew up in, and not the one you grew up in, admiral," Webb told Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Addressing Gates, Webb, a former Navy secretary in the Reagan administration, said: "And it's not the Pentagon I served in the 1980s."

If the Pentagon needs to save money, Webb said, it should trim funds from the mentor programs before cutting back on the number of troops.

Gates and Mullen appeared before the Senate Armed Services Committee to testify about the Obama administration's Pentagon budget proposal.

USA TODAY first reported on the programs in November, revealing that at least 158 retired officers have advised the military on various issues, including how to run military exercises. Of those mentors, 80% had ties to defense firms trying to sell products and services to the same military branches the retirees are advising. The revelations have led to three separate investigations: Lynn's, another by the Pentagon inspector general that was ordered by Congress, and a third by a Senate subcommittee led by Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo.

McCaskill said Tuesday that she shared Webb's concerns. What USA TODAY found

Gang Bangers In the US Military

Some scary stuff.

Mullen says repealing gay military ban is 'right thing to do'

Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, says eliminating the "don't ask, don't tell" policy will cause "some disruption" in the force.

By Gregg Zoroya, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — Repealing the military's policy banning the service of gays and lesbians in the military "would be the right thing to do," the nation's top military officer told a Senate committee Tuesday.

However, eliminating the "don't ask, don't tell" policy will cause "some disruption" in the force, Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee.

"I cannot escape being troubled by the fact that we have in place a policy which forces young men and women to lie about who they are in order to defend their fellow citizens," Mullen said.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates told the committee that the military would need a year to study how it would allow gay men and lesbians to serve openly in the ranks.

Gates has tapped his chief legal adviser and a four-star Army general to lead a landmark study on how the military would lift its ban on openly gay servicemembers. Pentagon General Counsel Jeh Johnson and Gen. Carter Ham, who leads Army forces in Europe, will conduct the year-long assessment.

Gates' announcement marks a measured step toward President Obama's goal of eliminating the military's policy against gays, which is based on a 1993 law.

"That there will be some disruption in the force I cannot deny," Mullen said. "That there will be legal, social and perhaps even infrastructure changes to be made certainly seem plausible."

He also cautioned that military commanders worry about the current war stress on troops and their families. "We need to move forward (with changing policy on sexual orientation) in a manner that does not add to that stress."

Mullen's statement was the strongest yet from the Pentagon on this volatile issue, although he stressed that he was "speaking for myself and myself only."

The policy bans openly gay people from serving in the military but also says that military officers should not ask members of the military about their sexual orientation if they are not engaging in prohibited behavior.

Mullen said allowing homosexuals to serve openly is "an issue of integrity — theirs as individuals and ours as an institution. … I also believe the great young men and women of our military can and would accommodate such a change."

Mullen said he has served with gay people in the military since 1968 and that many worry every day that they will be exposed and kicked out the military.

He said, however, that the military needs time to determine how to make this change.

Sen. Carl Levin, chairman of the committee, said in opening statements that he believed "ending the policy would improve our military's capability and reflect our commitment to equal opportunity."

"I did not find the arguments used to justify "don't ask, don't tell" convincing when it took effect in 1993, and they are less so now," he said.

Levin cited the latest Gallup Poll that said 69% of Americans support the right of gays' to serve. He said the majority of troops already believe they serve alongside gay or lesbian colleagues and one study estimated that 66,000 gays and lesbians are serving today "forced to hide their orientation and at constant risk of losing the chance to serve."

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., the ranking committee Republican, said he didn't think the policy should be overturned "at this moment of immense hardship for our armed service."

"I want to make one thing perfectly clear upfront: I am enormously proud of, and thankful for, every American who chooses to put on the uniform of our nation and serve at this time of war," he said.

McCain ackowledged the policy hasn't been "ideal" but said it has been effective.

"It has helped to balance a potentially disruptive tension between the desires of a minority and the broader interests of our all-volunteer force," he said.

McCain said saying he is "deeply disappointed," calling the assessment "clearly biased" because it presumes the law should be changed. He said he wanted to hear more from the military on this issue and both he and Mullen said they wanted to do whatever possible to limit any change's effects on combat troops in both Afghanistan and Iraq.

Contributing: Carolyn Pesce in McLean, Va.

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