Veterans for Common Sense

November 30, 2007

Editor’s Note from Brian Ross: In the third year of a joint project with the nonprofit Carnegie Corporation, six leading graduate school journalism students were again selected to spend the summer working with the ABC News investigative unit.

This year’s project involved an examination of whether, as happened in the wake of the Vietnam War, Iraqi war veterans were turning to drugs as a result of the trauma and pain of war. If you are accused of a drug crime in Nassau County or Suffolk County, trust your case to an award-winning lawyer of the mirsky law firm.

The U.S. military maintains the percentage of soldiers abusing drugs is extremely small and has not increased as a result of Iraq, plus the ones that have been addicted have been able to get out of it thanks to a small kratom dosage. Gold Bali is regarded as the most sensitive of all the Kratoms available. For more details gold bali kratom, website here.

The students’ assignment was to get the unofficial side of the story from soldiers, young men of their own generation.

Today’s report is the fifth in a series of five reports.

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U.S. Marines caught using illegal drugs often face harsh punishment from the military, according to counselors, veterans’ advocates and military defense attorneys. Steven Hernandez Law Firm is best for handling the defense cases. Marines have been kicked out of the service with loss of benefits, or even thrown in jail despite their claim that they turned to drugs to cope with their battlefield experiences in Iraq. Consumer protection laws let you hold debt collectors, mortgage companies, and credit reporting agencies accountable for the harm they cause you. Even you can find us on news.

While the Marine Corps does provide substance abuse and counseling, experts say rehabilitation often loses out to punishment and discipline.

“Use drugs? You’re gone. There is not any great interest in rehabilitating; there’s not any great interest in tending to these people,” said attorney David Brahms, a former Marine general who has many Marines clients. “It is a waste of resources; it is a waste of energy. Why tend to people who we want to, and are going to, throw out?” A first offense for simple possession of an illegal drug is a serious matter. Acting as your own lawyer in a drug case is always a bad idea. For more details about drug crime use this link.

Tough Treatment from an Elite Corps

When he decided he wanted to help serve his country, Lance Cpl. Matt McLauchlin chose to enter the Marine Corps, an elite branch of the military renowned for its strong tradition of commitment and discipline.

“My grandfather, he was a Marine, so I figured to join the best,” said McLauchlin, was was deployed to Iraq out of Camp Pendleton, Calif.

McLauchlin was injured in Iraq when insurgents shot a rocket into the middle of his base. The blast killed one Marine, injured several others and almost killed McLauchlin, who had a severed artery in his shoulder and shrapnel in his spine.

McLauchlin spent months in the hospital, where doctors administered morphine and Demerol to treat his constant pain. During his hospital stay, McLauchlin said his marriage fell apart and he went into a dark depression. Partially disabled by his war wounds, McLauchlin said he began drinking heavily when he left the hospital and one night decided to smoke marijuana. You may also know QuitMarijuana.Org is the only place with the proven techniques, training and social support to help you stop smoking weed and dramatically improve your life with Quitting Weed, Quit Weed in 30 Days.

McLauchlin said he confessed his drug use to the Marines but was shocked at the harsh response from his regimental commander, who called the Purple Heart recipient a traitor.

“I was really angry that he said that,” said McLauchlin. “I made a decision, and it was wrong, but I’m not a traitor. I will fight for this country, still, to this day.”

McLauchlin was kicked out of the Marine Corps with a general discharge under honorable conditions. While he can still get some benefits from the Department of Veterans Affairs, he lost his G.I. bill benefits, which he was counting on to go to college.

“I’m injured, and I can’t really go out and make a living like a normal person can,” said McLauchlin with a chuckle.

“We fought for an honorable discharge, and he didn’t get it,” said Melissa Epstein, McLauchlin’s military defense counsel, now a civilian attorney. If you need experience attorney for your case, Then you should try www.tromboldlaw.com website. Epstein, a former Marine Corps captain, said she saw many Marines like McLauchlin who turned to drugs to cope with the wartime experiences. “I have a lot of clients that have no previous bad record or were good solid Marines who came back from their first, or second, or third deployment and went into a downward spiral.”

Questions Raised About Quality of Treatment

John Veneziano, head of the substance abuse counseling center at Camp Pendleton, however, said he has seen no increase in the numbers of Marines using drugs since the start of the war in Iraq. Veneziano maintained that those Marines that do have a drug problem can receive high-quality counseling and treatment at his center, most of them ended up in drugs for topical pain relief.

“The goal is to return individuals back to society as well, and if not better, than the way they came to us,” said Veneziano.

Advocates, however, point to the case of Cody Miranda as an example of how troubled Marines can fall through the cracks. Miranda was thrown in the brig for drug use despite his suffering psychological trauma from the war in Iraq, say sources close to the case. Miranda, a 16-year veteran and member of the Corps’ elite Force Reconnaissance unit, had an impeccable military record, but his associates say the stress of combat sent him on a downward spiral that included illicit drug use.

After leaving Camp Pendleton on an unauthorized absence and testing positive for cocaine, Miranda was repeatedly jailed without initial treatment despite his diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder, according to federal investigator Carolyn Martin.

Alone in an eight-foot-by-eight-foot cell, dressed only in his underwear and unable to sleep, Martin said Miranda was left highly medicated but denied counseling until his therapist was ultimately able to fight her way in.

Martin said what happened to Miranda is an example of a failing system.

“We are trained not to leave any military member behind, and yet we are,” she said.

David Roman, a former drug counselor at the 29 Palms base in California, is highly critical of substance abuse counseling in the Marines Corps. Roman said there were only two drugs counselors available to serve a base of 10,000 Marines, and that they were overwhelmed with drug cases when troops started returning from Iraq.

“We should have prepared for that when the war broke out&we should have put counseling in high gear,” said Roman. “And we’ve only got 10,000. Can you imagine what Camp Pendleton’s going through? They got over 50,000.”

Roman said he quit his job in disgust in 2006 and now works as a substance abuse counselor at an Indian reservation near 29 Palms.

“I left 29 Palms because those Marines were not being taken care of,” said Roman. “You know, we’re talking about a lot of human lives here. And if they plan on sugarcoating it, then they better bring a lot of sugar, ’cause this thing is going to get real bad as time goes on.”

Change in Marine Policy?

Capt. William Nash, Combat/Operational Stress Control Coordinator for the Marine Corps, acknowledges that there is a shortage of resources to adequately screen troubled Marines. According to Nash, “Currently, there is no Marine Corps policy regarding screening for mental health problems when Marines commit misconduct.”

However, Nash said, in a proposed new order, Marines who have engaged in uncharacteristic misconduct would receive mandatory mental health screenings to determine if they suffer from combat stress.

David Roman, the former drug instructor and counselor, says the military needs to do even more for those who served the country in a time of war.

“They’ve gotten shot at. They have shot at others. They’ve defended us. They’ve supported our freedom here. And for them to receive what I’ve seen, the kind of treatment that was going on at the time, no, they don’t deserve that,” he said.

Veterans for Common Sense Statement Opposing Nomination of
LTG James B. Peake as Secretary of Veterans Affairs

Veterans for Common Sense (VCS) urges Senators to block the nomination of Dr. James Peake to become the next Secretary of Veterans Affairs (VA).  Instead of Dr. Peake, VCS would prefer that President George W. Bush nominate a veterans advocate who will support and implement S 1606, the “Dignified Treatment of Wounded Warriors Act,” that already passed the Senate, but remains bogged down in House-Senate negotiations.

VCS opposes Dr. Peake’s nomination because of his poor performance as Army Surgeon General from 2000 to 2004, when he presided over the negligent treatment of our wounded, injured, and ill Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.  VCS is also concerned with Dr. Peake’s possible knowledge of the torture of enemy prisoners of war.  Here are the hard facts that provide extensive evidence that Dr. Peake is unqualified to become the next VA Secretary:

1. Walter Reed Fiasco:  VCS believes that the general who presided over the Walter Reed fiasco must never be permitted to become the highest government official responsible for the same veterans that he failed to assist just a few years ago. The Wall Street Journal reported the problems at Walter Reed on their front page in August 2003. http://www.veteransforcommonsense.org/articleid/8745

2. More Walter Reed Scandal:  Based on serious complaints in 2003, VA researchers thoroughly documented enormous out-patient problems at Walter Reed that emerged while Dr. Peake was Army Surgeon General. Dr. Peake possessed firsthand knowledge of this outrageous crisis and failed or refused to respond, thereby allowing the situation to worsen without addressing it. Please read the 2004 VA report about Walter Reed:
http://media.salon.com/pdf/Walter_Reed_Focus_Groups_Final_Report-10-28-04W2.pdf

3. Illegal Torture:  VCS does not allege Dr. Peake was personally involved in torture; rather, VCS wants Senators to ask Dr. Peake what he knows about the use of military physicians and psychiatrists at Guantanamo Bay. Please read this article published in The New York Times in 2005 about the documented use of our U.S. military doctors to torture enemy prisoners of war: http://www.veteransforcommonsense.org/articleid/8886

4. No Army Plan for Casualties:  In 2002, when the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) produced an estimate of the cost of the war, the CBO had no estimate for the number of casualties and no cost estimate for casualty healthcare and benefits. Dr. Peake had no plan for long-term out-patient care and rehabilitation, especially for mental health casualties: http://www.veteransforcommonsense.org/articleid/74

5. No Data Transfer from Army to VA:  In 2002, when VA reported that 50 percent of Gulf War veterans had already filed disability claims against VA, the Army failed to transfer medical records of new veterans to VA so veterans would not wait months or years for VA healthcare and disability compensation after discharge.  According to VA, 264,000 Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans were already treated and diagnosed at VA hospitals, and 224,000 recent war veterans filed a disability claim against VA.  These veterans lack the documents necessary to get fast VA help.

6. No TBI Awareness for Army:  Based on the lessons learned from the Gulf War, where retreating Iraqis tossed large quantities of mines and unexploded ordinance (early versions of roadside bombs or IEDs) in front of advancing U.S. troops, and where Iraqis extensively used mine fields, Dr. Peake left the Army unprepared for the surge in deadly and devastating TBI.  The Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center estimates up to 20 percent of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans suffer from mild TBI: http://www.veteransforcommonsense.org/ArticleID/8697

7. No PTSD Plan for Army:  Based on lessons learned from the Vietnam War, where up to one-third of veterans suffered from PTSD sometime after returning home, including thousands of veteran suicides, Dr. Peake left the Army unprepared for the expected increase in anxiety, depression, PTSD, and suicide cases. However, the military illegally discharged as many as 22,500 soldiers with a bogus “personality disorder” when, in fact, the soldiers suffered from TBI and/or PTSD.  VCS supports S 1817, legislation aimed at preventing further discharges for “personality disorder.” http://www.veteransforcommonsense.org/articleid/8899

8. Conflict of Interest Working for QTC – a Major VA Contractor:  Dr. Peake leads a for-profit corporation making millions of dollars from taxpayers because VA didn’t hire enough physicians to perform disability claim exams.  Congress must take additional steps to prevent a repeat of the rampant contractor abuses that plagued Walter Reed and the Iraq War: http://www.veteransforcommonsense.org/articleid/8821

VCS recognizes Dr. Peake’s honorable military service, including his combat duty in the Vietnam War and his stellar performance positioning the best military trauma surgeons in the Iraq War where countless thousands of lives were saved due to his leadership.  However, despite our deep respect and appreciation for his wartime service, VCS believes Dr. Peake is the wrong man to lead VA though their worst crisis since VA became a department in 1989. 

In conclusion, VCS opposes Dr. Peake’s nomination because he presided over the widely publicized Walter Reed scandal when it was first reported in August 2003.  VCS remains deeply troubled about the possibility of naming someone to the President’s cabinet who may have knowledge of the President’s illegal policy of torturing enemy prisoners of war. 

November 29, 2007 – The New York Times and Washington Post (11/28/07) both failed to adequately challenge the dishonesty of former President Bill Clinton’s declaration that he had been opposed to the Iraq War “from the beginning.” Clinton, in fact, was a supporter of the war, both before the invasion and in the first year or so of the fighting.

In the Times’ words, though, Clinton’s new stance was just “more absolute than his comments before the invasion in March 2003.” The Times went on to claim that around the time of the invasion, “Clinton did not precisely declare that he opposed the war,” though he “has said several times since the war began that he would not have attacked Iraq in the manner that President Bush had done.”

The Post’s account was similarly muddled, with the paper noting that Clinton was “glossing over the more nuanced views of the war he has expressed over time,” though “past remarks made by the former president do leave open a question about how fervently Clinton opposed the war at the outset.” The Post returned to the story the next day (11/29/07), repeating that Clinton “went far beyond more nuanced remarks he made about the conflict in 2003.” The Post did try to challenge Clinton’s position by noting that he had participated in briefings with key Bush administration officials, and had allegedly expressed support for the invasion plan.

But Clinton’s public support for the war is a matter of record. Just before George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair invaded Iraq, Clinton published an op-ed in the London Guardian (3/18/03) urging Britons to “Trust Tony’s Judgment”:

As Blair has said, in war there will be civilian was well as military casualties…. But if we leave Iraq with chemical and biological weapons, after 12 years of defiance, there is a considerable risk that one day these weapons will fall into the wrong hands and put many more lives at risk than will be lost in overthrowing Saddam.

Clinton’s column included the less-than-prescient prediction that “military action probably will require only a few days.”

Soon after the invasion (3/30/03), Clinton appeared on CBS’s 60 Minutes with former Senator Robert Dole and endorsed the war, saying, “Senator, unlike some of your Republican friends during Kosovo, I support our troops in Iraq and the president.” (Note that while one can support the troops but not the war, supporting the president in Iraq means supporting the war.)

In a 2004 interview with Time magazine (6/28/04), Clinton reiterated this before-the-fact support for the invasion: “You know, I have repeatedly defended President Bush against the left on Iraq, even though I think he should have waited until the U.N. inspections were over.”

Clinton went on to claim that Iraq’s chemical and biological weapons were of concern, especially after the September 11 attacks:

So, you’re sitting there as president, you’re reeling in the aftermath of this, so, yeah, you want to go get bin Laden and do Afghanistan and all that. But you also have to say, well, my first responsibility now is to try everything possible to make sure that this terrorist network and other terrorist networks cannot reach chemical and biological weapons or small amounts of fissile material. I’ve got to do that. That’s why I supported the Iraq thing.

Clinton added: “So that’s why I thought Bush did the right thing to go back. When you’re the president, and your country has just been through what we had, you want everything to be accounted for.”

Remarks like these should be referenced when a political figure attempts to dramatically recast his record. But establishment media go out of their way to avoid questioning powerful politicians, especially presidents: “You can’t say the president is lying,” as New York Times reporter Elisabeth Bumiller once proclaimed (Extra!, 1-2/05).

The papers of record have given George W. Bush license to eliminate well-known events from the recent history of Iraq, claiming of Saddam Hussein (7/14/03): “We gave him a chance to allow the inspectors in, and he wouldn’t let them in.” As FAIR pointed out (7/18/03), in fact, after a Security Council resolution was passed demanding that Iraq allow inspectors in, they were given complete access to the country; their well-publicized search for the non-existent WMDs was ongoing until four months before Bush’s claim. The Washington Post (7/15/03), describing Bush’s remarkable statement, could only say that his assertion “appeared to contradict the events leading up to war this spring.”

Bush has repeatedly made the same claim (1/27/04, 3/21/06, 5/24/07, 11/7/07; see Consortium News, 11/9/07), with little or no note taken by the news outlets that chronicle his every move. “Historians will wonder someday how a free press permitted the world’s most important official to say such things without contradiction,” Salon’s Joe Conason reported (3/31/06).

When politicians are allowed to get away with making such bold misstatements, it can only serve to embolden others to do the same, since there would seem to be no downside to lying. Indeed, at a Republican candidates’ debate in June, presidential hopeful Mitt Romney offered his own version of the weapons inspector lie, to little media note (FAIR Action Alert, 6/8/07). Perhaps the press was just treating him as they would if he actually were president.

ACTION: Ask the Washington Post and New York Times why their reports on Clinton’s misstatement did not more forcefully challenge his record on the Iraq War.

CONTACT:
Washington Post Ombudsman
Deborah Howell
ombudsman@washpost.com
(202) 334-7582

New York Times Public Editor
Clark Hoyt
public@nytimes.com
(212) 556-7652

November 28, 2007 – Wounded veterans are being forced to wait longer and longer for a disability check, according to new data from the Department of Veterans Affairs information obtained by McClatchy Newspapers. According to McClatchy, veterans must wait an average of 183 days for a claim to be decided – up from 177 days a year before.

Is this surprising? Not really.

Remember, the man President Bush put in charge of processing disability claims, Veterans Benefits Administration chief Daniel Cooper recently appeared in a fundamentalist Christian video and said Bible Study was”More important than doing [my] job.”  http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/080307A.shtml

Their complaint stems from an appearance Cooper made in a fund raising video for the evangelical group Christian Embassy, which carries out missionary work among the Washington elite as part of the Campus Crusade for Christ.

In the video, Cooper says of his Bible study, “it’s not really about carving out time, it really is a matter of saying what is important. And since that’s more important than doing the job — the job’s going to be there, whether I’m there or not.”

Long wait times for disability checks is a leading reason veterans become homeless.

Dec. 4 Alert: With Just One Click – You Can Block Peake

Dear VCS Supporters:

Veterans for Common Sense asks you take action for our veterans today. VCS wants you to contact Senators today and ask them to block the confirmation of Dr. James Peake to be the head of the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA).

With one easy click, VCS asks you to e-mail the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee today and urge Senators to block President George W. Bush’s nomination of Dr. Peake. http://www.veterans.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?pageid=1

Here are the hard facts. VCS opposes Dr. Peake’s nomination because of the many unanswered questions about his performance as Army Surgeon General from 2000 to 2004, including possible knowledge about the torture of enemy prisoners of war and his presiding over the negligent treatment of our wounded, injured, and ill Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

* Illegal Torture: VCS asks you to read a 2005 New York Times newspaper article about the documented use of our U.S. military doctors to torture enemy prisoners of war. VCS does not allege Dr. Peake was personally involved in torture; rather, VCS wants Senators to raise the issue of using military doctors at Guantanamo Bay during the December 5 confirmation hearing of Dr. Peake: http://www.veteransforcommonsense.org/articleid/8886

* Walter Reed Fiasco: VCS believes that the general who presided over the Walter Reed fiasco must never be permitted to become the highest government official responsible for the same veterans that he failed to assist just a few years ago. The Wall Street Journal reported the problems at Walter Reed on their front page in August 2003. Clearly, Dr. Peake knew firsthand about this outrageous crisis and allowed it to fester without fixing it: http://www.veteransforcommonsense.org/articleid/8745

* More Walter Reed Scandal: Please read the Walter Reed focus group report conducted by VA employees during the Summer of 2004. Based on serious complaints in 2003, VA researchers thoroughly documented the enormous out-patient problems at Walter Reed that emerged while Dr. Peake was Army Surgeon General. http://media.salon.com/pdf/Walter_Reed_Focus_Groups_Final_Report-10-28-04W2.pdf

VCS wants you to tell Senators to fight for the immediate enactment of S 1606, the Wounded Warrior bill. We all want reform. VCS also wants Senators to vote against the nomination of the unqualified Dr. Peake to lead VA.

Veterans for Common Sense keeps fighting for our veterans. Will you please help VCS today with a donation of $25 to $50?

VCS also asks you to send this e-mail to your friends and ask them to contact Senators and to join VCS today.

Thank you,

Paul Sullivan
Executive Director
Veterans for Common Sense

Veterans for Common Sense December 2007 Fundraising Campaign Goal: $10,000

Help us meet our monthly goal by December 31, 2007.

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December 2, 2007 – CHULA VISTA, Calif. — Air Force veteran Nellie Cooper thought she was following good advice when she refinanced her home’s mortgage with an adjustable-rate loan. For the self-employed real estate agent, it seemed smart. You can read some good info about mortgage which will definitely increase your knowledge. One of the best ways to fund purchasing of your home is to go in either for a mortgage or a home loan. It is necessary for you to control your expenditures to ensure that you are financially strong enough to finance a home loan. This requires you to compare the competitive rates offered by various lending institutions and also the cost of mortgage to obtain the best home mortgage rate. A judicious comparison of various mortgage rates will enable you to obtain the best mortgage rate that suits your needs. This is essential because taking extra efforts of comparing the costs of mortgage for various lenders will enable you to select the best mortgage lender thereby saving your hard earned money. For Mortgage consultants in Tasmania, check out here.

But her mortgage payments ballooned while local property values dropped, sinking her prospects of refinancing into a more secure, fixed-rate loan. With lenders nationwide tightening eligibility rules, Cooper is finding few that are willing to refinance or rework the loan into something financially manageable for her.

“Nobody will finance 92 percent value of a house, and I am getting more in arrears,” Cooper, who is juggling three part-time jobs to keep her home, told a Nov. 27 public forum led by Rep. Bob Filner, D-Calif. “I’m still … trying to see if I can do something with the lender.”

Cooper, who lives in Oceanside, Calif., found no help from the Department of Veterans Affairs: Except in very rare cases, unlike in Toronto, Ontario – US VA Department does not refinance mortgages it didn’t sell. She didn’t buy the house through VA because she was told repeatedly she didn’t qualify and the paperwork was “too cumbersome.”

“I was dissuaded by many to take the conventional way” with bank-backed loans, she said.

Filner, who chairs the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee, planned the field hearing on the sub-prime market and its effects on veterans.

“Home ownership is one of the great aims of the American dream,” Filner told a crowd of about 75 in Chula Vista, a suburb south of San Diego.

“We also know this dream can become a nightmare, especially for our veterans who are on deployments,” Filner added.

After several years of an expanding housing market and soaring prices, service members and veterans are among tens of thousands of homeowners facing financial ruin in today’s housing market and are figuring out How to get out of high interest installment loans. Homeowners see their initial low interest rates resetting at higher rates, sometimes doubling their monthly mortgage payment. But the lending industry that sold them those loans with so-called “creative financing” has largely abandoned them, and the industry’s recent belt-tightening has left many unable to refinance into more affordable payments. Homeowners like Cooper face foreclosure on their homes. “The effect on Americans have been acute, especially in California,” Filner said, noting that “an increasing number of borrowers in the market happen to be vets.”If you are planning on buying a house use the mortgage calculator at mortgagearrangers.co.uk. And if you are looking for best mortgage deal, then please check out BranchRight.com.

San Diego County is home to more than 110,000 active-duty members and a quarter-million families and veterans. Mortgage defaults in the county have doubled since January, with 15,582 issued in September, said Tony Young, a San Diego council member. “We project the rate to increase and continue unabated for two years,” he said.

In Chula Vista, where average property values have dropped by nearly $150,000, more than 3,000 homes have been foreclosed and 800 sit vacant, said Ed Smith, California Association of Mortgage Brokers’ vice president for governmental affairs.

Each neighborhood takes a hit, too. “Within 150 feet of every foreclosure, values die at least 10 percent,” Smith said.

Smith, a former Marine and experienced mortgage broker, noted that few of the 548,000 licensed real estate brokers in the state belong to the association, which is guided by a set of ethical rules. “We have fueled a market with illusionary interest rates and illusionary loans,” he said.

Young heads the City-County Reinvestment Task Force, which recently urged local officials to lobby for tighter laws to prevent predatory lending, expand housing counseling, establish a local bank to buy foreclosed properties and press for broader lending authority by VA and the Federal Housing Administration.

He blames the default rate on thousands of sub-prime loans dumped on the market, as many as 70 percent sold by unlicensed, unscrupulous lenders who have since skipped the industry.

Young, who represents the Chula Vista area, home to a large number of Navy families and military veterans, said “it troubles me” that many victims of predatory lenders are military, with many troops who deploy to Iraq or Afghanistan returning to find their homes have lost value or that they face larger mortgage payments each month.

Pamela Beard, program manager with the Housing Opportunities Collaborative, a nonprofit community service program in San Diego, gets calls daily from worried homeowners.

Beard recounted several nightmares: a veteran whose mortgages on three properties have doubled to $8,800 a month; a National Guardsman and father of three facing foreclosure on his home after his $60,000 income dropped to $20,000 while he deployed for a third tour; a military wife who hadn’t yet broken the news to her husband in Iraq that their $1,200 monthly mortgage just doubled to $2,500.

“She doesn’t want to tell her husband that they are losing their home,” Beard said.

She and other counselors are hearing more concerns from military officers who worry about losing security clearances if they fall behind on their mortgages and are forced to foreclose. “One of the first questions they tell me is: Are you going to tell my commanding officer?” she said.

Recent changes to military security regulations mean that financial troubles and bad credit will cause more service members to lose their clearances and, with it, assignments and promotions. If you have bad credit and need a loan you can apply for short-term loans no credit check. “I would like to see a moratorium” on such reporting, Beard said. “Our military should not be dealing with the fear of reprisals … for being caught up in a bad loan.”

The public forum generated several ideas from speakers and audience members, which Filner promised to look into when he returns to Washington:

• Increase the maximum VA and FHA loan limits — $417,000 and $362,790, respectively — especially in pricey Southern California, where home prices average $500,000 and higher. Only Alaska, Hawaii, Guam and the Virgin Islands are considered “high cost” areas now. San Diego County’s high costs prevent many veterans and others from getting the federally guaranteed loans. In the past two years, only 218 VA-based loans and 279 FHA-based loans were approved — “an abomination,” Smith said.

• Give VA broader authority to refinance non-VA mortgages, which would offer relief for many veterans. “We’d need to change the law to raise the guaranty,” said VA’s Judith Caden.

• Cooper suggested having a third party “oversee the exact terms of the loan and explain to them in simple terms” to the homebuyer.

VA could serve in that role “if it’s given the authority,” Filner said.

Injured without scars: The hidden wounds of battle from traumatic brain injury and post traumatic stress disorder

December 2, 2007 – Laboran Pickens is fighting to get medical treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder after 10 years in the military and two tours in Iraq. His wife, Cyntia, back, stands with their children Derice, 13, left, Destiny, 7, center, and Devonte, 11, on Sunday in the backyard of their home in Hinesville.

Laboran Pickens sits inside the busy Savannah coffeehouse.

He flinches every time the grinders whine so strangers can walk away with frothy, caffeinated beverages.

He looks nervous. He assures his company he’s fine.

He’s on medication from Georgia Regional Medical Center.

It helps, but not always.

The Iraq nightmares still come, medicine or not.

Sometimes the spell is prompted by a loud noise or errant thought. It makes him space out. He moves like he’s in a dream. He often disappears from his Hinesville home, sometimes for hours.

His wife spends those hours frantic, wondering where he is. She worries each time will be his last. That he won’t come back to her and their three children.

He returns, but remembers nothing.

At 30, he is a shell of the man he once was.

‘Signature wounds’

It is estimated that up to 20 percent of the 1.5 million men and women who have served in Afghanistan and Iraq since America’s War on Terror began may suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder or traumatic brain injuries, according to the Defense and Veteran Brain Injury Center, which is part of the Walter Reed Medical Center.

And a 22-month study by Veterans for America of all soldiers returning to Fort Carson, Colo., found more than 17 percent of all servicemen and women who had deployed from the installation had some form of traumatic brain injury.

Veterans organizations fear that thousands of soldiers are living undiagnosed.

Many have left the military. Or, like Pickens, were asked to leave.

They carry invisible scars.

These wounds take the form of honorable discharges, public disturbances, police reports, missing memories, sleepless nights.

And their numbers are only increasing.

A report issued Nov. 7 by Veterans for America claimed that soldiers serving a second tour in Iraq have a 50 percent greater chance of developing mental health problems than first-time troops.

“Compounding these problems is the fact that 58 percent of the soldiers and Marines in Iraq who develop mental health problems will not seek treatment,” Veterans for America reported.

The group contends that the brain injuries have become the “signature wounds” of America’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

And in many ways the medical mysteries surrounding what happens to humans standing near an IED – or improvised explosive device – when it detonates are still being discovered.

Unpredictable results

The very nature of IEDs is complicated, said Hal Lowder Jr., owner of Eagle Watch Investigations Inc. in Gainesville.

“We know what our grenades will do. We know what our mortar rounds will do,” said the first Gulf War veteran. “When you put together an IED, whether in combat or manufactured domestically, it’s really unpredictable.”

Lowder, a certified fire and explosions investigator, attributes part of that unpredictability to the randomness of the supplies used to build the devices and the varying conditions into which they are detonated on the battlefield.

“(Insurgents) are using old artillery shells and powder from old shells, whatever they can get their hands on,” Lowder said.

It’s a violent blast that happens in the space of nanoseconds.

Kevin Barry, chairman of the board of advisers for the International Association of Bomb Technicians and Investigators, said solids turn into gases in a blink of an eye, creating violent shock waves and shockfronts.

The waves in turn create positive and negative forces.

These airwaves can suck the air out of lungs, bruise organs and cause internal bleeding. Then there’s the nearby debris that turns into fatal projectiles and the fragmentations inside the bomb itself.

“Depending on the size of an IED, you can be a quarter of a mile away from a 1-pound blast, and it can still shake your insides,” Barry said.

Lowder compares the blast to the ripples that occur when a rock is thrown into a still pond.

Unlike water, solid objects around IEDs – such as buildings or armored vehicles – create walls that allow the waves to reflect and bounce back.

“Obviously, we’re seeing the trauma it causes, guys come home with no arms or legs or fingers. But there are a lot of brain injuries, too,” Lowder said.

The violent waves can jerk heads back and forth, bruising brain tissue and snapping nerve fibers.

The potential damage on a soldier is great – minus the evidence of a single scratch.

Barry said this internal damage doesn’t take into account the hearing loss involved with soldiers being repeatedly exposed to such blasts or the psychological impact that often leads to PTSD.

“People are just not prepared for that kind of trauma,” Barry said. “Will there be more cases of soldiers with TBI? Certainly. Will there be more cases of PTSD? Absolutely. Not everyone accepts the traumas of war the same way.”

A tale of loss

Retired Sgt. Pickens doesn’t know what triggered his actions that led to charges of disrespecting several non-commissioned officers.

Those are the charges the military leveled against the 10-year Army veteran during his second deployment to Iraq in 2005. Pickens was assigned to the 396th Transportation Co., 87th CSB at Camp Taji, Iraq.

According to military reports and the sworn statements of fellow officers, Pickens’ strange behavior started in late November of that year.

In a sworn statement dated Dec. 14, 2005, Staff Sgt. Ryan Westfall reported that 12 days earlier, Pickens ignored him when he called him after a motor pool inspection.

“Pickens was in a hyped-up mood,” Westfall recalled. “I waited for him to get done talking and then called his name. He never responded, I called his name five or six more times very loudly but no response.”

A fellow soldier got Pickens’ attention.

“His behavior seemed odd to me, like he wasn’t in his right frame of mind,” Westfall stated.

The staff sergeant noted that he had gone to Pickens’ room earlier in the day to get him to sign some paperwork. He found the soldier wearing headphones and talking at the top of his lungs.

“(Pickens said things) like, ‘You do not want this, I’m the real thing’ and something about Brunswick,” Westfall said in his sworn statement. “I’ve never seen Sgt. Pickens act like this.”

A day later, military records indicate, Pickens’ behavior got worse.

According to 1st Sgt. Felton Head, in a sworn statement dated Dec. 4, 2005, he was asked to deal with Pickens a day earlier. The visit was prompted after verbal reports surfaced of the soldier “causing problems with his roommate.”

Among the allegations, Pickens reportedly started listening to music and singing loudly, blaring the television early in the morning and picking fights.

Military reports show when Pickens was approached and asked by Sgt. 1st Class William Small “what was going on and why was he acting this way,” Pickens responded by raising his voice and acting threateningly toward his superior.

That’s when Head got involved.

“I explained to Sgt. Pickens that … I wanted to hear his side,” Head said in a sworn statement. “Sgt. Pickens stated to me in a very loud, disrespectful tone, ‘First of all, I’m blessed, how are you doing first sergeant?’

“I informed him that he needed to lower his voice and again asked for his side of the story. Once again in a very loud disrespectful tone he stated to me that he was ‘blessed and paperwork or the commander.’ “

Pickens allegedly demanded that Head “either put it in writing” or let him “see the commander.”

Military records show Pickens was sent to the unit commander, Capt. Nadine Terese.

According to Head, Terese told the soldier “… that if he was trying to get out of the Army then he was going about it the wrong way.”

Pickens declined offers to see a chaplain or seek mental health.

Ten days later, he was given a mental evaluation by Capt. Christopher Warner, a division psychiatrist with the 3rd Infantry Division, and was found to be “normal.”

The next day his “promotable” E-5 status was taken away.

In November 2006, Pickens was given an honorable discharge for what the military called a “personality disorder” and asked to move off Fort Stewart.

The man who dreamed of an Army career suddenly had no job, no future and no place for his family to live.

No physical scars

“It would have been better for him to lose a leg,” said his wife, Cyntia Pickens, “because then, you can see it (an injury) happened.”

Pickens tried to convince officers that something wasn’t right but was discharged before he got a proper diagnosis.

He tried to get help with the Department of Veterans Affairs, but is still waiting eight months later.

Frustrated, Laboran Pickens took drastic steps and admitted himself to Georgia Regional. A civilian doctor confirmed the former soldier has PTSD.

Unable to work, his wife’s job on-post barely supports the family. In November, a year after leaving the Army, the couple filed federal bankruptcy.

Cyntia Pickens even wrote U.S. Rep. Jack Kingston’s office seeking assistance.

“We’re working with the VA to get something done,” said Rob Asbell, a Kingston spokesman. “I can’t imagine why it has taken the VA this long to respond to a veteran, especially one that has served in Iraq, but you better believe we’re going to find out.”

Paul Sullivan, executive director with Veterans for Common Sense, contends Pickens is a veteran who has tragically fallen through the cracks in the system. And he fears the former soldier may be suffering from more than PTSD.

“All he needed to be is near an IED,” Sullivan said. “There are new military studies that show the blast wave from an IED … could actually cause mild TBI without any immediate open wounds.”

Pickens said his unit conducted convoys and carted supplies to soldiers across Iraq.

“There were lots of convoys, lots of dead people,” he said. “Never once was I hit, but I was shot at.”

And there were lots of IEDs.

“Almost every day, every mission,” he said. “It was always mission first.”

Pickens said he has no idea whether one particular blast shook him enough to cause brain damage or prompt the PTSD.

But the growing number of troops with psychological problems has prompted Veterans for America to argue that every soldier should receive a brain scan before entering the service and get re-scanned after each deployment.

“If left untreated, the veteran could develop a host of medical problems, including psychological problems that may appear to be PTSD,” Sullivan said. “It is very important for the doctors to determine suffering from actual brain damage and psychological damage.”

Sullivan argues this is “just the tip of the iceberg.”

“There was no plan for occupation, and there was no plan to take care of veterans either,” he said. “It is groups, like ours, that are saying ‘Not again.’

“We will not let the veterans twist in the wind waiting to see a doctor or benefit. We will get it right this time.”

For Laboran Pickens, for now, it feels as if he is still left hanging.

“(The Army) says ‘take care of family first,’ ” he said. “But it sure wasn’t that way once the fighting was over with.”

VCS Note: Army Colonel Peter E. Brownback III, the judge in the prosecution of an enemy prisoner of war, forgot to read his Constitution that protects everyone’s freedom by allowing everyone suspected of a crime to confront the witnesses against them, as described in the Sixth Amendment of our Constitution.  Judge Brownback, in a clearly unconstitutional order, told attorneys for the suspect that they may not know the identities of the government witnesses testifying against him.  What is even worse is that New York Times reporter Willam Glaberson failed to mention the Constitution once in his newspaper article describing the Judge’s outrageous and unconstitutional order.

Witness Names to Be Withheld From Detainee

December 1, 2007 – Defense lawyers preparing for the war crimes trial of a 21-year-old Guantánamo detainee have been ordered by a military judge not to tell their client — or anyone else — the identity of witnesses against him, newly released documents show.

The case of the detainee, Omar Ahmed Khadr, is being closely watched because it may be the first Guantánamo prosecution to go to trial, perhaps as soon as May.

Defense lawyers say military prosecutors have sought similar orders to keep the names of witnesses secret in other military commission cases, which have been a centerpiece of the Bush administration’s policies for detainees at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

Some legal experts and defense lawyers said the judge’s order, issued on Oct. 15 without public disclosure, underscored the gap between military commission procedures and traditional American rules that the accused has a right to a public trial and to confront the witnesses against him.

Defense lawyers say the order would hamper their ability to build an adequate defense because they cannot ask their client or anyone else about prosecution witnesses, making it difficult to test the veracity of testimony.

The order, the documents show, followed a request by military prosecutors who said they feared terrorist retaliation against witnesses who appeared at Guantánamo proceedings.

“It is conceivable, if not likely, that Al Qaeda members or sympathizers could attempt to target witnesses,” a prosecutor, Maj. Jeffrey D. Groharing of the Marines, wrote to the judge, Col. Peter E. Brownback III of the Army.

The order says that three weeks before trial, prosecutors can abandon the secrecy protections or ask the judge to extend them. Prosecutors have also suggested that they may ask the judge to bar all information identifying witnesses from the trial. “Providing the witnesses’ true identities will add nothing to their testimony,” the prosecutors wrote in a legal filing.

Mr. Khadr’s military defense lawyer, Lt. Cmdr. William C. Kuebler of the Navy, said that while he has been given a list of prosecution witnesses, the judge’s decision requires him to keep secrets from his client and that he would ask Colonel Brownback to revoke the order. He said it treated Mr. Khadr as if he had already been convicted and deprived him of a trial at which the public could assess the evidence against him.

“Instead of a presumption of innocence and of a public trial,” Commander Kuebler said, “we start with a presumption of guilt and of a secret trial.”

Mr. Khadr, the only Canadian detainee at Guantánamo, is charged with killing an American soldier, giving material support for terrorism and other offenses. The documents released by the Pentagon, nearly 700 pages of previously unavailable records of arguments and rulings in the Khadr case in recent months, reflect a battle under way over how much information is to be revealed in public at the Guantánamo trials.

Some parts of trials are expected to be conducted in closed courtrooms for discussion of classified evidence, as permitted by law. Military officials say some witnesses might testify in open court behind a screen or, perhaps, in disguise.

The Bush administration’s effort to bring detainees to trial has been hampered for years by legal and logistical complications, but prosecutors have said they hope to try eventually as many as 80 of the 305 detainees at Guantánamo.

In an interview, Brig. Gen. Thomas W. Hartmann, a senior official in the Pentagon’s Office of Military Commissions, said that the commission system was open to scrutiny from news organizations and human rights groups and that the order was necessary to protect the lives of witnesses.

“The system is designed to be open,” General Hartmann said. “But there are certain things that simply must be protected.”

Most witnesses in Mr. Khadr’s case are expected to be military personnel who took part in a 2002 firefight in Afghanistan when an American special forces soldier, Sgt. First Class Christopher James Speer, 28, was fatally wounded. Mr. Khadr, who was 15 at the time, was badly injured.

“It is so fundamental,” General Hartmann said, “that we’re in this global war on terror. We need to protect our soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines and there’s nothing nefarious about it.”

He said requiring prosecutors to identify which witnesses they want to remain anonymous before the trial would assure that the military judge will evaluate assertions about why individual witnesses may need anonymity.

But Joshua L. Dratel, a lawyer in New York who represented another detainee prosecuted for war crimes, described such orders as an Orwellian effort to hamstring defense lawyers while making it appear that detainees are rigorously represented.

“It is ‘1984,’” Mr. Dratel said. “No system in the United States would operate this way.”

Some legal experts said while the identities of witnesses were shielded on rare occasions in American courts, an order applying to all witnesses in a case would be exceptional.

Such an order “would be very, very unusual” in a civilian court, said James A. Cohen, a Fordham University law professor, adding that he knew of no blanket order protecting the identities of all witnesses in a case.

Scott L. Silliman, a law professor and the director of the Center on Law, Ethics and National Security at Duke University, said people who had not heard the arguments could not fairly evaluate Judge Brownback’s order.

The military judge had the responsibility to protect witnesses while assuring a fair hearing, Mr. Silliman said. He added that Judge Brownback’s order appeared to balance those considerations appropriately.

But David D. Cole, a Georgetown University law professor who has been a critic of the commissions, said shielding the identities of witnesses “plays into the perception around the world that that United States is not willing to give detainees a fair shake.”

The materials released on Thursday, after numerous requests from news organizations, include extensive legal arguments and judicial orders on many central legal issues in Mr. Khadr’s case.

Many of the arguments, the documents show, occurred in e-mail exchanges between the lawyers and Judge Brownback. Only some of them have been referred to in two brief public hearings on the case at Guantánamo.

In an e-mail message on Oct. 9, Major Groharing, the prosecutor, described Mr. Khadr as a “trained Al Qaeda operative” who is “certainly capable of exacting revenge” on witnesses should he ever be free.

The major also indicated that military prosecutors had difficulties persuading people to testify at Guantánamo. “Potential witnesses have previously expressed reservations with participation in the military commission process because of fear of retaliation from Al Qaeda,” he wrote.

Commander Kuebler’s e-mail messages were filled with assertions that his client’s rights were being violated and with arguments that Mr. Khadr should be afforded the lenient treatment that has been accorded child fighters in some other wars. He ridiculed “the absurdity of characterizing an alleged former child soldier” as a dangerous terrorist and said the prosecution was ignoring rules assuring that detainees charged with war crimes are entitled to public trials.

In an e-mail message on Oct. 11 to the judge and the prosecutors, Commander Kuebler argued that it was notable that the entire discussion of whether witnesses would be permitted to shield their identities was being conducted without anyone in the public or the press able to observe the arguments.

“The manner in which this is being dealt with (i.e., off the record, via e-mail),” he wrote, “creates an added level of difficulty by making it appear that the government is trying to keep the secrecy of the proceedings a secret itself.”

November 27, 2007 – Every Saturday, the president of the United States gives a radio address to the nation. It is followed by the Democratic response, usually given by a senator or representative. This past Saturday the Democrats chose retired Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez to give their response, the same general accused in at least three lawsuits in the U.S. and Europe of authorizing torture and cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment of prisoners in Iraq. This, combined with the Democrats’ endorsement of Attorney General Michael Mukasey despite his unwillingness to label waterboarding as torture, indicates that the Democrats are increasingly aligned with President Bush’s torture policies.

Sanchez headed the Army’s operations in Iraq from June 2003 to June 2004. In September 2003, Sanchez issued a memo authorizing numerous techniques, including “stress positions” and the use of “military working dogs” to exploit “Arab fear of dogs” during interrogations. He was in charge when the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison occurred.

Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, who headed Abu Ghraib at the time, worked under Gen. Sanchez. She was demoted to colonel, the only military officer to be punished. She told me about another illegal practice, holding prisoners as so-called ghost detainees: “We were directed on several occasions through Gen. [Barbara] Fast or Gen. Sanchez. The instructions were originating at the Pentagon from Secretary Rumsfeld, and we were instructed to hold prisoners without assigning a prisoner number or putting them on the database, and that is contrary to the Geneva Conventions. We all knew it was contrary to the Geneva Conventions.” In addition to keeping prisoners off the database there were other abuses, she said, like prison temperatures reaching 120 to 140 degrees, dehydration and the order from Gen. Geoffrey Miller to treat prisoners “like dogs.”

And it’s not just about treatment of prisoners. In 2006, Karpinski testified at a mock trial, called the Bush Crimes Commission. She revealed that several female U.S. soldiers had died of dehydration by denying themselves water. They were afraid to go to the latrine at night to urinate, for fear of being raped by fellow soldiers: “Because the women, in fear of getting up in the hours of darkness to go out to the portolets or the latrines, were not drinking liquids after 3:00 or 4:00 in the afternoon. And in 120-degree heat or warmer, because there was no air conditioning at most of the facilities, they were dying from dehydration in their sleep. What [Sanchez’s deputy commanding general, Walter Wojdakowski] told the surgeon to do was, ‘Don’t brief those details anymore. And don’t say specifically that they’re women. You can provide that in a written report, but don’t brief it in the open anymore.’” Karpinski said Sanchez was at that briefing.

Former military interrogator Tony Lagouranis, author of “Fear Up Harsh,” described the use of dogs: “We were using dogs in the Mosul detention facility, which was at the Mosul airport. We would put the prisoner in a shipping container. We would keep him up all night with music and strobe lights, stress positions, and then we would bring in dogs. The prisoner was blindfolded, so he didn’t really understand what was going on, but we had the dog controlled. The dog would be barking and jumping on the prisoner, and the prisoner wouldn’t really understand what was going on.”

Reed Brody of Human Rights Watch elaborated on Sanchez: “For those three months of mayhem that were occurring right under his nose, he never stepped in. And, also, he misled Congress about it. He was asked twice at a congressional hearing whether he ever approved the use of guard dogs. This was before the memo came out. And both times he said he never approved it. [W]e finally got the actual memo, in which he approves ‘exploiting Arab fear of dogs.’ ” Brody dismissed the military report clearing Sanchez of any wrongdoing: “It’s just not credible for the Army to keep investigating itself and keep finding itself innocent.”

This is not about politics. This is about the moral compass of the nation. The Democrats may be celebrating a retired general who has turned on his commander in chief. But the public should take pause.

The Democrats had a chance to draw a line in the sand, to absolutely require Mukasey to denounce waterboarding before his elevation to attorney general. Now they have chosen as their spokesman a discredited general, linked to the most egregious abuses in Iraq. The Bush administration passed Sanchez over for a promotion, worried about reliving the Abu Ghraib scandal during the 2006 election year. Now it’s the Democrats who have resuscitated him. Have they no shame?

Amy Goodman is the host of “Democracy Now!,” a daily international TV/radio news hour airing on 500 stations in North America.