Veterans for Common Sense

August 18, 2008 – Twenty soldiers told USA TODAY’s Gregg Zoroya last week that complaints regarding mold at Fort Sill in Lawton, Okla., went unanswered for months and that they were later ordered not to publicly speak about the facility’s poor conditions.

In response, Army officials replaced ventilation ducts in two barracks that had been encrusted with mold and Maj. Gen. Peter Vangiel, the commanding officer at the base, said it was “inappropriate” for soldiers to be prohibited from talking about problems at the facility, according to USA TODAY.

The Fort Sill story comes 18 months after The Post’s Dana Priest and Anne Hull explored conditions at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Northwest Washington. The series not only uncovered problems at Walter Reed, once dubbed the “crown jewel” of military medical operaitons, but also highlighted “depressing living conditions for outpatients at other military bases around the country, from Fort Lewis in Washington state to Fort Dix in New Jersey.”

The reaction to the series was bold and swift: The commander of the facility, Army Maj. Gen. George W. Weightman, was fired, as was the secretary of the Army, Francis J. Harvey, within a month of the report; Bush appointed a commission tasked with examining the care of wounded veterans, which recommended the creation of a national caseworker system along with a complete overhaul of military disability compensation policy; and a panel proposed closing down Walter Reed earlier than 2011, the year the Army medical operation is moved to National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda.

The Post’s coverage prompted closer scrutiny of other facilities across the country, including the Madigan Army Medical Center at Fort Lewis, Wash.

In March 2007, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reported on complaints about Madigan by the non-profit Operation Homefront. The advocacy group cited “extended delays in making the Defense Department’s so-called seamless transition from military to Veterans Affairs Department medical care — and suffered because of cuts among the caseworkers who help them through the wait,” according to the newspaper.

Soldiers at Fort Dix, N.J., meanwhile, told The Philadelphia Inquirer early this year that they saw large-scale improvements in care after the establishment of a temporary Soldier and Family Assistance Center, one of more than 30 similar facilities built by the Army in response to the Walter Reed scandal.

But at a hearing before the House Armed Services Committee last month, Army leadership conceded the system still struggles with significant problems.

“Committee investigators had visited Army medical facilities and came back with ominous statistics,” reported The Post’s Dana Milbank. “At Fort Hood, Tex., last month, they found that a ‘warrior transition unit’ designed to support 649 had 1,342 soldiers, with 350 more on a waiting list. Instead of the promised 74 nurse case managers, there were 38. Other facilities ‘would shortly experience similar shortages’ or already had.”

August 20, 2008 – Gen. David Petraeus is used to controversy surrounding the war in Iraq, but his publicized thoughts on an Army chaplain’s book for Soldiers put him squarely in the middle of the ongoing conflict over religious proselytizing in the U.S. military.

The book is “Under Orders: A Spiritual Handbook for Military Personnel,” by Army Chaplain (Lt. Col.) William McCoy, and according to Petraeus’ published endorsement of the work, “it should be in every rucksack for those times when soldiers need spiritual energy.”

But the endorsement – which has spurred a demand by a watchdog group for Petraeus’ dismissal and court martial on the grounds of establishing a religious requirement on troops – was a personal view never intended for publication, the book’s author now says.

“In the process of securing … comments for recommending the book I believe there was a basic misunderstanding on my part that the comments were publishable,” McCoy said in an Aug. 19 email to Military.com. “This was my mistake.”

In addition to Petraeus, Maj. Gen. Mark Hertling also is quoted plugging the book in press releases and advertisements and on the jacket.

McCoy, writing in response to Military.com’s Aug. 18 inquiry to Petraeus’ office for comment, said the two generals’ endorsements “were intended for me personally rather than for the general public.”

In response to follow-up questions from Military.com, McCoy said he has asked that all distribution of the book be halted until a new “graphic overlay” for the back cover  is produced “so there is no further public misunderstanding.”

McCoy did not respond to questions on the timing of the endorsements, and why it took so long before the officials learned their endorsement has been used in print. Petraeus’ endorsement has been on the book since its 2007 publication, while Hertling’s plug first appeared on the 2005 edition. Both also are quoted in newspaper ads for the book and on the book’s Amazon.com Web page.

Patraeus spokesman Col. Steven Boylan said the general has been Iraq since the beginning of February 2007, “and unless someone [like Military.com] notes it, we would not be aware of it,” he said in an Aug. 19 email. “We don’t get the stateside papers in Baghdad and I doubt very much that Gen. Petraeus goes to Amazon.com much, if at all.”

Mikey Weinstein, head of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, believes McCoy is taking the fall for Petraeus and Hertling’s improper endorsements. Weinstein said it “strains credulity” that Petraeus never knew that his private written endorsement of the book was in the public domain since last year.

Weinstein is a former Air Force judge advocate general and White House counsel during the Reagan administration. His group has been fighting in the courts to keep improper proselytizing out of the military. Now, he said, he intends to incorprate the Petraeus and Hertling endorsements into an ongoing lawsuit against the Pentagon for an alleged pervasive and permicious “pattern and practice” of religious liberties violations in the military.

“MRFF is now officially putting both Army chaplain Lt. Col. Bill McCoy and  General Petraeus on notice not to destroy any of the written or  electronic records of their communications about this [issue],” Weinstein said.

The chapters in McCoy’s book are offered up as “Orders,” he said, and one of them is titled “Believe in God.”

With his plug for “Under Orders,” Weinstein said in a statement to Military.com, Petraeus – one of the most widely recognized officers in the American military – is endorsing religion as something all Soldiers should have and, specifically, the Christian religion.

“General Petraeus has, by his own hand, become a quintessential poster child of this fundamentalist Christian religious predation, via his unadulterated and shocking public endorsement of a book touting both Christian supremacy and exceptionalism,” Weinstein told Military.com Aug. 16.

And by endorsing a book that argues only those who believe in God can fully contribute to the military mission or unit, Weinstein contends that Petraeus insults “”the integrity, character and veracity of approximately 21 percent of our armed forces members who choose not to follow any particular religious faith.”

He said that even if Petraeus offered his comments personally, that’s a distinction without a difference. “Privately he’s denigrating 21 percent of troops,” Weinstein said. Suppose he privately denigrated women, African-Americans or Jews? Weinstein asked.

“He should still be relieved of duty and court martialed,” he said.

Rev. Billy Baugham, a retired Army chaplain and executive director of the International Conference of Evangelical Christian Endorsers, backs Petraeus’ right to plug the book. Past generals, among them George C. Marshall and George Patton, made the case for religion in the ranks.

Marshall claimed that the Soldier’s spiritual life was critical to his morale, even more than equipment, while Patton, said Baugham, had a chaplain pray for good weather for an coming battle and then submitted him for an Army Commendation Medal afterwards, when the weather turned out clear.

“So the ICECE would support what General Patreaus has done,” Baugham said.

Chris Rodda, a freelance writer and researcher for the MRFF, noted in an Aug. 16 column on the Daily Kos Web site that she found much in “Under Orders” that was “pretty good.” It offered sound advice and promoted a brand of Christianity that it would be good to see more often both in the military and civilian worlds, she said, and even warned against the practices used by some “para-church groups” within the military that Weinstein’s group considers dangerous and unconstitutional.

But in the end, she claims, the book paints those who don’t believe in God as “somehow deficient,” in that they may – in McCoy’s words – view their own “agenda [to be] more important than [the] unit’s agenda and thus lead to unit failure.”

Author McCoy, writing Aug. 11 in his blog on Amazon.com, acknowledges that the book does promote Christianity.

“No one [else] has written a book which allows for varying world views and perspectives while suggesting the Gospel might have an idea worth considering. Under Orders does just that,” he wrote.

McCoy is endorsed by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, according to a recent press release for his book. Now the chaplain for U.S. Army Garrison Kaiserslautern, Germany, McCoy previously served as chaplain for the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth and, before then, the 10th Mountain Division, according to the release.

August 19, 2008, Washington, DC – About 300,000 Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans suffer symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, according to a Rand Corporation study. Veterans say a lack of mental health services needs immediate attention, but the Department of Veterans Affairs says it’s providing veterans with the care they need.

Nick Morgan is a 24-year-old Iraq War veteran who came home in Feb. 2005. He was treated for PTSD at a veterans’ clinic in Morgantown, Penn. When the treatment failed, he took matters into his own hands. Morgan says his condition has improved, but he still needs help. After filing a claim with the V.A. for healthcare two months ago, Morgan says he still has not heard anything.

Dr. Antonette Zeiss is Deputy Chief Consultant of mental health services at the Department of Veterans Affairs. She says V.A. policy requires all veterans who request care to get a call back within 24 hours. Since 2004, V.A. funding and its number of mental health staff have increased significantly. Zeiss says the V.A. is prepared to help all veterans who need it.

August 7, 2008 – More than six months have passed since the charred bodies of Lance Corporal Maria Lauterbach and her unborn child were found buried in a shallow fire pit in the backyard of fellow Marine Corporal Cesar Laurean. Maria had been missing for four weeks from Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, where she was stationed.

Throughout that period Marine officials had insisted to Maria’s increasingly frantic family that the pregnant Marine had probably run away and there was no basis for a formal investigation. Shortly before the bodies were recovered by civilian authorities, Laurean fled to Mexico. He has since been captured and awaits extradition to North Carolina to face first degree murder charges.

The horrific facts surrounding the murder have overshadowed underlying allegations of sexual assault and the Marines’ responses to those allegations. I believe that Maria Lauterbach would be alive today if the Marines had provided a more effective system to protect victims of sexual assault, a more effective support program, and a more expeditious investigation and prosecution system.

Six months before her murder, Maria Lauterbach filed a rape claim against Laurean, a superior in her unit at Camp Lejeune. The period while the claim was pending was a nightmare for Maria. She was subjected to intimidation and harassment. She was sucker-punched in the face one evening. Another evening, her brand new car was keyed – or rather screw-drivered – from bumper to bumper.

Her real concerns were that her superiors and the NCIS investigators did not believe her. Worse yet, she was compelled to be in meetings and formations with her assailant, and she was unsuccessful in getting a base transfer. Finally, she told her mother, Mary Lauterbach, that she just wanted it to go away. She was sorry she had ever reported the rape. Maria’s final telephone call to her mother was about an official Christmas party where she feared she might see Laurean.

As a family, the Marines have been extraordinary in their outpouring of sympathy and support to Maria’s family following the murders. I watched present and former Marines pour out their hearts in person and in their cards and letters. In late February I accompanied the Lauterbach family to a Memorial Service at Camp Lejeune that was simply extraordinary in its compassion and inspirational patriotism.

As an institution, the Marines have failed – failed in their obligations to the Lauterbach family, and, more importantly, and failed in their obligations to women in the military who report sexual assaults. As legal counsel to the Lauterbach family I have had the opportunity to listen to the Marines’ public explanations of the rape claim, their efforts to protect her, and their efforts to investigate and prosecute the claim. Their public statements have all been self-serving efforts to insulate themselves from criticism. Not once did they suggest that they have considered whether they could have done things differently in the past or would do things differently in the future. Instead of mea culpa, it has been Maria culpa.

In the last six months I have been contacted by more than a dozen families and support groups, all seeking specific help for women in the military who have been sexually assaulted. The stories have been virtually identical – the complaining victim becomes isolated, taunted, and tormented. She is not guided or directed to appropriate support programs, she does not feel protected from her assailant, and she finds herself treated as the guilty party, not the victim.

The security and safety of all of these victims, including Maria Lauterbach, was punctured by the hard realities of being a victim of sexual assault in the military. They all report that the military does not believe them, that they live in fear of harm from the perpetrator, and that they are in fear of harassment and intimidation from the rest of the unit.

After NBC Dateline aired a program on the Maria Lauterbach case, I received a telephone call from a mother who had watched the program. Her 20-year-old daughter was a member of the military and had just made a sexual assault claim. Now she feared for her life. When she asked for a Military Protective Order, her first sergeant told her that it would be of no value, because, in her view, if her assailant wanted to kill her, the MPO would not stop him. She was threatened with her own court-martial if her story did not hold up. She was obligated to stay in the same unit with the alleged attacker and was haunted by his presence. She did have a Military Victim Advocate assigned to her, but the victim advocate told her that there was not really anything she could do.

When I talked to the victim, I was immediately struck by how frightened she was. She did not want to ask for any protection, for fear that the intimidation and harassment would be worse. Like Maria Lauterbach, this victim just wanted it to go away. It was clear that she too wished she had not reported the rape.

All of these families have spoken out of desperation and fear, desperation because no one could help them and fear that their daughters would be physically harmed or emotionally traumatized. Like Maria Lauterbach, these victims had been threatened with court-martial, administrative reprimands, or in some cases being drummed out of the service. One mother said that the only difference between her daughter and Maria Lauterbach was that her daughter was still alive.

The Marines are not alone in their failures. All of the military services need to address this problem. I don’t mean that they should write a manual on Military Protective Orders or prepare a Power Point presentation on the Victim Advocate Program. They already have these materials. They need to transform the Power Point presentations into life-style changes in the everyday treatment of our women in the military who report sexual assaults.

All too often the “Military Victim Advocate” is only a “Military Victim Listener.” These military victim advocates need to have the authority and the freedom to guide and direct these victims to enter appropriate support programs, to insist on proper Military Protective Orders, and to stand up for their rights. Often these victims have been traumatized by the sexual assault, and they desperately need guidance and direction to struggle through the inherent emotional trauma that is besetting them.

Victim advocates in the civilian world are far more proactive, far more protective, and far more effective than victim advocates in the military. This can be explained – but not justified – by understanding that military victim advocates are in the military themselves and have to survive within the same chain of command. If they challenge the system too much, they run the risk that their own positions may be in jeopardy.

Some steps have already been taken. In May Congressman Mike Turner (3rd Ohio) successfully added two sections to HR 5658, the DOD Authorization Bill for FY 2009. Both of these sections strengthen military protective orders by adding automatic renewal provisions and by requiring the military to put the civilian authorities on notice of these military protective orders.

More needs to be done. The Marines, indeed all military services, need an outside assessment of this problem for they have shown neither the ability nor the inclination to evaluate their own failings. Congress needs to hold hearings on sexual assault in the military, especially the victim advocate program. It needs to study how the military victim advocate system compares to the civilian victim advocate system and what changes can be made to provide more effective support. This is critical because the victims live in such a controlled environment. They need help from victim advocates who have the authority to direct and guide them to the appropriate resources and relief.

The goal of these programs should be to help the victims recover from their emotionally wrenching trauma and restore them as productive members of the military workforce. This would literally save the lives of the victims and at the same time would improve and enhance the performance of the military.

Our country is committed to an all-volunteer military. To continue to attract women to the military, the military must demonstrate that it can protect them when they have been victims of sexual assault, that it can rehabilitate victims and return them as productive members of the military work force, and that the investigations provide the respect for victims that they already provide for the alleged perpetrators.