from CNN Hillary Clinton supports mandatory funding for VA

November 15, 2007
Clinton appeals to veterans in new radio spot
The ad says Clinton has been a leader in fighting for health care for military personnel.
COLUMBIA, South Carolina (CNN) — As Sen. Hillary Clinton prepares for Thursday’s Democratic presidential debate in Nevada, she launched her third radio ad in South Carolina, an important early voting state in the march to the Democratic Party’s nomination.

The ad, which focuses on health care for military veterans, comes one day after former Sen. John Edwards became the first Democrat of the 2008 cycle to run a television ad in the Palmetto State.

Clinton’s radio spot says the New York senator has been "for decades, a steadfast champion of our troops," and promises that she "will fully fund the VA so that our veterans are guaranteed the health care and mental health care they need for life."

Clinton is a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, a fact she routinely mentions on the campaign trail.

Both Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama have run radio ads in this state targeting African-American voters specifically. But South Carolina also boasts a significant population of military servicemen and veterans, and Clinton's ad is the first of this cycle in South Carolina to reach out specifically to that constituency.

The radio spot also boasts that Clinton expanded health coverage for members of the National Guard and Army Reserve, saying, "Hillary expanded the TRICARE program to ensure that all Guard and Reserve members and their families have health benefits."

– CNN South Carolina Producer Peter Hamby

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Colonel Dan Ceduskey sends news that AF sprayed AO in Florida 1962-1970

Air Force Admits Agent Orange Spraying In Florida In 1962-70

By Barbara T. Dreyfuss

http://www.vva.org/veteran/1007/ao_spraying.html


In the 1960s, Ernie Rivers taught Navy flight students at the Pensacola Naval Air Station how to live off the land if their plane was downed. He was the officer in charge of the survival unit, overseeing 30 to 35 instructors, who taught more than 100 men a week how to survive with only a compass, map, and a hunting knife. Every week groups of students would camp for three days, using different sites on Eglin Air Force Base Reservation in Florida.

When the winds and clouds were right, Rivers and his men would watch planes pass overhead, clouds of spray coming from them. Several times he and his men were sprayed. “I’d say, ‘At least we don’t have to use bug repellant,’” he noted, laughing, during an interview. That was a big plus, they thought, for them as well as Army Rangers who were also training out in the bayous of the Florida panhandle, where mosquitoes and other bugs could make life miserable.

Rivers and the students thought they were watching the Air Force spray DDT to kill mosquitoes. What was actually being sprayed, he said, was Agent Orange. Documents show that gallons of the defoliants Agent Orange, Agent Purple, and Agent White were sprayed at Eglin. In fact, according to officials overseeing the program, the Air Force sprayed a test area on the base with more dioxin than any similar area in Vietnam. The fact that Agent Orange was sprayed in Florida for eight years was not widely known then or even today. Only in the last several years has the documentation on the spraying been made publicly available by Alvin Young, an Air Force scientist for more than 15 years at Eglin. Young oversaw a huge research project evaluating how massive spraying of Agent Orange at the Florida air force base affected its soil, water, plants, fish, and animals.

In Vietnam during the war, a typical mission disseminated 14.8 kg of Agent Orange per hectare, according to Young. Most of the Agent Orange in Vietnam was intercepted by forest canopy, and some of it was destroyed by the sunlight. But at Eglin, where the spray rate was 876 kg per hectare, the trees and bushes already had been removed from the spray area. Young recently wrote that each hectare at Eglin received at least 1,300 times more dioxin than a hectare sprayed in Vietnam. The spraying went on from 1962 to 1970. The test area was three kilometers square.

Eglin was one of several key military installations involved with Operation Ranch Hand and posters plastering its buildings made that clear. Pictures of Smokey the Bear, the unofficial Operation Ranch Hand mascot, proclaimed, “Only you can prevent a forest.” Eglin had responsibility for training the aircrews, fitting aircraft with spray equipment, and testing the spray systems and spray patterns.

Spray systems were tested in an area divided into four grids. From June 1962 through June 1970 fixed-wing airplanes, helicopters or jet aircraft sprayed massive amounts of defoliants on the area. During that time 75,000 liters of Agent Orange, 61,200 liters of Agent Purple, 15,800 liters of Agent White, and 16,600 liters of Agent Blue rained onto the base.

There were 155,000 kg sprayed of the active ingredients in the herbicides. The Air Force estimated that the amount of dioxin sprayed was between 5.6 and eight pounds, an enormous amount since it is one of the more toxic chemicals, even in minute amounts. Because of its toxicity, dioxin is generally measured in parts per trillion.

In the late 1960s, Air Force officials became concerned about the ramifications of spraying dioxin in massive amounts stateside. “After repetitive applications, personnel involved with the test program expressed concern about potential ecological and environmental hazards that might be associated with continuance of these test programs,” Young wrote later in an Air Force technical report.

Officials overseeing the test program knew how toxic Agent Orange was but seemed unconcerned, so long as it was used in Vietnam. James Clary, who worked at Eglin and helped design the spray system for herbicides, wrote in a 1988 letter to then-Sen. Tom Daschle: “When we [military scientists] initiated the herbicide program in the 1960s, we were aware of the potential for damage due to dioxin contamination in the herbicide. We were even aware that the ‘military’ formulation had a higher dioxin concentration than the ‘civilian’ version due to the lower cost and speed of manufacture. However, because the material was to be used on the ‘enemy,’ none of us were overly concerned.”

But when it started to be sprayed in enormous quantities on an American base, some Air Force officials became concerned and wanted to study the impact of the spraying. Their concern doesn’t seem to have been motivated only by worry about ecological and public health issues.

In fact, it seems to have been in part triggered by worry that the government could be liable for damages caused by the spraying. Internal Air Force memos show that the government was being sued by farmers who believed their crops had been decimated by the spraying. The military was interested in disproving the farmers’ claims, by studying if Agent Orange traveled in the air when sprayed and how it affected area plants and animals.

A memo from an Air Force chemical engineer in June 1968 explained that personnel were investigating a neutron activation tracer to see if it could determine whether defoliants traveled when sprayed and, if so, where they went. “The Air Force is vitally concerned with potential hazards to local flora, fauna, and marine life, both on and off the Eglin Reservation that might be created by defoliant testing,” he wrote. “This concern is primarily the result of pending legal action against the government by cotton farmers of a surrounding county claiming damage to their cotton fields due to previous defoliant testing at Eglin.”

To study the ramifications of the spraying, the Air Force in 1968 created a research unit at Eglin of more than a dozen Air University graduates with doctorates in such areas as chemistry, microbiology, plant science, and zoology. They worked for at least four years, and six of the scientists, including Alvin Young who became lead investigator, stayed at Eglin for the entire 15 years of the study.

In what would be considered a conflict of interest today, they were assisted by contractors from Dow Chemical Company, one of the manufacturers of the herbicides. Dow, which was ultimately sued over Agent Orange, had a significant stake in whether or not the chemicals were found to cause serious harm to plants, animals, or people. A U.S. Air Force Academy research director asked that scientists be brought from Dow, claiming they were the “best qualified to recognize and access the ecological effects caused by these materials.”

The first study of the impact of Agent Orange at Eglin began in late summer of 1969, when six five-foot cores of dirt were randomly taken from the test area. They indicated “significant concentrations of herbicides” and scientists found toxins leaching up to three feet into the soil,” Young wrote. In 1974, “relatively high” levels of dioxin, 1,500 parts per trillion, were found in the test area.

An ecological survey, conducted from 1973 to 1978, found dioxin in nine animal species on the reservation, including mice, rats, three types of birds, and three types of fish. Spiders, crickets, and grubs also tested positive. In the fifteen years of study at Eglin, dioxin was found in about one-third of the different species studied. The levels of the toxin were about the same as that found at the time in the soil.

In 1984, fourteen years after Agent Orange was last sprayed at Eglin, Young’s team concluded that about one percent of the dioxin remained on the test area. While some of it was destroyed by sunlight, Young acknowledged that “wind and water erosion” also led to its disappearance from the site, but he did not study where it might have traveled to in the surrounding area.

The spray area was not the only place at Eglin affected by the herbicides. There were storage, disposal, and loading sites as well, and the Air Force concluded in 1992 there were nine locations associated with Agent Orange at the base, in addition to the spray areas. These included the Mullet Creek Drum Disposal Site, the Hardstand 7 disposal area, Receiver Landfill, Upper Memorial Lake, three sites at Lower Memorial Lake and Field No. 2 Drum Disposal, and Field No. 2 Helicopter Loading Area.

Mullet Creek Drum Disposal Site had more than 660 drums in it when the Air Force removed them in 1988. And 120 cubic yards of debris also were taken out.
Another disposal site, Upper Memorial Lake Landfill, which is about half a mile from the Eglin Main Base residential area next to Upper Memorial Lake, and a quarter mile south of the runways, had an estimated 150 drums used for herbicides buried there.

On the west side of the north-south runway was another disposal site, Hardstand 7, which also was a 40-meter circular concrete and asphalt aircraft parking and loading area. It included a 15-foot-deep pit near the center of the concrete pad where herbicide drums were stored and transferred to aircraft. In 1980, dioxin-contaminated soil was removed from Hardstand 7 and temporarily stored at the Receiver Area Landfill, and then was spread over the spray area. At least as late as 1992, the Air Force found contamination at the Upper Memorial Lake Landfill and at the Hardstand 7 site.

An additional 260 feet of contaminated soil also was stored, briefly, at Hardfill 01. And there was an alternate Agent Orange loading area at Hardstand 8. In addition, helicopters were loaded with herbicides at Field No. 2.

Eglin Air Force Base is huge and largely undeveloped, and the test and storage areas are in a rural area in the southeast section of the reservation, but they don’t exist in a vacuum. Creeks flow through the area, ponds are nearby, residential areas abut some of the sites. The area is about three miles north of Choctawhatchee Bay and eight miles east of Niceville, Florida.

Eglin Main Base employs about 15,000 workers today and the airfield an additional 6,000. Much of the base is open to the general public for recreation. Ponds near the disposal and spray areas drain into creeks that flow into nearby bayous. Mullet, Trout, and Basin Creek receive runoff surface water from the test area and disposal sites and drain into Choctawhatchee Bay.

For many years, the Air Force did little to contain wind and water erosion of the contaminated sites. A 1981 memo advised Eglin’s commanding general that he only had to follow “minimal recommendations” to prevent erosion, even in the southern half of the spray areas, which was particularly susceptible to erosion. He was advised mainly to limit off-road vehicles.

“I feel that when these minimal recommendations are placed into effect, the Air Force will have made a significant and prudent move toward preventing the unwanted future movement of TCCD-contaminated soil, particularly the movement toward Choctawhatchee Bay,” Major General John Ord, then commander of the Air Force Systems Command’s Aerospace Medical Division at Brooks Air Force Base, wrote.

But in fact, dioxin traveled into ponds and streams, was carried by the wind, was absorbed by fish, and found its way into areas used for recreational fishing and swimming. In 1978, Young’s group studied dioxin levels at Hardstand 7 and found concentrations as high as 275 parts per billion and contamination up to a third of that down into the dirt one meter deep. They found it had migrated as far downstream as Tom’s Pond, concluding that much of the contamination occurred before a dike was built. Still, it took until 1985 for the site to be closed off with a chain-link fence and locked gates, and signs posted to prevent trespassing and fishing.

And it took four more years after the Air Force’s 1992 assessment that there was still contamination at the site for efforts at embankment stabilization, drum excavation, and drain pit excavation. In 2001, the Air Force installed three erosion control structures to reduce erosion around the hardstand and to minimize storm water run-off into Hardstand Pond. In addition, an asphalt cap was installed over contaminated areas of Handstand 7, and the existing storm water pipe was checked for blockage.

Similarly, at Upper Memorial Lake Landfill, soil samples taken in 1992 indicated trace levels of dioxin. The next year Eglin officials collected eight soil samples at the lake itself and found evidence of dioxin in it, as well as in fish caught there. But it was not until 1998 that erosion control and other actions were taken.

Because water from the spray areas and drum disposal site flows into Mullet, Trout, and Basin Creeks, which flow into Choctawhatchee Bay, the Air Force tested for dioxins, furans, and other contaminants in the creeks in the 1990s and found them in the surface water, sediment, and fish.

By 1998 enough concern had been raised about the health impact of the Agent Orange spraying and disposal sites that the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry agreed to do a public-health assessment of Eglin Air Force Base. They concluded, in a report released in 2003, that although there were contaminated land and water areas in the Eglin spray areas, the amount of contamination was very low and the use of the areas by the public was so low, there was little danger posed to the public.

But, what the study didn’t assess was the health risk to the Air Force personnel who flew the planes or loaded the drums onto them, or stored them at the disposal site, or later removed them. And it didn’t look at whether any of Ernie Rivers’ flight students or the Army Rangers, who were living off the land, drinking its rivers, and sleeping on earth dampened by Agent Orange were put at risk.


copies only for the purpose of educating veterans, I make NO money off this blog, this is for educational purposes only. I ask that fair use rules apply in copying this material because of veterans they may not see this material elsewhere, thank you

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Veterans Administration pushes back against the CBS News reports on Suicides

Statement on CBS News Stories Aired November 13 and 14

November 14, 2007

The VA is striking back at CBS News for their reporting on veterans and suicide.

The first CBS report is here... http://www.
vawatchdog.org/07/nf07/nfNOV07/nf111407-10.htm
The second is here... http://www.vaw
atchdog.org/07/nf07/nfNOV07/nf111507-10.htm

But, the VA's arguments, against CBS and for their own advocacy, do NOT hold water.

VA's self-congratulatory press release (below) speaks of all they have done in the area of suicide prevention. Truth be told, VA has virtually ignored the problem of veterans and suicide until this year.

In the wake of the Walter Reed scandal and the ensuing stories about problems in VA healthcare, the VA added more suicide counselors.

Their suicide hotline did not get started until late July of this year.

Now, regarding their complaints about CBS.

The VA release states, "VA is concerned that the data CBS presented in its broadcast was not reviewed by independent scientists as most legitimate academic studies are."

This is completely wrong. CBS did not do or claim to do an academic study...they merely reviewed statistical data. And, to make sure they had it right, CBS sent that statistical data to a statistician outside of CBS for independent review as shown in the first report. This statement by the VA is deliberately misleading.

The VA also states, "We are reviewing the limited information that CBS has made available to us..."

Let's make something clear. VA could have had this same data had they gone out to the individual states and asked for it.

VA did NOT do that because they didn't want to know about the suicide problem because then they would have had to address it...as they have been forced to do now.

Once again, the VA is trying to back away from their mistakes. They should be ashamed of using the old "kill the messenger" tactic instead of taking this damning information to heart and doing something about it.

And, to Acting VA Secretary Gordon Mansfield who had ample time to try to do something about the suicide problem during his tenure at the VA: "Mr. Secretary, you are a disgrace. A disgrace for not taking responsibility for the shortcomings of your agency and a disgrace for trying to lay them off on someone else."

For more about veterans and suicide, use the VA Watchdog search engine...click here... http://www.yourv
abenefits.org/sessearch.php?q=suicide&op=and

VA press release here... http://www.


WASHINGTON – Every suicide in America is a tragedy. VA cares about each veteran and their physical and mental health. We have more than 10,000 mental health workers who have dedicated themselves to helping veterans cope with the issues and crises they face. We operate a veteran suicide hotline which is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, to help any veteran in need. That number is 1-800-273-TALK (8255). VA has suicide prevention coordinators at each of our VA Medical Centers.


VA strongly encourages veterans who may be considering harming themselves in some way to seek treatment from VA or other health care providers in their communities. Our people are there to help during a crisis. VA's care and treatment works and is available for veterans with PTSD, depression and other mental health problems.

VA operates the largest mental health care system in the country, spending $3 billion each year on its mental health programs, and has taken several measures to increase its mental health services in recent years. Those include new programs bringing mental health into primary care, intensified rehabilitation for those with serious mental illnesses, and expanded programs for homeless veterans and those with substance abuse problems.

VA is concerned that the data CBS presented in its broadcast was not reviewed by independent scientists as most legitimate academic studies are. Regardless of this questionable journalistic tactic, VA takes the problem of suicide very seriously and wants veterans to come to VA for help if they are under stress or in crisis.

VA is constantly reviewing scientific findings, both from our own research and that of others, to guide us in improving care for veterans. We are reviewing the limited information that CBS has made available to us and are accelerating our own research to ensure we are doing everything possible to improve the information available to the medical and research communities about suicides in veterans as a means of better understanding how to prevent these tragedies.



Larry Scotts opinion and statement concerning the VA;s own statement

The VA is striking back at CBS News for their reporting on veterans and suicide.

The first CBS report is here... http://www.
vawatchdog.org/07/nf07/nfNOV07/nf111407-10.htm
The second is here... http://www.vaw
atchdog.org/07/nf07/nfNOV07/nf111507-10.htm

But, the VA's arguments, against CBS and for their own advocacy, do NOT hold water.

VA's self-congratulatory press release (below) speaks of all they have done in the area of suicide prevention. Truth be told, VA has virtually ignored the problem of veterans and suicide until this year.

In the wake of the Walter Reed scandal and the ensuing stories about problems in VA healthcare, the VA added more suicide counselors.

Their suicide hotline did not get started until late July of this year.

Now, regarding their complaints about CBS.

The VA release states, "VA is concerned that the data CBS presented in its broadcast was not reviewed by independent scientists as most legitimate academic studies are."

This is completely wrong. CBS did not do or claim to do an academic study...they merely reviewed statistical data. And, to make sure they had it right, CBS sent that statistical data to a statistician outside of CBS for independent review as shown in the first report. This statement by the VA is deliberately misleading.

The VA also states, "We are reviewing the limited information that CBS has made available to us..."

Let's make something clear. VA could have had this same data had they gone out to the individual states and asked for it.

VA did NOT do that because they didn't want to know about the suicide problem because then they would have had to address it...as they have been forced to do now.

Once again, the VA is trying to back away from their mistakes. They should be ashamed of using the old "kill the messenger" tactic instead of taking this damning information to heart and doing something about it.

And, to Acting VA Secretary Gordon Mansfield who had ample time to try to do something about the suicide problem during his tenure at the VA: "Mr. Secretary, you are a disgrace. A disgrace for not taking responsibility for the shortcomings of your agency and a disgrace for trying to lay them off on someone else."

For more about veterans and suicide, use the VA Watchdog search engine...click here... http://www.yourv
abenefits.org/sessearch.php?q=suicide&op=and

VA press release here... http://www.


This is Larry Scott's opinion, one which I wholeheartedly concur, if the VA wanted the data they could have been collecting along the years, instead they chose to play "ostrich" with this issue, if they kept their heads in the sand, they could ignore it forever, and since the amount of suicides are quickly rising faster than the death toll from combat in Iraq and Afghanistan combined. Which of course will make the resentment of the American public rise proportionally, it's already near a 70% disapproval rating how much higher can it go?

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Welcome from Rick Noriega to Netroot nations in Austin in 2008

In an exciting event for online activists and bloggers and politicians the decision has been made to hold the annual convention in Austin Texas July 17-20, 2008.

On behalf of all Texans, Rick Noriega congratulates the City of Austin as he shares in their excitement as host of the 2008 Netroots Nation convention. The Netroots community has not only proven that it can change the conventional wisdom of politics, but that it can change the conventional practices of politics as well.

We have the opportunity to enact meaningful change in the makeup of the U.S. Senate in 2008 and Rick is proud to be the candidate to put Texas in play. Our grassroots movement in Texas has garnered Democracy for America's first Senate endorsement, the support of John Kerry and Wesley Clark, the backing of the Texas netroots and Blue America communities, as well as contributions from over 2,400 online donors-- the most donors of any Senate challenger on ActBlue.

Welcome to Austin, Netroots! Rick and our entire campaign team look forward to meeting many of you in person next July 17-20.

-Sue Schechter, Campaign Manager
Rick Noriega for U.S. Senate

This welcome is posted on Daily Kos this evening by the Rick Noriega for Senate Campaign Rick as been endorsed by my favorite General, Wesley Clark for the Democratic primary and general election, as a veteran himself, Rick can bring real national security credentials and veterans issues to the senate for America.

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Harvards DR Linda Blimes speaks out on wars true costs

In this interview Linda Blimes explains her rationale for the estimated costs of long term veterans healthcare and compensation to come in the years ahead caused by the Iraq War Linda Blimes Interview

Hidden Costs of Iraq War
Story aired: Thursday, November 15, 2007

Besides the daily and monthly cost of the war, there are billions, even trillions of dollars, the US will have to spend after the war is over. So says Linda Bilmes, who teaches budgeting and public finance at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. Bilmes points to the long term health care needs of veterans, disability payments, military equipment repair, and the interest payments on the money the country is borrowing to pay for the war.

Here is a link to her recent congressional testimony Congressional Testimony of Linda Blimes

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CBS turns over some ugly rocks on veterans suicides

This is a very hard story for me to report, as it hits to close to home for me, I have attempted suicide a few times, been hospitalized twice for it. I was lucky and received some decent treatment, many of the men described in this CBS report either never reached out for treatment or were just more successful in neding their lives than I was. Katie Couric Reports it is a hrad video for me to watch and the VA and DOD should be ashamed of themselves for not compliling this data, and letting a news organizatio do it for them.

When is our Congress going to demand better? WHEN?

CBS News’ investigative unit wanted the numbers, so it submitted a Freedom of Information Act request to the Department of Defense asking for the numbers of suicides among all service members for the past 12 years.

Four months later, they sent CBS News a document, showing that between 1995 and 2007, there were almost 2,200 suicides. That’s 188 last year alone. But these numbers included only “active duty” soldiers.

CBS News went to the Department of Veterans Affairs, where Dr. Ira Katz is head of mental health.

"There is no epidemic in suicide in the VA, but suicide is a major problem," he said.

Why hasn't the VA done a national study seeking national data on how many veterans have committed suicide in this country?

"That research is ongoing,” he said.

So CBS News did an investigation - asking all 50 states for their suicide data, based on death records, for veterans and non-veterans, dating back to 1995. Forty-five states sent what turned out to be a mountain of information.

And what it revealed was stunning.

In 2005, for example, in just those 45 states, there were at least 6,256 suicides among those who served in the armed forces. That’s 120 each and every week, in just one year.

Dr. Steve Rathburn is the acting head of the biostatistics department at the University of Georgia. CBS News asked him to run a detailed analysis of the raw numbers that we obtained from state authorities for 2004 and 2005.

It found that veterans were more than twice as likely to commit suicide in 2005 than non-vets. (Veterans committed suicide at the rate of between 18.7 to 20.8 per 100,000, compared to other Americans, who did so at the rate of 8.9 per 100,000.)

One age group stood out. Veterans aged 20 through 24, those who have served during the war on terror. They had the highest suicide rate among all veterans, estimated between two and four times higher than civilians the same age. (The suicide rate for non-veterans is 8.3 per 100,000, while the rate for veterans was found to be between 22.9 and 31.9 per 100,000.)

"Wow! Those are devastating," said Paul Sullivan, a former VA analyst who is now an advocate for veterans rights from the group Veterans For Common Sense.

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178 Iraq war soldiers become citizens

In one of the fastest ways to become a naturalized citizen of this great nation, 178 immigrants took the route to American citizenship via service in the military in a war zone, which automatically makes them eligible for the valued status of being an American. this article in Newsweek describes the ceremony at Balad Air Force Base, Iraq on Veterans Day.

A very appropraite day for serving soldiers to be given their citizenship, after going to combat for this nation they have earned their citizenship. I for one SALUTE them all. But as one soldier was quoted "now he can vote for either Hillary or Barack Obama for President in 2008" which warms my heart not everyone in the military is going to vote republican in 2008, I for one hope more soldiers and veterans learn the voting records of their elected officials and see who really supports the "troops" the Democratic office holders average 80% for VA legislation to help veternas and their families while Republican elected officials average a 30% record on issues for veterans.

Veterans need to learn to vote with their wallets rather than just perceived ideals, that they hear in phony campaign promises...ala "A Promise Made Is A Promise Kept" we have seen that was just a campaign slogan.

Chertoff’s keynote speech echoed similar sentiments during the ceremony. “I can’t think of people who are more deserving of citizenship then those who are fighting to defend the country even before they are citizens,” he said. “They understand that freedoms don’t come free, and they are willing to make sacrifices even before they reap the benefits of citizenship.” He called this the most meaningful ceremony he had ever presided over. And proving that there was no end to his generosity for the day, he noted that it was a fine-looking group—fulsome praise from someone who has attended ceremonies that included beauties like actress Charlize Theron. The newly naturalized servicemen—from 53 different countries, including Cuba and China—had a variety of reasons for applying for citizenship. Spc. Glenda Manayon said she had applied so she would be able to bring her father’s side of the family to the U.S. from the Philippines, where she was born. It will also mean that she will have an easier time getting a federal job once her tour here is done. Iraq, where she has been stationed for the past five months, is her first deployment since she enlisted in 2005.

After the ceremony there was cake served at the base’s dining facility, which is known as the “D-Fac.” Pfc. Willex Saintril (who said “no way” did he ever think he’d end up in Iraq) said he felt very good about being an American citizen. Originally from Haiti, he said today’s swearing-in was another story he looked forward to bringing home from the field. The best part about being a U.S. citizen? “I’m able to vote next year for Obama,” he said. “Or maybe Hillary.” Seeing as the next American president will have a lot to do with where and for how long Saintril is stationed next, that’s a pretty good reason to celebrate.

To link to original article click here Newsweek

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