Returning to Vietnam

Returning to Vietnam you might be interested in this article from the new January issue of Newsmax, a leading independent news site and magazine.

From the following article it appears we are becoming our fathers, many of us seem to have the urge to return to where many of our nightmares were created, my step father seemed to be a more calm man after he made a trip to Germany in the 70s, he had bombed much of it during WW2, Schweinfurt, Dresden, he flew the Berlin Airlift, but yes he had PTSD and no one can tell me differently. I have lived with it for to many decades and I watched him live with it, the trip showed him the people of Germany rebuilt their lives and time had moved on, and it was okay for him to do the same thing.

He was never able to watch the movie "Memphis Belle" past the first flak scene, that plane was in Dale's squadron, he knew the men and the officers. I won't share his words for some of them, they knew what he thought. One thing about Dale he was never shy about telling anyone what he thought about them.

I hope you enjoy the article:

Battleground tourism, especially to ’Nam, has become a vibrant business. Vets find the experience powerful and, sometimes, healing. CBS’ Peter Greenberg reports for Newsmax magazine.
Peter Greenberg, CBS News’ travel editor, is the author of numerous books under the “Travel Detective” banner. The most recent is Tough Times, Great Travels. He also hosts a weekly syndicated radio program heard on many stations around the country.

Jim doyle was just six months out of high school in Fresno, Calif., when he was drafted in 1968. By January 1969 he was in Vietnam, fighting with the 1st Infantry Division northwest of Saigon.

“I had never been out of the United States,” he recalls. Within days, he became familiar with terms such as trapezoid, iron triangle, and fishhook — all military IDs for hot-fire zones, or no-man’s corridors between the Cambodian border and Vietnam.

A year later, he was shipped back out. “I left with mixed emotions,” Doyle says, adding, “I was leaving all my friends behind. But I swore one day I would come back.”

When he did go back, as part of a 16-day trip in 1995, he was overcome with emotions, including shame and relief.

“We spent so much blood, energy, and treasure trying to blow this place up, and I didn’t know any better,” he says. As his plane was flying in, “I had this yin and yang of thrill and terror at the same time. But as soon as we landed in Hanoi, as soon as my foot hit the pavement, I felt this enormous weight come off my shoulders.” He’s been back 18 times since.

Like thousands of other veterans before him from other wars in other places, Doyle has become a battleground tourist.

These men and women, sons and daughters, fathers and mothers, wives and husbands, don’t travel just to relive the past but also to remember, reconcile, and forgive. Family members who accompany the veterans discover, often for the first time, what their loved ones went through and what they continue to cope with. Throughout history, veterans have frequented locations where battles, both great and small, have been fought.

War nearly obliterated Gettysburg, Pearl Harbor, Iwo Jima, and Normandy, but they now thrive on tourism.

By far the fastest-growing beneficiary of battlefield tourism is Vietnam, as increasing numbers of U.S. veterans go on more well-organized tours throughout the country than just about any other region in the world.

During the first six months of 2009, 225,094 Americans — mostly veterans and their families — visited Vietnam. U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., has made several visits to Hanoi, where, as a U.S. Navy pilot, he languished in Hoa Lo Prison for 5 1/2 years after a Russian-made surface-to-air missile hit his jet in 1967.

Twelve years after his release, McCain flew back to Vietnam, returning to Hanoi on the 10th anniversary of the war’s end. He visited the lake where he was shot down, saw the monument the Vietnamese erected to mark the spot, even had tea with his hosts in a room next to the cell where he was kept.

He’s made a number of visits back to the country — taking his wife and son on some trips.

After World War II, soldiers who had fought in Europe and Asia had a desire to return to areas in which they had been stationed.

They wanted to show their families new locales and say goodbye to fallen comrades.

Not surprisingly, visitors to battlefields are interested in seeing history made “real.” For example, it’s one thing to read about the bombings and destruction of World War II, but seeing the ruins of a town made the war a reality to those who were not involved in the fighting.

For Doyle, the turning point remains his first trip back to Vietnam.

“We had information about a mass grave site in one of the provinces,” he recalls. “We all went there. We found the landmarks. It was the size of a football field. The ground was depressed. The air was very still. The heat was just oppressive.

“We all said prayers. I turned to a Vietnamese gentleman and he told me this is a good omen — the spirits of the dead finally released. I was overcome.”

Suddenly, a whirlwind came in, picked up leaves and scattered them. Doyle took it as a sign of the beginning of a new mission. Doyle and four other vets formed the Vietnam Veterans Peace Initiative, which works to build and fund clinics and schools in Vietnam.

Some vets return to their former battleground only once; they seek closure, find it, and never travel there again. Others, such as Doyle and Roger Helle, continue to return.

Helle did three tours in Vietnam, between 1965 and 1970, as a Marine. He was wounded three times, the final time, nearly fatally. During a particularly fierce firefight, a grenade went off at his feet. He was shot, and then bayonetted. Barely alive, he was taken by helicopter to Da Nang, then flown to Japan, where he was hospitalized for nine months. But he was among the lucky — many of his colleagues never made it.

“I relived Vietnam every night of my life with survivor’s guilt,” he says. “Why did I live and my friends get killed?

“I was nearly an alcoholic. I almost lost my wife. When America left Vietnam in 1975, I went into even more of a depression. I had left Vietnam, but it had never left me.”

So, 23 years after he landed in Saigon, he returned to Vietnam. It became the first of 20 trips Helle would make. He considers the experience the key to his true survival, redemption, and clarity. “I was shocked when I went back,” Helle says. “The Vietnamese were so happy to see us. So many years had gone by, and I didn’t know what to expect.”

Helle took his wife, son, and daughter along. “An old woman came up to me, grabbed my hand, and together we both started crying. It was a pivotal moment.”

Later, on a subsequent trip to help build medical clinics throughout the country, he met with a former Viet Cong colonel and told him that “Christ had taken away the wounds of my experience and allowed me to tell you that I love you.” The colonel replied: “I’ve never had anyone tell me that before. We’re not enemies. We are friends.”

In 20 years, Helle has escorted 1,200 volunteers to Vietnam with the group Vets With A Mission.

Bert Key, now 64, was in the 1st Marine Division in Chu Lai and did two tours between February 1966 and May 1968. He enlisted at age 18 from Portland, Ore., as a lance corporal and left as a staff sergeant. Forty years later, in March 2008, he took his wife there.

“When I joined the Marines, I was young and didn’t know much about the world outside Oregon,” he says. “And none of us knew anything about Vietnam other than that I was headed there.”

Once in Vietnam, the contradictions confronted him almost immediately. “Every time I got up in the air in a helicopter, I kept thinking, It’s so beautiful down there. I remember flying along the coast in a chopper thinking how amazing the place would be if peace ever broke out.”

But back then, there was a lot more to think about — mainly staying alive.

“I was consumed with painful irony all the time I was there,” he says. “It was always about the missed bullets. And those that hit. I saw people who died who shouldn’t have died, and people who lived who shouldn’t have lived, just because the bullet missed by inches.

“As a result, I couldn’t shake the unanswered question of why did I make it back and my buddies didn’t, so sooner or later, I had to go back.

“It was hard for me to explain. I couldn’t talk about it to people who weren’t there. I couldn’t even talk about it with my wife. I was dealing with demons.”

In 2004, Key met another Vietnam vet while working with the Army reserves in Afghanistan. “When we get home,” he told the other officer, “we gotta go back there.”

“Why?” the other veteran said.

“Because we owe it to the guys we left back there. We owe it to their spirit.” The two committed to the trip then and there.

Key connected with Global Spectrum in Virginia for a 25-day tour of Vietnam. “We saw everything,” he says. “In fact, I saw more of the country in 25 days than I saw in the 27 months that I had been on duty there.”

Key’s tour group of 16 included a set of brothers — one was a retired two-star general. They had just been told their father’s remains (from 1964) had been located.

“They were going for closure,” says Key.

When the group landed in Vietnam, Key hired a cab and an interpreter in Da Nang.

“It was surreal,” he says. “It was 93 degrees, 98 percent humidity. That’s how I knew I was back. But I got to walk the beach I landed on in 1966.

“I could remember running ashore just to find a palm tree to hide behind.”

On this most recent trip, however, he spied a little thatched hutch restaurant in a small fishing village.

“I walked over and saw a woman standing in front,” he says. “I was telling her I came ashore there in 1966. She remembered when the Marines landed there. She was only 8 years old then. Forty years later, she gave me a hug.

“It was indicative that Vietnam has gotten back to the business of living,” he says. “I came looking for all the pockmarked bomb holes. They’re all gone.” He dug down and filled a gallon plastic bag with sand and gave it to some of his fellow travelers.

“These tours aren’t for everyone,” says Julie Kink, who went to Vietnam for the first time with Military Historical Tours to retrace the steps of her brother, who died there 40 years ago.

On July 21, 1969, he was with the 9th Cavalry when his lightweight observation chopper was blown out of the sky. Two crew members died instantly. Kink’s brother was thrown from the helicopter. He lived for 12 days before dying.

“I was the youngest of four, and I had just turned 8 years old,” she remembers. “He was only 19. And my family didn’t talk about it.”

But many years later, Kink felt she needed not only to talk about it but also to experience it.

It took three years of searching just to find people who had crossed paths with her brother, and then to fine-tune the information.

“I wanted to put all the pieces together. I needed to go there,” she says. “I had to be there, not just for my brother, but for many others . . . for the other families that will never go there.”

She took along the names of 300 others killed in action. “During quiet times on the bus going through the country, I just read over the names and said them to myself in a time of peace,” she says. “It sounds kind of corny, but it’s something I had to do.”

It was a healing experience, she says. “I felt so welcome in Vietnam. And I just kept saying those names to myself. Throughout my search to learn about my brother, I just felt it was where I was supposed to be.”

TOP PLACES TO VISIT WHEN YOU’RE IN VIETNAM
Vietnam continues to grow in popularity as a destination, with better infrastructure and improved customer service. It doesn’t hurt that the dollar remains strong in major centers such as Ho Chi Minh City, Saigon, Hoi An, Halong Bay, Da Nang, and Hue. Some highlights:

• The JW Marriott Hotel Hanoi is scheduled to open in 2012, adjacent to the city’s new national convention center, with four restaurants and 450 rooms. A JW Marriott in Da Nang is scheduled to open in 2013. Marriott has two properties in Ho Chi Minh City.

• In Ho Chi Minh City, the big tourist sites are Dong Khoi Street for people watching (right), shops, cafes, Notre Dame Cathedral (left), the old post office, Reunification Palace, and Ben Thanh Market — the city’s oldest and largest.

• Binh Tay Market is a less touristy version of a market and a great place to grab a bowl of noodles. For great dining, check out Quan An Ngon open-air restaurant, filled with locals.

• In Hanoi, visit the Old Quarter, Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum, the Hanoi Opera House, the National Museum of Vietnamese History, and military sites like Hoa Lo Prison (known as the dreaded “Hanoi Hilton”), and the John McCain monument at Truc Bach Lake.

• Hue is a beautiful city with French architecture and cuisine. Much of it was destroyed, but it still has historic pagodas, temples, and royal tombs monuments that place it on the UNESCO World Heritage list. One of the must-see sites is the tomb of Tu Doc, a miniature royal palace that more than 3,000 laborers built in 1864.

• Da Nang is a major port city on the coast of the South China Sea. The only five-star resort now is the Furama Resort Danang, which plans to expand. Marriott is planning a property here in 2013. Raffles Da Nang is proposed to open in 2011 with about 150 hotel suites and 15 private residential villas for sale. Hyatt Regency and Spa Danang unveiled designs for a China Beach hotel that will resemble a traditional Vietnamese village. — P.G.

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Va. veteran guilty of false claims

Va. veteran guilty of false claims

A veterans group alerted authorities to a Norfolk man's false claims about his military honors.

By Mike Gangloff | The Roanoke Times

Even as he pleaded guilty to inflating his military record, Thomas James Barnhart insisted he'd received a Purple Heart.

"I was given a Purple Heart with no paperwork in Vietnam, so it was as if I had made up the award myself," Barnhart, 58, said Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Roanoke.

But Assistant U.S. Attorney Jake Jacobsen said Barnhart, who lives in the Norfolk area, didn't stop with one Purple Heart. In paperwork filed when he transferred from the Navy to the Coast Guard, then in applications for disability benefits, Barnhart claimed an increasing array of honors. Ultimately he said he'd been a Navy SEAL, earned five Purple Hearts -- each supposedly marking a combat wound -- Bronze and Silver stars for valor, and more.

Barnhart's case echoed that of Randall Moneymaker, who in March 2008 was convicted of federal fraud and theft charges linked to false claims of combat missions and wounds that gained him a job as an Army recruiter and veterans disability benefits.

Jacobsen, who had prosecuted Moneymaker, said Barnhart also improperly sought benefits. In 1991 and 2005, Barnhart told Veterans Affairs interviewers tales of combat missions and a pilot dying in his arms. He said he'd been nominated for the Medal of Honor, the highest award for valor.

All of that was bogus, Jacobsen said.

The prosecutor agreed that Barnhart was in the Navy from 1969 to 1979 and the Coast Guard until 1990.

But investigation showed only that Barnhart earned a medal for offshore duty during the Vietnam War. There was no record of combat or combat awards.

Barnhart pleaded guilty to violating federal Stolen Valor legislation by falsely claiming to have been awarded medals. He also pleaded guilty to a felony embezzlement charge tied to $13,923 in disability payments for supposed post-traumatic stress disorder.

In a short statement, Barnhart said he'd given the wrong reasons for why he suffered from PTSD, but seemed to defend the diagnosis itself.

Judge James Turk accepted Barnhart's guilty pleas and noted that his plea agreement said he would repay the disability payments along with whatever fines and prison term might be imposed. He scheduled sentencing for April 8.

After the hearing, Jacobsen, who served with the U.S. Army Reserve in Iraq, said military veterans, like fishermen, are prone to exaggeration. But falsifying service records for financial gain is "just galling," Jacobsen said.

So is claiming false honors during wartime, he added.

"You've got the real sailors, soldiers and airmen out there putting their lives on the line every day," Jacobsen said.

He said authorities were alerted to Barnhart's false claims by the veterans group AMVETS. Mary and Chuck Schantag, who run the group's ReportStolenValor.org Web site, could not be contacted Wednesday.

Doug Sterner, a Vietnam veteran from Colorado who was a leading advocate for the 2005 Stolen Valor legislation, said Barnhart's case shows the need for Congress to push the military to keep better records of medals such as Purple Hearts.

"There are literally tens of thousands of people who were given awards that never made it to paperwork," Sterner said.
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The sad part of this entire affair is the man had an honorable military career, he then chose to dishonor it by making false claims of medals awarded that never were, of performing duties he never performed. The Navy has a problem with sailors claiming to be the ultimate Navy combat person a "Seal" the Army has the problem with soldiers claiming to be "rangers" or "special forces/green berets" soldiers that spent 20 years or more of honorable service make up "whoppers" about "rambo style adventures" and spicing up their career, but then they turn it criminal by putting these lies to paper and asking for veterans compensation for PTSD using these made up adventures, claiming lost paperwork, fallen friends (found from known names of fallen soldiers on stories posted on the internet or found in magazines) hoping or knowing that the VA will not dig deep enough into the sham story and approve compensation payments.

This is fraud and it should aand is being prosecuted as such. I find it distasteful to even have to address these issues, the words "Duty, Honor and Country" are not just words most military personnel live their lives by these words, so to find scam artists abusing our lifestyle by these type of actions, it burns to the core.

Many veterans claim that these veterans are stealing from other veterans and the money they gain by making these flase claims is depriving a veterans from getting their benefits, which is also a complete lie. I don't know which lie is worse, if a veteran makes a claim to the veterans Administration and the claim is deemed to be service connected and a percentage is set of how disabled the veteran is and the award is made. No veteran is deprived of benefits because of these "frauds" much like the Social Security Disability if an award is made the checks are mailed, if the VA funds run low then the VA secretary will go to Congress and say I need this much money to pay compensation forthie rest of this year and this is how much we are going to need next year to pay compensation benefits, the benefits have nothing to do with the VA health care side of the VA, no programs have money taken away from them to pay comp claims, veterans are not stealing from other veterans, they ARE committing fraud against all US taxpayers.

Bottom line though as galling as these stories are frauds in the VA system is still the smallest of all government programs that offer compensation, there is less than 2% fraud in the VA system overall, medicare, food stamps, unemployment programs etc all have higher fraud rates than does the VA system. Fraud is dispicable regardless of whom does it, but there is just something a little more disgusting about military veterans doing it, especially retirees who spent a career defending this nation, that they dishonor it by these wild claims of heroics. The do great damage to those who do live by "Duty, Honor and Country".

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Changing Attitudes, misperceptions?

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I for one am thankful to CBS for doing these interviews, but like many attempts before them, like Bob Woodruffs attempt with Secretary James Nicholson who was one of the Secretary of the VA during President Bush's Administration, who claimed all of the new veterans were flocking to the VA medical centers for dental appointments, these interviews are just more cluelessness and attempts by chair sitters, to just get thru the interviews without addressing the sore of the problem.

A process that denies veterans and their families the benefits they deserve and have earned due to a medical condition caused by their military service. The process now entails a veteran making a compensation claim and the VA Regional Office denies it within 6 months to a year and then the veteran files an appeal to the Board of Veteran Appeals (BVA) which can then take up to four years to get the hearing and an judgement from the Judge, which then sends the claims file back to the Regional Office for the percentage to be determined and the award letter sent out with the back payment which this can take between four to six months after the Judge makes his decision.

Then if the veteran feels the award percentage is to low, they then have to file another notice of disagreement within one year and the appeal then goes back to the BVA which entails another 2-4 year wait and another hearing and the Judge will either remand it and tell the regional Office to get more information or another C&P exam from a doctor to tell the Judge exactly what the condition of the veteran now, and another few years will pass and soon the veteran has a decade involved in an attempt to get the proper award they feel they deserve.

Are all of the claims proper, no some claims are outrageous and the veteran sometimes expects percentages that are not justified, or some will ask for back pay to the 1960s or 1970s to the date of the incident that caused their PTSD, which is not justified. But no one has ever told the veteran that this can NOT happen and they can NOT be paid prior to the date when they filed a disability claim.

There are many veterans that once they retire from their civilian jobs and hear from their friends that they are getting 3,000 a month from the VA because they told the VA they have PTSD from Vietnam, some see a way to increase their retirement lifestyle by making claims for PTSD now and are filling the VA with claims of this type as they see a easy way to get some tac free money, the problem with these type of claims is that the veteran does NOT have PTSD and the VA will catch them as they go thru the claims process, it is not just file a claim and get a check.

The process to determine if a veteran does have PTSD can take months of evaluations, testing and interviews before a diagnosis is even made, then they have to be able to provide a stressor, in other words the date, location and the names of the people present when the life threatening incident took place and then the VA claims office will research it thru the military records to verify the incident did take place.

Not all veterans will be rated at 100% disabled either nor will they be entitled to the 100% disabled compensation rate, which is about 2900 a month right now.

The CBS episode states there are approximately 3 million veterans are getting compensation checks now out of the 25 million veterans that are still living. Not all veterans are getting checks for being disabled by military service, nor do they all use the VA hospital system for health care, the last numbers I have seen show about 5.5 million veterans enrolled in VA health care.

I was not impressed by Amanda Carpenters article in the Washington Times about Veterans Health care either Veterans' benefits entangled in red tape

Leading Democrats like to hold up the Veterans Benefits Administration as an example of how well government can provide health care. But veterans who deal with the complex federal bureaucracy have invented an unhappy refrain to describe the VBA: "Deny, deny until you die."

With this one paragraph she has poisoned the well so to speak, the VBA is not veterans "health care" that is handled by the VHA or the Veterans HealthCare Administration, the VBA is the claims side of the VA. The VA is actually 2 different entities one side presents all of the health care, doctors, nurses, clinics and hospitals and that is the VHA, she never addresses that issue in her article at all, she only talks about the claims side, and I have never heard any democrat or anyone else for that matter make any claims about the great job that the VBA is doing, because they don't doa good job, they do a miserable job of administering benefits to this nations veterans. They should be ashamed of them selves, paying and taking bonuses, while veterans and their families wait, wait and wait for the "PROMISE" to be kept.

This was the letter I wrote to Amanda Carpenter, in response to her article

Do facts matter? The VA is made up of two entities, the VHA is the Veterans Health Care, that includes hospitals, clinics and the doctors and nurses, and then there is the VBA which is veterans benefits administration which you have twisted together in your story rather than seperate.

Tonight CBS will be talking about the VBA which is benefits and the million claims backlog which has nothing to do with health care. The fact that the term deny deny, delay, delay until they die comes from the benefits side of VA or the VBA and not the VHA or the actual health care of the VA which as a 100% disabled veteran I have been getting care from them since 1997 when they did a triple bypass on me as a veteran working at the Post Office, I was NOT even service connected yet, bit back then any veteran could get health care and they charged my insurance company Blue Cross and Blue Shield for my care and they were paid.

Since I gave been disabled and granted service connection now the VA supplies all of my healthcare at no cost to me or my insurance companies. However when I became disabled Social Security processed my disability claim in 4 months Oct 2002 - March 2003 the VA took until June 2009 to grant my claim for coronary artery disease (CAD) and hypertension more than 6 and half years later and both agencies were working off the same medical records all provided by the VA Hospital.

I get great healthcare from the VA they just can't process claims worth a hoot, and that is a major point your article missed, was it accidental or was it done on purpose?

Will she correct her article to show the difference between benefits and health care, I doubt it, it doesn't fit the "Moonie agenda" to bash health care reform.

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60 Minutes exposes the VA hamster wheel

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At Fort Hood, Reaching Out to Soldiers at Risk

At Fort Hood, Reaching Out to Soldiers at Risk

By JAMES DAO
Published: December 23, 2009

FORT HOOD, Tex. — The day after a gunman killed 13 people here last month, Lt. Gen. Robert W. Cone, the post’s commander, fired off an e-mail message to an unusual audience: local advocates for disaffected soldiers, deserters and war resisters. “I am told you may be able to help me understand where some of the gaps are in our system,” he wrote.

Last week, those advocates put General Cone’s offer to a test. A specialist who had deserted last year wanted to turn himself in. Would the general help the soldier, who has post-traumatic stress disorder, get care?

The general said yes.

“I’ve never seen anything like this,” said James Branum, a lawyer representing the specialist, Eric Jasinski. “It is very unusual for the commanding general to get involved.”

For years, Fort Hood has been an emblem of an overstretched military, with long deployments and combat-related stress contributing to rising numbers of suicides, divorces, spousal abuse and crime, mental health experts say.

Now, after the Nov. 5 shootings, the post is trying to show that it has another side, one that can care for its frailest and most battle-weary soldiers.

For the last month, the Pentagon has dispatched scores of psychologists, therapists and chaplains to counsel soldiers and their families, and bolster the post’s chronically understaffed mental health network. It has overseen the creation of a new system of trauma counseling. And it has pledged to speed the hiring of dozens of permanent new mental health specialists.

But the stepped-up efforts, while welcomed even by critics of the Army’s record in dealing with combat-related stress, are also seen as a test of its resolve to break with the past. Making change stick remains a challenge not just for Fort Hood, but the entire Army, as it struggles to improve care for its rising tide of deployment-strained soldiers.

Already, many of the therapists newly dispatched here have left; when all are gone, the post will need at least 40 more, General Cone said. Over all, the Army is short about 800 behavioral health specialists, Pentagon officials say.

Even more daunting will be fighting the ostracism and stigma faced by many soldiers who admit problems.

Although most of his commanders support their troubled soldiers, the general said, “Occasionally what you get is a leader who fails.”

In Specialist Jasinski’s case, one of his commanding officers told the soldier’s mother recently that he did not believe Specialist Jasinski had P.T.S.D., Mr. Branum and the mother said. Since then, doctors have checked the specialist into Fort Hood’s mental ward, concerned that he was suicidal.

Getting soldiers to use Fort Hood’s expanding array of support services — most of which opened not long before Nov. 5 — can be difficult. Many soldiers remain unaware of the family therapy and round-the-clock chaplain counseling in a “spiritual fitness center,” a chaplain said.

A three-week soldier “reset” program uses cranial massage, yoga and acupuncture to alleviate the hyper-vigilance that accompanies the stress disorder, but the program is limited to 16 soldiers at a time.

And General Cone, a West Point graduate who took command here in late September, has maintained a policy started by his predecessor that requires commanders to let their units go home by 3 p.m. on Thursdays and prohibits weekend training, unless he approves it. But complaints abound about extended hours and duties that require soldiers to bring work home.

It is too soon to say whether more soldiers are taking advantage of Fort Hood’s expanded services. But several said the programs helped them cope with the shootings.

“There are a lot of things the Army did to get us through this,” said Lt. Col. Pete Andrysiak, commander of the 20th Engineering Battalion. The battalion, which leaves for Afghanistan early next year, lost more soldiers, four, in last month’s rampage than any other unit.

Specialist Jasinski, 23, who enlisted after high school in 2005, spent 15 months in Diyala Province north of Baghdad. The experience changed him, his family said. A friend was killed; another lost a limb. While serving in an intelligence unit, he said, he collected data used in airstrikes that killed many Iraqis, perhaps including civilians.

After returning home in late 2007, he struggled with depression, excessive drinking and bouts of anger and crying. A doctor told him he had P.T.S.D. and, records show, prescribed antidepressants. Still, he thought he could make it to February 2009, when he was eligible for an honorable discharge.

But in the fall of 2008, Specialist Jasinski learned that the Army had involuntarily extended his tour, scheduling his unit to return to Iraq in 2009. And despite his having the stress disorder, the Army expected him to go.

On the day he was to return to Fort Hood from leave last December, he spent 14 hours in his parents’ living room staring out a window and muttering, “I’d rather die than go back.” His parents told him to stay.

“It’s not about Eric being a coward,” said his mother, Laura Barrett, 46, a counselor’s assistant at a high school in Jonesboro, Ark. “He’s a strong man. And he was intelligent enough to know he could not do it again. He would hurt himself. He might hurt someone else.”

This November, after he spent a year stacking inventory at a big box store, his parents urged him to return to Fort Hood, and he agreed. “The stress of being away without leave and not knowing if I was going to be picked up was an extreme mental drain, every day,” Specialist Jasinski said in a recent interview.

Officials at Fort Hood declined to discuss his case.

Dr. Adam Borah, chief of the resilience and restoration center at the post’s Carl R. Darnall Army Medical Center, said soldiers with P.T.S.D. are occasionally deployed when their illness seems under control. But some people are deployed because the disorder is not spotted.

“There are still holes in the system,” he said.

General Cone has helped other troubled soldiers, as well as Specialist Jasinski, said Chuck Luther, the founder of an advocacy group, Disposable Warriors. But the general is to deploy to Iraq in March, leaving behind his deputy to oversee Fort Hood for a year. Mr. Luther and other advocates worry that mental health programs will suffer.

General Cone insisted that would not happen. He noted that by the time he leaves, 85 percent of Fort Hood’s soldiers would be home from war, the highest percentage in years. “It happens at a good time for us because, frankly, we need that kind of positive environment,” he said.


This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: December 25, 2009
An article on Thursday about mental health services for soldiers at Fort Hood, Tex., in the wake of killings there misstated the given name of a soldier with post-traumatic stress disorder who deserted the post last year. He is Specialist Eric Jasinski, not Chris.

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I SALUTE LTG Cone for his leadership on getting help for his troops, and I am sure he will monitor from overseas what is happening on "his base" he may be deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan but he will remain the Commander of Fort Hood, his deputy will be in charge but he won't "command" and that is what many people do not understand, while General Cone will not be physically present on Fort Hood he is still the "Commander" of Fort Hood, the deputy in charge if he is good will do only what the Commanding General wants him to do, and if he has doubts about what the Commander wants then it would behoove him and his career to either get on the phone or computer and find out what the Commander wants, it is just that simple. The military is not that hard to figure out, if you are dealing with people that understand the "Command" is exactly that the Commander can go by the "book" if he wants to it is there for guidance, but to actually command means it is "your decision" on what happens, to many military officers confuse what the term to "command" means, and they are the ones who should never be given a command.

Command is a lonely place, it is your call on what you do at times sometimes the Commander makes the right choice and sometimes they make the wrong choice, and history remembers them that way. Custer will always be remembered for failing in such a big way, Patton will always be remembered for his command of tank divisions he was the best, it was his interactions with people that got him in trouble.

I like LTG Cone and I hope he is on the short list of those being considred for his 4th star, I would think he would make a great Chief of Staff of the Army in the next decade.

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INVESTIGATION: Veteran's Battle for Benefits

INVESTIGATION: Veteran's Battle for Benefits

For seven months CBS 6 has investigated the harsh reality more than one million Veterans face everyday. Many are having the hardest of times battling for their benefits they feel their owed after they put their lives on the line for their country.

Chauncey Robinson who you met in September has been battling the Veteran's Adminstration at all levels for 17 years and continues to get no where with his case. If you recall he was an Army private during the Gulf War. An assault inside his barracks left him with a permanent heart condition. He has extensive medical documents that ties that assault to his heart condition but insists the V.A. keeps delaying his case.

In our intial report back in September both the N.Y. Regional Office of Veteran's Affairs and the U.S. Department of Veteran's Affairs only released statements to CBS 6 regarding Chauncey's case. While CBS 6 offered to drive down to New York City for a one on one interview, this time around they agreed to talk but only by phone.

Diana Rubens the V.A.'s Associate Deputy Under Secretary for Field Operations admits that there is plenty of room for improvement inside their system. She says changes have been made to the process but when CBS 6 e-mailed them later asking what those changes have been, they never responded.

Since Chauncey has been unable to get anywhere with his case, we decided to invite him in on our interview with Diana Rubens. Chauncey asked specific questions about his case in which Rubens couldn't answer and asked that he submit his questions in writing. Not getting anywhere his 17 years of frustration came out. "Why is the Regional Office not taking accountability for their administrative error. Don't sit there and tell me that this is on me! It's on that office!

CBS 6 was only granted 15 minutes for the interview. When our time was up we asked for more time for Chauncey but were declined. The Press Person Sue Hopkins stayed behind. That's when Chauncey spoke again. "How in the world can you say you're trying to help me! 17 years! How, How How! Do you know how I feel right now. You don't care about me at all. There's no compassion there maam. I'm sorry but that's the way I feel!"

Many Veterans say their call for help hasn't been answered by local leaders as well even though they answered the call for duty. So CBS 6 made a call to Senator Kirsten Gillibrands office. The Senator agreed to speak with us via satellite from her Washington D.C. office. Our first question was about Chauncey and when he might finally get an answer. "I will place calls to the VA and I will find out what the status of his case is. We'll talk to him today" says Senator Gillibrand.

Senator Gillibrand's office did call Chauncey. Her office also says they are waiting for a call back from the VA so they can walk through his case line by line with them".

Sue Frasier has been battling for her benefits for more than 34 years. We introduced you to her back in September. She too has medical records that ties PCB water and air contamination on the base she served in the 1970's to her many diseases. Since our investigation nothing has changed on her case either. "There are one million cases in the backlog, one million. It's about chronically underfunding the VA. It's always about not enough resources, caseworkers and not enough people to answer the phones" says Senator Gillibrand.

Which is why she says her colleagues in Washington are working to change that.

"One of the bills we're actually debating right now on the Senate Floor is the VA bill. There's money put in that bill to help with the backlog. Money set aside specifically for hiring people and getting the backlog reduced on a timely basis" says Senator Gillibrand. Gillibrand adds that any Veteran battling for their benefits should call her office if they need help.

Both Chauncey Robinson and Sue Frasier aren't so sure that will work but one thing they do know for sure. They're not going away and neither are the one million veterans caught up in the backlog of claims.

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I see that Congress has given the money to the VA to hire almost 2000 new claims processors, the problem with that is it takes almost 2-3 years before they are trained to the point of being able to adjudicate the claims, the CFR 38 is huge and it takes a long time to learn what is needed to approve or deny claims according to the VA rules. Sue Frasiers claim deals with toxic exposures and Chauncey's is 17 years old I don't know if his circumstances are similar to mine where I got my PTSD service connected to a robbery and attempted murder at Fort Wainwright Alaska back in Feb 1975 and my cardiologists showed how the early onset of cardiac disease was secondary to my SC PTSD. With the VA the doctors need to play connect the dots and show exactly how the PTSD is related to the cardiac symptoms. I think that with Chauncey trying to get back pay to the Gulf War, that is one of the reasons the VARO is denying the claim, 17 years of back pay is roughly 425,000 dollars if his PTSD is 100% and he is trying to get the cardiac secondary to PTSD then that would be at a level the VA calls SMC S a difference of about 300 a month and for 17 years that would be a difference of 61,200 dollars approximately, a lot of it depends on if Chauncey is service connected for PTSD from the assault in the barracks, if not, then he has a lot of problems.

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An Officer and a Creative Man

An Officer and a Creative Man

By MARK MOYAR
Published: December 19, 2009
Quantico, Va.


Leadership Survey Responses AS President Obama and his advisers planned their new approach to the Afghan war, the quality of Afghanistan’s security forces received unprecedented scrutiny, and rightly so. Far less attention, however, has been paid to the quality of American troops there. Of course, American forces don’t demand bribes from civilians at gunpoint or go absent for days, as Afghans have often done. But they face serious issues of their own, demanding prompt action.

The American corporals and privates who traverse the Afghan countryside today are not at issue. They risk life and limb every day, with little self-pity. Despite the strains of successive combat deployments, they keep re-enlisting at high rates.

The problems lie, rather, in the leadership ranks. Although many Army and Marine officers in Afghanistan are performing well, a significant portion are not demonstrating the vital leadership attributes of creativity, flexibility and initiative. In 2008, to better pinpoint these deficits, I surveyed 131 Army and Marine officers who had served in counterinsurgency operations in Iraq or Afghanistan or both, asking them each 42 questions about leadership in their services.

The results were striking. Many respondents said that field commanders relied too much on methods that worked in another place at another time but often did not work well now. Officers at higher levels are stifling the initiative of junior officers through micromanagement and policies to reduce risk. Onerous requirements for armored vehicles on patrols, for instance, are preventing the quick action needed for effective counterinsurgency. Of the Army veterans I surveyed, only 28 percent said that their service encouraged them to take risks, while a shocking 41 percent said that the Army discouraged it.

The climate of risk aversion begins in American society at large, which puts a higher premium on minimizing casualties than on defeating the enemy. It continues with American politicians and other elites who focus on the abuses at Abu Ghraib and Haditha in Iraq, but rarely point out the far more numerous instances of American valor.

It doesn’t need to be this way in the Army. After all, the Marine Corps has succeeded in inducing its officers to operate independently. More than twice as many Marine survey respondents as Army respondents — 58 percent — said that their service encouraged risk-taking. Marine culture is different because the career Marine officers who shape it are, on average, less risk-averse than career Army officers.

Researchers have found that the leadership ranks of big organizations are dominated by either “sensing-judging” or “intuitive thinking” personality types. Those in the former category rely primarily on the five senses to tell them about the world; they prefer structure and standardization, doing things by the book and maintaining tight control.

In the late 20th century, the Army gravitated toward standardization, as peacetime militaries often do, and consequently rewarded the sensing-judging officers who are now the Army’s generals and colonels. But this personality type functions less well in activities that change frequently or demand regular risk-taking, like technological development or counterinsurgency. Organizations that thrive under such conditions are most often led by people with intuitive-thinking personalities. These people are quick to identify the need for change and to solve problems by venturing outside the box.

Today, the Army has more intuitive-thinking people among its lieutenants and captains than at the upper levels. Too many of these junior officers continue to leave the service out of disillusionment with its rigidity and risk aversion. To their credit, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and the Army chief of staff, Gen. George Casey, have been trying to fix this problem, directing promotion boards to value creativity and initiative. But more drastic treatment is required.

The military should incorporate personality test results into military personnel files, and promotion boards should be required to select higher percentages of those who fall into the intuitive-thinking group. Many highly successful businesses factor personality testing into promotion decisions; the military, with far more at stake, should be no less savvy.

More immediately, our generals should repeatedly visit the colonels who command brigades and battalions to see if they are encouraging subordinates to innovate and take risks. Commanders who refuse to stop micromanaging should be relieved. The change may be disruptive and painful, but in the long run it will save lives and shorten wars.

Mark Moyar is a professor of national security affairs at Marine Corps University and the author of “A Question of Command: Counterinsurgency From the Civil War to Iraq.”
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I served in another era innovation was encouraged by the Army, the old ways did not work, it was especially encouraged after Vietnam. The training programs seemed to be based on tactics that were not seen as effective in the mid 70s. We wer getting new weapons and new weapon systems, we are also transforming from a draft army to an all volunteer Army. Supposedly the troops were more motivated to learn. Going outside the "box was encouraged" instead of being told how to do it step by step, we were given an objective and told to "do it" and as the junior officers and NCOs we would be held accountable for the success of the mission.

You had leeway to try new tactics, to forget the manuals, you just better be prepared to explain it, when it went wrong, and sometimes things went wrong in every which way they could, but that also was useful we learned what was not possible or feasible and what the true cost would be if reality was on the line. ( do not order 150 yards of rope to scale down cliffs in the dark when it is 200 yards to the bottom, it gets ugly quick).

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