Military Resistance 12C26
“Ten Officers Have Resigned Or Been Relieved Of Command At Malmstrom Air Force Base”
“Commanders Were Found To Micromanage And Place Too Much Of An Emphasis On Perfection, Leading To Cheating”
“Cheating And Morale Problems Among Missile Launch Crews”
“Of The 100 Officers Connected To The Investigation, Nine Were Cleared Of Wrongdoing”
Mar. 27, 2014 By Brian Everstine, Staff writer; Air Force Times [Excerpts]
Ten officers have resigned or been relieved of command at Malmstrom Air Force Base, Mont., following multiple investigations into cheating and morale problems among missile launch crews.
Col. Robert Stanley, Malmstrom’s commander, resigned Thursday and will retire. Nine other officers — colonels, lieutenant colonels and a major who served in positions such as squadron commander and operations group commander — were removed from command by Maj. Gen. Jack Weinstein, commander of 20th Air Force.
None of these officers was directly involved in the cheating investigation of 100 other officers, Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James told reporters.
The nine officers will be able to continue to serve in other roles. They received administrative punishment, such as letters of reprimand or admonishment, Lt. Gen. Stephen Wilson, commander of Global Strike Command, said.
Of the 100 officers connected to the investigation, nine were cleared of wrongdoing. The other officers could face punishment ranging from letters of counseling to nonjudicial punishment and court- martial, Wilson said.
The first investigation, referred to as the command-directed investigation, was led by Maj. Gen Mike Holmes, vice commander of Air Education and Training Command. It looked at training and testing issues.
Commanders in missile squadrons were found to micromanage and place too much of an emphasis on perfection, leading to ethical issues and cheating.
“These were all bright officers,” Wilson said. “None of these officers needed the information to pass the test. They felt compelled to cheat to get a perfect score.”
Current standards showed that 90 percent were passing but officers feared they would be reprimanded for scoring less than 100.
AFGHANISTAN WAR REPORTS
One Romanian Soldier Killed, Two Others Wounded By IED
Mar 30 2014 By Ghanizada, Khaama Press
A bomber targeted a convoy of foreign forces in south-eastern Zabul province of Afghanistan on Sunday.
According to local government officials, the incident took place on Sunday morning in Kabul-Kandahar highway, leaving at least one soldier dead.
Provincial police chief, Gen. Ghulam Sakhi Rogh Lewanai said the incident took place around 10 am local time in Shahr-e-Safa district.
Gen. Ghulam Sakhi further added that the target of the bomber detonated a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device (IED) close to the convoy of the Romanian forces.
He said at least one Romanian soldier was killed and two others were injured following the explosion.
AFGHANISTAN THEATER:
“US Foreign Fighters Suffered Four Combat Casualties During The Week Ending March 26 As The Total Rose To 40,451”
March 20, 2014 www.michaelmunk.com
AFGHANISTAN THEATER: US foreign fighters suffered four combat casualties during the week ending March 26 as the total rose to 40,451.
The total includes 21,507 dead and wounded (two pending) from what the Pentagon classifies as “hostile” causes and 18,960 dead or medically evacuated (as of Dec. 3, 2012) from what it calls “non-hostile” causes.
US media divert attention from the actual cost in American life and limb by reporting regularly only the total killed (6,801: 4,489 in Iraq, 2,312 in Afghanistan) but rarely mentioning those wounded in action (51,932: 32,239 in Iraq; 19,693 in Afghanistan).
They ignore the 59,908 (44,607 in Iraq, 18,463 in AfPak (as of Dec 3, 2012) military casualties injured and ill seriously enough to be medevac'd out of theater, even though the 6,801 total dead include 1,457 (961 in Iraq, 496 in Afghanistan) who died from those same “non hostile” causes of whom almost 25% (332) were suicides (as of Jan 9, 2013).
WIAs are usually updated on Wednesday at http://www.defense.gov/news/casualty.pdf
POLITICIANS REFUSE TO HALT THE BLOODSHED
THE TROOPS HAVE THE POWER TO STOP THE WAR
MILITARY NEWS
“The Public Has A Right To Know The Names Of The Veterans Affairs Hospitals Where Delays In Diagnostic Testing Contributed To The Deaths Of 19 Veterans”
“In Addition To The Deaths, 63 Veterans Suffered Medical Harm”
“The VA Has Stonewalled Efforts To Learn Where The Deaths Occurred”
March 27, 2014 Editorial, TAMPA MEDIA GROUP, LLC
The public has a right to know the names of the Veterans Affairs hospitals where delays in diagnostic testing contributed to the deaths of 19 veterans.
Five of those deaths occurred in a VA region that treats Florida patients and includes VA facilities in Pinellas and Hillsborough counties, as well as other locations in the state.
Yet the VA has stonewalled efforts by Tribune reporter Howard Altman and members of the U.S. House Veterans Affairs Committee to learn where the deaths occurred.
For months now, requests for information on those deaths and other incidents across the country involving questionable VA conduct have been met with silence or obfuscation.
Frustrated members of the House committee have responded with a website called the “VA Honesty Project,” which chronicles nearly 70 times the VA has thumbed its nose at legitimate requests for information.
The VA needs to drop the secrecy routine and remember it’s a tax-funded organization that should conduct itself in as transparent a manner as possible without encroaching on patient confidentiality. The Tribune and the House simply want the names of the hospitals, not the patients.
Knowing the hospitals and getting a fuller explanation of what occurred could alert veterans and the public to any problems at those facilities.
The veterans died of gastrointestinal cancers as the result of delayed endoscopy tests between 2009 and 2011, according to information unearthed by the House committee and reported by Altman. The delays were less than a year but more than 90 days.
In addition to the 19 deaths nationwide, 63 veterans suffered medical harm because of the delays.
The VA did tell Altman it redesigned its consultation process as a result of the deaths. But this is part of the response the newspaper received to its formal request for the hospital names: The “VA may withhold information under Exemption 5 where the document or its contents makes recommendations or expresses opinions about legal or policy matters during a decision-making process and the document is not the decision document or incorporated into the decision document.”
That’s worthy of the government gobbledygook hall of fame.
But it’s not worthy of our veterans. They deserve a VA system that is responsive and accountable and willing to air its failures along with its successes. Without that, it’s impossible to know whether they are providing the best care possible.
Stupid Shitheads In Command:
A) Washington National Guard Commander Says Guard Members Can’t Smoke Marijuana “At Any Time”
B) As Far As Regular Army Is Concerned “There’s No Such Thing As Medical Marijuana”
Mar. 26, 2014 By Adam Ashton, The News Tribune via AP [Excerpts]
TACOMA, WASH. — As Washington prepares to open its first retail marijuana stores in the next few months, tens of thousands of military service members have been warned not to shop in any of them.
They face criminal charges and career-ending discipline if caught with a substance still banned by the federal government.
The prohibition isn’t limited to active-duty service members. Shortly after state voters passed an initiative legalizing marijuana in 2012, Washington’s National Guard commander sought to clear up any misunderstandings by citizen soldiers who might have questions about the law.
“Use of marijuana is illegal under federal law and Department of Defense policy,” Maj. Gen. Bret Daugherty wrote in a December 2012 memo.
“Recent passage of Initiative 502 legalizing marijuana under Washington state law does not change this policy. All soldiers and airmen are hereby ordered not to possess or use marijuana at any time.”
Pot isn’t allowed on a military base, even if it’s for medicinal purposes. As far as the military is concerned, there’s no such thing as medical marijuana.
FORWARD OBSERVATIONS
“At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed. Oh had I the ability, and could reach the nation’s ear, I would, pour out a fiery stream of biting ridicule, blasting reproach, withering sarcasm, and stern rebuke.
“For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder.
“We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake.”
“The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppose.”
Frederick Douglass, 1852
It is a two class world and the wrong class is running it.
-- Larry Christensen, Soldiers Of Solidarity & United Auto Workers
The Gravedigger
By Dennis Serdel, Vietnam 1967-68 (one tour) Light Infantry, Americal Div. 11th Brigade; United Auto Workers GM Retiree
From Peace Speaks From The Mirror, Dennis Serdel
***********************************************
It’s cold in the morning
and he shivers,
he kicks up the furnace
he turns down at night
these heating bills are killer
he puts some coffee on
trying to remember
who he buries today
these Michigan winters
freeze the ground on down
he needs some gas
in the truck
and the digger too
it’s a hell of a way
to make a living
but it’s steady pay
After a cup and a half
of coffee and three cigarettes
it dawns on him who’s grave
he has to dig today
it’s Mary and John’s son
from across the tracks
the paper had his picture
he was just a boy
played football
at the old high school
a stand out star
joined the Army after that
cause all the jobs are gone.
DO YOU HAVE A FRIEND OR RELATIVE IN THE MILITARY?
Forward Military Resistance along, or send us the email address if you wish and we’ll send it regularly with your best wishes. Whether in Afghanistan or at a base in the USA, this is extra important for your service friend, too often cut off from access to encouraging news of growing resistance to injustices, inside the armed services and at home. Send email requests to address up top or write to: Military Resistance, Box 126, 2576 Broadway, New York, N.Y. 10025-5657.
FTA!
The Film Provides A Rare Glimpse Into The Revolt From Below That Ultimately Forced The Pentagon To Withdraw In Defeat From Vietnam:
“Behind-The-Scenes Footage Of Soldiers Talking Candidly To The Troupe Members About Their Frustration And Anger At The Ongoing War”
FTA Trailer
HUhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4HlkgPCgU7g&eurl=http://imagineaworldof.blogspot.com/&feature=player_embeddedUH
FINALLY, AFTER 35-YEARS IN EXILE
FTA IS BACK!
Ultra-Rare! F.T.A. (aka FREE THE ARMY aka FUN, TRAVEL, ADVENTURE), 1972, Displaced Films, 97 min. Dir. Francine Parker.
F.T.A. was originally released by American-International but pulled from distribution after only one week, with rumors of pressure from the Pentagon.
– Phil Hall, Film Threat
**************************************
About The Film:
[Thanks to Michael Letwin, New York City Labor Against The War & Military Project, who sent this in.]
February 22, 2009 By Dennis Lim, Los Angeles Times [Excerpts]
A time capsule of the anti-Vietnam War movement, “FTA” is also a vivid flashback to a world-famous movie star’s stint as a political radical. At the peak of her celebrity, which coincided with the dawning of her political consciousness, Jane Fonda abdicated her Hollywood throne and remade herself as the face of the anti-establishment.
With government agents and the news media watching her every move, she led a vaudeville troupe on a tour of U.S. military bases in 1971 -- a trip chronicled in this fascinating documentary, largely unseen since its brief, abortive release and finally available on DVD this week.
In the disc’s only extra, a 20-minute interview, Fonda recounts how the project came about. She and Donald Sutherland, her costar in 1971’s “Klute” (which won her an Oscar), were approached by Howard Levy, a doctor who had become an antiwar cause célèbre for refusing to train Green Beret medics.
He proposed that they put on a corrective to Bob Hope’s gung-ho USO shows, giving voice not just to the growing peace movement but to antiwar sentiment within the ranks of the military.
The FTA troupe staged its first shows in the U.S., with Fonda and Sutherland (who had just played the irreverent Hawkeye in Robert Altman’s “MASH”) headlining a company that included Peter Boyle and Howard Hesseman. (The all-purpose acronym is short for “Free the Army” and a more profane variation.)
When it came time to embark on the two-week Pacific Rim tour, Fonda assembled a more politically correct lineup that stressed racial and gender parity -- equal numbers of black and white, and male and female, performers, including singer Holly Near and comedian Paul Mooney.
Fonda, Sutherland and company stopped off in Hawaii, the Philippines, Okinawa and Japan (where they were initially refused entry). Denied permission to perform on U.S. bases, they set up shop in nearby coffeehouses and other venues, although military officials apparently tried to minimize attendance by publicizing incorrect show times.
All told, the troupe played 21 shows, which were attended by some 64,000 servicemen and women. Many of the male GIs, as Fonda ruefully concedes in the interview, must have been anticipating the Space Age sex kitten from “Barbarella” and not the righteous radical who took the stage in jeans, no makeup and a raised fist.
The show mixes protest songs with broad and bawdy skits, taking potshots at military chauvinism and top-brass privilege. But what it lacks in finesse, it makes up for with a raucous energy.
Directed by Francine Parker (who died in 2007), the documentary alternates between the song-and-dance routines and behind-the-scenes footage of soldiers talking candidly to the troupe members about their frustration and anger at the ongoing war and the American presence in the region.
As fate would have it, “FTA” opened the same week in July 1972 that news broke of Fonda’s trip to Hanoi, where she made radio broadcasts for the North Vietnamese regime and was photographed sitting on an anti-aircraft gun. Within a week, the distributor (youth-flick specialist American-International Pictures) had pulled the movie from theaters.