Military Resistance 10L4
The Report “States The Pentagon Can Save Umpteen Billion Dollars As They Cap Pay And Pay Raises, And Cut Health Care Costs By Raising Fees On Retirees And Their Families”
“This Is A Disgrace And A Knife To The Heart Of Those Who Shed Blood Fighting For This So-Called Government”
“The Pay Cuts Should Be Coming From The Paychecks And Health Care Premiums Of Those Sitting In The Leather Chairs In The House, Senate And Countless Other Government Mahogany Desks”
Army Times
Letters To The Editor
12.10.12
I am responding to the preposterous article “Proposed pay, benefits cuts” (Five Things, Nov. 12).
The report by the Center for American Progress states the Pentagon can save umpteen billion dollars as they cap pay and pay raises, and cut health care costs by raising fees on retirees and their families.
This is a disgrace and a knife to the heart of those who shed blood fighting for this so-called government.
If you ask me, the pay cuts should be coming from the paychecks and health care premiums of those sitting in the leather chairs in the House, Senate and countless other government mahogany desks, where they might sustain a paper cut or carpal tunnel syndrome.
If the budget cuts started there, the general public and the military would feel a greater sense of unity with those in the political realm, instead of the sense that we are falling under a suppressive regime.
Marine Sgt. Jason E. McKinney
McDonough, Ga.
DO YOU HAVE A FRIEND OR RELATIVE IN MILITARY SERVICE?
Forward Military Resistance along, or send us the address if you wish and we’ll send it regularly.
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 the war and economic injustice, inside the armed services and at home.
Send email requests to address up top or write to: The Military Resistance, Box 126, 2576 Broadway, New York, N.Y. 10025-5657.
AFGHANISTAN WAR REPORTS
Arcata Navy SEAL Killed In Afghanistan
November 25, 2012 the Arcata Eye
The Department of Defense has announced the death of a sailor who was supporting Operation Enduring Freedom.
Petty Officer 1st-Class Kevin Ebbert, 32, was killed Saturday by gunfire in Uruzgan province in southern Afghanistan. He was assigned to an East Coast SEAL team out of Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek - Fort Story at Virginia Beach, Va.
Kevin Ebbert’s mother, Charlie Jordan, sent this message: “Kevin Ebbert, my 32 year old son, US Navy SEAL serving his second deployment in Afghanistan was killed Friday. Kevin was poised to return home early next year and start medical school completing his training started as a Corpsman to become an MD. We last spoke about he and his wife Ursula joining Rotary where he could work in clinics internationally.
“There are many details to be worked out. There will be a Memorial Service scheduled in Arcata. In the meantime we have set up the ‘Kevin Ebbert Memorial Fund’ with Humboldt Area Foundation for those of you who wish to donate to it in Kevin’s name.”
“Our thoughts and prayers are with the family and friends of our teammate who has made the ultimate sacrifice,” said Capt. Robert Smith, Commander, Naval Special Warfare Group Two. “We have lost a courageous patriot who selflessly answered our nation’s call to defend freedom and protect us from terrorism.”
A memorial service will be held on Nov. 29 at 10 a.m. at the JEB Little Creek Base Chapel. A reception will follow at the SEAL Heritage Center onboard JEB Little Creek
POLITICIANS REFUSE TO HALT THE BLOODSHED:
THE TROOPS HAVE THE POWER TO STOP THE WAR
MILITARY NEWS
“Climbing Over Tanks Of The Republican Guard, Protesters Streamed Toward The Palace”
“Tens Of Thousands Of Egyptian Protesters Push Past Barbed Wire Fences Installed By The Army”
Anti-Mursi demonstrators protest outside the presidential palace in Cairo December 7, 2012. Opponents of Mursi staged more protests in Cairo and other cities. REUTERS/Mohamed Abd El Ghany
December 6, 2012 Al Jazeera.net & December 7, 2012 By SARAH EL DEEB, AP
CAIRO — Tens of thousands of Egyptian protesters push past barbed wire fences installed by the army and march on the presidential palace, calling for President Mohammed Morsi to “leave” a day after they say he offered no concessions to opposition demands.
Climbing over tanks of the Republican Guard, protesters streamed toward the palace as night fell Friday, crossing a no-go zone set up around the compound’s perimeter.
The area witnessed deadly clashes on Wednesday, when supporters of Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood group drove out crowds camped outside the palace. The clashes left at least six dead and hundreds injured, deepening the schism between the two sides.
Egypt is plunging deeper into crisis as protesters — mainly liberals— press Morsi to call off a referendum on a draft constitution agreed by his allies.
The state news agency said the military deployment on Thursday around the palace was to “secure” the building. Nine armoured troop carriers were also reported on the street outside the palace.
The fighting erupted late on Wednesday afternoon when thousands of Morsi’s supporters descended on an area near the presidential palace where about 300 of his opponents were staging a sit-in.
Members of Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood chased the protesters away from their base outside the palace’s main gate and tore down their tents.
After a brief lull, hundreds of Morsi opponents arrived and began throwing firebombs at the president’s backers, who responded with rocks.
The violence spread to other parts of the country on Wednesday.
Anti-Morsi protesters stormed and set ablaze the Brotherhood offices in Suez and Ismailia, east of Cairo, and there were clashes in the industrial city of Mahallah and the province of Menoufiyah in the Nile Delta north of the capital.
There were rival demonstrations outside the Brotherhood’s headquarters in the Cairo suburb of Moqatam and in Alexandria, security officials said senior Brotherhood official Sobhi Saleh was hospitalised after being severely beaten by Morsi’s opponents.
The opposition is demanding that Morsi rescind the decrees giving him nearly unrestricted powers and shelve the controversial draft constitution, which the president’s Islamist allies rushed through last week in a marathon, all-night session shown live on state TV.
“It Took Years For Our Veterans To Get Medical Coverage For Illnesses Related To Agent Orange Exposure”
“The Men’s Children Born With Disabling Illnesses Are Still Ineligible For Coverage”
“I’ll Believe Things Have Changed The Day I See A Headline That Says, ‘Man Who Lied To Get Out Of The Draft Holds Up Liquor Store’”
December 7th, 2012, by Connie Schultz, National Memo
[Thanks to Carolyn Birden, who sent this in.]
Rick Weidman can walk onto a stage and sense when he’s facing a crowd of Americans who think they have no reason to care about Vietnam veterans.
Weidman has been advocating for his fellow veterans nearly all his adult life. He knows how to change the mood of a room.
He starts by asking people to stand.
Stand if you’re a veteran, he says. He rattles off the wars and conflicts: Iraq and Afghanistan, Vietnam, Korea, World War II and everything in between.
He continues.
Stand if your mother or father served.
Stand if your kid served.
Stand if your aunt or uncle served.
Stand if your brother or your sister served.
By the time he’s done with the list, usually more than 90 percent of the people in the room are on their feet.
Now, they’re ready to talk about Vietnam.
“The key is this,” he told me in a phone interview from his office in Washington. “You have to understand that the men and woman who serve our country are not ‘them’ and ‘they.’ They’re ‘us.’
“I tell people all the time, ‘they are not separate from you and your life. They come out of your community, and they return to your community. It’s a covenant between the American people and those who serve. We need to honor that sacred obligation.’”
Weidman is executive director for policy and government affairs for the Vietnam Veterans of America, which has just joined a class action lawsuit in Hartford against the armed forces.
Their argument: thousands of Vietnam veterans suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder before it was a recognized illness and were wrongfully discharged because of it.
Their demand: upgrade the veterans’ discharges so that they qualify for benefits and the medical coverage they deserve.
Vietnam veteran John Shepherd Jr. filed the original lawsuit. His legal team is with the Yale Law School’s Veterans Legal Services Clinic. (Full disclosure: My stepdaughter is a Yale law student who works for another clinic in the same organization, but she is not involved with this case.)
Weidman says he understands the government’s resistance.
“They (the government) smell that this is only the first step,” he said. “When we win this, and win it we will, we’ll open the door to litigation for the veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan, too.”
Weidman says that since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, nearly 37,000 members of the U.S. military have been given a “catch-all ‘personality discharge.”‘
“We’re seeing this all the time,” he said.
“A woman was raped and reported it. She had five promotions and two or three deployments, but they did a psychiatric exam after she was raped and decided that she had a personality disorder — and that it was a pre-existing condition.
“That’s not defying logic,” he said. “That’s flat-out lying.”
When you’re a Vietnam veteran, it seems, some fights never end.
Last year, photographer Nick Ut and I reported a series chronicling the long-term impact of Agent Orange in Vietnam and on our veterans here at home.
It took years for our veterans to get medical coverage for illnesses related to Agent Orange exposure, and the men’s children born with disabling illnesses are still ineligible for coverage.
I confessed to Weidman that, after the series ran, I was frustrated to find a mostly apathetic public. How, I asked, do you get Americans to care about veterans of a war that ended, badly, in 1975?
Weidman had graduated from college and turned down a deferment to serve as a medic in Vietnam. He is loyal to the bone, but he makes no attempt to romanticize his fellow veterans.
“Frankly, we’re not warm and cuddly,” he said. “We don’t have very nice stories to tell. But we did our job pretty well under difficult circumstances and came home to a wall of silence.”
He chuckled. “Remember Kojak?” he said, referring to the 1970s TV show. “Every time they needed a person on top of a roof with a gun, it was a Vietnam veteran. As if that explained everything.”
Thanks to recent media coverage, and the devastating impact of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, more Americans know about PTSD. That’s good news, he said, but it’s not great.
“I’ll believe things have changed the day I see a headline that says, ‘Man who lied to get out of the draft holds up liquor store.’”
He chuckled again, but neither of us were laughing.
Royal Navy’s New HMS Astute “Has Been Cobbled Together From Some Ill-Fitting Parts”
“The Lead Used In Astute Was Not Of The Right Quality”
“The Charged Metal Can Create Increased And Persistent Radioactivity Within The Reactor Compartment”
“These Or Similar Mismatches Will Compromise Nuclear Safety At Risk To Crews And The Public Generally”
[Part 1]
HMS Astute, the Royal Navy’s nuclear hunter-killer submarine on the Firth of Clyde in Scotland. Photograph: Andy Buchanan/AFP/Getty Images
15 November 2012 by Nick Hopkins, The Guardian [Excerpts]
[Thanks to Felicity Arbuthnot, who sent this in. She writes: “Just when you think it can’t get better ...”]
The Royal Navy’s new multibillion pound hunter-killer submarine, HMS Astute, has been beset by design and construction flaws that have raised doubts about its performance and potential safety.
The Guardian can reveal that Astute, the first of seven new submarines costing £9.75bn, has been unable to reach its intended top speed.
At the moment, the boat, heralded as the most sophisticated submarine ever built for the navy, cannot sprint to emergencies or away from an attack – an essential requirement for a hunter-killer boat.
It would also be incapable of keeping pace with the Royal Navy’s new aircraft carriers, which will be able to travel at more than 30 knots and need the submarines to protect them.
One source told the Guardian the boat had a “V8 engine with a Morris Minor gearbox”.
Other problems that have affected the boat in recent months include:
• Flooding during a routine dive that led to Astute performing an emergency surfacing.
• Corrosion even though the boat is essentially new.
• The replacement or moving of computer circuit boards because they did not meet safety standards.
• Concern over the instruments monitoring the nuclear reactor because the wrong type of lead was used.
• Questions being raised about the quality and installation of other pieces of equipment.
• Concern reported among some crew members about the Astute’s pioneering periscope, that does not allow officers to look at the surface “live”.