Iowa Veterans Blog

'Confessions of a Cold War Veteran' Sounds Off

2010-02-19T14:22:00.000-08:00

Surprise, surprise: I've launched yet another blog, "Confessions of a Cold War Veteran."

Part memoir, part humor/satire, part pop-culture, and like our government's annual budget -- 50 percent Military Industrial Complex.

Delay cadence/Count cadence/Delay cadence/Count!

One!...

I confess, dear Civilian, I am not a Catholic nor am I a war veteran, rather I am a veteran of the Cold War, not to mention a narcissist. Regarding the latter, why else would I create my own blog, the fifth to date? If I weren’t narcissistic, I wouldn’t be able to convince myself that there is some niche of readers floating in Cyberland who gives a damn about me and what I have to say or what thoughts are trip-wired in my brain, especially when the primary subject is Me.

Hey everyone, look at me! Over here, look at me…!

Or maybe the niche I have created is a mere figment of my imagination that consists of an audience of one? In that case, please do excuse me, dear Civilian, if at times you catch me talking to myself; the theory being that if you cannot hold a conversation with yourself, the notion of carrying on a conversation with fellow members of your species is futile. At least that’s what Therapist Bob tells me. Speaking of whom, it was Therapist Bob, my psychological and spiritual and financial adviser, who recommended that I start yet another blog as a means of publicly purging my experiences while actively serving in the Army during the tail-end of the Cold War during the late ‘80s, thus tearing down the wall erected between the right and left sides of my brain.

Moreover, based on Therapist Bob’s recommendations, Confessions of a Cold War Veteran will provide me with a safe, nuclear-free space to share my insights as a Cold War Veteran on contemporary issues, military and otherwise.

Hence, a blog was born: Confessions of a Cold War Veteran...

Read rest of debut post at Confessions of a Cold War Veteran and don't forget to bookmark page and tell all of your friends, your IRS agent and the neighbor down the street who is described as a quiet, lonely man who keeps to himself (but does not live in his mother's basement, where he spends his waking hours blogging.

Iowa Guard unit returns home from Iraq

2008-11-05T11:29:00.000-08:00

Approximately 130 soldiers from the 186th Military Police Company will return today from its recent deployment to Ira. A homecoming ceremony for the returning soldiers is scheduled for tonight at 7 p.m. at Veterans Memorial Auditorium in Des Moines.

The Johnston-based Iowa Army National Guard unit finished its second tour as part of Operation Iraqi Freedom. The unit was mobilized in Nov. 2007 and after undergoing additional training at Fort Dix, N.J., the unit, which provides security and law enforcement support, was assigned to the Central Command theater of operations and arrived in Iraq in Jan. 2008.

During its second tour in Iraq, the 186th MP was responsible for transporting 4,000 detainees; providing a law enforcement presence in the Strategic Debriefing Center; conducting detainee operations at Remembrance II, the Taji Theater Internment Facility Reconciliation Center; and transportation missions in support of Task Force 134’s juvenile re-integration school.

The 186th MP Company was previously mobilized from 2003-2004 for Operation Iraqi Freedom. They were also mobilized in 1995-96 in support of Operation Joint Endeavor (Bosnian peacekeeping operations), and in 1990-1991, when they deployed to the Persian Gulf in support of Operation Desert Storm.

Iowans say goodbye to guardsmen headed for Iraq

2008-11-02T08:09:00.000-08:00

Not all eyes are on Tuesday’s upcoming election, in particular those of the approximately 310 Iowa National Guard soldiers and their family and friends, who said their goodbyes at sendoff ceremonies across the state Thursday.

The Department of Defense (DOD) and the National Guard Bureau, Washington, D.C., have ordered the 1133rd and 1168th Transportation Companies to federal active duty. The mobilization is part of Operation Iraqi Freedom and the Global War on Terrorism. The Soldiers will leave Iowa and report to Fort Bliss, Texas for additional preparation and training before departing for the Central Command theater of operation.

To honor the guardsmen, political dignitaries joined family and friends at the sendoff ceremonies in Audubon, Iowa City, Mason City, Perry and Marshalltown.

Audubon

Several hundred people crowded in to the Audubon High School to say goodbye to 65 members in Detachment 2 of the 1168th Transportation Company. They were joined by Gov. Chet Culver and U.S. Rep. Steve King, D-Iowa, who presided over the ceremony, the Caroll Daily-Times Herald reported.

"I'm here with a simple message," Culver, a surprise guest, told the soldiers standing at attention in six ranks before him. "To thank the members of the Guard for your service to our country, to our state, and to join every Iowan in honoring you as you are deployed."

"But as you depart, I want you to always remember you are not alone. We will always be here for you, and we will always be grateful for your service to the country that we love. Because our service members are Iowa's heroes…”

King remarked that he was impressed by Thursday's show of community support.

"I wasn't prepared for what I saw when we came over the hill here today at Audubon," he said, referring to the hundreds of vehicles parked outside.

"You come out, Audubon, Audubon County and the surrounding area. You come out to support our military men and women who have sent themselves up as volunteers to defend our freedom and promote freedom around the world. This is a powerful testimony to the best that America has to offer here in the heartland of America."

Iowa City

Rep. Dave Loebsack, D-Iowa, joined 25 members in Detachment 1, 1133rd Transportation Company at the Regina High gymnasium in Iowa City, commending them for being both members of a community and defenders of it, the Iowa City Press-Citizen reported.

"You are true patriots and you represent the best of America," Loebsack said. "You make Iowa and our nation proud."

Not everyone was excited about the upcoming deployment, including Jennifer -- the pregnant wife of Sgt. Nile Watkins-Schoening, who is preparing for his second deployment in three years.

Jennifer said she "was a little irate" when she heard her husband would deploy again. He also missed Eve's [his 2-year old daughter] birth, returning when she was already 15 months old after serving with the Iowa Army National Guard's 1st Battalion, 133rd Infantry from September 2005 to July 2007.

Marshalltown

Hundreds of well-wishers gathered at the Babe Harder Gymnasium on the Marshalltown Community College campus in Marshalltown to say goodbye to 40 members in Detachment 1, 1168th Transportation Company, the Marshalltown Times-Republican reported.

Kaleb Morrow of Centerville, who was previously deployed from 2003 to 2004 to Iraq admitted that the second deployment was going to more difficult since he is leaving behind his two young daughters, including 2-year-old Emilia and 2-month-old Alexandria, and his wife, Bernadette.

"It's going to be very rough to say goodbye," he said before the ceremony.

Morrow said he feels they are better equipped this time around especially when it comes to more armor.

Mason City

Hundreds of family members and friends filled the Mason City High School gymnasium to help send off 115 members of the 1133rd Transportation Company, the Mason City Globe-Gazette reported.

Lt. Gov. Patty judge spoke on behalf of Culver:

“Once before you have traveled to Iraq to protect the people of America and Iraq,” said Lt. Gov. Patty Judge. “There isn’t an Iowan who isn’t grateful for your sacrifices.”

“On behalf of Gov. Culver, myself and our families, we want you to know that we will be thinking of you, following your work and you will be in our prayers every day,” she said.

Several of the soldiers are serving their second deployment, including Staff Sgt. Scott Dunning, whose wife is expecting their first child, a boy, on Sunday.

“I’m due on Sunday,” she said. “That’s in three days.”

Looking at his wife, Dunning’s voice cracked, saying, “It makes it very, very difficult to leave.”

Perry

A sendoff ceremony was also planned for 65 members in the 1168th Transportation Company Perry High School gymnasium in Perry.

Iowa veterans cash in on lottery tickets

2008-10-31T17:41:00.000-07:00

Iowa veterans and their families were the biggest winners in the Iowa Lottery’s most recent quarterly payout, which transferred $992,773 to the Veterans Trust Fund (VTF). The payout stemmed from sales of the $1 instant-scratch game, “Stars & Stripes,” between July and September 2008.

“We’re honored to have the opportunity to support those who have given so much for our country,” Ken Brickman, Iowa Lottery Acting CEO, said in a statement. “We thank our players for recognizing the importance of this cause and helping us provide a stable, ongoing source of revenue for the Iowa Veterans Trust Fund.”

The alliance between the Iowa Lottery and the VTF was spearheaded by Rep. McKinley Bailey, D-Webster City, a U.S. Army veteran who served in Afghanistan and Iraq. He sponsored legislation, House File 2359 earlier this year that authorized the lottery games and appropriated the funds to the VTF.

“Iowa’s veterans have served with dignity, and with excellence, and all veterans have the gratitude of every citizen,” Gov. Chet Culver said in a statement. “I was proud to sign this legislation earlier this year authorizing new lottery games to help support the Veterans Trust Fund. And now, the proceeds from those games will play a vital role in helping veterans and their loved ones around the state.”

Lawmakers created the VTF in 2003 with the intent of giving the state flexibility with regard to Iowa's returning veterans and their families, in particular when it comes to issues that aren't covered by federal funding, such as job training, unemployment assistance, travel expenses for wounded veterans related to follow-up medical care, nursing home care, counseling programs and honor guard services.

The trust fund was supposed to eventually contain $50 million in 10 years, but only $5 million has been appropriated to the fund thus far, and Gov. Chet Culver's 2008 budget did not contain any additional revenue for the fund, thus prompting Bailey to find an alternative source of funding.

The new lottery games are estimated to generate up to $3 million a year for the trust fund at a minimal impact on the general fund. The lottery’s second set of games to benefit veterans are scheduled to begin sales in January.

Iowa guard units receive orders for Afghanistan deployment

2008-10-23T20:33:00.000-07:00

To help support the ongoing war effort in Afghanistan, approximately 310 Iowa National Guard soldiers have been ordered to federal active duty by the Department of Defense and the National Guard Bureau.

Members of the 1133rd and 1168th Transportation Companies will report immediately to their mobilization station at Fort Riley, Kan. for additional training and preparation before departing for the Afghanistan theater of operations. In Afghanistan, these soldiers will operate as a Regional Corps Advisory Group Embedded Training Team (“ETT”) to provide mentorship and advanced training to the Afghan National Army and Afghan National Police.

The units are medium truck companies which transport equipment and supplies in a theater of operations and both served in Iraq in 2003 and 2004.

Community send-off ceremonies have been planned for Thursday, Oct. 30 in five different communities:

Aububon– Detachment 2, 1168th Transportation Company (approximately 65 Soldiers) -sendoff at 4 p.m., Audubon High School gymnasium, 800 3rd Ave., Audubon.

Iowa City – Detachment 1, 1133rd Transportation Company (approximately 25 Soldiers) -sendoff at 4:30 p.m., Regina High School gymnasium, 2150 Rochester Ave., Iowa City.

Mason City – 1133rd Transportation Company (approximately 115 Soldiers) - sendoff at 6 p.m., Mason City High School gymnasium, 1700 4th St. SE, Mason City.

Perry – 1168th Transportation Company (approximately 65 Soldiers) - sendoff at 7:30 p.m., Perry High School gymnasium, 1200 18th St., Perry.

Marshalltown – Detachment 1, 1168th Transportation Company (approximately 40 Soldiers) - sendoff at 7:30 p.m., Marshalltown Community College gymnasium, 3700 S. Center St., Marshalltown.

PTSD and Post Partum Depression: No Equal Defense before the Law?

2008-10-20T21:08:00.000-07:00

The following a a guest column written by Bob Krause:

The Iowa Supreme Court's decision on the Heidi Anfinson case casts a new light into the shadows of mental illness and depression. The court ruled that the courts should have entertained evidence of depression and odd behavior that followed the birth of Anfinson's son. Anfinson allegedly drowned the child in Saylorville Lake a decade ago.

Although the tragic occurrence of the murder of Heidi's child by her was heinous, it has been recognized in medical circles and professional circles that an actual form of insanity sometimes occurs after child birth. It is called post-partum depression. The courts of Iowa will now allow evidence of the signs of it to be admitted in court during criminal proceedings.

But there are others in Iowa, some sitting in jail today without treatment, for an equally oppressive form of metal illness that they acquired often in the defense of America. That illness is Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), and it deserves a like legal review to post-partum depression.

Today in Iowa, PTSD cannot be used as a defense in an insanity or diminished capacity plea before a jury. Not even military medical records diagnosing a soldier or veteran with PTSD can be entered in defense. It is only after conviction that the court can entertain PTSD records – not to prescribe treatment, but for consideration in sentencing.

PTSD does not have the same sympathetic ring as post-partum depression. But it is with us, and it is common. 480,000 of those returning from Vietnam (15.2% of men and 8.1% of women) had it. 168,000 of those Vietnam vets still have it. Of those, according to the National Vietnam Veterans Readjustment Study of 1988, ½ (around 240,000) were jailed at least once, 35% more than once, and 11.5% were convicted of felonies.

Today, some estimate that 20 percent of soldiers and 42 percent of reservists have returned from Iraq with some kind of psychological problem. Much of this is PTSD related. And the "canary in the coal mine" indicator of pervasive PTSD problems -- Army suicides -- more than doubled since 2001, hitting a 27-year high in 2007.

Many in my generation can relate to this as they saw friends and loved ones that served that bounced slowly down the razor-blade of life, not really quite fitting in after service. This generation will be "blessed" to see much of the same. And, with the high number of Guard and Reserve mobilizations in Iowa, the problem may be more significant.

I do not have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), but as a retired Army Reserve officer from the immediate post-Vietnam era, I have learned about it well over the course of a career.

My eyes first opened to the phenomena as a young captain in the 1133rd Transportation Company, Iowa Army National Guard in Mason City. One of my soldiers, Louis, a Vietnam veteran and a capable sergeant, disappeared early one morning.

Louis had been a tunnel rat in Vietnam. For those of this generation, a tunnel rat was a person that crawled into narrow enemy underground bunkers. It was a death-defying feat for the practitioners, and it had obviously had an impact on Louis.

That day, several years after the fact, Louis flashed back when he crawled under one of our trucks to change the oil. In his mind, he was back in a tunnel in Vietnam in a stand-off with a Viet Cong soldier. In this mental vise, he could not move forward, and he could not move backward. So he froze – for about six hours.

When we found Louis, he was embarrassed by what had occurred, but obviously changed and un-nerved. He quit the National Guard shortly after that, and I am embarrassed that at the time I did not know enough about PTSD to get him proper referrals. But, I was not alone in my lack of knowledge.

That evening, after the troops had left for the day, I asked my recruiting non-commissioned officer, also a Vietnam veteran, what he knew about Louis. Ron was also a Vietnam veteran and had his own little hell to live. Ron's was a traveling flash-back. Once a month or so as Ron was driving down the road, the windshield would suddenly become covered with gore and blood. He would stop the car, take a deep breath, and then start driving again. These episodes came from a mortar attack where the body of a soldier had been smeared across the windshield of the truck he was driving.

But these are just two old events of another generation. We have many good examples that we will be able to point to for this generation. I can assure you that many of these cases will wind up in the courts. Untreated, PTSD symptoms can become more severe. Drugs and alcohol are often part of escape from the pain and insomnia, and these in turn can trigger more grief. Jobs are lost; marriages are ruined, and fear-response mechanisms can breed violence. I have been involved in the periphery of a legal case in northern Iowa regarding such a young man of this generation. He was formally an upstanding businessman prior to a short notice mobilization with his Guard unit. Unfortunately he fell into calamity upon return, in part because of the consequences of the mobilization, and in major part because of his own personal reactions to his own PTSD.

Surely, he deserves the right to tell his case to the jury also, not just the judge, at sentencing.

Bob Krause is a retired lieutenant colonel in the US Army reserve. He is past state president of the Reserve Officers Association and past state chair of the Iowa Democratic Veterans' Caucus. He is currently roving ambassador for the Iowa Democratic Veterans' Caucus.

UI vets critical of McCain’s record on veterans’ issues

2008-10-17T18:39:00.000-07:00

In light of Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain’s recent “D” score on the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America report card, some members of the University of Iowa Veterans Association sounded off on their fellow veteran, The Daily Iowan reported.

“There’s a difference between the public John McCain who’s a POW and the John McCain who votes consistently against veterans’ benefits,” said sophomore Drew Hjelm, who supports Libertarian candidate Bob Barr. “I don’t see why that’s not a big talking point for [Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama’s] camp. … John McCain is just way off-base.”

“I think five years as a POW earns you a lot of things most people don’t deserve — but the presidency is not one of them,” added senior Scott Lyon, who is also leaning toward Barr.

Criticisms against McCain were lobbed during a UI Veterans Association meeting Wednesday at the Communications Center on the UI campus.

During the meeting, Aaron Schlumbohm, a member of the UI Veterans Association and an Obama backer, admitted he was surprised by McCain’s low evaluation “because I bought into the myth, the McCain myth,” the DI reported.

McCain’s Democratic rival, Sen Barack Obama, received a “B” on the IAVA report card.

However, Ben Hayden, a McCain supporter and state captain of the Vets for Freedom took issue with the IAVA’s report card rating, reference his organization’s “A-” rating of McCain, which praised McCain for his support of the Iraq war.

McCain scores ‘D’ on veteran report card; Obama, Iowa delegation above average

2008-10-08T20:56:00.000-07:00

With four weeks remaining before the election, the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA) released its report cards on members of the 110th Congress. Grading was based on legislation that affected veterans and their families.

In the Senate, Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain of Arizona earned a ‘D’ on the report card, while his Democratic opponent, Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, finished the term with a ‘B.’ Grades were based on nine votes covering a range of issue including veterans’ health care, the new GI Bill, mental health and support for homeless veterans.

Both of the nominees’ grades were hindered by their attendance. While hitting the campaign trail for potential votes, McCain missed six of the nine votes, while his counterpart, Obama, missed four of the votes.

The IAVA, the largest organization of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans, says it is committed to holding elected officials accountable through its nonprofit, nonpartisan 501, the IAVA Action Fund. The advocacy group released the report card on Oct. 6 to educate American voters on the voting records of elected officials and hold them them accountable for their actions regarding the 1.7 million veterans returning from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The report card scores are based on how often legislators voted in favor of pro-veteran positions that align with the IAVA Action. All of the bills were equally weighted, except the 21st Century GI Bill, which was doubled because it was the IAVA’s top legislative priority.

The latter boded well for Obama, who co-sponsored the bill, but adversely affected McCain, who not only did not support the final version of the bill, but, while fundraising in California, missed the vote. McCain did co-sponsor an alternative bill, which was quickly shot down in the Senate, because it conflicted with Virginia Democratic Sen. Jim Webb’s version of the bill.

Voting against the new GI Bill affected Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, who received a ‘C’ on the report card, while his colleague Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, received the highest rating, an ‘A+’.

In the House, Iowa’s freshmen Democrats, Reps. Bruce Braley, District 1, and Dave Loebsack,District 2, joined Harkin at the top with an ‘A+.’ They were closely followed by Reps. Leonard Boswell, D- District 3 and Tom Latham, R- District 4, who received an ‘A,’ and Rep. Steve King, R-District 5, who earned a ‘B’.

The IAVA used 13 votes in the House to assess grades

Déjà vu? GOP obstructionism delays military suicide-prevention bill

2008-10-03T14:36:00.000-07:00

Despite the steady rise in suicides among active-duty service members, congressional politics trumped an amendment to the recently passed Defense of Defense Reauthorization Bill that would have helped address this increasing problem.

Although Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, was pleased with some of the measures in the bill that will help military members and their families, he was disappointed that his suicide-prevention measure, along with a measure to fix a pay glitch that shortchanged National Guard troops, were casualties of partisan politics.

“While I am glad my colleagues in the Senate have passed this important legislation, I was disappointed to hear that two fundamental measures that I pushed for were needlessly blocked by one member of the minority party,” Harkin said in a statement. “My amendment to help prevent suicide among active-duty service members and an amendment I co-signed that would have fixed a pay glitch that shortchanged many National Guard troops both fell tonight because of Republican obstructionism.

“The Army has reported that, as of the end of August, 62 soldiers have committed suicide so far this year and another 31 deaths appear to be suicides,” Harkin said in a statement. “If this pace continues, that could mean the number of suicides in 2008 would eclipse the 115 suicides recorded in 2007. These startling statistics should serve as a wake-up call that suicide among soldiers and veterans is more than a problem, it is an emergency. My amendment would have created a comprehensive suicide prevention program including annual training for all service members, improved instruction for field medics and post deployment assistance.”

The suicide-prevention amendment introduced by Harkin was one of 101 eventually scrapped by the majority party in the Senate, who feared that an amendment introduced by Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., might reframe the debate over the amendments to a debate over pork-barrel spending – something the Democrats want to avoid in election-year politics.

Another amendment co-sponsored by Harkin and left by the wayside would have retroactively reimbursed soldiers shortchanged during a bureaucratic lapse. “Currently, there are more than 600 Iowa National Guard service members who have not received their earned leave due to a delay between the announcement of a new leave program by the Department of Defense and the establishment of the program by the individual services,” Harkin said in a statement.

DeMint, employing an obstructionist tactic, introduced an amendment that would have would have given the Department of Defense authority to ignore up to $5 billion of earmarks found not in the bill, but buried in the bill's report.

This is not the first time that a suicide-prevention measure aimed at helping service members was caught in the partisan crossfire and nearly killed by GOP obstructionism.

Despite overwhelming bipartisan congressional support for the Joshua Omvig Suicide Prevention Act, which was introduced by Harkin in August 2007, the measure was held up by Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., who put a hold on it. Coburn called the bill insulting to veterans and warned that its mandatory mental health screening could harm their future job options. “I’m going to continue to hold this bill until we work on the issues to guarantee freedoms of the veterans in terms of the tracking,” Coburn said on the Senate floor.

The obstructionist move drew the ire of Harkin, who was surprised by Coburn’s hold. “The Joshua Omvig Suicide Prevention Act has received intense scrutiny, including two hearings in the House and three in the Senate,” Harkin said on the Senate floor in September 2007. “The bill has been strongly endorsed by the American Legion, Veterans of Foreign Wars, the Disabled Veterans of America, and other veterans groups. So it is a travesty to have this bill held up, now, by a single Senator for reasons that are completely bogus.”

The Joshua Omvig Suicide Prevention bill was first introduced in the House by Rep. Leonard Boswell, D-Iowa, who named the bill after a soldier from his district in Grundy Center, Iowa, who took his own life after returning from Iraq. The bill directs the Department of Veterans Affairs to step up screening, counseling and other mental health services for returning war veterans by mandating this process. The House bill overwhelmingly passed in March 2007 by a vote of 423 to 0.

In the Senate, however, Coburn objected to the unanimous consent request, citing concerns that veterans’ access to purchasing guns may be hindered. Harkin refuted Coburn’s claim on the Senate floor: “And his principal reason for doing so is completely baseless,” Harkin said. “He speculates that if we have mandatory screening of all veterans for suicide risk, the resulting medical data might be used to deny a veteran the right to purchase handguns. No medical professional can refer an individual to the background check system that would limit access to firearms. This can only be done through the judicial system.”

Eventually, with the help of his colleague Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, Harkin helped usher the bill through the Senate in late September 2007. Grassley took the leadership role on the Republican side and helped persuade Coburn to lift the hold, before it passed overwhelmingly in the Senate and was signed into law by President Bush shortly thereafter.

The fate of Harkin’s new suicide-prevention and the National Guard pay-glitch amendments remain uncertain at this point, although Harkin has vowed to keep fighting for these measures until they pass.

As he said in a recent statement: “The demise of these two common-sense amendments to the Defense Authorization Bill is unfortunate and unfair to the men and women who serve our country so courageously.”

Native Iowa soldier killed in Afghanistan

2008-09-23T21:38:00.000-07:00

The Department of Defense announced Monday that Staff Sgt. Nathan M. Cox, 32, was killed Sept. 20 in the Korengal Valley, Afghanistan, when his vehicle encountered an improvised explosive device. Cox, a native of Walcott, was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 26th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division, Fort Hood, Texas, which deployed to Afghanistan in July.

Cox, who graduated from Davenport Central High School, is survived by his wife, Annie Cox, a native of Princeton, Iowa and their five-year old daughter Sophia Cox.

Friends of Cox remember him for his sense of humor and calm nature, The Quad-City Times reports.

Cox was the 68th person with Iowa ties to die in Iraq and Afghanistan since March 2003.

Despite flood losses, annual event for homeless vets marches on

2008-09-18T19:17:00.000-07:00

Because of this summer’s flood damage in Cedar Rapids, the annual "Stand Down" for homeless and nearly-homeless veterans has been stripped down from three days to only one: Friday, Sept. 19, at the Armed Forces Reserve Center, 1599 Wenig Road NE.

"We lost our place and we lost every piece of donation and every [Veterans Administration] supply that we had in the basement at Veterans Memorial Colosseum," Linn County Veteran Affairs Director Don Tyne told The Cedar Rapids Gazette. "With the other social service agencies also impacted by the flood, they probably only had the assets to do a one-day event."

A Stand Down, according to the Vietnam Veterans of San Diego Stand Down’s step-by-step procedural manual (1995) “… is an intervention that was conceived from the ground up specifically designed for veterans. It is designed to transform the despair and immobility of the homeless into the momentum necessary to get into recovery, to resolve legal issues, to seek employment, to access health services and benefits, to reconnect with the community and get off the street."

Although veterans are the intended target of the Cedar Rapids Stand Down, the event is open to all non-veterans, homeless or near-homeless, as well.

Gauging the number of homeless veterans in Iowa or the Unites States is a difficult task, because it’s hard to track veterans once they leave the service and no records are kept on this population. However, the U.S. Department of Veterans Administration estimates that nearly 200,000 veterans are homeless on any given night, and the National Survey of Homeless Assistance Providers and Clients (U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness and the Urban Institute, 1999) estimates that veterans account for 23 percent of all homeless people in America.

The event runs from 7:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. and is free to attend. Showers will be provided and attendees will be provided food (breakfast and lunch will be served), clothing, assessment screenings and will have access to a number of community service providers, including representatives from the housing, employment, substance-abuse treatment and the VA and Social Security benefits counseling sectors.

Moreover, organizations such as the Area Substance Abuse Council, Iowa Legal Aid, the IRS, Social Security, the VA Substance Abuse Program and VA Medical and Mental Health will offer classes from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m.

Forty-one service organizations participated in last year’s Stand Down, which provided relief for 84 participants (55 veterans and 29 non-veterans).

A conscientious objector's journey: From Iowa to Abu Ghraib and back

2008-09-03T08:16:00.000-07:00

Growing up in a military and evangelical Christian family in Cedar Rapids, little did Joshua Casteel know that two powerful forces would be battling for his soul in a notorious Iraqi prison known as Abu Ghraib.

In the wake of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal in 2004, Casteel, 24, who served with the Army’s 202nd Military Intelligence Battalion as an Arabic translator and U.S. Army interrogator inside the prison, faced an internal struggle between his sense of duty as a soldier and his moral and religious obligations.

After he had executed over 100 interrogations, Casteel’s internal battle coalesced in the case of a 22-year-old Saudi detainee, a self-proclaimed Jihadi who never fired a gun in his life, yet came to Iraq to fill his cousin’s shoes.

Ironically, Casteel, who had already been fighting a moral struggle before the interrogation, ended up being the one interrogated.

“When the Saudi told me that I wasn’t following Jesus, I told him he was right,” Casteel told the Iowa Independent during an interview. “If anything, I should be in his shoes, because the people who are the most important to me in my life were prisoners: Jesus, Saint Paul, anti-Nazi martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Martin Luther King. They were never the captors.”

It was this epiphany that convinced Casteel to tell his commanding officer that he couldn’t interrogate the Saudi prisoner anymore because he saw him as a 22-year-old kid and a person, not an object of exploitation.

“I couldn’t argue with him about the virtue of nonviolence, so it was at this point I decided that I needed to make a practical decision in my life,” Casteel said. “I, too, had to lead by example.”

Casteel’s conscience and morality as a human being overcame his duty as a soldier, and it was here that he initiated the process of filing for conscientious objector status, eventually ending his military career.

“I didn’t tell anyone over there about these struggles except my best friend,” Casteel said. “Although I did process them through e-mail messages that I had been writing to my family and friends back home. These letters ended up serving as the background for my CO status, illustrating my growing resistance to violence.”

Moreover, these e-mails sent home from the confines of the Abu Ghraib prison served as the foundation of Casteel’s book, “Letters from Abu Ghraib,” which was published this year – just before Casteel began his final year at the University of Iowa nonfiction writers' workshop.

“I had this huge vat of correspondence that showed the trajectory of becoming a CO,” Casteel said. “I never wrote these letters with the intent of publication, and it wasn’t until I got hooked up with my editor at Essay Press, Eula Biss, a graduate from the UI’s nonfiction writing program, that I decided to publish them. Since I was too close to the material, I needed Biss to help shape the material and streamline an arc that I couldn’t see.”

Casteel, who had another month-and-a-half of interrogating left in 2004 after his decision to file as a CO, wanted to complete his tour in Iraq. “After telling my company commander that I was filing for CO, I refused to go to the promotion board, because I didn’t want to say the NCO [noncommissioned officer] creed,” Casteel said. “I didn’t believe it anymore, but I [said I] didn’t want to hand in my weapon until I returned to the States. I would continue the tour and wouldn’t demand being made a noncombatant, but I told my commander that if he would rather have somebody who is not nervous about pulling the trigger, then he might want to consider that.”

Casteel completed his tour, returned to the United States in January 2005, submitted his CO paperwork in February and was honorably discharged in May.

“This is wildly fast for a CO to get processed and discharged," he said. "I had never heard of such a quick turnaround. Under the military’s ‘Needs of the Army' clause, a CO is a lag to morale, so the military didn’t want me around killing morale.”

Casteel soon enrolled in the UI’s graduate playwright workshop, graduating with an M.F.A. in 2008. As a student in the workshop, he wrote a play about his experiences as an Abu Ghraib interrogator, which premiered at the UI Theaters in February.

Since his return to civilian life, Casteel has been very active in spreading his message through organizations such as the Catholic Peace Fellowship, Iraq Veterans Against the War and UI Anti-War Committee, and he facilitated a panel discussion during the Winter Soldier hearings in Washington, D.C.

“I started doing a lot of public speaking after I left the military, and the more I spoke, the more people wanted copies of my speeches,” he said.

While collaborating with the IVAW, Casteel and other members formed a writing group, Warrior Writers, which recently published a book.

Casteel also shared his experiences on camera in the documentary film, “Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers," and portions of his “Letters from Abu Ghraib” will be excerpted in the October edition of Harper's Magazine.

Iowa Independent interview with Joshua Casteel:

Iowa Independent: Having grown up in an evangelic Christian household, what compelled you to join the military?

Casteel: I also grew up in a military family. My grandfather fought in World War II, Korea and Vietnam. My father was a captain in the military, and my aunt also served n the Army. I had ambitions of going to West Point, so I enlisted in the military when I was 17 to bolster my chances of getting in to the West Point Academy.

Iowa Independent: How did that pan out for you?

Casteel: After graduating valedictorian from Cedar Rapids Washington High School, I was accepted into West Point. Unfortunately, I hated West Point and had no idea what I was getting into. I thought I would be surrounded by a bunch of people like me, who were intellectually curious, but that was not the case. I did not like the military culture in the classroom, and this environment squelched my intellectual curiosities. I ended dropping out the first month and did ROTC for a year, before transferring to Colorado Christian University.

Iowa Independent: So how did you end up back in the military?

Casteel: 9-11 happened. Plus, I’ve always had some political aspirations, and I didn’t want people to think of me as somebody like President Bush, whose military experience is suspect. I was interested in learning a foreign language, and the only job that guaranteed foreign language training was an interrogator, so I re-enlisted and was deployed immediately after I had completed my year and a half of training at the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, where I studied Arabic.

Iowa Independent: Given your religious upbringing, did you have any reservations about going over to Iraq, especially knowing what had happened at the Abu Ghraib prison?

Casteel: Yes. While I was attending the language institute, where most of the instructors were Iraqi Catholics, I watched the morning news with one of my instructors, whose family lives there, and watched Baghdad get pulverized. That personal connection really shook me up. I would go back and forth between ‘I’m in this. Let’s go the whole nine yards’ to ‘What the hell is going on? I don’t believe in violence, and I should file for CO status.’

So before deployment I decided I wanted to be a noncombatant and help soldiers, so I applied and was accepted to seminary. Unfortunately I got accepted two weeks before deployment, so I would have to wait until I returned. I left all of my pacifist literature at home and went to Iraq, thinking to myself that I should know what it is like to be a soldier before I administer to them.

Iowa Independent: Having been deployed in the wake of the Abu Ghraib prisoner scandal, did you find yourself plopped in a hostile environment?

Casteel: The locals knew about the scandal, and they were pissed. The prisoners were also terrified of us. When I was there, the world’s cameras were upon us so, but unfortunately this did not stop the dark activity that had been going on; it just moved away from the prison. Special forces teams and mobile interrogation units were still using questionable techniques.

Iowa Independent: What do you mean by dark activity and questionable techniques?

Casteel: Special forces units, private contractors and the CIA were using induced hypothermia, sensory deprivation, stress positions, sleep deprivation, and smashed prisoners fingers with hammers as a means of extracting information. A really common technique used was shackling a prisoner’s ankles and hands to a loop at the bottom of a shipping container while blaring music and flashing lights for extended periods of time, thus inducing sensory and sleep deprivation. Sometimes dogs would be used as well.

Iowa Independent: What was your role as an Arabic translator and interrogator?

Casteel: I served specifically on a team that interrogated terrorists and foreign fighters. My job was to find information that would help battlefield commanders with missions.

The textbook definition of interrogation is to exploit the greatest amount of information in the least amount of time. We would use the phrase "tactical exploitation" causally all of the time. I was reading Pope John Paul II at the time, and he described the current age as “the culture of death,” which he defines as any time one reduces a human being to an object as a means to an end of exploitation, you participate in the culture of death.

I conducted over 130 interrogations, and I can count on one hand the number of people who were guilty of anything more than being Arab.

Iowa Independent: So who were you interrogating?

Casteel: I interrogated taxi drivers, laborers and young fathers. Units would go out looking for four people and would come back with 80. The problem was that all of the linguists, those who had cultural training, were back with me, so soldiers with little knowledge of the culture were rounding up anyone who looked suspicious in their mind, which meant carrying an AK-47.

What they didn’t know is that the terrorists involved in the violence were a maximum of 2 percent. Political insurgency, people tied to political movements, was 30 to 35 percent. Most of the violence came from the Tribal Defense System, which is like neighborhood watch with guns. They are mainly trying to keep their people safe, and they might be fighting other Iraqis, coalitions or anyone they deem as a threat to their neighborhood. So our soldiers would see these guys and would suspect they may be working for Osama bin Laden, whereas they may just be guarding an alley for safety reasons.

Iowa Independent: When did you begin sensing that your religious faith and your sense of duty as a soldier were clashing?

Casteel: There was this painting at the chapel we used in Abu Ghraib which had this huge, beefy-looking Jesus, who looked like Brian Uhrlacher, a barrel-chested linebacker. He was surrounded by soldiers in combat poses with M-60s and M-16s, and there were a bunch of blue-skinned angels with gold, glowing swords flying about. After meeting the Saudi, I felt like this painting was a good metaphor for America and how things worked out in American Christianity. The painting conveyed the message that Combat Jesus helps me kick my enemies' ass.

I didn’t like that idea.

Iowa Independent: What do you see as your new calling in the post-Abu Ghraib, post-military world?

Casteel: I’m interested in spreading the notion of political nonviolence and teaching Christians about their faith. There is no such thing as Combat Jesus. The single most important issue when it comes to Christianity and violence is nationalism. It is the single most divisive thing that can push a Christian from a discussion of ethics to a discussion about law. I never heard a Christian say that violence is a good thing and hating people is OK. But there has always been a way to frame it so that violence is no longer personal. It is policy.

What I experienced in Iraq is that I had a unique view from the battlefield. I actually had to talk to the enemy. I knew the names and ages of their kids. How long it had been since they had seen their wives. They had real questions about our democracy and how it worked.

The language our leadership use is always purely policy. Nations have interests, and it is no longer about people. As long as we stay within the language of policy, rather than talking about pain which is never talked about, when it comes to the politics of war. … We have given countries and institutions emotions instead of people.

Iowa Independent: What do you think should happen in Iraq?

Casteel: Nothing can happen without deep, serious conversation with Iran, Syria and Jordan. It is their part of the world. Every time I hear somebody say we need to withdraw with honor, I want to throw my shoe at the television or radio. When did Iraq’s stability have anything to do with our honor? We need to fess up to the fact that we did a very dishonorable thing; that would be the honorable thing to do.

We are always concerned about our interests in the long run. The building of the 14 permanent bases in Iraq needs to stop immediately. On the one hand I am more concerned about individuals than policy and using the political power of “no.” I don’t simply think the war in Iraq is the fault of a bunch of neocons; it is the fault of individuals who said “yes” and bought into the myth of nationalism. People, especially the working class, need to be educated that they have no duty of passing on an aristocracy.

Here is what I would say to soldiers: ‘No soldier is obliged to follow an order that is contrary to God.’ Sadly enough our laws don’t allow the conscience the full scope of freedom. For example, we don’t have selective conscientious objection in our country. You can’t object to unjust wars. Once you are in, you are in; you cannot pick and choose your wars, which basically turns our soldiers into indentured servants.

There are plenty of European countries that have selective CO. There has been no declaration of war since World War II, which means wars go through appropriations. This means that the mechanism of fighting wars that our constitution dictates has been bypassed, so individual soldiers are no longer being represented by their elected leaders in Congress. They are being turned into mercenaries. In a democracy, it is the responsibility of individuals to hold their elected officials responsible when they are unjust.

That means we have to care about things like education in our country.

Iowa sends guardsmen to help with Gustav recovery

2008-09-01T20:24:00.000-07:00

As part of a national effort, the Iowa National Guard sent 245 guardsmen to Louisiana Sunday to help residents brace for Hurricane Gustav and the impending aftermath, the Des Moines Register reported:

Lt. Col. Gregory Hapgood, Guard spokesman, said the units are from Camp Dodge in Johnston, Sheldon, Davenport and Sioux City. They include a Chinook helicopter from Davenport, a 180-member transportation company from Sheldon and a 50-member company from the 185th Combat Support Sustainment Battalion based at the Camp Dodge headquarters.

Hapgood said Louisiana asked for the support under an agreement among the various state National Guard operations in which they help each other respond to disasters.

The CH-47 Chinook helicopter from Davenport, capable of lifting 20,000 pounds, arrived by midday Sunday, with the 185th Air Refueling Wing from Sioux City supporting the mission. The 2168th Transportation Company out of Sheldon left Sunday and was expected to arrive today. Davenport's Company B, 2nd Battalion, 211th General Support Aviation Battalion is involved with the Chinook operations. The Camp Dodge unit is on the way.

The Iowa units will help with evacuations and supply transportation and general recovery support, Hapgood said.

The latest reports, as of Monday evening, indicate that Gustav is losing strength as it moves inland and has been downgraded to a Category One hurricane with winds of 75 mph, the Florida-based National Hurricane Center reports.

Nonetheless, an estimated two million people have inland from the Louisiana coast, so the guardsmen will have their hands full with recovery efforts and helping transports supplies and people back to their homes.

After this summer’s unprecedented flooding in Iowa, guardsmen are no strangers to providing flood relief and support to flood victims. Just over 4,000 Iowa guardsmen and airmen were activated during the ongoing response to the flooding in Iowa this summer. Currently, 9,400 men and women serve in the Iowa National Guard, 1,500 of whom are currently deployed to Iraq, Afghanistan and other locations outside of Iowa.

Iowa National Guard soldiers mobilize for Afghanistan deployment

2008-08-19T06:27:00.000-07:00

Members of the Iowa National Guard have been ordered to active duty to combat the recent surge of violence and Taliban resurgence in Afghanistan.

The Department of Defense (DOD) and the National Guard Bureau, Washington, D.C., have ordered to federal active duty approximately 20 selected Soldiers from various Iowa Army National Guard units. The alert and mobilization is part of Operation Enduring Freedom and the Global War on Terrorism.

To honor the guardsmen, nearly 300 people attended a send-off ceremony Monday at Camp Dodge in Johnston.

The soldiers will report immediately to their mobilization station at Fort Riley, Kan. for additional training and preparation before departing for the Afghanistan theater of operations. In Afghanistan, these soldiers will operate as a Regional Corps Advisory Group Embedded Training Team to provide mentorship and advanced training to the Afghan National Army and Afghan National Police.

VoteVets hopes to make politics in Iowa friendlier to veterans

2008-08-03T21:23:00.000-07:00

Because of the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, veterans have seen not only a surge in their ranks, but more emphasis on veterans-related issues in politics, as well. In an attempt to corral and empower the veterans’ voice in the political theater, the VoteVets.org Political Action Committee formed to help Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans get elected to public office.

“If we are able to help elect veterans, they are more likely to give more consideration to veterans’ issues while serving in office,” James Mowrer, Iowa director and senior adviser to VoteVets.org, told the Iowa Independent during a telephone interview. “They will be in place to support returning veterans and will help put in policies that support military strategies that are more realistic and feasible than the current administration."

Before taking over the Iowa helm of VoteVets.org in January, Mowrer served with the Iowa National Guard’s I-133rd Infantry Battalion, which was deployed to Iraq for 22 months, from October 2005 to August 2007. While serving in Iraq, Mowrer gathered, analyzed and synthesized intelligence for the military.

“I believe that the more veterans we elect to office, the less likely our country is to go to war,” Mowrer said. “I think this notion holds true because veterans have experienced war firsthand, and they know what it means to send our troops into harm’s way. They aren’t going to do it unless there is a very good, compelling reason to do so.”

VoteVets.org primarily focuses on federal offices but has recently expanded its efforts to the state level. Such was the case in Iowa in 2006, when Votevets.org endorsed a successful bid by McKinley Bailey, D-Webster City, for the Iowa House. Bailey, an Iraq war veteran, has helped lead the charge for veterans, helping push through a number of bills during his first term, including the recent passage of a bill that would help build the Veterans Trust Fund through the implementation of three new Iowa Lottery games.

“The state level plays a big role on how our veterans our treated, because they can put policies into place that directly affect veterans,” Mowrer said. “In some areas, the state government has more power than the federal, because they can pass and implement legislation faster. They don’t have to wade through all of the bureaucracy at the federal level.”

Mowrer said he would like to see VoteVets.org focus more at the grass-roots level. “A lot of state-elected officials will move on to seek federal office, so it is in our best interest to focus on electing veterans at the grass-roots level as well,” Mowrer said.

From citizen soldier to veterans’ advocate

Mowrer’s experiences in Iraq served as the foundation for his wanting to become more involved with military and veterans' issues when he returned to Iowa.

“I got involved with politics and VoteVets because I saw a lot of issues not being addressed by the current administration,” Mowrer said. “I also see a number of veterans’ issues that will need to be addressed, that are not currently being addressed by the Veterans Administration, for this new wave of vets returning from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

One of the biggest issues that Mowrer saw while in Iraq was the lack of leadership and no concrete plan or military strategy for winning the war. “There was no realistic, comprehensive plan to end our involvement -- at least in combat operations," Mowrer said. “In any military operation, there needs to be some sort of desired ends date and this goal needs to be made clear to the troops and the citizens of the country. There was no strategy in place that would allow that to happen. There was no leadership on the ground pointing troops in the direction of what needs to be done.”

No clear plan for the war in Iraq is what inspired Mowrer to sign on with the presidential campaign of Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., before ending his tour of duty in Iraq. Drawn to Biden’s plan for Iraq, Mowrer served as the chair for Vets for Biden before Biden dropped out of the race.

Moreover, Mowrer points his finger at the current administration and leadership for damaging the military through its use of extended and multiple deployments. “When you have an all-volunteer force, their service needs to be treated with respect in order to maintain a strong, capable military force,” Mowrer said. “We have had to invest a large amount of money in enlistment and reenlistment bonuses to bring new people into the military and to retain those who have already fulfilled their initial commitment.”

VoteVets.org vow to hold public officials accountable

Another stated primary goal of VoteVets is to “hold public officials accountable for their words and actions that impact America’s 21st century servicemembers; and fully support our men and women in uniform.”

With the presidential general election in full swing, this pledge has come to fruition. “VoteVets is obviously interested in getting involved with the presidential campaign, making sure both candidates are addressing veterans’ issues and putting a feasible strategy for winning the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan into place.” Mowrer said. “We are making sure they are answering the tough questions when it comes to the welfare of our veterans and deployment issues facing those who are currently serving in the military.”

VoteVets recently ran ads holding the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, Sen, John McCain of Arizona, accountable for his record on the 21st Century GI Bill, which was recently passed by Congress and signed into law by the president.

“Sen. McCain is a veteran and uses that as part of his resume, which is completely reasonable, but what is shocking is that he neglected his responsibilities to his fellow veterans,” Mowrer said. “Not only did he miss the vote on the bill, but he was on record opposing the current bill as well, citing fiscal concerns. We have a hard time buying this argument when the funding for the new GI bill could be covered with one week's funding of the war in Iraq.

“What this says to us is that McCain is willing to send people into harm’s way, but is not willing to provide them with the resources they need to be successful when they return home from the war. A recent study shows that for every dollar we invest in veterans’ education, we see a $7 return on this investment.”

Mowrer says VoteVets is also concerned with the candidates’ future plans for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. “We are a pro-military organization, and we are in favor of a winnable, feasible strategy, but the definitions need to be specifically defined by the candidates,” Mowrer said. "What is our victory? What is the desired ends date and how do we get there?”

VoteVets recently released an ad (see below) pointing out that McCain is opposing a timetable while the Iraq government has asked the United States to implement one. “So we have put a democratically elected government in place in Iraq, and now we are defying the will of the Iraqi people through their government. To me that is a dangerous course of action is contradictory to what our motives should be. There needs to be a political solution in place that allows some political stability that allows our troops to eventually to withdraw. We cannot keep our troops thee for an indefinite period of time.”

Nonpartisanship and the swift-boat factor

Despite recent ads calling McCain’s policies and comments into question, Mowrer insisted that VoteVets is nonpartisan. “We are looking to hold both candidates responsible, so we would run ads critiquing Sen. Obama as well, if he should offer a policy or say something that we feel doesn’t support veterans,” Mowrer said.

Moreover, Mowrer addressed concerns that VoteVets.org may be partisan. “We have endorsed Republicans and Democrats for Congress,” Mowrer said. “We have held politicians and candidates on both sides accountable for what they say and do. When we have been critical of Republican candidates, the Republican Party has attempted to paint us as a Democrat-leaning organization, but they are not going to argue with us when we are critical of Democrats.”

To help appease any fears that VoteVets.org may be another swift-boating group, Mowrer drew distinctions between a PAC and 527 issue groups such as Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. “Obviously we are against any attack on someone’s honorable military service, so we will be the first organization to come to the defense of any candidate whose record is unjustly attacked,” Mowrer said. “We will not hesitate to defend them, regardless of where they may be on the political spectrum.

“We may not agree with the candidates on the issues, but we might address those in a different context,” Mowrer said. “We have difference with veterans running for office, and we will address these differences in an honest format.”

ts for Freedom seeks to rebuild support for war

2008-08-03T21:19:00.000-07:00

Feeling slighted by the media’s portrayal of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, an advocacy group composed of combat veterans is on a mission to present their side of the story. Based on firsthand experiences in these conflicts, the nonpartisan organization Vets for Freedom launched a campaign to educate the American public about why achieving success in these conflicts is imperative.

“When I moved back to Iowa after leaving the Marines, I felt like everything I was hearing on the news was so one-sided,” Ben Hayden, Iowa state captain of Vets for Freedom, told the Iowa Independent during a telephone interview. “For those of us who fought in the Iraq war, we weren’t really getting the chance or were not given the voice to express our perceptions of what was really happening on the ground, which seemed to be the opposite of what people were hearing in the news.”

“During my deployments, I also thought it was a morale downer whenever I read the newspaper, and the only thing I was reading was how people didn’t want us to be there,” Hayden said.

After graduating from Ankeny High School in 2003, Hayden, who now resides in Coralville, joined the Marines and served two deployments to Iraq with the 1st Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion in 2005 and 2006.

“I really wanted to join the Marines after 9-11,” Hayden said. “I wanted to help out in some way and felt compelled to enlist. My brother is in the Marines and served in Afghanistan at the time, so that’s why I felt drawn to the Marines more than any other military branch.”

Hayden first heard of Vets for Freedom in September 2007 and got actively involved with the organization one month later. “I wanted to speak out and tell people what was really going on over there," he said, "and I felt that Vets for Freedom, which was founded by combat veterans, was the best avenue to push this cause.”

As the VFF state captain for the Iowa chapter, which currently has about 115 members, Hayden is primarily responsible for disseminating the organization's message to the media in Iowa. “What I want to do is take our message down to the local level, so people who don’t watch the national media get a chance to hear our message,” Hayden said.

During his first deployment to Iraq, when his unit partook in the siege of Fallujah, Hayden first felt the mission was bigger than himself. “I was overwhelmed by an outpouring of emotions from the Iraqi people, thanking us for what we were doing and begging us to do even more,” Hayden said. “To have parents come up to me on the streets and thank me for what we were doing and seeing people sacrifice their safety by telling us where the bad guys were made me want to come back to America and tell people what is really going on.

“Our mission is to educate the American people about the importance of achieving success in both Iraq and Afghanistan, by applying our firsthand knowledge to the issues of strategy in American politics,” Hayden said. “We have a history of supporting candidates on both sides of the aisle. Basically we want the American people to know that it is extremely important for us to succeed in Iraq and Afghanistan and that it should not be such a partisan issue.”

Hayden defines success in Iraq and Afghanistan as helping create a democratic society that is able to stand on its own, protect itself and create its own form of a stable democracy. “I think that we will see success when Iraqis can go to the voting booths and to police stations to sign up without having suicide bombers blow them up,” Hayden said. “We see that Iraq now accounts for 75 percent of its own spending, and there are over 540,000 members in the Iraqi armed forces. I don’t think we are too far off from fully achieving success. At the same time we do need to be concerned about the terrorists; we don’t want to just leave Iraq and have these terrorists running rampant in the country.”

Moreover, Hayden contends that this vision of democracy in Iraq has to be something that can be agreed upon by the U.S. and Iraqi governments. “We don’t want to see terrorist organizations come in and take over the government, then harbor other terrorists, which may pose an even bigger threat to national security.”

Hayden remains optimistic about achieving success in Iraq and points to last year’s troop surge as one of the factors helping lay the foundation for success in Iraq. “We have seen some of the violence levels drop dramatically this past year," Hayden said. “When you look back at the beginning of the surge and where the Iraqi government and military was and how many terrorist organizations we had in the country and compare these to today, these are measurements of success.”

Vets for Freedom maintains nonpartisan status, pledges to hold candidates accountable

Regarding this year’s political campaigns, Hayden drew distinctions between VFF and past veterans’ advocacy groups such as the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth in 2004. “We are not a 527 group, and we are not here to elect any candidate,” Hayden said. “As veterans, it is and always will be our job to protect the American people. We feel that we have seen the eyes of the enemies and what they are capable of doing, so it is our responsibility to get the word out and tell the people of Iowa that it is very important to be educated on this issue, regardless of what party they are in. This issue is way bigger than any election.

“The Iraqi people are extremely grateful for what we have done, and this message has been misconstrued by the media,” Hayden said. “If people would understand the importance of this issue, they would understand that we need to achieve success in Iraq and Afghanistan. “This is not a political issue, nor is it a partisan issue. To make it either one is extremely demeaning not only to the vets who have fought there but to the family and friends of those who did not make it home.”

However, Hayden said VFF will hold all candidates accountable for their words and actions that affect their vision of success in the wars. VFF launched an ad on the Internet in May that called on the presumptive Democrat presidential candidate, Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, to pay a visit to Iraq (see video below). “We felt that it is important if he is going to run for president, he should go to Iraq and see the success that has happened since the surge. Two months later, he did just that."

Sen. Obama: When Will You Finally Visit Iraq? (Vets for Freedom ad)

“Again, we don’t see this as a partisan issue,” Hayden said. “We don’t care one way or another what candidate you vote for. We want everyone to know how the candidates feel and what they think about the situation in Iraq We have taken it upon ourselves to hold these candidates accountable for their actions and stances on Iraq.”

New Lottery Game Ends Veterans’ Annual Fight for Trust Funding

2008-07-22T08:00:00.000-07:00

For many Iowa veterans, the war-front follows them home, where they have to battle for benefits already promised to them by the government through the Iowa Veterans Trust Fund (VTF). The annual battle came to an end last week when the Iowa Lottery introduced the first of four games, Stars & Stripes, that will directly benefit the fund.

“We’re very excited about having a sustainable, annual funding source for the Iowa Veterans Trust Fund,” Kent Hartwig, legislative liaison for the Iowa Department of Veterans Affairs, told the Iowa Independent in a telephone interview. “The response from the veterans who have received assistance from this fund has been tremendous, and this will go a long way furthering our ability to help veterans who are in need.”

To help bridge monetary gaps in federal benefits, lawmakers created the VTF in 2003 with the intent of giving the state flexibility with regard to Iowa's returning veterans and their families, in particular issues that aren't covered by federal funding such as job training, unemployment assistance, travel expenses for wounded veterans related to follow-up medical care, nursing home care, counseling programs and honor guard services.

Moreover, lawmakers intended for the VTF to eventually contain $50 million in 10 years, but only $5 million has been appropriated to the fund thus far, and Gov. Chet Culver's 2008 budget did not contain any additional revenue for the fund.

To fill the gap left in Culver’s budget, Rep. McKinley Bailey, D-Webster City, a U.S. Army veteran who served in Afghanistan and Iraq, sponsored legislation, House File 2359, earlier this year that authorized the lottery games and appropriated the funds to the VTF. The new lottery games are estimated to generate up to $3 million a year for the trust fund at a minimal impact on the general fund.

“The trust fund was created to assist veterans and their dependents who slip through the cracks of the federal system," Bailey said on the House floor in March. "As the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq continue, those cracks become more and more apparent. As a state we have an obligation, a sacred obligation, to ensure that our veterans are taken care of when they come home. That means picking up the slack for the federal government when it lets our veterans down."

Even though Culver did not budget money for the VTF this year, he did sign the bill into law March 11, thus guaranteeing funding by removing appropriations from lawmakers and placing it in the hands of the Iowa Lottery.

“We have developed a good partnership with the Iowa Lottery,” Hartwig said. “This funding stream is a good way of doing it because it is outside the General Assembly. Before the VTF was appropriated on an annual basis, and now the lottery funds will go directly into the trust fund.”

“With the lottery, we are guaranteed to receive some amount of money every year; granted, this will vary depending on sales,” Hartwig said. “But now this is something we can count on annually to help grow the principal balance. Since we can only spend the interest, when the fund stays at $5 million, we are not able to expand our program.”

Hartwig said the VTF has given out over $100,000 since December, the biggest draw assisting unemployed veterans with service-related disabilities, who have seen gaps in their federal funding.

Moreover, Hartwig sees the IDVA’s new relationship with the Iowa Lottery as a plus, because it helps get the organization’s name out, marketing it through the tickets, which include the IDVA’s contact number at the top of every ticket. “For us, the lottery puts a spotlight on our organization. It creates a win-win situation (see below), especially since we don’t quite have the marketing resources as the Iowa Lottery.”

Benefits for veterans outweigh gambling concerns

The government’s growing dependency on using gambling revenues as a source of funding programs such as the VTF have sparked some concerns among those who deal with the negative effects of gambling.

“The new game is in line with the mission of the Iowa Lottery in terms of help and funding that is available,” Mark Vander Linden, head of the Iowa Department of Health’s Gambling Treatment and Prevention program, told the Iowa Independent during a telephone interview. “All states, except Alaska and Hawaii, have some sort of gambling. I think how Iowa chooses to addresses people who get into trouble because of gambling is probably one of the more progressive, especially in terms of using the revenues coming in from gambling to help those who are negatively affected by gambling.”

One-half of one percent of the gross revenues generated from the Iowa Lottery are earmarked for gambling treatment programs, including the 1-800-BETSOFF hotline run through Vander Linden’s office.

“The number of clients that we serve on the help line related to lottery gambling are relatively small,” Vander Linden said. “I don’t anticipate that this new scratch-off ticket is different enough to cause an increase in calls.”

However, Amy Kluver, a gambling treatment counselor at Problem Gambling Services, argues that lottery and scratch tickets may be part of a larger problem. “People think that taking care of the casino is the big issue, but there are definitely people who struggle with scratch tickets and pull tabs on a daily basis,” Kluver told the Iowa Independent in a telephone interview.

“Merging support for veterans with lottery tickets is an unfortunate aspect from our perspective,” Kluver said. “Our clients, who already have gambling problems, don’t need another reason or excuse to go out and buy another scratch ticket. They can certainly find enough reasons or excuses on their own, and this will merely supply them another reason.”

“Thankfully, not everyone has a gambling problem; it is just unfortunate that we have to turn to the lottery, especially from a gambling treatment counselor’s perspective, who sees people fueled by these types of addictions,” Kluver said. “It is unfortunate that veterans are not getting the care and service they deserve and should be getting, without having to depend on the lottery.”

Kluver, however, said that the state of Iowa is lucky that does have a program it can turn to increase funding for veterans they need. “I realize it’s not possible to find a program that makes everyone happy,” Kluver said. “But if people really want to help veterans, then they should donate money directly to them, which would be better than going out to buy a bunch of scratch tickets.”

Iowa Vets Finally Have a Place to Rest in Peace

2008-07-07T13:28:00.000-07:00

Since March 2003, 67 soldiers with Iowa ties have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. And now, thanks to the recent dedication of the Iowa Veterans Cemetery (IVC) in Van Meter, Iowa’s latest fallen soldiers will have a final resting place in Iowa, where family and friends can pay their respects.

“This cemetery will be a fitting and honorable resting place for veterans who sacrificed so much for our freedom,” Gov. Chet Culver said in a statement prior to the dedication ceremony. “Every day will be Memorial Day and Veterans Day at this place of reverence.”

“The Department is extremely excited about the opening of the cemetery,” Patrick Palmersheim, Executive Director of the Iowa Department of Veterans Affairs, said in a statement. “We are grateful for the support of the Federal [Veterans Administration], Governor Culver, former Governor [Tom] Vilsack, the Iowa Legislature, and all the Veteran service organizations for making this dream a reality.”

The official dedication of the IVC took place Thursday and was attended by a number of Iowa’s political dignitaries, including Culver, Vilsack and Sen. Chuck Grassley, who helped procure $7.6 million from the Department of Veterans Affairs State Cemetery Grant Program for the veterans cemetery.

“Those who paid the ultimate sacrifice for our country deserve a proper place for remembrance in their home state,” Grassley said in a statement earlier this year. “This cemetery will provide family, friends, and fellow Iowans with an opportunity to pay their respects to our fallen soldiers.”

The IVC is the first federally funded construction of a state-owned and –operated veterans cemetery in the state of Iowa. The cemetery serves the veteran population throughout the state and around the country, as there is no state residency requirement to be interred. Honorably discharged veterans are eligible for interment at the cemetery at no cost; the spouse of a veteran can be interred for a cost of $300. Ultimately, the IVC will provide burial space for up to 80,000 burials. Thus far, over 1,000 veterans and eligible dependents have already been determined eligible.

In 2001, a U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (USDVA) study identified Iowa as needing a dedicated, state-owned and –operated veterans cemetery. The study counted over 280,000 veterans living in Iowa, with about 92,000 living within a 75-mile radius of Des Moines. This study triggered Iowa’s political leaders to get involved and help procure the necessary funding to help build, maintain and operate the cemetery.

The Iowa Department of Veterans Affairs (IDVA) began fundraising for the cemetery on Veterans Day 2004 with the sale of Bronze and Silver Iowa Veteran Commemorative Medals. In 2005, Iowa’s legislature gave IDVA the authority to “establish and operate” a state veterans cemetery.

Construction of the IVC began in July 2007, on 100 acres of land donated by the Knapp and Kenyon families. The first phase of construction has developed 40 acres that will provide for approximately 20 years of operation.

“It is an honor and privilege to serve as the director of the Iowa Veterans Cemetery,” Director Steve Young said in a statement. “Our goal for this facility is to provide first-class, respectful service so that our veterans and their families will be remembered in perpetuity.”

Flood 2008: Guard Passes Readiness Test at Home

2008-07-03T11:22:00.000-07:00

In the wake of multiple deployments to war theaters in Iraq and Afghanistan, officials have been concerned about the Iowa National Guard’s readiness at home. These concerns were met head-on with the recent flooding in Iowa, which Gov. Chet Culver claimed was the biggest natural disaster in Iowa’s history.

“The response to the floods was a very visible example of the readiness level we maintain,” Iowa National Guard Public Affairs Officer Lt. Col. Greg Hapgood told the Iowa Independent during a phone interview. “The way we think about it is that readiness is our No. 1 job in the Iowa National Guard. If we are ready to go do a federal mission, which means going in to combat, we feel that we can respond to whatever is asked of us in the state of Iowa.”

The Iowa National Guard, in conjunction with the governor's office and Lt. Gov. Patty Judge, Iowa Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management, and many local, state and federal entities, has been providing assistance, coordination and planning, in support of flood relief operations across the state of Iowa. More than 80 of Iowa’s 99 counties have been declared state disaster areas.

Just over 4,000 Iowa guardsmen and airmen have been activated during the ongoing response to the flooding. Currently, 9,400 men and women serve in the Iowa National Guard, 1,500 of whom are currently deployed to Iraq, Afghanistan and other locations outside of Iowa.

Citizen soldiers recently returning from combat duty in Iraq found themselves cast into new roles with activations at home. “This was something different for them and gave them an incredible sense of pride to help their fellow Iowans right here at home,” Hapgood said. “Those who deployed recently talked about how they were able to help people in countries far away and it was rewarding to provide these same services at home.”

These soldiers were not the only ones cast into new roles. Members of the 34th Army Band out of Fairfieldfound themselves putting their instruments aside and mobilizing north to the flooding in Iowa City and Coralville. Spc. Amy Wymore and Spc. Joshua Clayworth volunteered for deployment June 12, three days before the rest of the unit was officially activated and deployed to the Iowa City area. It was the first time either one of them had been activated since joining the Guard in December 2004.

“I was more than happy to volunteer for this duty, because when it comes down to it, we are all Iowans, and I’m proud to do whatever I can to help out,” Clayworth, who plays the guitar for the 34th, told the Iowa Independent June 16 in Coralville.

Wymore, who plays the flute and piccolo for the 34th, volunteered for duty, despite starting a new internship. “I have a lot going on right now with my new job, and I knew it would be easy to say 'no' and look the other way, but I really wanted to help people out in their time of need,” Wymore said. “After all, that’s the reason why I signed up for the National Guard in the first place.” She said her new employers were very supportive of her decision to volunteer for flood relief operations.

Spc. Clayworth (left) and Spc. Wymore (right) were assigned to keep civilian traffic to a minimum, diverting them away from the flooded HW 6 in Coralville and making sure boaters had a permit from the City of Coralville.

Flood response provides learning opportunity

The Guard’s mission in the flood operation took on multiple facets, including a planning component for future operations. “For us,it was all about trying to forecast what the future will bring and then try to project the correct number of forces, equipment and vehicles we will need for future operations,” Hapgood said. “We are trying to foresee what problems future floods might bring or what we might be asked to do in similar circumstances.”

Moreover, the Guard drew from experiences in previous natural disasters, namely the floods of ’93, as well as combat missions to apply what they have already learned. “We used some of the lessons we have learned in combat to actually fight the floods,” Hapgood said.

For example, Hapgood cited the Guard’s use of the HESCO barriers as a tangible example of lessons learned in combat that were applicable to flooding operations. “Our engineers used these in Iraq to protect buildings and other facilities form improvised explosive devices,” Hapgood said. “We used HESCOs extensively in Ottumwa to keep water out, in particular at the water treatment plant. Not only were they very effective, but we never used them in this type of application and they were much easier to install than we previously thought.”

On a final note, Hapgood noted that the recent response to the flooding gave Iowans a sense of security to see how many forces we have here right at home ready to help out. “The support we received from the communities was unparalleled,” Hapgood said. “We saw the goodness of people, and we saw how people bonded together. This made you feel that we really do live in a special place.”

‘In Their Boots’ Series Kicks Off Tonight

2008-07-02T14:25:00.000-07:00

As media coverage of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan continues to decline, Brave New Films has stepped up its online efforts to help bring the war home.

The weekly web documentary series, “In Their Boots,” is funded by a grant from the Iraq Afghanistan Deployment Impact fund (IADIF), produced by Brave New Foundation (BNF), and will be live-streamed beginning tonight at 6 p.m. (CST).

The online show will broadcast a new episode every Wednesday and will feature Iraq and Afghanistan service men and women and their families, who share how their lives have been impacted by these ongoing wars.

Then, in a live forum the series host, Jan Bender, will interview the participants and lead a discussion that includes experts, service-providers and individual viewers in an interactive discussion of the issues raised. Bender is a veteran of the war in Iraq who served as a rifleman/combat correspondent in Iraq with 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines from 2004 to 2005.

“In Their Boots” Trailer

The idea for the new series stemmed from a conversation between Jim Miller of BNF and a supporter, which Miller documents in an e-mail message sent out to other supporters:

Last summer I got a call from someone who had seen some of our past work. She started off being extremely complimentary about the issues we were bringing to light, marveling at how widely we were able to distribute our short videos to not only inform, but to motivate viewers to take action. She then asked if Brave New Foundation would be interested in taking on a large project to help amplify the stories of a group of Americans whose efforts and sacrifices weren't being acknowledged. She warned me that it would be a difficult task since it only directly affected less than 1% of the US population.

Being a bit headstrong (even in my middle age), I said that no task was too difficult. If there is an injustice, we could tackle it and help to make it right! But what she wanted was difficult. The task we took on was to tell the stories of servicemembers who have returned from Iraq and Afghanistan.

Over the past several months, as we gathered our staff and began to meet the men and women who have served, we knew that it would be a privilege to be able to share the stories of these servicemembers and their families so that the other 99% of the US population can better understand what is happening to our troops when they return from war.

New GI Bill Survives the Right Way, the Congressional Way and the Bush Way

2008-06-20T12:09:00.001-07:00

When it comes to updating the 64-year-old GI Bill, a military adage comes to mind: There is the right way, the wrong way and the President Bush way. After reaching a more costly compromise that would avert Bush’s veto pen, the House voted Thursday to approve the 21st-century GI Bill.

Bush is expected to sign the latest version of the bill, which prompted Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., to issue a statement regarding the president’s pledge. “For the past 17 months, I and my staff have been working every day to provide first-class educational benefits to those who have served since 9/11,” Webb said. “I am delighted that after having opposed this legislation, the President has now pledged that he will not veto it when it comes before him as part of this year’s supplemental appropriations package.

“I would like to again express my appreciation to the veterans’ service organizations, many of whom communicated their support of this bill directly to a skeptical White House, and to the 58 Senate and 302 House cosponsors of this landmark legislation,” Webb said. “This bipartisan coalition consistently rejected the allegations of this Administration, and of Senators McCain, Burr and Graham, among others, who claimed that the bill was too generous to our veterans, too difficult to administer and would hurt retention.”

While simultaneously praising the passage of the war-funding bill, Republican presidential nominee John McCain of Arizona voiced his reservations: “I am pleased an agreement has finally been reached to fund our troops,” McCain said in a statement. "That [retention] has always been my primary concern with respect to the Webb bill, and it is essential that we continue to act decisively to encourage military service and ensure the well being of our All Volunteer Force.”

The Congressional Way

But how the bill finally reached Bush’s desk gives new meaning to the definition of quagmire.

The bill, originally introduced by Webb, had bipartisan support early on, but it hit a few snags in Congress, including the threat of a revolt from members of the Blue Dog Democrats and objections from McCain.

McCain, who sided with the Bush administration’s reasoning in refusing to support Webb’s version, offered his own version, which was immediately shot down in the Senate. Citing the same reasons as Bush did in explaining why the president planned on vetoing the measure, McCain objected to giving veterans, after serving only a few years, an education benefit equivalent to the tuition of a state’s highest-priced public institution. McCain voiced concerns that Webb’s bill would persuade service members to leave the military early and pursue higher education.

Webb’s version passed with overwhelming bipartisan support by a vote 75-22. McCain, however, was AWOL on the day of the vote, reportedly raising money in California for his presidential bid.

The bill moved to the House, where it initially appeared it would receive veto-proof support from both parties. However, some members of the moderate Blue Dog Democrats threatened to revolt, citing the "pay as you go" budget rules that require new benefit programs be financed with offsetting spending cuts or new taxes so as not to increase the budget deficit. They argued that the war funding bill is an emergency appropriation, but the veterans' education funding is a new mandatory benefit program that's supposed to be subject to the budget rule.

"It's the principle involved of not putting a mandatory program of any kind on an emergency supplemental," Rep. John Tanner, D-Tenn., told the AP.

However, not all the Blue Dogs shared this view or threatened to revolt, including Rep. Leonard Boswell, D-Iowa, a 20-year Army veteran, who was one of the 277 House members co-sponsoring the new legislation.

Boswell's chief of staff, Susan McAvoy, told the Iowa Independent that the opposition was not officially endorsed by the Blue Dog coalition. "Boswell informed his colleagues where he stood prior to any debate on the bill," McAvoy said. "Rep. Boswell is very supportive of veterans and would not do anything that would keep the new GI Bill from moving forward in the House."

Despite the House’s most recent compromise with the administration, some of the Blue Dog Democrats are still upset with the $62 billion price tag on the GI Bill benefits, which will be added to the deficit instead of being “paid for” as called for under House rules.

The Bush Way

All during the congressional process, Bush had threatened to veto the new GI Bill because of the costs, but ironically, the administration pushed for a compromise that would boost the funding an additional $10 billion over 10 years.

The White House wanted to add a provision that would allow troops to transfer their educational benefits to their spouses or children.

In an interview with the AP, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., responded to the White House push: "It's like the Yogi Berra story: 'I don't like that restaurant. Besides, the portions aren't large enough. They don't like it, but they want more."

"It's not a bad idea," Pelosi added. "It just costs money."

And it looks like the compromise process yielded just that: a GI Bill that will cost more money.

Vets Coordinator Helps Ease Soldiers' Transition to UI Student Life

2008-06-14T09:37:00.000-07:00

Like most veterans transitioning from the military to academic life, John Mikelson, 48, does not fit the traditional mold of most college students. After taking a 25-year hiatus from college, most of which was spent on active duty in the military, Mikelson returned to the University of Iowa in 2005.

“I found out I was unemployable,” Mikelson told the Iowa Independent during an interview. “Twenty-five years of military experience doesn’t mean anything to a civilian employer. I had comparable civilian experience for jobs I was seeking, but when potential employers discovered I didn’t have a degree, they told me to come back when I had one.”

Mikelson did just that. He recently earned his Bachelor of Arts in history and is currently enrolled in a graduate program, Higher Education in Policy and Leadership Studies. Moreover, Mikelson balances his academics with his position as the UI veterans coordinator, a full-time work-study position equally funded by the UI and the VA.

“My ultimate goal is to make the veterans coordinator job a permanent paid position on this campus and every public university campus across the country,” Mikelson said. “I think there is a need for transition centers like this one at the UI. When soldiers get demobilized, the military tells them everything they need to know in three days, but all they want is to see their spouses and family waiting on the other side of the fence.

“It’s like trying to catch a sip from a fire hose,” Mikelson said, “and when they hit the campus they realize they don’t know what they are doing.”

Mikelson, along with McKinley Bailey who now serves on the veterans committee of the Iowa House of Representatives, helped start the UI Student Veterans Association in 2005. Working through this association, members procured space to start a veterans center in 2006, which helped lay the foundation for the creation of Mikelson’s coordinator position.

The UI has around 300 veterans enrolled in classes this semester, and Mikelson’s job is to reach out to this targeted population and serve their specific needs should any problems arise during a student’s academic life. These issues range from helping a student veteran find a real estate agent who understands VA loans to helping a disabled veteran find employment in the community.

“We keep our ROCH book, or Reach Out and Call for Help, updated at all times,” Mikelson said. “This is filled with everything from information regarding current GI Bill benefits to congressional contact information. The key to outreach is knowing who to call, and we’ve already reached out to several academic advisers who are veterans. Because the military has its own language, vernacular and idiosyncrasies, it’s been helpful having contacts who speak the military language.”

Student vets face unique issues

As a veterans coordinator, Mikelson deals with a plethora of issues and concerns facing students, whether it’s before, during, or after deployment. “A common question I get from students is whether they should start classes if they know they are going to be deployed before midterm,” he said. “Midterm is the cutoff where they can receive credit or a refund. They also have the option of taking an incomplete and finishing the course after they return.”

Mikelson says that it’s more common for students to find out during the semester that they are going to be deployed by semester’s end. “When this happens, we have to sit down and evaluate what’s the best course of action for each case. The main goal is that nobody should be penalized for being deployed.”

“Professors have been very accommodating,” Mikelson said. “Most problems we’ve encountered were due to ignorance on either side, whether the student didn’t explain things very well or the professor wasn’t aware of the specifics of policy.”

Transitioning back into civilian and academic life poses other concerns, both mentally and physically, that Mikelson helps student veterans address. “We have our share of traumatic brain injuries (TBI),” he said. “Thanks to improved body armor and evacuation procedures, what would have killed us in WW II or Vietnam, is simply not the case in today’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Instead of coming back in body bags, soldiers are returning with lasting brain injuries. It’s the equivalency of adult shaken-baby syndrome."

One major problem with treating TBI is the diagnostic phase, because a lot of soldiers fear stigmatic repercussions, Mickelson said, and won’t admit they have a problem. “They’ve been told over and over that they are supermen and women, and they just need to suck it up,” Mickelson said. “When they get to the UI, they realize it’s more than a little pain. TBI is just as much an injury as a physical one; it’s the sucking chest wound of the mind.”

Mikelson is encouraged by VA and military efforts to remove the stigma. “We have been working with the VA’s peer-to-peer counselor program, outreach coordinators, and other means that are less threatening to our veterans,” Mikelson said. “The Iowa Guard has been doing really good things with its Operation Enduring Families program. After demobilization, Guard and Reservists have 90 days before they go back to drill. During the first 30 days, they have a mandatory gathering with their spouse or next of kin to gauge any problems that may have surfaced since their return to civilian life.”

Problems regarding educational benefits earned through the GI Bill have come up over the past few years, but Mikelson is optimistic the 21st Century GI Bill will address some of these concerns. “Last year, a number of people were told they didn’t qualify for the higher benefits, but after a long fight between the VA and the Department of Defense, it was determined veterans had 14 years after separation to utilize their enhanced benefits,” Mikelson said. “And despite the DoD’s retention concerns, a recent report indicates that retention rates have not been adversely effected.”

Two things Mikelson said he likes about the new GI Bill, which currently sits on President Bush’s desk, is that it will do away with the $1,200 buy-in stipulation. “New enlistees should not be paying this at a time in their lives when they can least afford it,” he said. “I also like that it will pay the benefits up front when the tuition is due and students need money for books.”

“The current GI bill was designed in peace time and has not kept pace with the rising costs of education,” Mikelson said. “Veterans tend to be older students and have spouses and dependents they are supporting, so it’s a challenge to make ends meet. A number of veterans are trying to balance family with full-time classes and full-time employment, not to mention they have the additional challenge of readjusting to civilian life. I think the new GI Bill benefits will help ease some of these burdens.”

Guard’s Revolving Door: One Iowa Unit Deploys While Another Returns

2008-06-06T06:00:00.000-07:00

In a span of three days, Iowans said goodbye to 160 of the state's National Guard soldiers as they deployed to Iraq, while simultaneously preparing for the homecoming of 120 guardsmen.

Three community sendoff ceremonies were held on Thursday for a Boone-based Iowa Army National Guard unit deployed as part of Operation Iraqi Freedom and the global war on terror.

Approximately 160 Soldiers are being mobilized from Company B, 248th Aviation Support Battalion (formerly known as Company D, 109th Aviation), Iowa Army National Guard. The unit is based in Boone, with detachments in Waterloo (Detachment 3) and Davenport (Detachment 4). The unit will travel to its mobilization station at Fort Sill, Okla., for additional training before deploying to the Central Command theater of operations.

The unit’s mission is to provide aviation maintenance support to a combat aviation brigade, which includes aircraft diagnostics, repair, maintenance and testing. The unit will be serving its third deployment since the 9/11 attacks in 2001, including a mobilization from November 2001 to November 2002, and again from February to December 2003.

833rd returning home from Iraq

Meanwhile, a homecoming ceremony for an Ottumwa-based Army National Guard unit, the 833rd Engineer Company (formerly known as Company B, 224th Engineer Battalion), will be held at 1:30 p.m. Saturday at the Hellyer Student Life Center, Indian Hills Community College – the same venue where community members bade farewell to the 833rd nearly a year ago.

Approximately 120 soldiers of the 833rd were mobilized to Fort McCoy, Wis., last June, before being deployed to the Central Command Theater of Operations in Iraq. The unit is completing its second tour of duty in less than four years. During its previous deployment to Iraq from October 2004 through December 2005, the unit earned recognition for its abilities and expertise in finding and defusing improvised explosive devices.

The 833rd’s mission was to increase the combat effectiveness of United States and coalition forces by removing physical obstacles, identifying and reducing minefields and explosive devices, executing mobility missions, emplacing barriers, constructing protective positions and performing infantry missions as required.

During their deployment, soldiers of the 833rd Engineer Co. conducted 495 combat patrols and found 100 IEDs and 13 pieces of unexploded ordnance. They successfully destroyed 55 of these explosive devices in place, clearing more than 40,000 miles of roads, making them safer for coalition forces.

Iowa Guard's Readiness Strained by Iraq Deployments

2008-06-01T21:02:00.000-07:00

Multiple deployments to Iraq by Iowa’s National Guard have not only taken their toll on the wear-and-tear of unit equipment needs, but servicemen, their families and their employers have felt the strain – physically, mentally and economically.

These shortcomings have not gone unnoticed by one Iowa congressman

In the wake of the House’s approval of the National Defense Authorization Act recently, Rep. Dave Loebsack, D-Iowa, who serves on the House Armed Service Committee, met with Iowa National Guard officers at the Iowa City Readiness Center May 24 to assess the readiness levels of the Guard. Because of the continued presence in Iraq, National Guard units, on average, have only 63 percent of their required equipment.

“We have huge equipment concerns, especially now with multiple deployments overseas, so we need to replenish the equipment losses,” Loebsack said. “We are at about 60 percent readiness of what we need here with the Iowa National Guard. That is why we’ve authorized more money for equipment in the Defense Authorization Act.”

The bill authorizes nearly $2 billion for unfunded readiness initiatives and authorizes $800 million to provide the National Guard and Reserve with critically needed equipment. Additionally, it protects our troops in harm’s way by authorizing $2.6 billion for additional Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles, $947 million for additional Up-Armored Humvees, and $783 million for the continued procurement and enhancement of personal body armor.

“Clearly, there is a shortfall and we are trying to remedy this situation. The idea is to get up to 75 percent of what the Guard needs over the course of the next two years,” Loebsack said. “Our National Guard is doing a fantastic job. We’ve seen a change in operations as far as the mission with the Guard is concerned, and they are really picking up the slack and doing great things overseas.”

Shifting the role of the Guard

Brig. Gens. Mark Zirkelbach of the Army National Guard and Doug Pierce of the Iowa Air National Guard cited the Guard’s shift of operation as the biggest challenge threatening readiness.

“The Guard has changed since the Global War on Terror began,” Zirkelbach (pictured left) said. “We’ve moved from what we called a strategic reserve, which would deploy only once, until the draft kicked in and help proved the adequate manpower needed to be fully operational.

“This is how we died it in WW II, Korea, and Vietnam,” Zirkelbach said. “Today, we have an all-volunteer force, which is an operational force, meaning, instead of relying on a draft, Guard members will serve multiple deployments to help replenish manpower.”

Echoing Zirkelbach’s assessment, Pierce (pictured right) said: “We are matching and doing the same mission at the same rate as the active-duty members. We have good equipment; it’s just that we are using it more often and wearing it out at a faster rate.

“The problem has come to the surface now because of our continued rotations,” Pierce said. “We’ve been going overseas since 1996, but recent deployments have put more of a strain on our equipment and personnel."

Moreover, Pierce said, one of the biggest challenges the Guard faces is keeping pace with the operation’s tempo and subsequent wear-and-tear on the equipment. “We are using more equipment and using equipment more often, so it tends to wear out faster," Pierce said. “We need recapitalization and new acquisition of the airplanes and equipment we already possess.”

Taking care of the troops

Another aspect facing the Guard’s readiness is the impact the current wars have had and will have on the troops, their families, their employers and recruitment of new members. “We also need to have more people in the Guard, too,” Loebsack said. “They’re doing a great job recruiting, but beyond that we need to be concerned with the troops’ physical and mental health as well.”

Regarding enlistment, Zirkelbach said: “We will enlist more people this month than will separate from the service. The Iowa Guard will grow this month.”

Sharing equipment

The recently passed appropriations won’t go into effect until next year, so in the meantime, the Guards will have to use alternative means to procure equipment for their deployment needs.

“The shortages in the Air Guard aren’t as prevalent as they are in the Army Guard,” Pierce said. “However, I do foresee future issues regarding our current F-16s in Des Moines. They are older models, and because we are using them more frequently, I can see them wearing out much sooner.

“One way to address concern is by sharing equipment and planes with other units in Madison, Wis., and Great Falls, Mont.,” Pierce said. “We’ve been doing this long enough, so we have a pretty good checklist of what equipment impacts the unit the least when sent over to help the troops in the theater.”

Moreover, Zirkelbach said that units that have been alerted for deployment are receiving equipment through procurement and that if the procurements aren’t sufficient enough, then states are cross-leveling equipment to these units. “For example, we are moving some of our weapon systems, night-vision equipment and some vehicles to help other states satisfy their equipment needs,” Zirkelbach said.

Vehicles parked in the motor pool of the 109th Medical Batallion in Iowa City await next deployment orders

Zirkelbach, however, is concerned that units don’t have the proper equipment to train with before deployment, nor do they have enough full-time support to keep day-to-day operations functioning effectively and efficiently. “In order to generate readiness, we really need the equipment now in order to prepare, train and support our troops for the mission they will be conducting,” Zirlebach said. “Our full-time manning is currently less than what is required, thus creating additional work loads in providing readiness in Iowa and helping provide other states with what they need for deployment.”

Minding the home front

Given the number of weather-related disasters Iowa has faced in recent years, namely flooding and tornadoes, concerns have mounted as to whether the Guard will be prepared to adequately and efficiently handle these situations when they arise.

“We need vehicles for support and communication equipment to help speed up our response time,” Zirkelbach said. “We’ve had up to 50 percent of the Guard deployed over the last five years and we’ve managed to respond to every significant weather-related event. It has not been an issue during this time and we don’t perceive this will be a problem in the immediate future.”

Exclusive: "MAS*H" Star’s Journey to Activism Will Make Literary Stop in Iowa City

2008-05-28T21:42:00.001-07:00

Actor Mike Farrell, best known as B.J. Hunnicutt on the TV show “M*A*S*H,” has spent most of his life as a political activist. Farrell, however, doesn’t like being called an actor or an activist. “I don’t like being called an activist, because this is used to separate me from those people who are calling me that,” Farrell told the Iowa Independent during a telephone interview. “And this only serves to cut off the communication process.”

Instead, Farrell, 69, would prefer that people call him Mike, which inspired the title of his new memoir, “Just Call Me Mike: A Journey to Actor and Activist,” which he will read from May 30 at the Prairie Lights bookstore in Iowa City.

As part of Farrell’s sojourn, he said he never really wanted to write a book, but a friend convinced him to write about his life’s story, where he came from, and his journey to become an actor and an activist. “I didn’t want to write a how-to book for activists, because I don’t think it can be done,” Farrell said. “Rather, I wrote a story about my life and shared my journey.”

Farrell was born in St. Paul, Minn., but he grew up in Hollywood, where his father worked as a studio carpenter. He began his movie career with small parts in films including "The Graduate" and "The Americanization of Emily." Eventually he landed a regular role in the soap opera "The Days of Our Lives" and then leading roles in two series, "The Interns" and "The Man and The City," followed by a four-year contract with Universal Pictures.

His eight years on "M*A*S*H" included the opportunity to both write and direct several episodes, earning him nominations for Director's Guild and Emmy awards. Farrell credits “M*A*S*H” for helping him shape his world view, saying the show provided him with an opportunity to travel and see a great number of cultures.

During the course of the long-running sitcom, Farrell also began to pursue an interest in politics and human rights that took him to Cambodia, Honduras, Nicaragua and El Salvador, and he is now considered one of Hollywood's prominent activists. He is currently co-chair of Human Rights Watch in California and president of the anti-capital punishment group Death Penalty Focus.

Mike Farrell's Questions and Answers with the Iowa Independent:

Iowa Independent: "M*A*S*H" not only provided audiences an opportunity for laughter, but the show shed light on the humanity and inhumanities of war. When considering it was the most popular television show during its time, why do you think people were so drawn to it?

Farrell: "M*A*S*H" depicted a fundamental humanity and told the truth. A lot of blood has been spilled in war, and "M*A*S*H" reminded people of this and that we have been misled by our leaders.

Iowa Independent: How much of B.J. Hunnicutt’s character was Mike Farrell, or vice versa?

Farrell: We’re the same height.

Iowa Independent: Your experiences in the Marines and as an activist have given you firsthand insights into how the U.S. policies have affected other countries. What have been some of the more eye-opening repercussions you have witnessed?

Farrell: I’ve seen victims of torture in the United States, South America, Africa and Asia. I think in too many instances, these incidents of torture, whether directly or indirectly, have been an effect of U.S. foreign policy. Our country is responsible for helping create the circumstances in which these occurrences of torture took place.

Iowa Independent: Where do the current administration’s policies and foreign policy decisions fit in this paradigm?

Farrell: The current administration has been criminal in the way it has twisted and abused our Constitution. The Bush administration has stripped our Bill of Rights, lied to us and unconscionably diminished the fundamental values we hold as Americans.

Iowa Independent: Do you sense that people in other countries have trouble trusting you and other Americans, or do they tend to separate the people from the policies?

Farrell: I’ve always found that if you come with the right attitude and you are genuine with your offer of support, people in need will trust you. Our latest actions abroad have hurt us in terms that people are a little less willing to trust us, and it does take longer sometimes to demonstrate that we can be trusted.

Iowa Independent: You are a strong opponent of the death penalty. What has drawn you to advocating against this particular issue?

Farrell: The death penalty is one of the hidden diseases in our country and is doing serious harm to us as a nation. We’ve been duped by our government and don’t realize it’s harming us in ways that people aren’t aware of. When a government sanctions killing, this harms other people because it’s seen as acceptable, and this opens the door to the dehumanization process.

Iowa Independent: In his 2008 gubernatorial bid, our current governor, Chet Culver, said he would support a limited death penalty for some of the more extreme cases, specifically those involving children victims. What are your thoughts or notions about the notion of a limited death penalty in these cases?

Farrell: I can see why some people still cling to a limited death penalty, because they have an emotional connection, and they cannot completely let go of the death penalty. It’s a process of letting go, so they hold on to it, claiming it’s only for the worse offenders. Unfortunately, we have always claimed it’s for the worst of the worst. However, it’s used to unfairly prey upon the poor and only serves to perpetuate racism.

Iowa Independent: You mentioned you don’t like being categorized. In the bigger picture, do you think recent categorizations have helped lead to our country’s current divisiveness and polarization, socially and/or politically?

Farrell: Yes, exactly. We need to begin having a meaningful dialogue, so we can address some of the major issues affecting our country and impacting the world.

Iowa Independent: Do you see any hope on the horizon for healing these divisive wounds?

Farrell: Sure, one of the major candidates for president is running a campaign that wants us to end these divisions, not wanting to be divided into red and blue states, with the hope of healing these divisions. The obstacles we face are obvious. Certain people have taken advantage of this divisiveness to help distance people from one another as a means of gaining power and using this power to inflame the prejudices on both sides.

Iowa Independent: Having said that, what are your thoughts on this year’s presidential election?

Farrell: The people of Iowa gave a boost to the Obama campaign, which can make an extremely big impact on the world by providing people around the world with a sense of hope, and I’m grateful for that.

Iowa Independent: Your book’s title suggests that your book and life are part of a journey. What advice would you impart to the younger generation whose journey has just begun?

Farrell: It’s urgently important that they examine who they are and take the time to take a serious look at their own circumstances and how they compare to not only people in our own country, but people’s circumstances in other countries as well.

A Memorial Day Tribute to Iowa’s Fallen Soldiers

2008-05-24T21:46:00.000-07:00

A tribute to the 11 soldiers with Iowa ties, who paid the ultimate sacrifice in Iraq and Afghanistan during the past year:

In Memory of…

Army Maj. Stuart Wolfer, 36, who served in Des Moines from May 1994 to November 1996 with the Army Reserve’s 19th Theatre Army Area Command of Fort Des Moines, and was killed April 6, 2008 in Baghdad, Iraq.

Marine Lance Cpl. Cody Wanken, 20, of Hampton who died April 2 at the Wounded Warriors hospital in San Diego from injuries sustained in Fallujah in Sept. 2007.

Army Spc. Chad Groepper, 21, of Kingsley, who was shot and killed Feb. 17, 2008, in the Diyala province northeast of Baghdad.

Army Staff Sgt. Robert J. Miller, 24, a former University of Iowa student and Iowa City resident, who was killed Jan. 25, 2008 in Barikowt, Afghanistan.

Army Sgt. Adrian Hike, 26, of Ralston, who died Nov. 12, 2007, while on patrol in Afghanistan.

Army Sgt. Joseph B. Milledge, 23, who died Oct. 5, 2007, when a roadside bomb exploded in Baghdad, Iraq.

Army Sgt. Kevin Gilbertson, 25, of Cedar Rapids, who was shot and killed Aug. 31, 2007, in Ramadi, Iraq.

Army Sgt. 1st Class Scott Carney, 37, of Ankeny, who died Aug. 24 near Heart, Afghanistan, when the Humvee in which he was a passenger rolled during a convoy operation.

Marine Sgt. Jon Bonnell Jr., 22, of Fort Dodge, who died in an explosion Aug. 7, 2007, in Al Anbar, Iraq.

Army Pfc. Michael Patrick Pittman, 34, a Davenport native, who was killed in an explosion June 15, 2007, in Baghdad, Iraq.

Army Cpl. Llythaniele Fender, 21, a 2004 graduate of West Monona High School in Onawa, who was killed June 10, 2007, in an explosion in Karbala, Iraq.

In Memory of the other 56 soldiers with Iowa ties, who paid the ultimate sacrifice in Iraq and Afghanistan since March 2003:

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In Memory of…

The 853 Iowans who paid the ultimate sacrifice in the war in Vietnam,

the 392 Iowans who were killed in the Korean War,

the 5,633 Iowans who died while serving in World War II.

and all of the other soldiers, Iowans and otherwise, who died in combat while serving the United States Armed Forces.

McCain Dodges Iraq War Funding Vote; Grassley and Harkin Split

2008-05-23T13:01:00.000-07:00

Despite President Bush’s threat to veto a war funding bill with congressional add-ons, 25 Senate Republicans broke ranks and voted in favor of passing the bill, which added $97 billion worth of spending on top of the $165 billion earmarked for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan through next spring.

Although the 75-22 vote surpassed Bush’s veto threshold, a war of words did break out on the Senate floor when Democratic presidential candidate, Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, fired the first shot at his Republican rival, Sen. John McCain of Arizona. Obama took issue with McCain on his reluctance to sign on to a new GI Bill amendment proposed by Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., which accounts for over $50 billion of the proposed funding.

"I respect John McCain," Obama said, "but I can't understand why he's lining up with the president to oppose this bill," which provides funding and housing allowances for vets at private and public colleges. "There are many issues that lend themselves to partisan posturing, but giving our veterans the chance to go to college should not be one of them.”

Initially, Obama’s words were lost on McCain, who was not in the chamber and did not vote on the bill. Obama and his Democratic presidential rival, Hillary Clinton of New York, voted in favor of the bill. McCain, who had previously stated he did not support the new GI Bill and offered his own version, missed the vote due to campaign fundraising commitments in California.

Obama’s words eventually did traverse the country and McCain was quick to fire back a response:

"It is typical, but no less offensive that Senator Obama uses the Senate floor to take cheap shots at an opponent and easy advantage of an issue he has less than zero understanding of," McCain said in a statement. "If Sen. Obama would take the time and trouble to understand this issue he would learn to debate an honest disagreement respectfully. But, as he always does, he prefers impugning the motives of his opponent, and exploiting a thoughtful difference of opinion to advance his own ambitions. If that is how he would behave as president, the country would regret his election.”

McCain’s absence did not go unnoticed by the Howard Dean, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, who said in a statement yesterday: "America's veterans and military families deserve better than a candidate who is willing to keep our troops in Iraq for 100 years, but refuses to take care of them when they come home.”

On the Iowa front, Sens. Tom Harkin and Chuck Grassley voted along party lines. Harkin voted in favor of the bill while Grassley held the party line and joined 21 other Republicans in opposition to the funding bill.

"A supplemental appropriations bill is intended to pay for items of necessity like supporting our troops in the war on terrorism, which is something we can all agree on,” Grassley told the Iowa Independent in an email statement. “Instead, the majority decided to throw in everything but the kitchen sink and chose to ignore their own pay-as-you-go philosophy for most of the bill.

"I supported a GI Bill enhancement measure when it was offered as an amendment to another piece of legislation,” Grassley added. “But, because of procedural maneuvering, a GI Bill proposal was wrapped in with a package of unrelated spending and pet projects. It's a shame we weren't afforded the opportunity to give this important matter the separate consideration it deserves. In the end, this bill was riddled with a lot of troubling policy that I couldn't support."

Troubling or not, it remains to be seen what impact McCain’s non-vote will have on his presidential bid as he continues to court voters and fellow veterans. McCain will face his first test on the issue this Memorial Day weekend as Congress breaks for recess and the presidential candidates hit the campaign trail in full stride.

UI Helps Vets Fill Gap Left Behind by GI Bill

2008-05-22T10:56:00.000-07:00

While veterans wait for Congress to work out an updated version of the GI Bill that will survive President Bush’s veto pen, the University of Iowa has created a Veterans Grant Program to help fill the financial gap that many veterans face with existing GI Bill benefits.

John Mikelson, advisor for the UI Veterans Center, explained that while the current GI Bill covers some tuition and fees for veterans, it does not cover all costs, depending on individual situations.

"In a best-case scenario, approximately 60 percent of these educational costs are currently covered for veterans, and the UI grant will be a big help to current students," Mikelson said in a release.

UI is among the first universities in the country to offer this kind of grant to veterans, he added.

The UI will provide grants of up to $500 per semester to offset educational expenses for veterans who entered service from the state of Iowa and who served on active duty in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, or other periods of hostility.

The UI has allocated $100,000 for the Veterans Grant Program, according to UI President Sally Mason.

"This grant program was created to support our veterans who have given so much to our country. It's the start of an effort to help these students who have returned to the University of Iowa to improve their lives through education," Mason said in a statement.

Larry Lockwood, assistant provost for enrollment services in the UI Office of the Registrar, said in a release: "Many of our students have had to delay their educational goals because they have been called to active duty to meet the needs of our country. The University of Iowa will give back to our veterans and eligible dependents in a small way and do what is right for this generation, as well as past generations who have served in times of conflict."

The new UI Veteran's Grant is based on need as determined by completion of the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) form. Students who are eligible for benefits as a dependent of a veteran who became 100 percent disabled or died as a result of military duty may also be awarded this grant. The Veterans Grant is renewable, but cannot exceed eight semesters. To reapply, the veteran must complete the FAFSA each year and must submit an application.

Loebsack Pushes Pain-Care Management Initiative for Servicemembers

2008-05-21T12:57:00.000-07:00

Based on his observations on the ground in Iraq and on the home front at the Pain Care Center University of Iowa Hospital, Rep. Dave Loebsack, D-Iowa, introduced legislation that would require the Department of Defense to create and implement a comprehensive pain care initiative for men and women serving in the nation’s armed services. Loebsack’s provision, The Military Pain Care Act (H.R. 5465), was added to the National Defense Authorization Act last week.

“We need to do a better job of protecting the health and wellbeing of our active-duty servicemembers on the battlefield, in military clinics, and in VA hospitals,” Loebsack told reporters on a conference call last week. “We have the best medical facilities in the world, but our servicememberes are not getting the comprehensive health care they deserve. Pain care management, both acute and chronic, is a critical component of this care and needs to be brought to attention.”

After touring the Pain Care Center and discussing pain care management with Dr. Richard Rosenquist, UI Director of Pain Medicine Service, Loebsack is convinced more needs to be done to provide servicemembers with treatment. “Forty percent of our armed forces are unable to return to their service obligations because of issues related to pain, yet the Defense Department has no pain care management system in place,” Loebsack said. “Failure to address this issue will not only affect active-duty members, but will also have an impact on the Iowa National Guard and the ease of their transition back into their civilian lives.”

Part of Loebsack’s bill would require the Government Accountability Office to conduct a study of existing military Department of Defense pain care programs and to develop a best practices approach.

“The implementation of a comprehensive pain care management system will have a significant impact on the personal lives of military members and the military service’s combat readiness,” Dr. Rosenquist said on the conference call. “Of the military members that have been treated by qualified pain management specialists, 94 percent of them have returned to active-duty service.”

Rosenquist said that most of the people he treats for pain suffer from lower-back pains, which he says is consistent among his civilian patients. “The day-to-day rigors of duties related to combat take their toll on soldiers' bodies,” Dr. Rosenquist said. “Not to mention, the need for pain care management increases with direct-combat injuries, such as injuries sustained from improvised explosive devices.”

New GI Bill Clears House; Battle Moves to Senate

2008-05-16T05:27:00.000-07:00

House leaders found a way to appease members of the Blue Dog Democrats and overwhelmingly passed the new GI Bill yesterday by a vote of 256-166, as an attachment to the Iraq war emergency supplemental bill.

Last week House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., was forced to pull the war funding bill from the schedule when some Blue Dog members, citing the “pay as you go” budget rules, threatened to revolt.

To offset the $51.8 billion that would be spent over the next decade for veterans’ education, Democrats proposed adding a one-half percent income tax surcharge on individual incomes above $1 million.

The Iowa delegation voted along party lines. Democratic Reps. Leonard Boswell, Bruce Braley, and Dave Loebsack voted in favor of the amendment.

“For too long our country has not lived up to our promise of serving our nation’s veterans with the same honor, commitment and dignity with which they have so bravely served our nation,” Congressman Loebsack said in a statement. “By restoring GI benefits, we will be offering 1.7 million brave men and women who have served in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan educational benefits on par with those provided to veterans of the World War II era. Not only will this strengthen our military, it will also make the heroes of Iraq and Afghanistan part of a new American economic recovery, just like after World War II.”

On the other side of the aisle, Reps. Steve King and Tom Latham, an original co-sponsor of the bipartisan bill, voted against the measure.

Latham supports the legislation’s passage as a standalone measure, his communications director Fritz Chaleff told the Iowa Independent in a statement. “He feels that it should, as any legislation considered by Congress, go through the democratic process of full committee hearings and debate before being considered by the full House,” Chaleff said. “Unfortunately, the eventual success of the measure is threatened because of the irregular and politically motivated process in which it was brought up.”

“Congressman Latham will continue to fight for this legislation through the regular established process that follows the very same solid democratic principles that America’s veterans fought and served to protect,” Chaleff said.

House Democrats overwhelmingly passed the bill despite President George W. Bush’s veto threat, and now the bill moves to the Senate, where it needs four more votes to meet the veto-proof threshold.

McCain Faces Looming Showdown Over 21st Century GI Bill

2008-05-14T05:44:00.000-07:00

(Update: Dems Shoot Down McCain’s Alternative GI Bill

Senate Democrats held off a Republican ambush to advance its own version of a new GI Bill Wednesday, shooting the amendment down by a 55-42 vote.)

During an election year, there is no such thing as a sure thing in congressional politics. The latest uncertainty surrounds Sen. Jim Webb’s 21st Century GI Bill, which met a temporary setback in the House last week when the legislation, attached to the Iraq War funding bill, was pulled from the floor after members of the Blue Dog Democrats threatened a revolt.

Meanwhile, the plot thickens in the Senate after a dose of presidential politics was thrown into the chamber pot, pitting decorated Vietnam War veterans against each other.

In a bipartisan effort, combat Vietnam veterans Sens. Jim Webb, D-Va., and Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., have vowed to improve veterans’ education benefits by introducing a bill, the Post-9/11 Veterans Educational Assistance Act of 2008 (S. 22), in the Senate that would substantially increase the educational benefits available to servicemembers who have served since Sept. 11, 2001.

At first, fellow combat veteran and prisoner of war Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, remained silent on whether he would support his colleague’s bill, contending he needed more time to study the bill.

The day after a nonpartisan veterans’ advocacy group, Vote Vets, delivered a petition signed by 30,000 veterans to McCain’ Senate office, McCain broke his silence and followed the Pentagon’s lead, which contends the new GI Bill is too generous and will encourage soldiers to leave military service and pursue a college education.

"We are working on proposals of our own — I'm a consistent supporter of educational benefits for the men and women of the military," McCain told ABC News. "I want to make sure that we have incentives for people to remain in the military as well as for people to join the military.”

The latter rationale prompted Wesley K. Clark, the former supreme commander of NATO, and Jon Stoltz, an Iraq war veteran and chairman of VoteVets.org, to pen an op-ed piece in the Los Angeles Times.

The White House has voiced concern on the bill, arguing that if returning troops are offered a good education, they will choose college over extending their service. This is as offensive as it is absurd.

First, it is morally reprehensible to fix the system so that civilian life is unappealing to service members, in an attempt to force them to re-up. Education assistance is not a handout, it is a sacred promise that we have made for generations in return for service.

Second, falling military recruitment numbers are just as serious as retention problems. To send the message that this nation will not help you make the most of your life will dissuade a large number of our best and brightest from choosing military service over other career options.

Webb downplayed the political implications of the bill and made a plea for McCain to join the other 54 senators, including his Democratic colleagues Barack Obama of Illinois and Hillary Clinton of New York, who have already signed on to the new GI Bill.

"John McCain needs to be on this bill," Webb said in a statement to The Huffington Post. "I have said to him several times that this is not a political issue -- this is about providing a fair, deserved benefit to our troops. Based on his own military history and how strongly he speaks about the positive contributions of the people who have served, I hope that he will get on board and support this new GI bill."

As promised, McCain joined Sens. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Richard Burr, R-N.C., in unveiling an alternative to the Webb/Hagel bill, the Enhancement of Recruitment, Retention, and Readjustment through Education Act.

“We have an obligation to provide unwavering support to our nation’s veterans, and that is precisely what this legislation does,” McCain said in a statement. “Men and women who serve their country in uniform deserve the best education benefits we are able to give them. That is why I am pleased to join with Senators Graham and Burr to announce legislation that significantly enhances the Montgomery GI bill and promotes recruitment and retention which is critical to an All Volunteer Military.”

On the campaign trail Tuesday in Charleston, W.Va., Obama took issue with McCain’s unwillingness to support Webb’s bill.

"John McCain is one of the few senators of either party who oppose this bill because he thinks it's too generous," Obama said. "I could not disagree with him more. At a time when the skyrocketing cost of tuition is pricing thousands of Americans out of a college education, we should be doing everything we can to give the men and women who have risked their lives for this country the chance to pursue their American Dream."

McCain’s campaign spokesman Tucker Bounds quickly fired back in a statement, calling it "absurd" for Obama to question McCain’s commitment to America’s veterans "when Obama himself voted against funding our nation’s veterans, and troops in the field, during a time of war."

On the Iowa front, Democratic Sen. Tom Harkin has signed on to Webb’s bill, namely because it includes more benefits, whereas McCain’s alternative bill imposes benefit limitations. “The GI bill being led in a major bipartisan fashion by Senators Webb and Warner truly supports our service members with the resources they need to improve and complete their education,” Harkin said in a statement to the Iowa Independent. “Other bills seem to set unnecessary benefit ceilings even though we have asked our troops to go above and beyond the call of duty. We should not limit the progress our returning soldiers can make.”

Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, has yet to decide upon either of the proposed bills. “Senator Grassley supports improving the GI bill, but has not committed to supporting any particular bill at this time,” Beth Pellett-Levine, Grassley’s press secretary, told the Iowa Independent. “He's looking forward to studying the bill recently put forward by Senators Graham, Burr and McCain as well as the Webb/Warner bill.”

Old vs. New GI Bill: What’s at stake for veterans?

The original GI Bill was signed into law in 1944 by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt to help ensure World War II veterans would be able to afford an education. Experts have argued that the GI Bill “reinvented America” after a half-decade of war. A 1988 Congressional study showed that every dollar spent on educational benefits under the original GI Bill added seven dollars to the national economy in terms of productivity, consumer spending, and tax revenue.

Fast forward 64 years to the present wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which have produced over 1.5 million veterans. The current educational benefits offered to veterans, when adjusted for inflation and the rise in tuition and cost of living, are far lower than the original GI Bill. Today, after paying a nonrefundable $1,200 contribution from their first year’s military paychecks, troops receive an estimated $1,101 per academic month for up to 36 months, or four years of college.

Webb’s version of the new GI Bill will waive the $1,200 buy-in component, extend time to use benefits from 10 to 15 years, and will change the benefit proposal to pay for any public university and most private colleges -- capping benefits at the rate of the most expensive public university in the state. Moreover, the bill will add $1,000 a year for books and supplies and a stipend to cover cost-of-living expenses (based on DoD’s Basic Housing Allowance rate for E-5 w/dependent and zip code of the college/university).

Veterans attending a public university or select private college in Iowa will receive up to $5,935 based on the tuition cap at the most expensive public university, the University of Iowa. After adding in the living allowance and the $1,000 for books and supplies, veterans will receive an average yearly stipend of $7,674. Ironically, this is $2,226 less than veterans receive through the current GI Bill, but Iowa has the fourth lowest in-state tuition rate, and the intent of the new GI Bill is to provide certainty to veterans transitioning from the military to college, so they don’t have to worry about rising tuition costs outpacing their education benefits.

Another problem with the current GI Bill has to do with structural and bureaucratic delays, which have discouraged some veterans from using their benefits. National Guardsmen and Reservists, including those who have served multiple combat tours, typically receive only a fraction of their GI Bill benefits. Moreover, 30 percent of troops who pay the nonrefundable $1,200 contribution do not end up using the GI Bill at all. These veterans have paid the government $230 million, but received nothing in return.

On the other hand, Keith Pedigo, the Veterans Affairs associate deputy undersecretary for policy and program management, issued a warning last week that meeting an Aug. 1, 2009, effective date for the benefits increases in the new GI bill would be extremely difficult, because the proposal calls for the maximum benefit to be different in each state, payments would have to be processed manually, rather than automatically, Pedigo said.

“VA does not now have a payment system or the appropriate number of trained personnel to administer the program,” Pedigo said in a statement, predicting it would take two years to develop a payment system to provide the new benefits.

Pedigo also warned of fundamental unfairness in a proposed housing allowance that would be based on where a school is located, rather than where a student lives, which could encourage veterans to enroll in online learning programs offered by schools in high-cost areas.

Despite President George W. Bush’s threat to veto the new GI Bill in its current form, both the House and Senate expect to vote on the legislation before the summer recess.

Nussle: ‘Adding New GI Bill to Iraq Funding Bill Will Provoke Bush Veto’

2008-05-09T07:22:00.000-07:00

Election-year politics has taken center stage on the Hill in D.C. as the House prepares to do battle with the White House over the Iraq funding bill. In the battle between the legislative and executive branches, the Democrats have switched tactics.

Last year Democratic leaders tried to add time lines for troop withdrawals to several versions of proposed funding bills. This year, however, Democrats have chosen to play the new GI bill card, gambling that President George W. Bush’s veto of a popular, bipartisan bill would be politically damaging.

Bush, however, has nothing to lose politically, so he renewed his veto threat against any bill that comes to his desk equipped with any add-on legislation that would require additional appropriations.

"To just pile them into the troop funding bill because the troop funding bill is necessary is a cynical process that the president has already been very clear about — the fact that he would veto," White House budget office manager Jim Nussle told the Associated Press.

Nussle, a former Iowa congressman and 2006 Republican gubernatorial candidate, told the AP that the House Democrats’ plan to add unrelated legislation extending unemployment benefits, at a cost of $16 billion over two years, and boosting education benefits under the GI Bill, at a cost that could reach $51 billion over the next decade, would provoke a veto even though they are popular politically.

In his call for fiscal restraint, Bush received help from across the aisle, when some members of the moderate Blue Dog Democrats threatened to revolt. The Blue Dogs are strong advocates of the “pay as you go” budget rules that require new benefit programs be financed with offsetting spending cuts or new taxes so as not to cause the budget deficit to spiral. They argue that the war funding bill is an emergency appropriation, but the veterans education funding is a new mandatory benefit program that's supposed to be subject to the budget rule.

"It's the principle involved of not putting a mandatory program of any kind on an emergency supplemental," Rep. John Tanner, D-Tenn. told the AP.

However, not all the Blue Dogs shared this view or threatened to revolt, including Rep. Leonard Boswell, D-Iowa, a 20-year Army veteran, who was one of the 277 House members co-sponsoring the new GI Bill legislation.

Boswell’s chief of staff, Susan McAvoy, told the Iowa Independent that the Blue Dog opposition was not an official position endorsed by the coalition. "He informed his colleagues where he stood prior to any debate on the bill,” McAvoy said. “Rep. Boswell is very supportive of veterans and would not do anything that would keep the new GI Bill from moving forward in the House.”

Nonetheless, the threatened revolt by Blue Dog members forced House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., to pull the war funding bill from the House schedule. She told reporters that she is confident the impasse with the rebel Democrats can be ironed out, but the delay threatens her goal of getting the war funding bill completed by Memorial Day.

Even if Pelosi does iron matters out with the Blue Dogs, there’s still the matter of Bush’s veto threat looming at the finish line. "Judging from what the president has said and where the Congress appears to be heading toward right now, the answer is still the same — that the president would veto," Nussle told the Associated Press.

Thanks to Bipartisan Support, House Expected to Pass New GI Bill

2008-05-08T06:43:00.000-07:00

Despite the adage that everything changed after Sept. 11, 2001, there is one thing veterans have not seen changed: the GI Bill.

Sixty-four years have passed since the GI Bill, which ensured that 8 million combat veterans coming home from World War II would be able to afford a college education, was first signed by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

During this period, soldiers have witnessed firsthand how their enemies' strategies have evolved, from the guerrilla warfare tactics used in Vietnam to the current insurgency methods used in Iraq and Afghanistan

Soldiers and veterans have also witnessed the increasing costs of college tuition consistently outpacing the steady rise of inflation.

In a bipartisan effort, combat Vietnam veterans Sens. Jim Webb, D-Va., and Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., have vowed to improve veterans’ education benefits by introducing a bill, the Post-9/11 Veterans Educational Assistance Act of 2008 (S. 22), in the Senate that would substantially increase the educational benefits available to servicemembers who have served since Sept. 11, 2001.

The House is expected to vote on its version of the bill today. House Resolution 5740 has received bipartisan support and is co-sponsored by 277 House members, including Iowa Democratic Reps. Leonard Boswell, Bruce Braley and Dave Loebsack, and Republican Rep. Tom Latham."No one has done more to secure our freedom than our veterans and military personnel,” Latham said in a press release. “The American people and the U.S. government have a solemn obligation to ensure they receive the benefits they deserve and that those benefits allow them to achieve their educational goals in life.”

Latham’s sentiments were echoed on the other side of the aisle by Loebsack. “For too long our country has not lived up to our promise of serving our nation’s veterans with the same honor, commitment and dignity with which they have so bravely served our nation,” Loebsack said in a statement to the Iowa Independent.

“This new GI Bill for the 21st century is a key step in honoring the service and sacrifice of our troops by restoring the promise of the GI Bill to pay for a full four-year college education,” Loebsack said. "Not only will this strengthen our military, it will also make the heroes of Iraq and Afghanistan part of a new American economic recovery, just like after World War II.”

Moreover, the bill would cover the cost of tuition up to the most expensive in-state public school and provide a living and book stipend, so that new veterans can focus on their educations and their readjustment to civilian life. It would also offer a more equitable benefit to National Guardsmen and Reservists than what is currently available.

Although the bill is expected to pass in the House, it has a roadblock, namely Arizona senator and presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain’s reluctance to endorse Webb/Hagel’s version of the bill.

McCain joined fellow Republican Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Richard Burr of North Carolina in unveiling their own version of the GI Bill, the Enhancement of Recruitment, Retention, and Readjustment through Education Act. Initial reports indicate that McCain is reluctant to support Webb/Hagel’s bill, fearing the incentives will encourage servicemembers to leave the military prematurely and pursue a college education.

Harkin Vows to Break VA’s Silence on Veterans’ Suicide Crisis

2008-04-28T12:40:00.000-07:00

In light of the adage “Truth is the first casualty of war,” the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is under fire for allegedly covering up the suicide crisis among our nation’s veterans in November.

The veterans’ rights group, Veterans for Common Sense, filed a class-action suit against the VA, and a federal court in San Francisco began hearing the case last Monday. The case, backed by internal e-mails written by Dr. Ira Katz, the VA’s head of mental health, and procured by CBS News, alleges that the VA is deliberately concealing the risk of suicide among veterans.

“The system is in crisis and unfortunately the VA is in denial,” veterans' rights attorney Gordon Erspamer told CBS last Monday.

Congress took up the issue Thursday, when U.S. Sens. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, and Russ Feingold, D-Wis., introduced a bill, the Veterans Suicide Study Act, which would require the VA to track veterans’ suicide rates annually and report its findings to Congress. Moreover, the bill would require the VA to report to Congress within 180 days the number of veterans who have died by suicide since Jan. 1, 1997.

“We are looking at a real crisis among our veterans and it is high time the VA recognizes it,” Harkin said in a statement. “Tracking the number of suicides among our veterans will help us to better understand the true depths of this crisis so we may ensure we are doing everything we can to address their mental health needs. It is shameful to lose those who have served our country to suicide simply because they do not have the support they need.”

Katz told CBS in November that “there is no epidemic in suicide in VA,” but changed his story a few months ago. In a letter written to his top media adviser, Katz wrote: "Our suicide prevention coordinators are identifying about 1,000 suicide attempts per month among veterans we see in our medical facilities."

However, an e-mail labeled “Not for the CBS News Interview Request” that was sent in November indicates Katz may have been trying to conceal the actual numbers.

The e-mail drew the ire of Rep. Bob Filner, D-Calif., who chairs the House Committee on Veterans Affairs, last week. "This is disgraceful. This is a crime against our nation, our nation's veterans," Filner told CBS News. "They do not want to come to grips with the reality, with the truth."

In an e-mail late Monday to CBS News, Katz wrote that the reason the numbers were not released was due to questions about the consistency and reliability of the findings -- and that there was no public cover-up involved.

Nonetheless, Katz has drawn attention from congressional members, some of whom are calling for Katz to step down, including members of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee: Sens. Daniel Akaka of Hawaii and Patty Murray of Washington.

"Dr. Katz's irresponsible actions have been a disservice to our veterans, and it is time for him to go," Murray told the Washington Post. "The No. 1 priority of the VA should be caring for our veterans, not covering up the truth."

Moreover, the Washington Post reported that Akaka, the committee's chairman, said in a letter to the VA that Katz's "personal conduct and professional judgment" had been called into question by his response to veteran suicides. Veterans, and the VA itself, "would be best served by his immediate resignation," Akaka said.

In the meantime, Feingold, the bill’s coauthor, is concerned about the mental health of veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. “The fact that the VA has no real data on the suicide rate among veterans shows how much needs to be done to address the mental health needs of veterans,” Feingold said in a statement. “With ongoing reports showing that service members are returning from combat with alarming rates of mental health problems, understanding and responding to these problems is critical to preventing deaths.”

The Veterans Suicide Study Act is a companion to the Joshua Omvig Suicide Prevention Act introduced in the House by Rep. Leonard Boswell, D-Iowa, and pushed through the Senate by Harkin, despite a procedural move by Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., that temporarily stalled the bill.

Similar to the bill introduced last week, a component of the suicide prevention legislation was to put more pressure on the VA and hold it more accountable by implementing mandates and deadlines that would implement suicide-prevention programs in a timely fashion and expedite the process for returning veterans.

Boswell’s bill was designed to help address post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) among veterans by requiring mental health training for Veterans Affairs staff; a suicide prevention counselor at each VA medical facility; and mental-health screening and treatment for veterans who receive VA care. It also supports outreach and education for veterans and their families, peer support counseling and research into suicide prevention.

1 in 5 current vets suffer, study shows

Congressional pressure on the VA was prompted, in part, by a RAND Corporation study released April 17. The study indicates that nearly 20 percent of military service members who have returned from Iraq and Afghanistan -- 300,000 in all -- report symptoms of PTSD or major depression, yet only slightly more than half have sought treatment.

The RAND study also found that many service members said they do not seek treatment for psychological illnesses because they fear it will harm their careers. But even among those who do seek help for PTSD or major depression, only about half receive treatment that researchers consider "minimally adequate" for their illnesses.

In the first analysis of its kind, researchers estimate that PTSD and depression among returning service members will cost the nation as much as $6.2 billion in the two years following deployment — an amount that includes both direct medical care and costs for lost productivity and suicide. Investing in more high-quality treatment could save close to $2 billion within two years by substantially reducing those indirect costs, the 500-page study concludes.

"There is a major health crisis facing those men and women who have served our nation in Iraq and Afghanistan," Terri Tanielian, the project's co-leader and a researcher at RAND, said in a statement. "Unless they receive appropriate and effective care for these mental health conditions, there will be long-term consequences for them and for the nation. Unfortunately, we found there are many barriers preventing them from getting the high-quality treatment they need."

Service members report many reasons for not seeking treatment. Many are worried about the side effects of medication or believe that family and friends can provide more help than a mental health professional. Even more reported that they worried seeking care might damage their career or cause their peers to lose confidence in their abilities.

"We need to remove the institutional cultural barriers that discourage soldiers from seeking care," Tanielian said. "Just because someone is getting mental health care does not mean that they are not able to do their job. Seeking mental health treatment should be seen as a sign of strength and interest in getting better, not a weakness. People need to get help as early as possible, not only once their symptoms become severe and disabling."

Researchers concluded that a major national effort is needed to expand and improve the capacity of the mental health system to provide effective care to service members and veterans. The effort must include the military, veteran and civilian health care systems, and should focus on training more providers to use high-quality, evidence-based treatment methods and encouraging service members and veterans to seek needed care.

Since October 2001, about 1.6 million U.S. troops have deployed to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, with many exposed to prolonged periods of combat-related stress or traumatic events. Early evidence suggests that the psychological toll of the deployments may be disproportionately high compared with physical injuries.

Another side effect of treating PTSD is the costs associated with diagnosis and treatment. The RAND study estimates the societal costs of PTSD and major depression for two years after deployment range from about $6,000 to more than $25,000 per case. Depending whether the economic cost of suicide is included, the RAND study estimates the total society costs of the conditions for two years range from $4 billion to $6.2 billion.

Iowa Guard Stretched Thinner With Latest Deployment to Iraq

2008-04-18T12:59:00.000-07:00

About 250 members of an Iowa Air National Guard unit, the 132nd Fighter Wing, will be deployed this week to support troops in Iraq, the Department of Defense announced this week. The deployment is the 132nd's second since Operation Iraqi Freedom began, and they are expected to spend about two months in the Persian Gulf region.

The deployment comes at a time when Iowa National Guard units have been stretched thin, placing stress on Iowa’s civilian soldiers and families. “Six years of war and more than 10,000 mobilized soldiers and airmen leaves no doubt we are an organization that is stretched and stressed,” Iowa National Guard Adjunct General Ron Dardis said in his “Condition of the Guard” address to the General Assembly in February.

“We see it in the faces of our warriors sent off on their second, and in some cases, third deployments since 9-11; we see it in our families, asked to endure lengthy and in some cases repeated separations; and we see it in returning soldiers and airmen, struggling to reintegrate with their families and routines of their daily lives,” Dardis said.

“Ladies and Gentlemen: this is what keeps me awake at night. I worry so much for the health and well-being of our soldiers and airmen and their families,” Dardis said. “We are trying to assist in every way possible and yet it never seems like enough.”

The Des Moines-based fighter wing is no stranger to flying in the Middle East region. About 400 members of the unit were deployed to the Persian Gulf in 2005 to launch F-16 missions over Iraq, and the unit was deployed six times to Turkey and Kuwait between 1992 and 2002 to patrol "no-fly" zones set up over Iraq after the 1991 Gulf War to protect Kurds in the north and Shiite Muslims in the south from the Baghdad government led by Saddam Hussein.

In their upcoming deployment, the airmen of the 132nd Fighter Wing will launch F-16 aircraft over Iraq to attack enemy forces and search for improvised explosive devices, Lt. Col. James Freese, the wing's executive officer, said in a statement. The Iowa Guard's F-16 aircraft are armed with radar-guided missiles, heat-seeking missiles and laser-guided bombs. The detachment headed to the Gulf includes pilots, mechanics, and specialists in aviation electronics, weapons and other technical areas.

"We've been gearing up for this for quite some time, at least two or three months. We are fully trained and ready to go do it," Tech. Sgt. Todd Fee, 33, a weapons systems specialist, told the Des Moines Register.

About 1,000 members of the Iowa National Guard are now on active duty. The number includes about 550 in Iraq, 50 in Afghanistan, 330 in Kosovo and 90 in the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt. Since the September 2001 terrorist attacks, about 11,000 Iowa Guard members have been on active duty.

“We are going to do what we are asked to do, and hopefully come home safely,” Staff Sgt. Jacob Hermanson, an F-16 crew chief, told the Register. He said he expects to work 12 hours a day, seven days a week in Iraq.

Iowa Delegation Steps up Efforts to Give Guard Greater Voice

Recognizing the strain the multiple deployments have placed on civilian soldiers, members of the Iowa delegation, except Republican Rep. Steve King, sent a letter to the House and Senate Armed Services Committee yesterday, asking them to enhance the functions of the National Guard Bureau so that the National Guard has a voice in decisions made by the Pentagon leadership.

“As you well know, the National Guard is serving our country at an unprecedented level,” the delegation wrote in the letter. “Lengthy and multiple deployments are placing great strains on National Guard troops and families, as well as on National Guard equipment and readiness levels.”

Moreover, the delegation highlighted the National Guard’s shifting role from a strategic reserve to operational. We are concerned that Pentagon policies and culture have not shifted accordingly,” the delegation wrote. “Unfortunately, while National Guard soldiers are increasingly being utilized along with active duty forces, we have seen the Pentagon often make decisions that directly impact the National Guard without properly consulting the National Guard or incorporating their requests.”

Last year, Congress passed the National Guard Empowerment Act, which included a number of provisions that would ease the strain on state Guard units, members and their families. Moreover, Congress has proposed a bill, the National Guard Empowerment and State-National Defense Integration Act of 2008, which would address other provisions not included in last year’s bill.

Some key provisions of the latter bill include: making the chief of the National Guard Bureau a full member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff as well as designate several key Air Force and Army positions for National Guard members, give the National Guard a formal role in identifying equipment needs, and protect the National Guard’s lead role in domestic response.

To help illustrate the delegation’s concerns, the delegation used the recent deployment of the 1st Battalion, 133rd Infantry of the Iowa National Guard to highlight the disconnect between the DOD and the National Guard, and of the need for reform. The 133rd was deployed to Iraq in the spring of 2006 and was originally scheduled to return home in April 2007, but had its tour of duty extended as part of last year’s troop surge. When the Pentagon lengthened their tour of duty, the Guard members learned of this extension through the media and family members, instead of through the proper chain of command.

“This improper notification caused much unneeded stress and anxiety for them and their families,” the delegation wrote. “Currently, members of the 133rd, along with National Guard soldiers from other units, are still waiting to receive the Post Deployment & Mobilization Respite Absence benefit that they have been promised by the DOD. It has been over six months now since the last affected Iowa National Guard unit returned home from Iraq, and the Pentagon has still not made a decision about how to pay these troops for this benefit that they have been promised.”

Moreover, the delegation is concerned that the Pentagon may ignore requests from the National Guard that troops be paid in a lump sums, but instead require the National Guard to bring troops back onto active duty and give them days off. “We are troubled by this, because we have heard concerns from the National Guard that days of paid leave will be less beneficial to troops than a one-time payment, and that bringing troops back onto active duty will be an administrative burden for National Guard leadership and will be disruptive for demobilized troops,” the delegation wrote.

“Our National Guard members are going above and beyond the call of duty in the War on Terror,” Sen. Chuck Grassley, a member of the Senate National Guard Caucus, said in a statement. “They deserve a seat at the table with all the branches of the military.”

Iowa Vets, Military Families Urge Latham and Grassley: ‘Invest in America, Not Endless War in Iraq’

2008-04-16T09:03:00.000-07:00

While some Iowans lined up to pay Uncle Sam on National Tax Day, others lined up to voice their concern about how their taxes are being spent. Veterans, military families and community leaders joined other concerned Iowans gathered outside the downtown Des Moines Post Office Tuesday to urge Rep. Tom Latham, Sen. Chuck Grassley and the rest of Iowa’s congressional delegation: ‘Invest in America, Not Endless War in Iraq.’

"As thousands of Iowans head to the post office today to file their taxes, many of us want answers from our Congressional delegation about how much longer we will continue to spend over $10 billion a month of our national treasure in Iraq while shortchanging critical priorities here at home, like education and housing for our families,” Kathleen McQuillen, Iowa program coordinator for American Friends Service Committee, said in a statement. “For what we spend in just one day in Iraq, nearly 35,000 four-year university scholarships could be funded. For what we spend in just one day in Iraq, we can help nearly 6,500 families with housing.”

“With the war in Iraq now in its 6th costly and bloody year, with over a half a trillion dollars spent, over 4,000 U.S. troops lost, and nearly 30,000 others wounded – an enormous human and financial toll has already been paid by the American people and our troops on the ground,” James Mowrer, Iraq war veteran and Iowa director of VoteVets.org, said in a statement. “It makes no sense to continue spending billions of our hard earned dollars each week in Iraq keeping our troops stuck in the crosshairs of a religious, sectarian civil war with no realistic and comprehensive plan to redeploy. But most importantly, we must never forget the sacred obligation that we owe to our veterans.”

The war in Iraq could end up costing $3 trillion when factoring in combat and other long-term related costs, according to Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz, who argues in his new book, "The Three Trillion Dollar War" that the Iraq war has contributed to the U.S. economic slowdown and is impeding an economic recovery.

“A new CBS News-New York Times poll found that 89% Americans believe the war Iraq has contributed to the economic downturn here at home, yet Rep. Latham and presidential candidate Sen. John McCain are still 100% behind same failed Bush policies that led to both the downward economic spiral and the endless, costly War in Iraq,” Don Brown, vice president of South Central Iowa Federation of Labor AFL-CIO, said in a statement.

“Meanwhile, healthcare for our children, veterans, and seniors is being neglected,” Brown said. “For what is spent during one week in Iraq, 800,000 children could get health insurance for an entire year. It’s time to offer our troops and their families the best kind of support: bring them home safe.”

The effort to urge the Iowa congressional delegation to reprioritize tax expenditures was organized by Americans United for Change, which released the following video on the economic impact of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The Cost of War (produced by Americans United for Change)

Related Commentary: “Lest We Forget…It’s the War, Stupid!”

Culver Orders Flags to be Flown Half Staff for Soldier Killed in Iraq

2008-04-13T19:47:00.000-07:00

Gov. Chet Culver ordered Friday that all flags in the state be flown at half staff on Monday, April 14, 2008, from 8 a.m. (CST) until sunset in honor of Maj. Stuart Wolfer, 36, who died on April 6, 2008 while serving in Iraq. Wolfer served in Des Moines from May 1994 through November 1996 with the Army Reserve's 19th Theatre Army Area Command of Fort Des Moines. Funeral services were held in Friday, April 11 in Des Moines.

The U.S. Department of Defense said Wolfer, who was deployed to Iraq in December 2007, died of wounds suffered when insurgents attacked his unit with indirect fire. He was assigned to the 11th Battalion, 104th Division of Boise, Idaho.

Wolfer is survived by his wife, Lee Anne, whom he met while stationed in Iowa in 1995, and their three daughters: Lillian Wade, 5; Melissa Lacey-Marie, 3; and Isadora Ruth, 1. The Wolfers currently reside in the Emmett, Idaho, area.

Funeral Set for Des Moines Army Officer Killed in Iraq

2008-04-10T21:11:00.001-07:00

For the second day in a row, Iowans will say goodbye to another soldier with Iowa ties. Maj. Stuart Wolfer, 36, who served in Des Moines from May 1994 to November 1996 with the Army Reserve’s 19th Theatre Army Area Command of Fort Des Moines, was killed Sunday in Baghdad, Iraq.

The U.S. Department of Defense said Wolfer, who was deployed to Iraq in Dec. 2007, died of wounds suffered when insurgents attacked his unit with indirect fire. He was assigned to the 11th Battalion, 104th Division of Boise, Idaho. Also killed in the attack was Col. Stephen Scott, 54, of New Market, Ala.

Funeral services, which are open to the community, will be held at 10 a.m. Friday at Beth El Jacob Synagogue in Des Moines. Graveside services will directly follow at Glendale Cemetery in the Jewish section.

Wolfer is survived by his wife, Lee Ann, who he met while stationed in Iowa in 1995 and their three daughters: Lillian Wade, 5; Melissa Lacey-Marie, 3; and Isadora Ruth, 1. The Wolfers currently reside in the Emmett, Idaho area

"He was a very loving and amazing father," Lee Anne said in a written statement. "He called his children beautiful, because he said they looked like their mother. He held his family foremost in his life. Stuart was an amazing man and will continue to live on in the hearts of those he touched forever."

Moreover, his wife said that her husband was straightforward, ethical and he stuck to the law. “Stuart was an amazing man and will continue to live on in the hearts of those he touched forever,” Lee Anne said.

An hour before Sunday’s rocket attack on the Green Zone in Baghdad, the Idaho Statesman reports that Wolfer sent an e-mail message back to his manager at Thomson North American Legal in Boise, where Wolfer was employed as a trial lawyer.

"Stu forged strong relationships with just about everyone he encountered," Peter Warwick, president and chief executive officer of Thomson Legal, told the Idaho Statesman Tuesday. "Stu was a wonderful person.”

When he heard the news of Wolfer's death, Warwick sent a message to company employees. In it, he included one of many e-mails Wolfer sent to co-workers:

"The last few weeks have been incredible," Wolfer wrote. "I spent a day visiting the Iraqi Military Academy at Rustamiyah. The flight over started off with me sitting across from a fellow Reuters camera man from Baghdad. We embraced and said hello and then I explained to him that we were on the same team. He let me take a photo with his camera at about 1,000 feet."

Wolfer’s family has requested that donations be made to the “Stuart Wolfer Memorial Fund” at any Wells Fargo bank. The fund has been set up as a college fund for his children.

Wolfer was the 67th person with Iowa ties to die in Iraq and Afghanistan since March 2003.

Map of Iowa's fallen soldiers killed in Iraq or Afghanistan since March 2003:

View Larger Map for easier navigation

Originally posted on "Iowa Independent"

Culver Orders Flags to be Flown Half-Staff for Fallen Hampton Soldier

2008-04-09T09:32:00.000-07:00

Gov. Chet Culver has ordered that all flags in the state be flown at half staff from 8 a.m. until sunset on Thursday, April 10, in honor of Marine Lance Cpl. Cody Wanken, 20, of Hampton who died April 2 at the Wounded Warriors hospital in San Diego. Services for Wanken will be held Thursday at 10:00 a.m. at the Hampton-Dumont High School in Hampton.

Wanken was injured in Sept. 2007, when he suffered eye, ear and other facial injuries while in Fallujah, and was then transferred to the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., where he underwent surgery. His parents, Rick and Susan Wanken of Hampton, said that his death was related to the injuries sustained in Iraq.

However, spokesperson 2nd Lt. Jaymie Sicking of the 1st Marine Division at Camp Pendleton in San Diego would not release details about his death, saying it is under investigation.

Wanken was a machine gunner in the 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division.
Wanken, a 2006 graduate of Hampton-Dumont High School, was the 2005-06 president of the Iowa Jobs for America’s Graduates, Hampton-Dumont chapter. A standout football player, Wanken was named to the Class 3A, District 2 defensive team after his senior year.

In September, Des Moines Register columnist John Carlson reached Wanken by phone a day after surgery to talk with him about a letter he had written to himself and eventually sent to his parents. At that time, Wanken didn't want to discuss much about what had happened in Iraq, but wanted his friends back home to know he would be home soon for a visit."I haven't been home in a while," Wanken told Carlson.

"I just want to get back to Iowa and hang out with my family."Wanken did make it back to Iowa for a visit and spoke to students at Hampton-Dumont High School, where he graduated in 2006, Principal Trent Grundmeyer told the Des Moines Register.

"I wasn't principal here when he was in high school, but he did a very nice job talking to the students," Grundmeyer said.

Grundmeyer said it was a positive meeting, and that he thanked Wanken for serving his country."One thing I remember specifically about what he said is that the news media doesn't catch exactly what's going on over in Iraq. People don't see all the really horrific things, but they also don't see all the positive things," Grundmeyer said. "He had been injured pretty badly. I could tell ... there were scars on his jaw and it was a challenge for him to talk."

Wanken's body arrived at the Des Moines International airport Tuesday before being transported to Hampton.

Wanken was the 66th person with Iowa ties to die in Iraq or Afghanistan since March 2003.

Mapping Iowa's Fallen Soldiers

View Larger Map for easier navigation.

Originally posted on "Iowa Independent"

Grassley Keeps Dogging White House to Hire Vets

2008-04-07T09:55:00.000-07:00

During his 27-year tenure in Washington, D.C., Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, has been a tireless advocate and watchdog when it comes to accountability. Whether protecting whistle-blowers or probing televangelists to divulge their tax records, the ranking Republican of the Senate Finance Committee has no reservations about sticking his nose into other people's business, and now he’s set his sights on the White House, urging President George W. Bush to “ramp up his administration’s efforts” in hiring recent combat veterans for federal jobs.

Grassley first assumed the role of headhunter for veterans Feb. 27, when he sent a letter urging the president to establish a goal that 10 percent of new hires in all federal departments and agencies be veterans.

“You proposed in your State of the Union Address to extend federal veterans preference in hiring to the spouses of service members, which is one piece of what needs to be done to lessen the strain on military families that have sacrificed so much for this country,” Grassley wrote. “However, it is essential that federal departments and agencies do a better job of using the authorities given to them by Congress by proactively seeking out and recruiting veterans, particularly those who have served recently in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

To make his case, Grassley cited the most recent data published in fiscal year 2006 by the Office of Personnel Management, which found a wide range of discrepancies among federal departments and agencies. The Air Force led the pack with 46.4 percent of its personnel made up of veterans, while the Federal Trade Commission finished last with 1.6 percent.

“While some disparity is to be expected, the wide variety suggests that some departments and agencies have a much more successful approach to recruiting and hiring veterans,” Grassley wrote.

Grassley asked for and received a written response by April 1 from the Bush administration.

In an attempt to assuage Grassley’s concerns, Karl Zinsmeister, assistant to the president for domestic policy, wrote that the president "wholeheartedly agrees” with Grassley, in that “our nation owes a special debt of gratitude to those who have put themselves in harm’s way on its behalf, and to their families.”

“His State of the Union Address highlighted the need for Federal government hiring preferences to be extended to spouses as well as veterans,” Zinsmeister wrote. “This simple step will help alleviate the lower-than-average employment rates for military spouses.”

Zinsmeister's letter described the administration’s outreach efforts to veterans, namely the Department of Veterans and the Veterans Affairs Nation Veterans Employment Program: “…These multiple efforts have yielded significant results: the percentage of veterans employed in the Federal non-Postal workforce currently 25 percent – well above a 10 percent goal.”

Zinsmeister assured Grassley that the Bush administration is “continuing to implement the recommendations of the Ineragency Task Force on Returning Global War on Terror Heroes, which will likely continue the great success our veterans have had in seeking employment in the Federal government.”

However, Zinsmeister’s response did not assuage the concerns of Grassley, who responded to Bush in a letter Wednesday. “The response lacked much substance and the central request of my letter remains unaddressed.” Grassley wrote. “I am aware of the current figures from the OPM on the employment of veterans in the federal government overall. However, the overall figures hide a wide disparity between various departments and agencies in terms of their success in recruiting and hiring veterans.”

Grassley reiterated his call for a commitment to establish a minimum goal that 10 percent of new hires in all federal departments and agencies be veterans. “More than one-third of federal departments are not currently meeting that goal, according to the most recent data from OPM, and well over half of independent agencies fall short,” Grassley wrote.

Grassley, citing a report, voiced a concern that 18 percent of recent returning combat veterans are unemployed.

Moreover, he criticized Zinmeister’s initial response to his concerns. “I am disappointed that your staff’s response to my previous letter attempted to change the subject and ignore my request,” Grassley wrote. “I ask that you now provide me with a clear response on whether or not you will make such a commitment.”

Grassley end his letter with a new deadline: “As there has already been ample time to consider these issues, I look forward to your reply no later than April 11, 2008.”

Originally posted on "Iowa Independent"

Eli Painted Crow’s Spiritual Awakening in Iraq Helps Guide Her to Peace

2008-04-04T09:45:00.000-07:00

Eli Painted Crow, a 22-year retired Army veteran, experienced a spiritual rebirth while serving in Iraq in 2004, which paved her current path to peace. “The defining moment for me, when I knew I had to get out of Iraq and the military, was when I fully realized that I was participating in the very same thing that my people had suffered and are still suffering in the United States,” Painted Crow told the Iowa Independent during an interview.

“When I got to know the Iraqi people, I found a lot of commonalities between them and native people,” said Painted Crow, a member of the Yaqui Nation. “Not only were they the same color as me, but we shared similar food dishes, prayers, the drum, sage, councils, and they have the same representation of animals as we do.”

The Iowa Independent had a chance to speak with Painted Crow last Thursday in Iowa City, where she was in town from California to speak as part of the University of Iowa Anti-War Committee’s Peace Week. During the interview, Painted Crow opened up about her experiences in Iraq, genocide, her culture, the power of language and meaning, and her latest peace-activist efforts.

When discussing issues about Iraq and her native community, Painted Crow wanted to make it clear, usually with a “speaking-for-myself” attribution, that her thoughts were her own and should not be attributed to all Native Americans. “It’s been a really hard road to get people to talk about the invasion in Iraq, but the native communities are beginning to open up,” Painted Crow said. “Native peoples are still afraid to talk in a bigger context, for they fear speaking out against the government. This fear has been embedded in us our entire lives, so people are still afraid.”

That said, Painted Crow shared her views on what’s happening in Iraq. “What I saw happening there is an instant replay of what happened to our people here. We are doing the very same thing,” Painted Crow said. “This United States was founded on violence and an invasion. It took away our land and tried really hard to execute genocide against a people that was already here, because they wanted the land. They redid the history books, and despite the truth, they are not changing the history books to illustrate the truth.”

Painted Crow says a lot of her people think she is crazy for speaking out, but she can no longer, with clear conscience, remain silent. “I can choose to speak this under my breath, or I can speak up and hope that people can see that we need to change things on a much deeper level than just saying, ‘Stop the war!’,” Painted Crow said. “The war abroad and the war at home look relatively the same, but you would only know that if you live in a community that sees oppression, racism and violence on a daily basis. Most people, who don’t see this firsthand, are more concerned about the war abroad -- which really isn’t a war but genocide.”

Painted Crow knows that people do not like the word genocide and don’t want to use it to describe the invasion in Iraq. “But if you look up the eight steps of genocide, you will see that we meet every criteria in Iraq,” Painted Crow said. “Nobody wants to use that word, because then we would have to look at our history, how our nation was founded, and that means we would have to have a healing process, a conversation about race and oppression that exists to this day. And who really wants to admit that we have to do this work?”

The U.S. is in denial when it comes to Iraq, Painted Crow says, claiming the nation cannot admit it has a problem, but instead, points its fingers at Pres. George Bush and Vice Pres. Dick Cheney. “We are a mirror of what this nation has become. We are a part of it and we are accountable for it. It’s easy to point fingers and say it’s his fault, but we all are accountable and responsible and need to step up for something different.”

Moreover, Painted Crow draws similar parallels to what is happening in Iraq to her peoples’ history. “It is the very same thing in Iraq. We are going over there and it’s not a war, rather, it’s an invasion, and we need to make that distinction clear,” Painted Crow said. “We did not have a conflict with them. They did not bomb us on 9/11.

“When you defend, you’ve done something wrong, and there is a truth that is not coming out. To me the word ‘defend’ is attached to a truth that hasn’t been revealed, so in order not to reveal that truth, we use the word ‘defend,’” Painted Crow argues. “We use the words ‘protect’ and ‘defend’ so interchangeably that people don’t know the difference. For me, defending this country isn’t real because what we are defending is a lie.

“This divide-and-conquer strategy has always and still exists in our country and that’s why we have gangs,” Painted Crow said. “If Native Americans, Latinos and African Americans can kill each other, that is one less thing the government has to deal with. The same holds true in Iraq. If the Shias and Sunnis keep killing each other, that is one less thing the government has to worry about.”

Painted Crow is convinced that her native people are seeing what is going on but are not quick to stand up to the government because they don’t have much to lose. “It’s scarcity thinking,” Pained Crow said. “If you are already oppressed, why do you care about what’s happening over there. It’s not that you don’t care what’s happening in Iraq, but if you have so much oppression in your backyard to begin with, it’s too much.

“If you have only so much, you’re going to fight to keep it, because you are under a scarcity mentality that there is not enough,” Painted Crow said. “Because the government teaches us that, this is where we operate from and we are too afraid to trust that there is an out. As a native person who feels connected to the Earth and the universe, I don’t think that the universe would put us all here and tell us there is not enough.”

Painted Crow also has a theory that there are a number of prophecies starting to stand out for native peoples, so they are standing back and letting them happen. “Things have to happen for change to take place,” she said. “The government has to fall, and we need to hit the bottom so we can rise. And some native people see no need to try and stop it.”

Similar to a number of people from native communities, Painted Crow joined the military for economic reasons. When she enlisted in 1981 at the age of twenty, Painted Crow was a single mother of two boys, living on welfare, had only a GED, had no support from her family and saw the military as her only escape from poverty.

“Although as I got older, I became more patriotic in my service, because I was being recognized by my people, the Yaqui Nation, which is trying to instill the pride of being a warrior that exists in native communities,” Pained Crow said. “We have this understanding of warriors and how warriors in our history have protected our country or our families or our land, however, not so much in the U.S. This has translated into being soldiers, because our native people have equated being a soldier to being a warrior of our native past.”

Having experienced 22 years of the military, Painted Crow says this is not entirely true but admits it is the closest thing her native people have to becoming warriors for the country. “We don’t understand that as warriors of our past, we protected our families, whereas U.S. soldiers are charged with defending our country, which are two different things,” she said. “To me, when you defend, it is because you know you’ve done something wrong and you know you have to protect it. You have to put these walls up. On the other hand, when you are protecting something, you are not out looking for trouble, rather, you’re protecting your families and holding this space for your community to grow.”

While serving in Iraq in 2004 (from April to September), Painted Crow experienced and witnessed a number of discriminatory, racist, and sexist incidents, which she recounts during a talk at the 2006 Veterans for Peace Conference (see video below).

Although Painted Crow experienced a mental and spiritual awakening that told her she needed to shift direction and follow the pathway to peace, it was a physical problem that brought her home from Iraq, six months into her tour. Shortly before she was expected to deploy to Iraq, painted Crow was diagnosed with endometriosis, a painful condition in which uterine tissue grows into other parts of the body. Her commanding officer assumed she was making it up, so she was shipped over to Iraq anyhow. A military assessment of her health condition was not enough to prevent her from being shipped to Iraq.

While in Iraq, Painted Crow says she felt excruciating pain related to her endometriosis on a daily basis, and the closest gynecologist was four hours away “I wasn’t about to travel that far, facing IEDs [improvised explosive devices] on the way, just to see the doctor every time I needed help with my condition.” A female first sergeant told her to get a hysterectomy, and she took her first sergeant’s advice and had the operation at a VA hospital while on a 10-day leave.

Meanwhile, her commander in Iraq marked her as AWOL, even though she was recovering from surgery in a military hospital. Painted Crow thinks her commander was out to get her and wanted her back in Iraq. “I think she wanted to keep me under her control because of all the in-your-face racist things she said that I called her out on.”

Thanks to the help of a military friend who was able to pull some strings, Painted Crow was kept from being marked AWOL. However, her stay at the VA hospital was extended to eight weeks after the surgery was not successful and caused her to have a prolapse of the fallopian tube.

Painted Crow never returned to Iraq and retired from the military upon hitting her 22-year mark and received her discharge papers on Nov. 1, 2006. “Ironically, I was discharged on the Day of the Dead,” she said.

However, this did spur her spiritual rebirth in the peace movement. Painted Crow is committed to advocating for peace. “You cannot fight for peace, you have to be it. If you can be at peace, you can connect to people and that is my focus.”

Currently, she is involved with Turtle Women Rising, “an organization of women committed to making a difference in the world by bringing the heartbeat of the drum in response to our Mother’s cry,” her web site states. The group is in the process of organizing a Heartbeat for Peace in Washington, D.C. Oct. 10-12.

“The drum gathering will be led by women, but we need men to hold space for us to be the protectors, and we need children there to understand the power of the drum,” she said. “If we speak drum, we might come to an understanding without having a difference. No peace, anti-war signs, and don’t come representing an organization. Just bring yourself and your drum -- the heartbeat.”

Painted Crow is also involved with Services Women’s Action Network (SWAN), a leading voice of military women and veterans. Her focus with SWAN is to help women in the military and inform women who are considering joining what they will be dealing with, if and when they sign up. “The military system is not designed to help women, so it’s important they get the fact from someone who is not trying to enlist them,” she said.

Originally posted on "Iowa Independent"

Exclusive: Tobias Wolff Shares How Life and Writing are Interconnected

2008-03-26T13:15:00.001-07:00

Growing up, award-winning author Tobias Wolff always knew that he wanted to join the military and be a writer one day. He accomplished both, joining the military when he was 18 and publishing his first short story collection, “In the Garden of the North American Martyrs,” in 1981.

“I did have a literary impulse to join the military,” Wolff told the Iowa Independent during a telephone interview. “I knew I wanted to be a writer when I was 16, and I joined the Army when I was 18. I was very aware that many of the writers I most admired had drawn on this type of experience, although I wasn’t really paying attention to what they were saying in their work -- which was to stay away from it.”

Wolff, who currently teaches with the writing program at Stanford University, will be a guest of the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop Thursday and will read from his new collection of short stories, “Our Story Begins: New and Selected Short Stories.” The reading is free and open to the public and will be held at 8 p.m. in Lecture Room 2 of UI Van Allen Hall.

Wolff, who also has worked as an editor and journalist, is known as a master of the short-story form as well as for his memoirs. "This Boy's Life" describes his turbulent childhood, and the National Book Award nominee "In Pharaoh's Army" is an account of his tour of duty as an officer in the Vietnam War.

His most recent novel is "Old School," published in 2003, a book that a Publishers Weekly review described as "a delicate, pointed meditation on the treacherous charms of art." Critic Keir Graff wrote for Booklist, "His storytelling is economical, his prose is elegant, and his meditations are utterly timeless. Some readers may wish to turn from the last page to the first and begin again."

Fellow author and Vietnam veteran Tim O'Brien said of Wolff's collection "Back in the World": "Tobias Wolff is dynamic. In his spare, cool, lucid prose, without gimmicks or artifice, he tells terrific stories. Terrific, I mean, in the classic sense -- he isn't afraid of drama. ... The magic of his fiction cannot be explained. It is the ancient art of the master storyteller."

The late Raymond Carver, a UI alumnus and former faculty member, called Wolff's collection "In the Garden of the North American Martyrs" "The work of a young master … I have not read a book of stories in years that has given me such a shock of amazement and recognition -- and such pleasure."

Wolff's work is represented in more than 50 anthologies. He received the PEN/Faulkner Award for his novella "The Barracks Thief," and he also has received the Rea Award, three O. Henry Awards and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. His memoir "This Boy's Life" was made into a movie starring Robert DeNiro, Ellen Barkin and Leonardo DiCaprio.

During a telephone interview with the Iowa Independent, Tobias Wolff shared some of his thoughts about the writing process, his life experiences, and how the two are interconnected.

Iowa Independent: Why do you feel drawn to the short story?

Wolff: It’s a challenging form for a writer. Because of the compression and essential nature of a short story, you don’t have any time to waste; you have to get right to it. It’s not as forgiving a form as the novel, which makes it more difficult in some ways and also more challenging for the writer. It’s something I just find myself drawn to again and again.

Iowa Independent: Do you find it more challenging than writing a novel?

Wolff: No. The immediate difficulty of the short story is finding the essential pattern of events in the story -- saying so much but not too much while making sure you say enough that every sentence is pulling weight.

It takes years to write a novel and requires a certain degree of stamina, whereas a single short story does not require the same stamina and continuity of work. It’s a form with its own unique challenges, and I don’t make distinction that one form is superior to the other. They are rather different in nature, that’s all.

Iowa Independent: Writers in the workshop setting use the short story form as a means of developing a breadth of work and use the form as a playground to cultivate their writers’ craft and voice. Does this notion hold true for you and your students at Stanford?

Wolff: The creative writing workshop does tend to favor the short story, because it is a length that can be dealt with more conveniently in this type of setting. I happen to think there are more natural novelists than short-story writers. I encourage students to bring in chapters of novels if that is what they really want to be working on. It is harder in some ways to confront a novel in the workshop, unless the writer brings in the entire novel, which is quite a bit. You are always dealing with parts.

I do think the short story is a wonderful kind of laboratory to study and learn about the craft of writing. Not many people are called to do that as their life’s work any more than many people are called to be poets.

Iowa Independent: Oftentimes, beginning writers are told to write what they know about. Your story “The Barrack’s Thief” and recent novel “Old School” tap into your autobiographical past. What are some of the advantages or pitfalls of this advice?

Wolff: I never tell anybody to write what they know. I never have in my life and never will. It would tend to be a very confining ethos to work from. Take an Iowa writer such as Marilyn Robinson and her latest novel, “Gilead.” Is she a 19th-century male minister? No, but she has inhabited that character so fully that if her name wasn’t written on the book’s cover, you could imagine that it was written by the 19th-century minister.

In the two works you mentioned, “The Barracks Thief” and “Old School,” some of the milieu of the social world, the world of the military or the boys school I did experience, but I did not experience the events in the book. These are works of fiction. I make a clear distinction between fiction and nonfiction, and these are works of the imagination, so I’m writing about what I don’t know.

Iowa Independent: After the “This-Boy’s-Life” part of your life, I sense that the military gave you a mode of escape from your past, almost a rebirth when you could start afresh. Is this a fair assessment?

Wolff: I would say that’s pretty fair. I always assumed I would eventually end up serving in some branch of the service. All the men I knew when I grew up did. I wanted do it when I was young and single and didn’t have any responsibility. In the world I grew up in everyone served, and you were expected to do so as well. All of the men I knew had served in Korea and World War II. I always knew I would; it was just a matter of timing. It did offer me a chance to sort out some of the confusions of my youth. It seemed to offer a highly clarified life, a life of simplicity, although it turned out to be anything but that.

Iowa Independent: Similar to you, a number of military veterans who took up the pen after the war eventually penned a novel chronicling some of their experiences during the war, whether it be Kurt Vonnegut’s “Slaughterhouse-Five,” or Tim O’Brien’s “The Things They Carried.” Vonnegut and O’Brien said this was their way of getting this story out of them, therapeutic value, so they could move on. What was your motive, or what compelled you to write “In Pharaoh’s Army” in 1994 and why the 20-year incubation period?

Wolff: Generally speaking, when I’m writing something very personal it takes about 20 years to surface. Part of it was that I wasn’t strongly motivated to write about Vietnam when I got back. I ended up writing a short story about Vietnam and ended up publishing it in a magazine and collection of short stories, but I knew that there was a lot that I was not really saying in this short story -- things I had known and seen over there that got lost in the fiction.

To remedy this, I wrote a rather longer piece of nonfiction. To be honest, I didn’t really want to write another memoir after “This Boys Life,” but I found myself drawn to this material. Or to put it another way, I found this material drawing me out, and I put aside other projects and attended to it -- almost in spite of myself, to tell you the truth.

Iowa Independent: Can you clarify what, specifically, drew it out for you?

Wolff: Writers often talk about choosing their material, but I think their material chooses them sometimes.

Iowa Independent: Soldiers nowadays, in particular in Iraq and Afghanistan, are penning their memoirs while they are still in battle or soon afterward. What can be lost in the immediacy of this type of writing process?

Wolff: There is very little coming across that could be said to be of literary quality. I think it’s very valuable for the troops who are writing these long e-mails and milblogs about their experiences to get down the immediate sense of what is happening, because it’s very easy to forget this stuff. But to actually sift it out and figure out what has happened to them morally and spiritually as a result of these experiences and how these experiences have formed a pattern in their lives will take years to sift out.

Originally posted on "Iowa Independent"

Veterans' Events Hit Eastern Iowa with a Flourish

2008-03-25T10:52:00.000-07:00

In the wake of the five-year anniversary marking the war in Iraq, a number of veterans-related events are scheduled this week in eastern Iowa, primarily Iowa City and Cedar Rapids.

"Doonesbury’s" Garry Trudeau: As part of the 2008 Coe College Contemporary Issues Forum, Garry Trudeau will be speaking at the Contemporary Issues Forum in Cedar Rapids at 7:30 tonight. The event was originally scheduled in February, but was rescheduled because of inclement weather.

For the past 37 years, Trudeau has communicated primarily through his Pulitzer Prize-winning comic strip, "Doonesbury." However, the war in Iraq has indirectly prompted him to speak out on related issues, bringing the war home to readers through the experiences and perspective of B.D., a veteran of Gulf War I and the wars in Vietnam and Iraq.

For many "Doonesbury" readers, the war in Iraq hit home in April 2003, when Trudeau decided to blow up B.D's leg while B.D. was serving in Iraq. B.D.'s leg had to be amputated, and his injury, coupled with the psychological effects of his experiences, helped inspire more than 220 strips. It also resulted in two books: "The Long Road Home" chronicles B.D.'s journey home and transition into the civilian world, while "The War Within" captures B.D.'s internal struggles with post-traumatic stress disorder.

In addition to bringing the war home through "Doonesbury," Trudeau has helped capture the day-to-day experiences of soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan through his milblog (military-blog), "The Sandbox." Lightly edited by longtime editor David Stanford, "The Sandbox" features dispatches from milbloggers deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan, who share their observations, comments and anecdotes with readers at home.

Read an exclusive Iowa Independent interview with Trudeau here.

Tickets for the event, at $10 for the general public and $5 for students and seniors, can be reserved by calling the Coe Box Office at 319-399-8600.

“Iowa Stories: The Vietnam Experience”: In 1989 University of Northern Iowa professor Marilyn Shaw, 57, of Cedar Falls wanted to preserve Vietnam war memories through the oral tradition, which she adapted into an oral-interpretive play, "Iowa Stories: The Vietnam Experience." The play will be performed for the fifth time at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday at the Englert in Iowa City. Tickets are $12.50.

Drawing from 28 interviews with Vietnam veterans from Iowa, Shaw interweaves their stories into nine character archetypes for her play. As one of the vets told Shaw, “You can hate the war, but don’t hate the warrior, because the warrior is doing what he [or she] was trained to do.”

University of Iowa Anti-War Committee’s Peace Week: As part of its Peace Week, the University of Iowa Anti-War Committee is sponsoring a number of veterans’ events designed to bring discussions about war and peace into the community and the classrooms.

Andy Duffy and Jason Munford will be part of a panel discussion at the South Room in the UI’s Iowa memorial Union at 7 p.m. Wednesday. Duffy, an Iowa National Guard medic who served at Abu Ghraib prison in 2005-06, founded the Iowa City chapter of the Iraq Veterans Against the War and recently testified at the Winter Soldier hearings in Washington, D.C.

Munford, an Air Force veteran, will share his experiences as a conscientious objector after he was ordered to deploy to Iraq.

Thursday night will feature Eli Painted Crow, a retired Army veteran of 22 years, who will share her recent experiences during a recent deployment to Iraq and explain why she’s speaking out against the war. A Native American from the Yaqui Nation, she is a grandmother of eight and mother of two sons who both served in the military. She will be speaking in the Iowa Room at the IMU at 7 p.m.

During the 2006 Veterans for Peace Conference, she spoke out about a barrage of injustices she said were committed by members of her unit during her deployment to Iraq. She said she witnessed and faced several incidents of discrimination, racism, sexual harassment and sexual abuse/assault committed by her fellow soldiers, prompting her to leave the service upon her return.

Eli Painted Crow Speaks at 2006 Veterans for Peace Conference

Moreover, in conjunction with the Peace Week’s events, the UI Veterans’ Association will host a forum on veterans’ benefits, health care and homelessness. Guest speakers will include Mike Hull, post commander of American Legion Post #17, Iowa City; Stephanie Linn, President of UI Veterans Association; and Tom Kelly, co-founder of Vets Helping Vets. The forum will take place at 7 p.m. Friday in the Illinois Room at the IMU.

Originally posted on "Iowa Independent"

Commentary: Lest We Forget … It’s the War, Stupid!

2008-03-25T08:48:00.003-07:00

In case you didn’t already know, last week marked the fifth anniversary of the Iraq war. If you didn’t, don’t feel too bad, for you are in good company. A Pew Research Center poll recently found that only 28 percent of American adults surveyed were able to say that approximately 4,000 Americans have died in the Iraq war. The same survey found that 84 percent of Americans are aware that Oprah Winfrey endorsed Sen. Barack Obama for president.

In cased you missed it, the Pentagon reported that four U.S. soldiers were killed by a bomb blast in southern Baghdad late Sunday, raising the death toll for American forces since the start of the war to an even 4,000 casualties, thus officially marking a new milestone.

As the American public’s attention span continues to shrink and shift away form the seemingly endless war in Iraq, so does the press. According to the News Content Index conducted by the Project for Excellence in Journalism, the percentage of news stories devoted to the war has sharply declined since last year, dropping from an average of 15 percent of the news hole in July to just 3 percent in February.

Moreover, a Pew's News Interest Index survey found that Iraq was the public's most closely followed news story in all but five weeks during the first half of 2007. However, it was a much less dominant story between July 2007 and February 2008, not to mention the Iraq war has not been the public's top weekly story since October 2007.

Maybe if Oprah broadcast her show live from the Green Zone in Baghdad for a week or two, her global presence would ignite a surge of media coverage and Americans would tune into the war more.

Until then, who is to blame for the current surge of sound-bite news coverage of the war in Iraq? The mainstream media? The American public?

Answer: both.

While the corporate media is driven by quarterly profit margins and prey upon its viewers’ psychological vulnerabilities, it is the media consumer who ultimately decides what the media reports and does not report. Although the laws of supply and demand do come into play in this profit-driven context, journalists have a higher calling and obligation to reporting the truth and what people need to know, in lieu of what people want to know.

Nonetheless, as Greg Mitchell’s new book, “So Wrong for So Long: How the Press, the Pundits — and the President — Failed on Iraq,” suggests, the mainstream media has blood on its hands when it comes to its flawed coverage leading up to the war in Iraq and the five years since it began.

Since former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards first announced his bid for the Democrat nomination in January 2007 in Des Moines, the American public has been consumed by the presidential race, which has helped feed the mainstream media’s obsession with covering the political horse race. Meanwhile nearly 1000 soldiers have been killed in Iraq since Edwards announced his candidacy.

While coverage of the presidential race receives top billing in the media, exit polls from many of the states that have already held their primaries and caucuses indicate that the economy is the top concern among voters, trumping health-care costs and the war in Iraq. The loss of jobs to overseas companies and the recent subprime lender meltdown have helped contribute to voters’ fears about the economy.

But rarely does the mainstream media hold the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan accountable for the impending or not impending economic recession. Newscasters and political pundits keep asking the million-dollar question, “Are we in a recession?” and pawn this off a if it was news in and of itself. Meanwhile our government keeps dropping an estimated $10 billion to $12 billion a month into the bottomless money pits of Iraq and Afghanistan. And this is only the front-end cost of the war.

Oftentimes economic experts have argued that the best way to revive an economy is by going to war, but ironically. President Bush’s decision to invade and indefinitely occupy Iraq is what has helped push our economy to the brink of a recession.

It’s the War, Stupid

I sensed the political winds changing during the Michigan primary, or nonprimary as far as the Democratic race goes, when the GOP focused on the economy as a means of shoring up support. This makes sense, given the industrial make-up of Michigan’s job market. Ever since then, the economy has been the top issue polled among likely voters, but the Democratic candidates only serve to shoot themselves in the foot if they ignore the $3 trillion white elephant in the room: the Iraq war.

Obama has made an attempt to connect the dots, but he hasn’t been vigilant enough about framing this argument in the minds of voters. It doesn’t help that the mainstream media has stoked a new fire in the Obama camp, fanning the flames of Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s controversial comments.

On the other hand, his opponent, Sen. Hillary Clinton, has had to spend time putting out small fires on the campaign trail, oftentimes ignited by her very own high-level surrogates such as adviser James Carville and her husband, former President Bill Clinton.

Meanwhile, the inferno in Iraq rages on.

Not only have the front-end costs of financing the Iraq war helped cripple our economy, but it’s the back-end costs that will keep the economy bed-ridden for years to come. In their new book, “The Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Costs of the Iraq Conflict,” Linda Bilmes and Joseph Stiglitz argue that Americans will spend decades treating the physical and psychological wounds of Iraq veterans, and when the economic consequences of the invasion are taken into account, the costs will surpass the $3 trillion benchmark, nearly a third of the current debt the Bush administration has already helped accrue since its 2001 takeover.

Not only did the Bush administration not have an exit strategy for ending the war, but it had yet to implement a budget plan for paying for the strategy not have. Sounds like something straight out off Joseph Heller’s “Catch-22,” only more tragic, for the true cost of the war is the loss of human lives. These costs cannot be measured, nor can they be absorbed or paid back.

According to the National Priorities Project, the government has already spent more than $500 billion on the war in Iraq and estimates that Iowa taxpayers have paid $3.5 billion for the cost of the Iraq war through 2007. For the same amount of money, the group estimates that health care for 1,033,512 Iowans could have been provided, or 562,896 scholarships for university students could have been awarded, or 77,321 elementary students could have been hired.

This year, while Iowa lawmakers struggle to find funding to provide children with health care coverage or turn to the lottery as a means of replenishing funding for veterans and their families, try and remember one thing and one thing only:

It’s the war, stupid!

And you don’t need Oprah to tell you this to make it so.

Originally posted on the "Iowa Independent"

Braley’s Probe Helps Guard Receive Deserved Education Benefits

2008-03-20T05:36:00.000-07:00

Thanks to the efforts of Rep. Bruce Braley, D-Iowa, Iowa National Guard members will have one less thing to worry about when they return from deployment.

Braley announced today that all 595 members of the Iowa National Guard’s 1st Battalion, 133rd Infantry affected by an Army error last year that disqualified them from receiving GI Bill education benefits have now had the error fixed and qualify for full GI Bill benefits. Nationally, the issue has affected more than 3,700 soldiers in 34 states.

“I’m happy to hear that every 1-133rd member who was initially denied GI Bill education benefits because of the Army error can now draw full benefits,” Braley said in a statement. “The Pentagon made a mistake, but I’m glad they fixed it.

“I’m even happier to hear that 74 of these vets are using their full benefits to further their education. These Iowans are making the most of a great opportunity.”

Last August, nearly 600 members of the 1-133rd returned from a 17-month tour of duty in Iraq — the longest continual deployment of any ground combat unit in Iraq. Many of the troops learned they didn’t qualify for GI Bill benefits because an Army error in the wording of their orders left them one to five days short of a 730-day qualification threshold.

In October, when Braley discovered his constituents’ education benefits had been shortchanged by the Pentagon, he helped launch a formal congressional investigation into the matter. Braley was suspicious that some members of the 1-133rd’s active duty orders were written one to five days short, thus denying the citizen soldiers full-time education benefits.

"When the Pentagon's ineptitude leads to soldiers and their families being denied the benefits they deserve, it is Congress' role to provide oversight, accountability, and answers," Braley said in a October press release. "While I'm hopeful that the cases of the members of the 1-133rd will all be resolved before classes begin next spring, the question of why the Army worded soldiers' orders just one to five days short of the 730-day requirement, when the Army clearly knows that this is the threshold for receiving Montgomery GI Bill Benefits, is still unresolved."

Soldiers who qualify for Montgomery GI Bill benefits can receive up to $894 per month for educational expenses; the benefits can be used for up to 10 years after leaving the service.

If the error was not corrected, the 1-133rd soldiers would’ve only qualified for less-extensive Reserve Education Assistance Program (REAP) benefits. These total up to $660 per month, but reserve members no longer qualify if they leave the service.

Originally posted on the "Iowa Independent"

Lawmakers Turn to Lottery to Help Build Veterans Trust Fund

2008-03-06T07:42:00.000-08:00

In an attempt to fulfill a promise made to Iowa veterans in 2003, lawmakers have turned to a familiar source of revenue: gambling. By a vote of 75-21 Wednesday, the House passed House File 2359, a bill that would direct the Lottery Authority to develop two additional scratch tickets and two additional pull-tab tickets with the profits dedicated to the Veterans Trust Fund (VTF) until the fund reaches $50 million. After that, the lottery game revenue would flow to the Department of Veterans Affairs.

The trust fund was created to "assist veterans and their dependents who slip through the cracks of the federal system," Rep. McKinley Bailey, D-Webster City, said on the House floor. "As the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq continue, those cracks become more and more apparent. As a state we have an obligation, a sacred obligation, to ensure that our veterans are taken care of when they come home. That means picking up the slack for the federal government when it lets our veterans down."

Bailey estimated those games would produce up to $3 million a year for the trust fund at a minimal impact on the general fund.

Lawmakers, led by the Republican majority, created the VTF in 2003 with the intent of giving the state flexibility with regard to Iowa’s returning veterans and their families, in particular issues that aren’t covered by federal funding such as job training, unemployment assistance, travel expenses for wounded veterans related to follow-up medical care, nursing home care, counseling programs and honor guard services.

Moreover, lawmakers intended for the VTF to eventually contain $50 million. The current balance is $5 million, and Gov. Chet Culver’s 2008 budget does not contain any additional revenues for the fund. The reason Culver didn't propose more money is that only the interest is being spent, Charles Krogmeier, the governor's staff member who put together the budget, said in a January statement.

The proposal did not receive overwhelming support in the House. Some of the Republican lawmakers took issue with using lottery funds, arguing the revenue stream is unreliable and that creating a lottery for just the veterans doesn’t seem fair to other causes. Rep Scott Raecker, R-Urbandale, offered an amendment to fund breast cancer research, domestic abuse prevention and the Senior Living Trust by expanding the number of lottery games.

Bailey argued the amendment would destroy the bill, contending lottery officials told him the bill would work if there was only one cause benefiting from the games.

House Minority Leader Christopher Rants, R-Sioux City, wondered if the next step would be to have a bake sale rather than continue general fund appropriations to veterans programs, the Cedar Rapids Gazette reported. Ironically, he added, it was Gaming Day at the Capitol, sponsored by the Iowa Gaming Association."How appropriate," Rants said.

The bill now moves on to the Senate.

Originally Posted on "Iowa Independent"

Senate Passes Bill to Protect Soldier’s Custodial Rights

2008-02-29T06:38:00.000-08:00

The Iowa Senate passed a bill Tuesday that would help prevent Iowa soldiers from losing custody of their children because of their active-duty service. Senate File 2214 would protect Iowa Guard members’ and Reservists’ custodial rights during periods of federal activation. The bill would allow a court to order a temporary change of custody only if there is "clear and convincing evidence" that that would be in the best interest of the child. The Senate passed the bill 49-0 and now moves on to the House

“The bill helps give our soldiers a sense of security that things will be the same when they return,” Sen. Steve Warnstadt, D-Sioux City, told the Iowa Independent. Warnstadt, a current member of the Iowa National Guard who served in Operation Desert Storm as part of his active-duty commitment, knows that a lot of things can change during deployment that soldiers can’t control. He wants to ensure they aren't forced to give up authority when it comes to the things they should have some control over.

Warnstadt also said the bill will help provide soldiers faced with the prospect of deployment a sense of security with regard to maintaining custody of their children. “I have received some e-mails from people who served in the Guards or Reserves but quit out of fear as to what may happen to their custodial rights if they were deployed,” Warnstadt said.

The bill also stipulates that once the parent returns from service, the court would have to reinstate the custody order that was in place just before active duty. Moreover, a parent's absence due to active duty could not be used against him or her in future custody proceedings.

“I’m concerned that we’re putting people in situation where they are choosing between serving their country and keeping their kids,” Warnstadt said. “There’s a lot of uncertainty involved with being deployed, and I’m also concerned that some service members will be distracted, which may cause a life-threatening situation for themselves and those around them.”

The bill, highlighted by a case in Iowa, was drafted in response to cases across the country that have prompted a few states such as California, Kentucky and Michigan to amend their laws to stipulate that soldiers' deployments cannot be used against them in child-custody disputes.

Military and family law experts don't know how big the problem is, but 5.4 percent of active duty members -- more than 74,000 -- are single parents, the Department of Defense reports. More than 68,000 Guard and Reserve members are also single parents. Divorce among military men and women has also risen in recent years, with more than 23,000 enlisted members and officers divorcing in 2005.

The Iowa case involves Iowa National Guardsman Michael Grantham, of Clarksville, who lost primary physical custody of his two children when he was called to duty in 2002. He arranged to have his daughter, who was 8, and his son, who was 13, live with his mother while he was on active duty.

But while Grantham was ordered to active duty stationed at Fort Knox, Ky., his ex-wife, Tammara, asked a judge to grant her custody of the kids and won. Upon returning from active duty, the court's ruling prevented him from stepping back into his previous role as the primary parent for his children, and he lost an appeal of the case.

However, the new bill may have not made a difference for Grantham, whose attorney requested a stay of proceedings until he returned to civilian status, citing the Soldiers and Sailors Civil Relief Act (SSCRA). The Iowa Supreme Court rejected his plea, noting that the SSCRA does not mandate a stay in every case involving a parent who is called to active military duty. “To warrant a stay under this legislation, it must be determined that substantial rights of the absent serviceman will be prejudiced if the effort to postpone the proceedings is denied,” the Court observed in its opinion.

Moreover, the Iowa Supreme Court upheld the district court’s finding that Grantham concealed the arrangement for his mother’s custody of the children pursuant to a military family care plan until it was too late for Tammara to seek judicial relief before he was called to active duty.

“Grantham’s case had some idiosyncrasies that I’m not sure about. Apparently he didn’t abide by his family-care plan and didn’t do all the things required on his end,” Warnstadt said. “The bill is not a carte blanche for service members. They have certain responsibilities and obligations they need to fulfill in order to be protected. It provides the certainty for soldiers and their families that, if they follow all the proper procedures on their end, they are going to return home and retain custody of their kids.”

Originally posted on "Iowa Independent"

Culver Orders Flags Flown at Half –Staff to Honor Soldier Killed in Iraq

2008-02-26T07:28:00.000-08:00

Gov. Chet Culver has ordered that all flags in the state be flown at half staff from 8 a.m. until sunset on Wednesday, Feb. 27, in honor of Army Spc. Chad Groepper, 21, of Kingsley, who died on Feb. 17 from wounds suffered in Iraq. Funeral services for Groepper will be held at 2:30 p.m. Wednesday at Kingsley-Pierson High School.

Groepper was killed in Diyala Province Iraq when enemy forces attacked his dismounted patrol using small arms fire. He had been serving in Iraq for nearly one year with the 2nd Battalion 23rd Infantry Regiment, 4th Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division, based in Fort Lewis, Wash.

Groepper enlisted in the Army after graduating in 2004 from Kingsley-Pierson High School. He leaves behind his wife, Stephanie, and their 4-month-old daughter, Clarissa, who was born just four weeks before he came home on leave last year.

Groepper is also survived by his parents, Darcy and David, and his two sisters, Denae, 26, of Granger, and Abbie, 24, of Kingsley. His unit had been scheduled to return to the United States from Iraq sometime between mid-May and July.

“We had just been counting the days until he came home,” his mother told the Des Moines Register.

Groepper was the 65th person with Iowa ties to die in Iraq or Afghanistan since March 2003.

Exclusive: On Eve of Coe College Lecture, Trudeau on 'Doonesbury' and War

2008-02-25T08:48:00.000-08:00

For the past 37 years, Garry Trudeau has communicated primarily through his Pulitzer Prize-winning comic strip, “Doonesbury.” However, the war in Iraq has indirectly prompted him to speak out on war-related issues, bringing the war home to readers through the experiences and perspective of B.D., a veteran of the wars in Vietnam, Gulf War I and Iraq. And now, as part of Coe College’s annual Contemporary Issues Forum, Trudeau will share his insights with Iowans Tuesday at 7:30 p.m. in Cedar Rapids.

For many Doonesbury readers, the war in Iraq hit home in April 2003, when Trudeau decided to blow up B.D’s leg while B.D. was serving in Iraq. B.D.’s leg had to be amputated and his injury, coupled by the psychological effects of his experiences, helped inspire more than 220 strips. It also resulted in two books: “The Long Road Home” chronicles B.D.’s journey home and transition into the civilian world, while “The War Within” captures B.D.’s internal struggles with post-traumatic stress disorder.

In addition to bringing the war home through “Doonesbury,” Trudeau has helped capture the day-to-day experiences of soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan through his milblog (military-blog), “The Sandbox.” Lightly edited by longtime editor David Stanford, The Sandbox features dispatches from milbloggers deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan, who share their observations, comments, and anecdotes with readers at home.

The Sandbox was conceived in October 2007, after Trudeau had spent a great deal of time interacting with soldiers at Walter Reed Hospital and reading milblogs online. During a telephone interview, Stanford stressed to the Iowa Independent that The Sandbox’s focus is nonpartisan and nonpolitical and that it provides an outlet for soldiers to share the details of their experiences, minus any classified information, of course.

(Be sure to click on to the new widget for "The Sandbox" on the right-hand column.)

Iowa Independent also conducted an e-mail interview with Trudeau, and here are his responses:

Iowa Independent: Kurt Vonnegut Jr. once said writers need to be sadistic, meaning they had to do terrible things to their characters to see what they are made of. I gather the same holds true for cartoonists. That said, when B.D was wounded in the Iraq War and had to have his leg amputated, what did you discover B.D. was made of through your own creative process?

Trudeau: I think you've framed that question just right -- it has been a journey of discovery, albeit one that was hastily planned and with no preconceived notions about the outcome. I rarely think more than a week or two out in writing the strip -- I just commit to an idea and see where it leads me. When B.D. was wounded several years ago, there was a fourth-panel reveal in which the reader discovered that he had lost a leg. Equally shocking to some was that B.D. was not wearing his helmet -- for the first time in over three decades. What that signified was that life thereafter would never be the same, that for the first time, B.D. was no longer in control. So that's what I had to build on -- the expectation of profound change -- but where it would take him was initially unknown to me.

Only later, after I learned a lot more about real wounded warriors, was I able to weigh plausible possible outcomes -- including a path out of bitterness towards empathy for peers who had also endured the ravages of war. B.D., it turns out, isn't as self-contained as everyone, including himself, had always assumed.

Iowa Independent: B.D.’s experiences parallel those soldiers who have been physically and/or mentally wounded while serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, yet, as the war comes home in staggered stages, we’re just beginning to see some of the problems our troops are facing in the short and long term. What do you perceive to be some of the biggest challenges for our troops in the future and what role will B.D play, if any, in this process?

Trudeau: I have no idea what role B.D. might play (see above). And I don't imagine the challenges facing returning troops will differ greatly from those who've returned from past wars. In some respects, those difficulties will be mitigated by greater public awareness -- as well as significant advances in rehabilitation, both physical and emotional. (For instance, PTSD wasn't even formally recognized as a medical condition until well after the Vietnam War.) The biggest problem now is one of resources; there's just not enough infrastructure in place to manage the huge array of readjustment issues our troops face when they get home.

Iowa Independent: “The Sandbox” provides soldiers an opportunity to share their experiences and insights by connecting with other soldiers, family members, friends and civilians. After World War II and Vietnam, when soldiers returned to their civilian lives, there was a “gulf” of experiences between soldiers and civilians that led to a number of psychological disconnects and ensuing problems. What role do you see The Sandbox playing in regard to bridging the psychological gulfs of experience between Iraq and Afghanistan veterans and their civilian counterparts in America?

Trudeau: It'd be a little grandiose for us to think of The Sandbox in those terms. I don't think any one blog can have the kind of impact you're suggesting, but we do hope that by posting stories of real-time, everyday soldier experiences, we are providing a small window into what it's like to be downrange. At the end of the day, though, if you haven't experienced combat firsthand, you're probably never really going to grasp what it's like. For that reason, soldiers will usually prefer to talk about war in the company of their peers.

Iowa Independent: As the end of the Bush reign closes in, you will have to let go of a certain degree of familiarity, stemming back to your days at Yale with George Bush. Do you see, or feel, a sense of creative rebirth with the next presidency?

Trudeau: Well, not exactly. The dismal truth of my profession is that what's bad for the country is great for satirists -- and vice versa. It will be extraordinarily difficulty for any succeeding administration to fail as spectacularly as the Bushies have. All of us are sad to see them go.

Originally Posted on "Iowa Independent"

Guard Readiness Center Receives Long Overdue Funds

2008-02-12T05:52:00.000-08:00

Built in 1937, the 18,000-square-foot Iowa Armory National Guard Readiness Center in Iowa City served as a riding arena and stable for the Iowa cavalry, accommodating 125 men and their horses. Seventy-one years later, the same facility houses training facilities for five Iowa National Guard units with nearly 400 officers. The increasing demands of the National Guard and the building's poor conditions have required expensive repairs and renovations.

After 20 years of collaborative efforts to procure funding for a new readiness center for Iowa National Guard troops, members of Iowa’s Democratic delegation, Sen Tom Harkin and Rep. Dave Loebsack, announced the center’s groundbreaking this summer, thanks to the procurement of $13 million in federal funds.

Sen. Harkin (right) and Rep. Loebsack (middle) talk with members from the 109th Medical Battalion

“I feel proud to have been able to secure these funds for the brave women and men who serve our country every day. The construction of this new facility will help the Iowa National Guard complete essential mobilization and readiness training and prepare for their missions,” Harkin told members of the 109th Medical Battalion gathered at the ceremony. “Iowa Guard members play an integral role in strengthening our nation’s defenses, and they deserve the very best as they prepare for their duties.”

Loebsack joined Harkin at the press conference, echoing his commitment to Iowa Guard members. “I must compliment the Iowa National Guard for your resourcefulness in maintaining the operational capacity of this readiness center. But at 71 years old, it does show its age, and enough is enough,” Loebsack told Guard members. “It’s time for something new. The citizen soldiers who serve the Iowa National Guard deserve only the finest training facilities, and this is clearly not up to par. We have a responsibility to serve you with the same dedication that you have served us, and I believe this readiness center reflects our commitment to doing so.”

Rep. Loebsack addresses 109th Guard members while standing next to picture of proposed readiness center

The federal funds were the final notch in the funding scheme, for the state of Iowa had already earmarked $5 million in matching funds in 2003 and 2004, and the Iowa Legislature approved appropriations each year since then, Adjunct Gen. Ron Dardis said. “This journey truly has been a partnership,” Dardis said. “In addition to the federal and state funds, we couldn’t have done this without the land swap with Johnson County in 2001 and the City of Iowa City providing sewer and water capabilities.”

The new 80,000-square-foot facility will be located on approximately 25 acres, providing an assembly hall, kitchen, classrooms, and administrative and recruiting space. It will include parking for personal and military vehicles. The project has been the Guard’s top priority for the past three years and is expected to be completed by the summer of 2010.

Harkin, a Navy veteran who served during the Vietnam War, addressed some of the current readiness concerns that face Iowa’s citizen soldiers. “As you all know very well, this is a new era for the Guard. You are shouldering a major share of the combat burden of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan,” Harkin said. “Many Guard members are on their third or fourth deployment to Iraq and Afghanistan. I think it speaks volumes that four times as many Guard members have been killed in Iraq than there were in the entire war in Vietnam -- my war.”

“Like you, during all my years of training in the military, there was one thing that was always drilled into my head: Never leave a buddy behind,” Harkin told Guard members. “That not only applies to the battlefield but to the home front as well. We owe you the best facilities and equipment, and on that score, we have been falling woefully short. In my opinion, we have been leaving many of our guard members behind. The good news, however, is that we are not in denial.”

Originally posted on "Iowa Independent"

Friends and Family Brave Weather to Honor Soldiers at Send-Off Ceremony

2008-02-07T07:10:00.000-08:00

Due to heavy snowfall and hazardous driving conditions, all schools in the Iowa City area shut down Wednesday. This, however, did not deter Regina Catholic School from opening its doors to host the Iowa National Guard’s 109th Medical Battalion’s send-off ceremony.

109th Medical Battalion stands at attention to begin the ceremony

Hundreds of friends and family members braved the weather and the partially plowed roads and parking lot to say goodbye and wish the civilian soldiers well on their deployment to Egypt. However, not everyone was fortunate enough to conquer the elements left in the snowstorm’s wake. Spc. Robert Otto was held up in traffic on Interstate 80 and missed the entire ceremony after a 90-minute commute from Cedar Rapids to Iowa City. A number of accidents and an earlier closing of the interstate had reduced traffic to a slow crawl.

Fortunately, Otto made it in time to join his family after the ceremony. Otto, a unit-supply specialist, joined the military during his senior year in high school. “I joined the 109th right after they came back from Iraq in 2004. I joined to serve my country and to receive the college benefits,” Otto said. “And right now, I’m ready to go.”

Spc. Otto (center) takes a moment to pose with his family: Exie (mother), Joseph (brother), and Terry (father)

Otto’s mother, on the other hand, was less eager for him to go, but she understood why he wanted to go. “I have the typical mother anxieties,” Exie Tobin said. “Although, better Egypt than Iraq.”

The 109th was joined by two other units, the 209th Area Support Medical Company and 67th Troop Command, as part of the Multinational Force & Observers peacekeeping mission, which will deploy to the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt after a brief mobilization at Fort Lewis, Wash., where they will be stationed for two to three months before final deployment.

The members of the 109th Medical Battalion will command and control three companies providing logistical, medical, aviation and explosive ordinance removal support to all 11 Multinational Force & Observers contingents. The mission of the MFO is to supervise the implementation of the security provisions of the Egyptian-Israeli Treaty of Peace and employ best efforts to prevent any violation of its terms.

The 109th was last activated on Jan. 24, 2003, and served 14 months before returning in March 2004.

In addition to friends and family, local dignitaries attended the ceremony, including Iowa City Mayor Regina Bailey and newly elected Iowa City council member Mike Wright. Neither Gov. Chet Culver or Iowa’s state delegation members were in attendance, but Lt. Col. Greg Hapgood read a letter from Sen. Chuck Grassley, and 2nd District Rep. Dave Loebsack’s aide, David Lesch, read a letter on his behalf.

Originally posted on the "Iowa Independent"

Culver Orders Flags Lowered to Honor Soldier Killed in Afghanistan

2008-02-03T14:55:00.000-08:00

Gov. Chet Culver ordered that all flags in the state be flown at half staff on Monday, February 4, 2008, from 8 a.m. (CST) until sunset in honor of Staff Sgt. Robert Miller, 24, of Iowa City who died on January 25th, 2007, from wounds suffered in Afghanistan.

Miller, a native of Harrisburg, Pa., died from wounds he received during enemy small-arms fire during combat operations for Operation Enduring Freedom in Barikowt, Afghanistan. Miller, a Special Forces weapons sergeant was assigned to Company A, 3rd Battalion, 3rd Special Forces Group (Airborne) based out of Fort Bragg, N.C.

Miller is survived by his parents, Philip and Maureen Miller, brothers Thomas, Martin, and Edward, and sisters Joanna, Mary, Therese, and Patricia, all of Oviedo, Fla.

Miller is the 64th person with ties to Iowa to die from injuries in Iraq or Afghanistan since March 2003.

Braley Vows Justice for Tortured POWs after Bush Veto

2008-02-01T11:39:00.000-08:00

Rep. Bruce Braley, D-Iowa, had no inclination that President Bush was going to veto the Defense Authorization Bill on Christmas Eve, let alone the reason why he vetoed the proposed legislation. It was the latter that caught him off guard the following day. Bush vetoed the $3.5 billion authorization package that would have provided resources for military members, their families, and veterans, because it contained a provision that would have allowed Operation Desert Storm Prisoners of War (POW) to continue their case against the Hussein regime.

“I was stunned, shocked, outraged, and ashamed when I found out why the president vetoed the bill,” Braley said at the National Press Club last week. “What is more disturbing is the fact that this administration cannot justify why these soldiers should receive the judgment they so richly deserve and have faced roadblocks every step of the way. These POWs waited years and years for justice only to see this justice stolen by the Bush administration.”

In 2002, 17 American ex-prisoners of war who were brutally tortured in Iraq during the first Persian Gulf War sued Saddam Hussein’s regime. The veterans eventually won a judgment against Hussein. But shortly after the invasion of Iraq, the Bush administration stepped in and had the judgment overturned.

According to a Dec. 28 report in Congressional Quarterly, Bush issued his veto after lawyers for the Iraqi government threatened to withdraw $25 billion worth of assets from U.S. banks if the provision was allowed to become law.

The American POWs were granted damages by a U.S. federal district court in July 2003. The court awarded $959 million in compensatory and punitive damages to the 17 POWs — some of whom remain on active duty today and are serving in Iraq.

But earlier that year, after signing a bill that allowed Americans to collect court-ordered damages from the frozen assets of terrorist states — a list that included Iraq at that time — Bush had confiscated what was then $1.7 billion in Iraqi assets held in private banks. He allowed the payment of two judgments, including one for so-called “human shield” hostages held by Iraq in 1990, but none for the Americans taken prisoner in the 1991 Gulf War.

Moreover, after digging a little deeper, Braley found something even more disturbing regarding the president’s rationale for the veto. “The president chose to respect corporate interests over human interests and corporate rights over human rights,” Braley said at the Press Club. “This is something we have seen from this administration in the past in unrelated matters.”

"One of the things this administration doesn’t like to tell you is that while they have been denying these brave prisoners of war their just compensation, they have been quietly working to settle Gulf War commercial debt with foreign corporations like Mitsubishi from Japan,” Braley said. “They have done this without taking a single penny from the war effort in Iraq.”

Despite bipartisan support for the provision, Congress agreed to strip the language from the bill to ensure its passage into law, granting Iraq immunity from such claims. Braley also told the audience at the Press Club that he was perturbed that there was no response from congressional leadership and he vowed to fight for the POWs, regardless of the bill’s outcome. The revised Defense Act was signed into law by the President this week.

Staying true to his word, Braley introduced a bill that aimed to correct a flawed Defense Department Authorization Act (HR 4986) by introducing a bill to restore a provision allowing American veterans and victims of torture to pursue legal claims against their torturers.

Braley’s bill, the Justice for Victims of Torture and Terrorism Act, would effectively restore the provision and allow American torture victims to pursue legal action against state sponsors of terrorism.

“American veterans tortured as prisoners of war don’t deserve to be left behind by a presidential policy that keeps them from seeking justice,” Braley said in a recent statement. “We need to hold countries accountable for torturing American troops so it never happens again. And we need to get our priorities straight. Protecting American veterans and POWs should come before protecting Saddam Hussein’s assets.

“Congress needs to act quickly to correct the flawed Defense Authorization Act by passing this bill. I’m confident that there is strong bipartisan support in the House to right this wrong and send a message to the president that American soldiers deserve the right to bring torturers to justice.”

Originally posted on "Iowa Independent"

Former UI Student Killed in Afghanistan

2008-01-28T14:08:00.000-08:00

Robert J. Miller, 24, who moved to Iowa City to pursue his love for gymnastics at the University of Iowa, died on a battlefield in Afghanistan four years later.

The Department of Defense announced Saturday that Army Staff Sgt. Miller died from wounds he received during enemy small-arms fire during combat operations for Operation Enduring Freedom in Barikowt, Afghanistan. Miller, a Special Forces weapons sergeant, was assigned to Company A, 3rd Battalion, 3rd Special Forces Group (Airborne) based out of Fort Bragg, N.C.

Miller, a native of Harrisburg, Pa., enrolled in the U of I because of his interest in the gymnastics program. "He hoped to be on the gymnastics team," his mother, Maureen Miller, told The Daily Iowan. Miller’s mother also said that her son had been interested in the military.

Although Miller never made it on the Iowa gymnastics team, he was an active member of the gymnastics program. After his freshman year, however, he enlisted in the Army in 2003. Upon graduating from the Special Forces Qualification Course in 2005, Miller earned his Green Beret status.

Miller deployed for service in 2006. During his deployment, he was awarded the Army Commendation Medal with Valor and was promoted to the rank of staff sergeant. His other awards and decorations include the Army Good Conduct Medal, Afghanistan Campaign Medal, Global War on Terrorism Service Medal, two Noncommissioned Officer Professional Development Ribbons, NATO Medal, Parachutist Badge, Ranger Tab and Special Forces Tab.

Miller is survived by his parents, Philip and Maureen Miller, brothers Thomas, Martin, and Edward, and sisters Joanna, Mary, Therese, and Patricia, all of Oviedo, Fla.

Miller is the 64th person with ties to Iowa to die from injuries in Iraq or Afghanistan since March 2003.

Originally posted on "Iowa Independent"

Zirkelbach Leading Charge for Iowa’s Veterans and Citizen Soldiers

2008-01-25T12:09:00.000-08:00

The Iowa House Veterans Affairs Committee’s new chair, Ray Zirkelbach, D-Monticello, is poised to lead the fight for veterans this session, vowing to pave the way for a smoother transition for Iowa’s growing population of citizen soldiers. “We’re dealing with a whole new generation of veterans and these are citizen soldiers,” Zirkelbach told the Iowa Independent during an interview. “These are National Guardsmen and reserves' soldiers returning from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and have to transition back into their civilian lives. We don’t have an active-duty base in Iowa, so it’s going to be huge transition. We have a lot of homegrown veterans, a number of which are from rural areas.”

Although Iowa is faced with a growing influx of citizen soldiers from recent wars, Zirkelbach does not want veterans from past wars such as Korea and Vietnam to be forgotten. “They were kind of let down by our government in the past and now it’s my generation, the Iraq war veterans, who need to help get them up to speed,” Zirkelbach said.

Having recently returned from his second deployment to Iraq last year with the Iowa National Guard’s 133rd Infantry Battalion, Zirkelbach is no stranger to leading the fight. During his last tour in Iraq, Zirkelbach was a team leader with his infantry unit. His squad was responsible for providing convoy security in al-Anbar Province, where they helped bring in about one-third of the goods from Jordan.

While deployed to Iraq, Zirkelbach not only missed the birth of his first child, Claire, but the last two legislative sessions of the Iowa House. “The hardest part of my most recent deployment to Iraq was missing my family,” Zirkelbach said. “I missed the birth of my daughter and the first 16 months of her life. My wife and I found out right before we were being deployed that she was pregnant, so I missed the whole pregnancy, the birth and Claire’s first birthday.”

Missing the last two sessions also put a mental strain on Zirkelback, who said that it was hard not being able to actively serve and represent his constituents while he was deployed. “I told people back home that if you want somebody else in there, they should do so,” Zirkelbach said. “But they did nominate me and sent me back into office, which I am grateful for.” In his absence, the Eastern Iowa Democratic delegation and Sen. Tom Hancock, D-Dubuque, helped take care of Zirkelbach’s constituents’ concerns.

House Speaker Patrick Murphy, D-Dubuque, appointed Zirkelbach chair of the Veterans Affairs Committee during the legislative-session interim. “Murphy wanted me there as ranking member when the Democrats were in the minority and now that we are in the majority, he appointed me chair,” Zirkelbach said.

Although he didn’t benefit from the hands-on political experience during the last two sessions, Zirkelbach’s experiences in Iraq did give him a new perspective on how to approach his legislative duties. “I can sit back more and analyze things more deeply than I did during my first year in the House,” Zirkelbach said. “Iraq was an eye-opening experience, and I learned to appreciate things that you can only learn to appreciate while serving in a third-world country. It broadened my perspective on a lot of things.”

That said, Zirkelbach said he wants to set the tone this session by focusing on more issues of substance. “It seemed like a lot of the veterans' issues pushed since 9/11 have been feel-good goals,” Zirkelbach said. “As chair I want to focus more on substance issues that will address problems facing veterans coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan, in particular mental-heath care and medical care – especially accessibility for veterans living in rural areas.” To address this, Zirkelbach introduced House File 2033, which calls for full mental-health parity for veterans and requires employers and insurance providers to cover veterans’ mental-health care and substance abuse as part of their health care.

Zirkelbach noted that compared with the other states, Iowa has consistently ranked close to the bottom when it comes to veterans' benefits. “Knowing how the state government works, we know that these changes won’t happen overnight, but we will focus on the immediacy of veterans’ issues by targeting some of the more important problems facing Iowa’s veterans,” Zirkelbach said.

Moreover, the Veterans Affair Committee faces the fiscal challenge of vying for funding for any existing and new veterans' programs. There have been some concerns in the veterans’ community that Gov. Chet Culver’s budget proposal doesn’t allocate enough funding for veterans, other than the money designated for the Marshalltown Veterans Home.

Zirkelbach remains optimistic about the budget and says veterans’ advocates need to be patient and take a look at the big picture. “Most of the funding for veterans-related bills comes out of other appropriation subcommittee’s budgets,” Zirkelbach said. “That’s another issue in itself. I would like to see the Veterans Affairs Committee have its own appropriations subcommittee, so we have more control on what we fund and how much we can fund on veterans’ programs.

Adding to the state’s fiscal constraints, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have shifted a great deal of the financial burden on the states, which increasingly, have to pick up the financial tab for veterans' programs in their respective states. “The federal government has been dumping on states and using and abusing us. There’s a lot of misleading going on,” Zirkelbach said.

“It’s clear that the president and the people in control did not foresee the future problems facing our citizen soldiers. Members in our unit had to find out the hard way upon their return from Iraq. It’s never been such a mess, and you would think that the federal government would treat us in a better manner.”

Originally posted on "Iowa Independent"

Lawmakers One Step Closer to Protecting Returning Soldiers’ Jobs

2008-01-24T09:52:00.000-08:00

(Update: The House passed House File 2065 this morning. There were no votes against the bill and it now heads to the Senate. Employers who fail to follow the law face possible simple misdemeanor charges with up to 30 days in jail and fines up to $625. Under the proposed changes to the law, a county attorney could request the Iowa Attorney General follow through with prosecution. That change would help expedite soldiers’ claims and help ensure swifter justice ensure, lawmakers said.)

Iowa’s soldiers may no longer have to worry about whether they will have a job when returning from active-duty deployment. A measure, House File 2065, which protecting returning Iowa’s National Guard and reserve soldier’s jobs passed its first hurdle.The House Veterans Affairs Committee approved the bipartisan initiative 15-0 Wednesday. The plan will ensure that soldiers called to active duty can return to their jobs after service at the same pay and status level.

"Men and women called to active duty deserve our support,” McKinley Bailey, D-Webster City, the lead sponsor of the bill said in a statement. “After serving our country and being separated from their families, the least we can do is ensure an easy transition back to civilian life, which includes going back to their job at the same pay and status level.”

The legislation was first proposed at a news conference in Des Moines back in October by Bailey and House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, D-Des Moines.

While the federal law, USERRA (Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act), requires employers to hold a position for a returning soldier, proponents of the new mesure contend that if an employer is not fully compliant with the law, a soldier’s only recourse is to file a lawsuit that can take years to resolve."It puts some more teeth into it," McCarthy said in an October statement. "It's a more streamlined process, a process that's closer to home."

House Veterans Affairs Committee Chair Ray Zirkelbach, D-Monticello, echoed McCarthy’s response. “The bill will give attorneys at the county level more power to go after and prosecute employers who are not compliant with USERRA in a more timely manner,” Zirkelbach told the Iowa Independent. Zirkelbach is optimistic about the bill, the first one introduced in the 2008 session, and thinks it has a good chance of passing in the House by the end of the week.

Employers, however, are no longer held liable if the position or business itself was discontinued during the time of the employee’s deployment. The proposal in Iowa would create possible criminal charges for violators and make the appeals process less cumbersome. It also would require employers to reimburse military members for pay lost during the time their jobs were denied to them.

To help illustrate the federal law’s shortcomings, Capt. Pam Reynolds, a physical therapist from Ames who served a 15-month deployment beginning in 2006, accompanied the lawmakers at the October press conference. Upon returning from her service, Reynolds was told she could apply for a physical therapist position at Green Hills Retirement Community in Ames, a similar job but with lower pay."Most of us coming back are just wanting to get into the community," Reynolds told the Des Moines Register in October. "We definitely don't want to be where I'm standing right now. We just want back into our normal routine. While many veterans realize that federal law protects their jobs, the understanding is vague and many don't know how to react, Reynolds said. "We know there's a law out there," she said. "We don't know what it means."

Often times, employer’s non-compliance with USERRA is not intentional, rather, employers didn’t know about their obligations under the law. To help remedy this, the Department of Defense (DoD) created the Employer Support of the Guard and Reserve (ESGR), which helps educate soldiers and employers about the federal law. “We’re not litigators. We are just here to help enhance communication between employer and employee to help resolve any conflicts,” ESGR State Chair Barry Spears told the Iowa Independent in October. “We’ve had a good track record in the two-and-a-half years I’ve been here, and we have not had a problem go unresolved.”

Most of the problems that do arise are namely because of misunderstandings, misinterpretation, or because of ignorance on behalf of either the employer or the employee said Spears. Asked whether Iowa needed a law that would enforce the current federal regulations, Spears said that anything that can be done to help support these civilian members is important. “That’s why we should work hard to take care of them, so they don’t have to worry about these types of problems when they return from deployment,” Spears said.

Bailey Introduces Bill to Protect Veterans Employment

Play Keeps Iowans’ Vietnam Experiences Alive

2008-01-15T08:43:00.000-08:00

More than 30 years have passed since the United States ended its military involvement in Vietnam, but for those who fought in the war, the memories will never end. Vietnam veteran and novelist Tim O’Brien captures the figurative weight of this emotional burden in his award-winning novel “The Things They Carried,” a fictionalized account of a foot soldier’s experiences during the Vietnam War.

In 1989, Marilyn Shaw of Cedar Falls wanted to preserve these memories through the oral tradition, which she adapted into an oral-interpretive play, “Iowa Stories: The Vietnam Experience.” The play will be brought to life for the fourth time, the latest run scheduled for Wednesday and Thursday at the Theater Cedar Rapids. Performances begin at 7:30 p.m.
Shaw, a 57-year-old professor of communication studies at the University of Northern Iowa, was first drawn to the notion of capturing the stories of Iowans who served in Vietnam from her daughter.

“When my daughter, a sophomore in high school at the time (1989), came home and asked me what I knew about the Vietnam War, I didn’t really know what to tell her,” Shaw told the Iowa Independent in a phone interview. “All I remember was watching the body counts on the television with my parents every night and being afraid, but not knowing why I was afraid.”

In light of this experience, Shaw asked her students in an oral interpretation class at the UNI what they knew about the Vietnam War, and most of them could only recount a few paragraphs they read in their high school textbooks. This sense of historic amnesia inspired Shaw to interview 28 people, and she interwove their stories into nine character archetypes for her play. Through her experiences during the interview process, Shaw confides that she learned three valuable lessons. “Although each person I interviewed had different personal experiences with the war, a number of universal themes did manifest,” Shaw said. “The one motif that kept resurfacing in my mind is that it’s b to hate the war, but you shouldn’t hate the warrior.”

Something else that Shaw learned was that each and every one of the men and women she interviewed, despite being reluctant to speak at first, was very much dedicated to the concept of service. “I think this may have to do with their Midwest upbringing. Either way they saw serving in Vietnam as their job and duty to their country,” Shaw said. “They were aware of the tensions stateside while serving, but didn’t feel they weren’t appreciated. What really surprised me was that all but one of those interviewed said they would go back and do it all over again if they had to.”

When they were asked why, they said: “So their children and their children’s children, or anybody else for that matter, wouldn’t have to do it.”

The initial run of the play in 1990 toured for about 10 months, traversing 25 locations in Iowa, Illinois, and Missouri and culminating with a July 3 performance on a grassy knoll by the memorial wall in Washington, D.C. “It was amazing to see the play performed in a public arena and to see the reflection of the play off the Vietnam Memorial Wall,” Shaw said.
Four years later, the cast was asked to perform at the rededication of the Iowa Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Des Moines over Memorial Day weekend. Matthew Ford, one of the cast members of the ’94 play, will direct the play in Cedar Rapids. The show's 10th-anniversary cast performed it over Memorial Day weekend in 2000 while the traveling wall was displayed in Cedar Falls.

Shaw is pleased that her play goes on and attributes its 18-year lifespan to weathering the test of time. “Whenever dealing with oral history in stories, one of two things make it historical in my mind: whether it’s educational or a form of therapeutic value,” Shaw said. “'Iowa Stories’ does both. It not only helps educate the public, but it served a therapeutic value for the veterans I interviewed, giving them a chance to share and unburden their stories.”

Proceeds from the play will go to Vietnam Veterans of America #568 in Cedar Rapids, who in turn are passing on at least $4,500 to Vets Helping Vets, the Iowa City group grappling with veteran homelessness. Tom Kelly and Len McClellan, co-founders of Vets Helping Vets, will be introduced at Thursday’s performance and will be presented with the donation.

Originally posted on "Iowa Independent"

Donors Beware: Some Veterans Charities Shortchanging Wounded Troops

2008-01-14T16:13:00.000-08:00

One of the hidden costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is caring for the wounded troops returning from these theaters. In May 2007, the Department of Defense reported 25,090 wounded troops in Iraq since the wars began in March 2003. To help shoulder these costs, a number of veterans charities have raised millions of dollars to help care for the wounded.

However, a leading watchdog organization, the American Institute of Philanthropy, released a report last month suggesting that 12 of the 29 charities the organization studied earned a failing grade. The API has instituted a 60 percentile passing threshold, meaning at least 60 cents for every dollar raised is spent directly on veterans and charitable programs. The worst ratings went to the American Veterans Relief Foundation, which passed along 1 cent for every dollar raised, and the National Veterans Service Fund, which passed along 2 cents on the dollar.

There are no laws regulating the amount of money charities spend on overhead. The API report contends that 20 of the 29 charities have mismanaged their resources, whether paying high overhead costs or direct-mail fundraising fees to for-profit consultants. Furthermore, some of the higher overheads are due to six-figure salaries paid out to the charities’ leaders, including Help Hospitalized Veterans (HHV), which the Washington Post reports paid its founder and his wife a combined $540,000 in compensation and benefits last year.

This has drawn the ire of Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, who has been a longtime critic of charities that are abusing their tax-exempt status. "Taxpayers are subsidizing that tax exemption," Grassley said in a statement. "Sitting on donors' money or spending too much on contracts and salaries doesn't benefit the public."

Daniel Borochoff, president of the API, also cited HHV, a charity that provides therapeutic arts and crafts kits to the hospitalized veterans, as an egregious example of abuse. The API reported HHV’s income at $71.3 million last year; the charity spent about a third of that on charitable work.

The charity was founded in 1971 by Roger Chapin, 75, who received $426,434 in salary and benefits the past fiscal year. His wife, Elizabeth, 73, received $113,623 in salary and benefits as a “newsletter editor.” The Washington Post reports that HHV, in its tax filings, reported paying more than $4 million to direct-mail fundraising consultants. The group also has run television advertisements featuring actor Sam Waterston, game show host Pat Sajak and other celebrities.

Borochoff points the finger at professional for-profit fundraising consultants and companies that charities hire. “The wool is being pulled over the eyes of the donating public by some F-rated charities,” Borochoff said in a statement while testifying before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Dec. 13, 2007.

“Veterans and other charities often enter into contracts with professional fundraising businesses that may keep (for their profits and expenses) 80 percent or more of the contributions raised,” Borochoff informed the committee. “National Veterans Services Fund (NVSF) filed a 2004 contract with Bee LC that guarantees at least 15 percent of the gross revenues ‘for calling of individuals who have previously donated by telephone via this contract to NVSF.’”

The NVSF’s Web site states that the charity was founded in 1978 and is a not-for-profit organization located in Darien, Conn., that provides case-managed social services and limited medical assistance to Vietnam and Persian Gulf War veterans and their families, with a focus on families with disabled children.

Grassley also testified before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform at the “Assessing Veterans Charities” hearing. Grassley not only took veterans charities to task, but called for more rigid accountability and congressional oversight for all not-for-profit charities. “We need to ensure that the public continues to have confidence in these institutions,” Grassley said in a prepared statement. “Our veterans need to know that Congress is taking a hard eye at these charities to ensure that veterans are appropriately benefiting from donations.”

“Charities also receive billions of dollars in government grants, contracts and payments. Charities represent a bigger part of the economy than people might realize – just a little under 10 percent of the economy and the work force,” Grassley said in his testimony before recommending a possible solution. “So often, I see problems with charities because there is not in place basic governance – that is, independent, active board members – that are minding the store. Your committee should consider the possibility of requiring basic good governance structures and best practices – similar to those advocated by the Nonprofit Panel and watchdog groups such as the American Institute of Philanthropy – as a requirement for charities that participate in the Combined Federal Campaign or receive federal grants and contracts.”

Despite some of these failing charities, there are some that have helped benefit the wounded warriors returning from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. "In the rush to help, there's a lot of innovative work and good work happening, but there's also a lot of fraud and waste," Paul Rieckhoff, executive director of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, told the Washington Post. "There's never been a greater need for veterans charities in a generation, and I hope issues like this don't deter people from giving."

Two such groups, the Intrepid Fallen Heroes Fund (IFHF) and the Fisher House Foundation (FHH), received A ratings by the API.

The IFHF was established in 2003 and has provided close to $60 million in support for the families of military personnel who paid the ultimate sacrifice, and for severely wounded military personnel and veterans. IFHF claims on its Web site that 100 percent of the contributions go towards programs, while all administrative expenses are underwritten by the fund’s trustees. In January 2007, the IFHF completed construction of a $40 million world-class state-of-the-art physical rehabilitation center at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, Texas. The “Center for the Intrepid” serves military personnel who have been catastrophically disabled in operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, and veterans severely injured in other operations and in the normal performance of their duties.

The Fisher House is a program designed to provide military members and their families with services that meet a need beyond what the DoD and the Veterans Affairs would normally provide. Fisher House donates comfort homes that enable family members to be close to their wounded love ones during hospitalization for an unexpected illness, disease or injury. There is at least one Fisher House at every major military medical center, and the foundation has served more than 10,000 families and has made available nearly 2.5 million days of lodging to family members since the program began in 1990.

Jim Weiskopf, spokesman for Fisher House, told the Washington Post that one reason his charity has had a higher ratio of success and lower overhead is that it does not use direct-mail advertising. "As soon as you do direct mail, your fundraising expenses go up astronomically," he said.

Originally posted on "Iowa Independent"

Dem Vets Scatter Endorsements Among Dodd, Obama, Biden

2008-01-02T07:36:00.000-08:00

One thing members of the Iowa Democratic Veterans’ Caucus (IDVC) agreed upon, other than the “Four Points of Honor,” was that the Democrats had a strong field of candidates to choose from this year. Taking their cue from John Kerry’s successful investment in targeting Iowa veterans during his late surge and comeback victory in the 2004 Iowa Caucuses, this year's field has made similar attempts in courting the veteran vote.

Consequently, choosing a candidate to support was not an easy decision for most of the groups’ members, including IDVC Chair Bob Krause, who was originally leaning toward Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, but ended up endorsing Sen. Chris Dodd of Connecticut. “While we do have an excellent field of candidates, I'm caucusing for Chris Dodd because I trust him more than any other candidate to lead the nation when the unexpected occurs and to deliver results for his fellow veterans,” Krause said in a statement.

IDVC Chair Bob Krause (right) looks on as U.S. Rep. John Larson, D-Conn., (left) speaks on behalf of Dodd at Dec. IDVC meeting

Krause told the Iowa Independent that he was leaning toward Obama, but when his campaign did not endorse the first resolution of the IDVC’s “Four Points of Honor,” which calls for mandatory federal funding for veterans’ health care for all veterans, Krause reassessed the other candidates and chose Dodd. While Obama was the only Democratic candidate who partially endorsed the Four Points, all of the other, except Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio, have endorsed the resolution.

The Obama campaign’s reluctance to endorse the first point of the resolution did not deter IDVC Communication Liaison Kent Sovern, who announced last week that he was vacating his post as statewide co-chair of New York Sen. Hillary Clinton’s Veterans Committee to caucus for Obama. “I agree that mandatory-funded health care is important for veterans, but I’m convinced that Obama’s pledge to build a 21st century Veterans Administration goes beyond the funding issue,” Sovern, a combat veteran of the Vietnam War, told the Iowa Independent. “The deterioration of the VA has happened over the past few decades and whoever wins will have to work expressly with the Congress to remedy how it’s funded. Obama’s plan will use a wiser allocation of resources across the board.”

Sovern also admitted that his switch to Obama was based on his perception that he’s more electable than Clinton. “The biggest thing for me went beyond the veterans’ issues,” Sovern said. “The more I was exposed to other veterans’ campaigns around the country, the more I came to realize that Obama is more electable than Clinton, and in the end, electability became the defining issue for me.”

Terry Phillips (left), Joe Stutler (middle), Kent Sovern (right) man the IDVC table at the Jefferson Jackson dinner in Dec.

Similar to Kerry, who was a decorated Vietnam War veteran, Krause was also swayed by the fact that Dodd is the only Democratic candidate who has served in the military (U.S. Army Reserves and Army National Guard: 1969-1975). “As a 28-year veteran of the Army Reserves, I know we need a commander-in-chief who is ready to take on the job from day one,” Krause said in a statement. “He will provide the leadership to restore America's security and good name around the world, as well as produce results on our challenges at home.”

Dodd’s veteran status and firsthand knowledge of veterans’ issues also influenced Terry K. Phillips, a Navy veteran who served during the Vietnam War, and Joe Stutler, an Army veteran who served in Operation Desert Storm. “I was so impressed with his plan being the most comprehensive in solving the problems facing veterans that I agreed to serve as the state veteran coordinator for the Dodd campaign,” Phillips told the Iowa Independent.

Stutler echoed Phillips’ remarks and noted Dodd’s active support of the IDVC. “Not only does Dodd support veterans’ issues, but he’s supported the IDVC every time we’ve asked him.” Stutler had made a commitment to himself that he would support whoever showed up to the IDVC Presidential Extravaganza in August, and his decision was made for him when Dodd was the only presidential candidate who showed up to speak at the event.

In addition to Sovern’s endorsement, Obama has garnered support across multiple generations of veterans in the IDVC, including Andrew W. Hampton, whose recent fame came about at an Obama campaign stop in Mason City Dec. 26. Hampton, a 79-year-old retired Air Force lieutenant colonel, teared up when asking Obama about health care for military veterans, thus prompting Obama to walk over and hug him.

“It was an amazing personal experience, which was enlarged by a promise given by Senator Obama to the veterans of our nation,” Hampton wrote in an email message to fellow IDVC members. “He made a promise to work to support all of our veterans and to help secure what has been promised to them.”

Moreover, Obama picked up endorsements from Larry G. Olk and Marc Wallace, both of whom are actively caucusing for Obama. Wallace, an Army veteran who served in Germany as a linguist during the latter part of the ‘80s, is a precinct captain in Des Moines, while Olk, a Vietnam War Army veteran, serves on Obama’s Vets’ Caucus Steering Committee. “Obama stands out in possessing a unique skill set that includes deep commitment, impeccable honor and honesty, persuasiveness and most important a consensus builder," Olk told the Iowa Independent in an email. “I have not seen that in one package since JFK.”

IDVC member Jim Mowrer, who now serves as the Iowa chair for Veterans for Biden, was also prompted by his military service to get actively involved in the presidential campaign. Mowrer, who recently returned from Iraq with the Iowa National Guard’s 1-133 Infantry Battalion, where he served as a senior intelligence analyst, committed to Joe Biden because of a promise the Delaware senator kept to the troops on the ground in Iraq.

“Senator Biden kept his promise to us that he would fight for the funds needed to produce Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles which dramatically reduce the number of casualties from improvised explosive devices (IEDs),” Mowrer said in a statement to the Iowa Independent. “When other presidential candidates were going back on their word to support those of us in harm's way, only Senator Biden remained steadfast in his support, regardless of any political consequences.”

It was this same promise and Biden’s plan for Iraq that helped garner the legislator endorsement of IDVC member and Iowa House Rep.McKinley Bailey of Webster City. "After returning from serving in Iraq, I quickly grew frustrated by my impression that leaders in both political parties did not understand the fundamental challenges to ending the war in Iraq," Bailey said in a press release.

"When I first learned of Senator Biden's plan, I realized that was the ticket - a political solution, not a military one,” Bailey said. “I am endorsing him because from day one, our next president must make decisions on the direction in Iraq and I am convinced Senator Biden has the knowledge and experience to bring our troops home without leaving a situation that requires another generation of Americans to return in a decade."

Veterans for Biden National Coordinator J.B. White sits at one of two tables reserved for veterans supporting Biden at Jefferson Jackson Dinner in Nov.

Originally posted on "Iowa Independent"

Braley Continues Fight for Iowa Guard Members’ GI Bill Benefits

2007-12-20T10:34:00.000-08:00

One thing that Iowa’s Rep. Bruce Braley has proven during his freshman year in Congress is that he’s not afraid to take on the entrenched powers of Washington, D.C. While serving on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Braley, D-Iowa, earned the respect of the blogosphere in March, when he grilled Lurita Doan, administrator of the General Services Administration (GSA), over ethics allegations involving her role in briefing managers on the Republican Party’s prospects for 2008. (see video below the fold)

In October, Braley set his sights on the Pentagon. When he found out that 600 members of the Iowa National Guard’s 1st Battalion, 133rd Infantry’s educational benefits had been shortchanged, Braley helped launch a formal congressional investigation into the matter. After returning home from 17 months of combat duty in Iraq, members of the 1-133rd were initially denied full GI Bill educational benefits because their active duty orders were written one to five days short of the 730-day GI Bill qualifying requirement.

"When the Pentagon's ineptitude leads to soldiers and their families being denied the benefits they deserve, it is Congress' role to provide oversight, accountability, and answers," Braley said in a press release. “While I'm hopeful that the cases of the members of the 1-133rd will all be resolved before classes begin next spring, the question of why the Army worded soldiers' orders just one to five days short of the 730-day requirement, when the Army clearly knows that this is the threshold for receiving Montgomery GI Bill Benefits, is still unresolved."

To help expedite claims and keep the soldiers and their families informed about the latest developments in the congressional investigation, Braley launched a website Dec. 12. “I’m also pleased to hear that over half of the 1-133rd members who were initially denied their benefits have been informed by the Army that they now qualify for full GI Bill educational benefits,” Braley said in a recent statement found on the new site. “I’m hopeful that the Pentagon will achieve their promise of getting full benefits to all of the troops affected by the error by the beginning of the spring 2008 semester in January.”

Rock Island Arsenal Furloughs: "Politics at its Worst"

Last week, Braley joined fellow Congressman Phil Hare, D-Il., to take on the White House and the Department of Defense, arguing it is unnecessary for the DoD to issue furlough notices to federal employees working at the Rock Island Arsenal.

In November, the White House and Defense Department warned that furloughs for 200,000 civilian employees could be sent before the holidays if they did not receive additional funding for the war in Iraq. However, the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service issued a report Dec. 13, “Extending Army Operations in Advance of a Supplemental War Appropriation,” that found the DoD could continue operations on current DoD funds until March 2008.

Despite this, the Defense Department apparently intends to move forward with notifying civilian defense employees of possible furloughs as soon as this week. “Threatening Rock Island Arsenal and other Defense Department employees with ‘possible’ layoffs in the days before Christmas is politics at its worst,” Braley said. “The Congressional Research Service report has demonstrated that furloughs are unnecessary. The President’s politics of fear only serve to intensify the partisanship that is already poisoning politics. I’ll be working with Congressman Hare to do everything possible to protect Arsenal jobs from becoming a casualty of these ridiculous Washington games.”

In fact, the president has already approved billions of dollars of funding for Defense Department operations in FY 2008. Last month, President Bush signed the $459.3 billion Defense Department appropriations bill (HR 3222) into law. That bill included money for operations at the Rock Island Arsenal and represented a funding increase of $37.9 billion from FY 2007.

Bruce Braley Questions GSA Administrator Lurita Doan

Originally posted on "Iowa Independent"

Remains of Fallen MIA Vietnam War Pilot Return to Le Mars

2007-12-13T09:29:00.000-08:00

Lt. j.g. Norman L. Roggow, who was killed in action Oct. 8, 1967, yet had been missing in action (MIA) for the past 40 years will finally be put to rest next to his parents Friday in Le Mars.

In honor of Roggow’s service and sacrifice, Gov. Chet Culver has ordered all flags in the state to be flown at half staff on Friday, Dec. 14. Services, beginning at 11 a.m., will be held at the Grace Lutheran Church in Le Mars. Surviving members of Roggow’s family will be presented with a POW bracelet, a bronze plaque, a grave marker, the American flag and a videotape of his memorial service.

"It finally gets to the point where all questions to Norman's disappearance have been answered and our family is grateful to now have closure as he finally returns home,” Myron Pingel of Cherokee, a second cousin of Roggow's, told The Sioux City Journal.

The POW/Missing Personnel Office in the Department of Defense in Washington, D.C., announced Oct. 24 that the remains of five servicemen, including Roggow, had been accounted for and would be returned to their families for burial with full military honors.

Roggow was one of five Navy personnel whose E-1B Tracer plane was reported missing Oct. 8, 1967, while returning to the aircraft carrier USS Oriskany. Records indicate that radar contact with the aircraft was lost approximately ten miles northwest of Da Nang, Vietnam, and adverse weather conditions hampered immediate search efforts.

Three days later, the plane wreckage was located by a search helicopter on the face of a steep mountain in Da Nang Province but the challenging terrain and hostile forces in the area prevented a ground recovery.

Roggow was a member of the Brook Country School class of 1959, the last class to graduate from the rural school located north of Aurelia. He is survived by three sisters, Connie Fraser, Marva Hanson and Diane Roggow, and a brother, Curtis Roggow.

Originally posted on "Iowa Independent"

‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ Poses Clintonian Catch-22 for GOP Hopefuls

2007-12-10T07:53:00.000-08:00

Imagine a stage full of Republican presidential candidates standing underneath the national spotlight and agreeing with one another. Better yet, try imagining all of them agreeing with former President Bill Clinton.

CNN and YouTube helped make this scenario a reality Nov. 28 when the two hooked up and hosted a Republican presidential debate. Just two days before the 14th anniversary of the enactment of the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (DADT) law that prohibits gays and lesbians from serving openly in the military, the candidates were asked to tell what they thought about the law.

During the debate, retired Brigadier Gen. Keith Kerr asked: “I want to know why you think that American men and women in uniform are not professional enough to serve with gays and lesbians.” Kerr, a Santa Rosa, Calif., native, served in the armed forces for 43 years, and, without being asked, told the audience that he’s an openly gay man.

Now the catch. The candidates could either agree with President Clinton’s initiative, or disagree with DADT, which implicitly supports Sen. Hillary Clinton’s stance. Sen. Clinton says the “outdated and outmoded” and should be repealed. Either way, the GOP hopefuls still end up agreeing with a Clinton, a major political faux pas in the Republican Party.

The plot thickens. It turns out Kerr had been named a co-chairman of Hillary Clinton’s National Military Veterans group. After the debate, Kerr told CNN that he had not done work for the Clinton campaign. CNN claimed that Kerr told them he is a member of the Log Cabin Republicans and was representing no one other than himself. The day after the debate, Clinton campaign spokesman Phil Singer said the retired general "is not a campaign employee and was not acting on behalf of the campaign."

Regardless of who Kerr was representing, the question had been asked and who asked it does not negate the question itself. The same question was asked at a Republican presidential debate in June. However, despite the legitimacy of Kerr’s question, CNN anchor Anderson Cooper, who moderated the debate, felt compelled to apologize to the Republican candidates. “We never would have used the general's question had we known that he was connected to any presidential candidate."

True, there are some ethical issues to consider about the process of how the question was asked, but this merely serves as a distraction to how the candidates responded (see video below).

California Rep. Duncan Hunter took first swing at DADT and played the Colin Powell card, who Hunter quoted as saying that “having openly homosexual people serving in the ranks would be bad for unit cohesion.” However, nearly three in four troops (73 percent) say they are personally comfortable in the presence of gays and lesbians (Zogby International & the Michael D. Palm Center 2006 study).

Hunter, a military veteran, attempted to defend DADT with the unit-cohesion fallacy, while simultaneously negating the notion that 23 of the other 26 NATO countries are open to gays serving in the military. “Even though people point to the Israelis and point to the Brits and point to other people as having homosexuals serve, is that most Americans, most kids who leave that breakfast table and go out and serve in the military and make that corporate decision with their family, most of them are conservatives,” Hunter argued. “They have conservative values, and they have Judeo-Christian values. To force those people to work in a small tight unit with somebody who is openly homosexual goes against what they believe to be their principles, and it is their principles, is I think a disservice to them.”

Is Hunter suggesting the military segregate soldiers based on ideology to maintain unit cohesion? The military has a history of being one of the first governmental institutions to implement desegregation policies, yet Hunter wants to reverse this trend, which his fellow Republican President Harry S. Truman initiated in 1950.

In an attempt to appeal to his conservative base, Hunter opened up a new can of discrimination against moderates and liberals serving in the military. The big question is, if elected, would Hunter expand DADT to include anyone whose ideology isn’t consistent with the conservatives?

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee echoed Hunter’s unit-cohesion stance. However, Huckabee did manage to undermine the premise underlying Hunter’s argument about protecting conservative principles. “The Uniform Code of Military Justice is probably the best rule, and it has to do with conduct. People have a right to have whatever feelings, whatever attitudes they wish,” Huckabee said. “But when their conduct could put at risk the morale, I think that's what is at issue. And that's why our policy is what it is.”

Here, Huckabee argues that it’s a homosexual’s conduct that jeopardizes morale, and by conduct I assume he’s referring to sexual conduct. However, no other soldier’s sexual conduct is put under the morality microscope, so under a Huckabee administration, soldiers who indulge in pre-marital sex or adultery are given a free pass.

Not to mention, the morale for combat troops in Iraq has already been plummeting, even with the DADT policy in place. Released in May, a Pentagon mental health study of troops in Iraq found 45 percent of junior enlisted Army soldiers rated their unit's morale as low or very low. Twenty percent of soldiers and 15 percent of Marines were found to have a mental health problem, defined as anxiety, depression or acute stress.

The report was based on data collected from some 1,300 soldiers and nearly 450 Marines in Iraq last fall. About two-thirds of those surveyed said they knew someone who had been killed or injured. More than three-quarters of soldiers and Marines said they had been in situations where they could have been killed or seriously injured.

The report also indicated 56 percent of soldiers were highly concerned about the long tours, something Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., tried to address with an amendment (S. AMDT. 2012) that would improve military readiness and require periods of down time between redeployment. The amendment was successfully filibustered by the Republicans in the Senate, much to the chagrin of Webb, a Vietnam War Veteran, who shared his disappointment on the Senate floor: "Today the Republicans decided to filibuster an amendment that goes straight to the well-being of our troops. I deeply regret this move. They expect us to take the sort of positive action that might stabilize the operational environment in which are troops are being sent again and again.”

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and Arizona Sen. John McCain borrowed a tactic from the current Commander in Chief George W. Bush and deferred their commander-in-chief obligations to the military leaders in the field. “I look forward to hearing from the military exactly what they believe is the right way to have the right kind of cohesion and support in our troops, and I listen to what they have to say,” Romney said.

McCain reassured the audience he has his ear to the ground in Iraq and keeps in constant contact with military leaders in the field. “Almost unanimously, they tell me that this present policy is working, that we have the best military in history, that we have the bravest, most professional, best prepared, and that this policy ought to be continued because it's working.” Even if McCain’s assertion is proven to be true, one would have to question the sources. To openly question or refute an order that was signed by someone at the top of the chain-of-command goes contrary to a soldier’s training. Military personnel are trained to follow orders, and this includes generals.

McCain’s intelligence gathering doesn’t hold the same weight with retired generals. A group of 28 retired U.S. generals and admirals released a statement Nov. 29 urging Congress to repeal the current ban on openly gay troops:

We respectfully urge Congress to repeal the "don't ask, don't tell" policy.
Those of us signing this letter have dedicated our lives to defending the rights
of our citizens to believe whatever they wish. As General Colin Powell, Former
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs said when the "don't ask, don't tell" policy was
enacted, it is not the place of the military or those in senior leadership to
make moral judgments.

Scholarly data shows there are approximately one million gay and lesbian veterans in the United States today, as well as 65,000 gays and lesbians currently serving in our armed forces. They have served our nation honorably.

We support the recent comments of another former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General John Shalikashvili, who has concluded that repealing the "don't ask, don't tell" policy would not harm, and would indeed help our armed forces. As is the case in Britain, Israel, and other nations which allow gays and lesbians to serve openly, our service members are professionals who are able to work together effectively despite differences in race, gender, religion, and sexuality. Such collaboration reflects the strength and the best traditions of our democracy.

The post-debate dust has already settled, and the GOP candidates have resumed their silence on the issue of DADT -- at least until the general election. While they can afford to choose silence, or risk losing their conservative base, the same luxury does not hold true for the 65,000 gay soldiers still serving in the military, who have had no choice but to remain silent their entire careers under DADT.

Originally posted on "Iowa Independent"

Culver Orders Flags Lowered to Honor Soldier Killed in Korean War

2007-12-03T07:33:00.000-08:00

Cpl. Clem Robert Boody and his family can finally rest in peace.

The Independence native who served with the 8th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division, in the Korean War was declared missing in action after heavy fighting near Unsan, North Korea, on Nov. 2, 1950. He was presumed dead on Dec. 31, 1953.

In April, Boody’s remains were positively identified by the Department of Defense as a result of DNA testing. His remains were among the remains of six American soldiers that North Korean military leaders turned over to a delegation led by former Veterans Affairs Secretary Anthony Principi and New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson.

"More than a half-century after Corporal Boody was reported missing in action while fighting for our country, he will finally receive a dignified burial next to his parents in Iowa," Richardson said following a private meeting in Des Moines with Boody’s relatives. "Cpl. Boody made the ultimate sacrifice on our behalf. I hope his relatives can get some closure after so many years of wondering what happened to their Uncle Clem."

Boody’s will be laid to rest in Independence on Tuesday, Dec. 4, and in honor of his sacrifice, Gov. Chet Culver has ordered all flags in the state to be flown at half-staff on Tuesday.

Richardson, a Democratic presidential candidate, has been working on the issue of retrieving remains of soldiers for several years. During the April meeting in Pyongyang, General Ri said Gov. Richardson's involvement was a factor in sending North Korean soldiers to the Unsan region during recent months to look for additional remains. The remains of one soldier had been found in October 2006, and Ri ordered 10 North Korean soldiers to the region to search for more remains, Ri told Gov. Richardson.

In addition to help bring Boody’s remains home to his surviving family, Richardson ensured that Boody’s family finally received the Purple Heart he was awarded 53 years ago. In 1954, the U.S. Army sent a letter to Boody's mother, informing her that her son had been awarded the medal and telling her it would arrive soon. But the medal never came, despite repeated efforts by family members to obtain it over the past 53 years, Boody’s niece Stacey Brewer said at a private ceremony in Des Moines Nov. 5.

"My grandmother never gave up the hope that he would come home someday, because for her, the death was never final,” Brewer said at the ceremony attended by Richardson and 200 other guests in Des Moines. “She just couldn't get her arms around the fact that one of her kids didn't come home. There was no body. There was no goodbye."

In honor of Cpl. Clem Boody, the flag will fly half-staff at the Iowa State Capitol Tuesday, Dec. 4

Originally posted on "Iowa Independent"

Human Right Campaign Calls Upon Democratic Hopefuls to Overturn ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’

2007-12-02T12:02:00.000-08:00

Friday marked the fourteenth anniversary of the enactment of the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (DADT) law which prohibits gays and lesbians from serving openly in the military. To mark the occasion, the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) partnered with Servicemembers United (formerly Call to Duty), Log Cabin Republicans, Service Members Legal Defense Network and Liberty Education Forum, to host a three-day tribute this weekend. The event, “12,000 Flags for 12,000 Patriots,” took place at the National Mall in Washington, D.C., where 12,000 flags were displayed -- each one symbolizing a discharged service member under DADT.

To raise awareness against DADT on the campaign trail in Iowa, the HRC kicked off its “Legacy of Service Tour” in Des Moines in June. "The eyes of the nation and the eyes of the world are on Iowa as we elect our next president," HRC President Joe Solmonese told the audience at the Iowa Historical Museum. The HRC’s mission to repeal the law and educate politicians and the public about the facts have been addressed on its web site.

Moreover, the HRC wants to put a face on the campaign by enlisting veterans directly affected by the policy. Sensing this new call to duty, a number of former service members have stepped forward to share how the DADT policy has negatively impacted their military careers and personal lives. This includes Marine veteran Eric Alva, who lost a leg in the Iraq War. Alva, who has become a spokesman for the “Legacy of Service Tour,” told the Des Moines audience: “I am a man who survived a war, a man who survived a battle, only to come home to another battle, and that battle is for equality.”

Nearly six month have passed since the kick-off event, and the HRC’s efforts to repeal DADT have flown under the radar on the presidential campaign trail. Not until last week’s CNN/YouTube Republican debate did the DADT resurface, albeit under suspicious circumstances, on the national stage.

Meanwhile, on the Democrat side, the HRC has taken a more proactive role in soliciting responses from the leading Democratic presidential candidates to the question: “If you are elected President, what concrete steps would you take to overturn ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell?’” The candidates’ responses were posted last week on the HRC’s web site.

While all of the candidates promised they would repeal DADT, asserting the policy is outdated and discriminatory, only Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois provided concrete steps to overturn the law. Sens. Chris Dodd of Connecticut and Hillary Clinton of New York took the first step by initiating the overturn of the process, but fell short in providing a litany of concrete steps they would use to accomplish their objective. Dodd said he would call for a meeting with the Joint Chiefs of Staff to draw up plans that would put an end to this policy within six months, whereas Clinton promised to work with high profile military leaders and retired military leaders who have called for the repeal of the law.

Although military leaders may share their insights as to what needs to happen, the DADT’s initial fate rests in the hands of the legislative branch, where the law was initially introduced and passed in 1993. If elected, Obama promised to work with Congress and place the weight of his administration behind enactment of the Military Readiness Enhancement Act, which will make nondiscrimination the official policy of the U.S. military.

The Military Readiness Enhancement Act (H.R. 1246), which repeals the current Department of Defense (DoD) policy concerning homosexuality in the Armed Forces, was first introduced in the House Feb. 28, 2007 by Rep. Martin Meehan, D-Mass. The amendment prohibits the Secretary of Defense and Secretary of Homeland Security from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation against any member of the Armed Forces or any person seeking to become a member. Moreover, the amendment authorizes the re-accession into the Armed Forces of otherwise qualified individuals previously separated for homosexuality, bisexuality, or homosexual conduct. Thus far, 136 House members have cosponsored the amendment, including Rep. Dave Loebsack, D-Iowa.

“I will task the Defense Department and the senior command structure in every branch of the armed forces with developing an action plan for the implementation of a full repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” Obama said in a statement. “And I will direct my Secretaries of Defense and Homeland Security to develop procedures for taking re-accession requests from those qualified service members who were separated from the armed forces under Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell and still want to serve their country.”

Obama promises to go even further, claiming the eradication of DADT will require more than just eliminating one statute. “It will require the implementation of anti-harassment policies and protocols for dealing with abusive or discriminatory behavior as we transition our armed forces away from a policy of discrimination,” Obama said in a statement. “The military must be our active partners in developing those policies and protocols.”

Joe Solmonese speaks at 12,000 Flags event

Originally posted on "Iowa Independent"

State Buildings Fail to Comply with Gov. Culver’s First Executive Order

2007-11-27T08:27:00.000-08:00

Gov. Culver’s intentions may have been in the right place when he signed his first executive order as Iowa’s commander-in-chief, a directive that calls for flying flags half-staff to honor Iowa’s newly fallen soldiers. But the question still remains whether the governor intends to put his foot down and enforce its compliance. Although the flags on the State Capitol grounds were flying half-staff on Saturday under a directive signed by Culver, two buildings flanking the capitol, the Iowa Workforce Development (pictured to left) and Iowa Department of Public Safety buildings (pictured below the fold), failed to comply.

Culver’s first executive order in office, signed Jan. 27, recognizes and honors all of Iowa’s soldiers who paid the ultimate sacrifice while serving in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Culver’s order stipulates that Iowa’s state flag and the flag of the United States of America are to be flown at half-staff on all properties under the state’s jurisdiction when:

1. A member of the Iowa National Guard is killed in the line of duty.
2. A member of the Iowa Air National Guard is killed in the line of duty.
3. An Iowa resident serving as a member of the United States Armed Forces is killed in the line of duty.

On Saturday, all flags in the state were supposed to be flown half-staff in honor of Army Sgt. Adrian Hike of Sac City, who died while serving in Afghanistan on Nov. 12. Hike, who was awarded a Purple Heart after sustaining injuries while serving in Iraq in 2005, was killed in Afghanistan when insurgents set off an improvised explosive device next to his vehicle during a combat patrol in Bermel. His funeral was in Carroll on Saturday.

Noncompliant flags fly full-staff in Iowa Deptartment of Public Safety, which is located just southwest of State Capitol

The governor’s executive order also encouraged individuals, businesses, schools, municipalities, counties and other government subdivisions to fly the flag at half staff on Saturday as well as a sign of respect for the fallen soldier. This recommendation presents a problem, however: How does the governor’s office effectively communicate this directive to the aforementioned entities?
This communication gap was highlighted in an August column by Des Moines Register columnist John Carlson, who related the incident of a “borderline disgusted” caller, who was upset by the number of flags that were not at half-staff in honor of Marine Sgt. Jon Bonnell, Jr., 22, of Fort Dodge, who was killed in Iraq on August 6, 2007.

P.J. Sesker Green, the aunt of Sgt. Daniel Sesker, an Iowa National Guard soldier killed last year, wondered why a number of businesses were not flying their flags at half-staff on the day of Bonnell's funeral. So Sesker-Green stopped at a few places and asked questions. "I told them the governor asked everybody to do it on the day of a funeral as a sign of respect," she told Carlson over the phone. "Some people told me they'd never heard such a thing. Some told me they didn't know anything about the Marine being buried that day. I think all of them were embarrassed."

To help address this communication gap, the governor’s office added a new feature to its refurbished web site, which allows people to sign up for e-mail updates regarding flag notifications. The e-mails are a start, but on Saturday, the majority of Des Moines’ businesses’ flags were not lowered in recognition of Hick’s sacrifice. While patrolling the downtown area in my car, the only businesses and institutions I observed flying their flags at half-staff were the Principal Financial Building, WOI television station, and Central Campus.

Granted, it was Saturday, a day when most government buildings shut down for the weekend holiday. Unfortunately, for those government employees serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, the war does not take a holiday.

U.S. flag flies half-staff Nov. 24 2007 in honor of Sgt. Adrian Hike, who was killed while serving in Afghanistan

Originally posted on "Iowa Independent"

Culver Orders Flags Lowered Half-Staff to Honor Fallen Iowa Soldier

2007-11-23T09:45:00.000-08:00

Gov. Culver ordered that all flags in the state be flown at half staff on Saturday, Nov. 24 in honor of Army Sgt. Adrian Hike of Sac City who died while serving in Afghanistan on Nov. 12, 2007. Hike’s funeral is set for 9:30 a.m., at the Holy Spirit Catholic Church in Carroll.

Hike was killed while on patrol in Afghanistan, where he was serving as a paratrooper in Afghanistan. Hike had received a Purple Heart for his service after suffering injuries during a tour in Iraq in 2005. After undergoing several surgeries, Hike returned to active duty before being deployed to Afghanistan.

Hike graduated from Sac City High School and is survived by his mother, father and four brothers. Hike is the 63rd person with Iowa ties to die in Afghanistan or Iraq since March 2003.

Iowa Guard Unit Spends Veterans Day Weekend on Road to Iraq

2007-11-12T08:52:00.000-08:00

While many Iowans spent Veterans Day weekend recognizing veterans and their sacrifices, members of the 186th Military Police Company, a Johnston-based Iowa Army National Guard unit, were bus-bound to Fort Dix, N.J. For the fourth time in the past 17 years, the Combat Military Police Company has been ordered to federal active duty. The 186th will report to their mobilization station at Fort Dix, N.J. for additional training and preparation before assignment to a specific location sometime after Christmas.

A community sendoff ceremony was held Saturday in the Ankeny High School gymnasium, where an estimated 2000 friends and family members gathered to wish their loved ones a safe deployment. The sendoff was also attended by political dignitaries, including Gov. Chet Culver, who reassured the soldier’s that their families will be in good hands during their deployment. “To the families, please know that we stand ready to assist you if there is anything we can do to for you,” Culver said.

Moreover, Culver reassured members of the 186th that he’ll keep fighting on their behalf on the Iowa home front. “As your governor, please know that I will do everything in my power to help you when you return and transition into civilian life. We will fight for you when it comes to health care, housing and educational assistance," Culver said. “I’m grateful to the 186th for your service to our state and our nation and all the sacrifices you are making, including putting yourselves in harms way. Being away from loved ones is a testament to your dedication to all Iowa citizens and to your entire country.”

Culver was not the only one promising to keep watch on the home front. Several friends and family members of Sgt. Owen Fuller donned t-shirts with Owen’s name on the front and “Got Your Back…” on the back.

“They wanted to surprise Owen and let him know that they’ll help take care of his wife and infant daughter while he’s deployed,” said Tom Healy, a longtime friend of Fullers. “The First Sergeant told me I had a whole platoon of people here to see me,” Fuller joked to his friends and family as they gathered around him. (below)

Having previously served in Iraq during 2003-2004, the 186th will be mobilized for its second deployment for Operation Iraqi Freedom in Iraq “There an outstanding unit and have terrific soldiers from top to bottom of the ranks,” Iowa National Guard Public Affairs Officer Lt. Col. Greg Hapgood told the Iowa Independent. "They will have a successful mission over there, because they have worked and trained hard to get them as proficient as they are at this point.”

Culver echoed these sentiments with the closing remarks of his brief speech during the ceremony: “I’m grateful to the 186th for your service to our state and our nation."

Gov. Culver makes his rounds and pays respects to members of the 186th Military Police Company

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