Veterans for Common Sense

Despite all the sloppy and inaccurate headlines about Iran “going nuclear,” the fact is that all President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Tuesday was that it had enriched uranium to a measely 3.5 percent, using a bank of 180 centrifuges hooked up so that they “cascade.”

The ability to slightly enrich uranium is not the same as the ability to build a bomb. For the latter, you need at least 80{cd9ac3671b356cd86fdb96f1eda7eb3bb1367f54cff58cc36abbd73c33c82e1d} enrichment, which in turn would require about 16,000 small centrifuges hooked up to cascade. Iran does not have 16,000 centrifuges. It seems to have 180. Iran is a good ten years away from having a bomb, and since its leaders, including Supreme Jurisprudent Ali Khamenei, say they do not want an atomic bomb because it is Islamically immoral, you have to wonder if they will ever have a bomb.

The crisis is not one of nuclear enrichment, a low-level attainment that does not necessarily lead to having a bomb. Even if Iran had a bomb, it is hard to see how they could be more dangerous than Communist China, which has lots of such bombs, and whose Walmart stores are a clever ruse to wipe out the middle class American family through funneling in cheaply made Chinese goods.

What is really going on here is a ratcheting war of rhetoric. The Iranian hard liners are down to a popularity rating in Iran of about 15{cd9ac3671b356cd86fdb96f1eda7eb3bb1367f54cff58cc36abbd73c33c82e1d}. They are using their challenge to the Bush administration over their perfectly legal civilian nuclear energy research program as a way of enhancing their nationalist credentials in Iran.

Likewise, Bush is trying to shore up his base, which is desperately unhappy with the Iraq situation, by rattling sabres at Iran. Bush’s poll numbers are so low, often in the mid-30s, that he must have lost part of his base to produce this result. Iran is a great deus ex machina for Bush. Rally around the flag yet again.

If this international game of chicken goes wrong, then the whole Middle East and much of Western Europe could go up in flames. The real threat here is not unconventional war, which Iran cannot fight for the foreseeable future. It is the spread of Iraq-style instability to more countries in the region.

Bush and Ahmadinejad could be working together toward the Perfect Storm.

The White House has acknowledged for the first time that a key moment in post-war Iraq, the declaration by George Bush that “we have found the weapons of mass destruction”, was based on intelligence known in Washington to be false.

The president’s assertion on May 29 2003 that Saddam Hussein’s arsenal had been located was based on the capture of two trailers claimed to be mobile biological warfare labs. In Mr Bush’s TV interview that day, and for months afterwards, US officials used them to justify the invasion.

However, the Washington Post yesterday reported that the Pentagon had sent nine US and British weapons experts to Iraq to examine the trailers, who concluded they had nothing to do with biological weapons, and transmitted their finding to Washington on May 27 2003.

In response to the paper, the White House spokesman, Scott McClellan, yesterday admitted Mr Bush had used false information but said he had been unaware of the fact, and called the reporting “irresponsible”. “The president’s comments were based on intelligence assessments by the CIA and briefing by the intelligence community,” he said. “It’s not something that turns round on a dime.” However, by September 2003 vice-president Dick Cheney was still saying the trailers could have been used to make anthrax.

On one of the first days after we breached the border, our section went firm while the American gunships’ Cobra helicopters cleared a village. It was an awesome sight, but an hour or so after it was chaos as cars came racing out of the village. I remember one car came up to me. Immediately I knew there was something wrong as the driver started to get out. His wife and kids had been shot to pieces and were bleeding badly. This man brought them to me to help them. All I could do was look at them in shock knowing that we couldn’t use our kit on them to help because we only had enough for ourselves. The father was told to carry on down the line until he finds a medic. I don’t think they would have survived much longer anyway.

Things were OK for a while after that. We got shot at, mortared, RPG [rocket-propelled grenade] fired at us but that is what we were trained for so that didn’t bother us too much.

About two weeks into the battle Fusilier [Kelan] Turrington was shot in the neck by a sniper and died there and then on the spot. He was just lying there because no one would go near him because of sniper fire. It seemed like he was there for hours. It was like time stopped, not nice at all.

One night our section was dug in, in trenches on Bridge 3 and in the middle of my stag [guard duty]. We got hit hard by enemy artillery which was landing 10 to 15 metres away. It was the most awful sound and it felt like the ground just opened up and tried to swallow us.

Because we were the initial fighting force, we didn’t stop to mess around with dead bodies [Iraqis]. There was a little girl clinging on to her dead dad screaming her eyes out. We never had time to stop. We just pushed on past as the next line of soldiers behind us would sort it out.

Once we got to the outskirts of Basra, we went firm, put a ring of steel around it. No one could come out. It was like the wild west. The enemy were constantly trying to have a pop but they never had a chance. I was watching them get cut down by our tank shells, cut in half by our machine guns. I was next to my best mate, Chris McDade, who was on the machine gun when he shot a raghead in half. Chris is now being treated for PTSD [post traumatic stress disorder] as well.

I look back on these incidents a lot. Some of them haunt me and have ruined my life. I get bad flashbacks and nightmares. It makes everyday life very difficult for me.

When we came back from Iraq there was no help, no nothing for any of us as the army don’t believe in PTSD and it is frowned upon.

It didn’t affect me straight away. I couldn’t tell I was on the path to self-destruction but it all started going wrong for me during our tour in Northern Ireland. Our platoon commander killed loads of kittens and I just flipped because I had seen enough deaths in Iraq and now this.

Every time I went out with my mates I was like a timebomb waiting to go off. I was fighting three or four times a night. I wouldn’t sleep because of the dreams. I was living on Pro Plus to keep me awake. Lucky I never turned to drugs like some other lads did.

When I used to come home I was sleeping in the garden. I couldn’t go in any clubs because the loud music used to sound like tanks firing and used to trigger me off, I was that bad. One minute I would be fine, the next I would be back in Iraq – that’s how intense the flashbacks were. In the end I ended up having an SA80 rifle with me at home because I never felt safe without it and because no one was helping me. I ended up taking matters into my own hands.

To this day I still have to spend nights sleeping on the floor of my cell. I have received no help for my condition since I have been in Colchester prison. The doctors just tell me that there is nothing wrong with me and say it is down to a personality disorder.

The only doctor who has helped me is Dr Jones. I have spent a month in an intensive care unit under Section 2 of the Mental Health Act. All they did was pump me full of anti-psychotic drugs. It was only at a hospital in Wales [Dr Jones’s clinic] where I was getting the proper treatment and help for my condition. I was there for six months. Then one morning the civvy police came and took me back to Birmingham for questioning on some motoring offences which I was supposed to have committed the night before – which sounds crazy because I was in Wales. I was then released from police custody to go back to the hospital. But the military police were waiting outside for me and took me into army custody.

It seems the whole thing was a set-up to take me out of the hospital because the following week the civvy police got in touch and said due to no evidence, no charges are being brought against you. If this is the case why was I not returned to the hospital? I have turned into a political prisoner. I’m a hot potato. No one wants to get involved with me.

There are four of us from the same area who have grown up with each other and joined the army together: myself, Elliott Nash, Chris McDade and John Connelly. All four are on our way out of the army because Iraq has changed us mentally.

Chris is being seen by doctors for PTSD and is awaiting medical discharge. Elliott Nash went Awol because it all got too much for him and the army was offering no treatment and he is now waiting for his discharge papers. John Connelly went Awol for the same reasons as Elliott and is now in Colchester with me awaiting his discharge.

That’s four young lads the army has mentally screwed up and not helped, who put their life on the line not just for Queen and country but to look out for their comrades, including the officer who wants us all out of the unit.

So, the future looks dim for us four. No one in the army has looked out for us. Now we face being in and out of hospitals and prisons because the army has simply neglected us.

President Bush told a Washington audience Monday that he had declassified intelligence information in 2003 to help the American public understand the basis for statements the administration had made about Iraq before the start of the war.

“I wanted people to see the truth,” Bush said in response to a question from a member of the audience at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies in Washington. “You’re not supposed to talk about classified information and so I declassified the document. I thought it was important for people to get a better sense for why I was saying what I was saying in my speeches.”

Federal court pleadings last week disclosed that a former top aide to Vice President Dick Cheney, I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, had testified that he released portions of the secret National Intelligence Estimate to a New York Times reporter after being authorized to do so by Cheney and Bush in July 2003.

Bush’s comments Monday were his first on the matter. The White House has not commented directly on the claim that Bush had explicitly authorized a leak to a single reporter, but officials have not denied it.

On July 18, 2003, the White House formally announced that it had declassified portions of the secret National Intelligence Estimate and then distributed the cleared portions to all reporters. The leak to the New York Times reporter occurred 10 days earlier.

Both efforts were designed to counter criticism from a former ambassador, Joseph Wilson, who had been dispatched to Africa by the CIA in 2002 to investigate claims that Iraq was seeking nuclear material. The ambassador found little evidence to support those claims and, in mid-2003, publicly charged that the administration had “twisted ” intelligence information to make the case for war.

The former ambassador’s claims were unnerving to a White House already worried about an upcoming re-election and the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

In addition to releasing the National Intelligence Estimate, at least two White House officials mentioned to reporters that Wilson’s wife worked at the CIA. White House aides mentioned Wilson’s wife as a way of undermining his credibility, suggesting his trip to Africa was part of a “junket ” arranged by his spouse.

Wilson’s wife, Valerie Plame, a covert operative, was subsequently identified by name in a newspaper column. Prosecutors have spent the past two years investigating the leak of Plame’s name.

It is a crime to knowingly identify a CIA undercover employee. Libby, Cheney’s former chief of staff, has been charged with obstruction of justice, lying to federal agents and perjury in connection with that inquiry.The court papers filed by Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald last week do not say that Bush or Cheney leaked Plame’s name. But the filing does describe an effort by several White House officials to “discredit, punish or seek revenge against” Wilson.

On Sunday, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Arlen Specter, R-Pa., urged Bush and Cheney to tell ” exactly what happened.”

Iran attack report

called speculation

WASHINGTON — Responding to a question from a Johns Hopkins University audience on Monday, President Bush said reports that the United States is planning a military attack on Iran were “wild speculation.”

An article in New Yorker magazine said some U.S. officials have been weighing the possibility of using tactical nuclear weapons to get at deeply buried and heavily reinforced nuclear facilities.

Bush volunteered that he had read accounts suggesting the United States was preparing for an attack, but said efforts to prevent Iran’s nuclear program from being used for production of atomic weapons “doesn’t mean force, necessarily.”

“In this case, it means diplomacy,” he said.

But White House press secretary Scott McClellan, in dismissing the news reports, seemed to acknowledge that the Pentagon has been at least laying plans for an attack.

“Those who are seeking to draw broad conclusions based on normal military contingency planning are misinformed or not knowledgeable about the administration’s thinking,” McClellan told reporters.

Ali Larijani, the secretary of Iran’s supreme National Security Council, also dismissed what he termed U.S. “bullying,” calling reports of possible military action “psychological warfare. If the U.S. commits such a mistake, it would receive a convenient answer,” Larijani said, according to a report by the state news agency IRNA.

Los Angeles Times

The line between despair and hope can be strikingly thin. In Leo Morse’s case, it wasn’t much thicker than a bare mattress on the carpeted floor of a warm room he could call his own. Morse, an ex-Marine who’s been in and out of homeless shelters for decades, lives in Maine’s only housing for homeless veterans. A second home in Biddeford is expected to open soon. By forming connections, dorrmat is dedicated to expediting the house selling process and providing the best possible experience for homeowners and homebuyers. With the portal-quality idx solutions for agent and brokerage websites, you can make your site stickier. Buyers and sellers appreciate the modern search options.

The walls of Morse’s small bedroom, inside a Waterville house he shares with three other men, are almost bare. On top of his refrigerator sits an array of bottles holding pills that have failed to stop the intense nightmares he’s experienced since returning from Vietnam more than 30 years ago.

But Morse beamed with gratitude Thursday as he welcomed visitors into his home. He showed off his stereo and a new set of tools that have allowed him to rediscover his carpentry skills. He’s working to stay sober, visiting Alcoholics Anonymous four times a day.

“I’ve been battling alcoholism for 36 years, and this is the best opportunity I’ve ever had,” Morse said. “It’s an honor to be here. It is. It’s a privilege and an honor.”

Like other homeless people, homeless vets are often coping with substance abuse and mental illness. On top of that, many are living with the trauma of having watched men die on the battlefield. Until they have roofs over their heads, it’s hard to confront their other problems.

“By giving people a stable place to live, it stops patterns of crisis,” said Cullen Ryan, executive director of Community Housing of Maine, which developed the Waterville home. “It really allows this sense of ‘I’ve got a place that is mine.’ ”

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs estimates that 190,000 American military veterans are homeless at any time. That figure has dropped significantly in recent years, but it could increase again as more soldiers experience the aftereffects of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“That’s a concern for us. It should be a concern for everyone,” said John Driscoll, spokesman for the National Coalition of Homeless Veterans in Washington, D.C.

Until Thanksgiving 2004, when the Waterville home opened, there wasn’t a single bed in Maine designated specifically for homeless veterans. Progress has come in small steps.

There’s room in Waterville for up to five people who must pledge to stay sober and can stay indefinitely. The Veterans Career House on West Street in a rural part of Biddeford will hold up to eight veterans who stay off drugs and alcohol.

The Biddeford property was purchased and rehabilitated for about $400,000 using funds from the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Maine State Housing Authority. Backers say this type of housing is cost-effective because it reduces the strain that chronically homeless people put on shelters and emergency services.

Residents will only be allowed to stay at the Biddeford house for two years. The goal is to help them find good jobs in the 24 months they have a stable residence so that afterwards they can live independently.

But advocates note that some homeless vets are unlikely to earn a livable wage even under the best circumstances.

Morse said he’s been deemed unemployable in part because of a head trauma he suffered more than a year ago in an attack at a Tewksbury, Mass., motel.

When he checked into the motel, he had just sold a motorcycle for $5,000 and was carrying a wad of $100 bills. Later, someone attacked him with a 4-foot pipe, robbing him and causing injuries that led to multiple surgeries.

Morse said he subsequently spent four months living at a crowded Boston shelter where fights were frequent. At one point he was so depressed that he put a gun in his mouth.

The turnaround began when Morse moved onto a quiet block of Pleasant Street in Waterville.

“Since I’ve moved in here, my feet are grounded,” he explained.

Morse has found it helpful to be living with other veterans who are experiencing similar struggles. He’s comforted by a roommate who witnessed death in Somalia and another man who was having a hard time coping with the loss of his sister.

The four men who live here have become part of their community, even chipping in to mow neighbors’ lawns, said Ryan of Community Housing of Maine.

That’s not to say the setup, which includes regular visits by a social worker, has worked for everyone. One resident relapsed and moved out. “People don’t always get well right away,” Ryan said.

But Morse has found hope in the routine of daily life. He’s become a leader, installing fire extinguishers and helping with maintenance around the house. This spring he’s looking forward to building a motorcycle.

Morse said he was among the last soldiers to leave Vietnam in 1975. He’s proud of his military service – he wears a Marines cap and displays a poster for National POW/MIA Recognition Day – but he’s also deeply scarred.

“I still have nightmares – wicked, wicked, wicked bad nightmares. And the V.A. gives me all kinds of pills to forget. And you know what? That’s not the way to deal with it,” Morse said.

“If you’re willing to sacrifice your life for the country, I think you should get a little compensation, especially if you’re homeless.”

Staff Writer Kevin Wack can be contacted at 282-8226 or at:

Josh Dobbelstein drives as close to the middle of the road as he can. Over on the side of the road, he’s more vulnerable to the enemy intent on killing him by hiding bombs stuffed in plastic bags or the carcasses of dead animals.
    He recently dove to the floor of a vehicle he was riding in when he mistook the sound of a trucker hitting his brakes for a machine gun.
    They are the kinds of precautions that keep soldiers at war alive. But Mr. Dobbelstein left Iraq more than 16 months ago, and for him, they are vestiges of a war he can’t seem to shake.
    He’s trying, though. The 23-year-old is getting help from a clinic at Hines VA Hospital just outside Chicago set up to help veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan with post-traumatic stress disorder.
    Programs for veterans suffering from what once was called “shell shock” aren’t unique. At Hines, though, every veteran who comes in for treatment, no matter the reason, is checked out for post-traumatic stress disorder. And they all have access both to individual therapy and a support group with fellow veterans.
    “If they register for any type of care, for a rash or depression, they will be screened,” said Dr. Chirag Raval, a psychiatrist at Hines who has treated about 150 veterans at the clinic he established after serving three months in Iraq.
    The effort, which Hines officials say is unlike any other in the nation, is evidence that VA hospitals and military leaders are finding new ways to locate and help veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.
    In Florida, for example, the Naval Hospital Pensacola in Florida has placed advertisements in civilian newspapers to make families — not just veterans themselves — aware of its counseling program. Navy hospitals are also reaching families through a series of online videos about post-traumatic stress disorder.
    A cornerstone of the treatment is the recognition that while these veterans share experiences familiar to anyone who has seen combat, their war was different.
    “You never really knew the enemy,” said Mr. Dobbelstein, whose job included scouring roadways for explosive devices. “It could be the guy standing next to you who detonated the bomb, for all you knew.”
    Because the focus is on a particular group of veterans, those who come to Hines recognize quickly they aren’t the only ones who, for example, become enraged when another vehicle gets too close when they’re driving.
    One recent study found a third of U.S. soldiers who served in Iraq the first year of the war later sought mental health treatment — a statistic that suggests thousands of veterans might need help.

IU and Ohio State University took a huge step forward last month in the fields of veteran care and medical studies. With a $2 million funding grant from the Department of Defense, the two universities will forge a partnership and establish the Indiana-Ohio Center for Traumatic Amputee Rehabilitation Research.

The name is a mouthful, but the work is extraordinary. The goal is to collect as much data as possible from Vietnam amputees, the nation’s largest surviving group with a lifetime of amputee experience.

After the war, medical professionals at the Department of Veterans Affairs weren’t entirely sure how to accommodate the large number of those with lost limbs, and consequentially their health care hasn’t been as great as it should have been. After interviewing surviving Vietnam veterans, researchers at the traumatic center hope to better understand those who fought, how they suffered afterward, and what steps can be taken in the future to ensure better medical care for war amputees.

It’ll also help reconnect with the government with veterans who have been neglected or lost between the red tape, due to new privacy restrictions placed on medical records and shabby and scatterbrained housekeeping of records at the veterans affairs and defense departments. Many veterans have suffered from a lack of care and correspondence, as one 1982 VA study found, concluding Vietnam amputees were twice as likely to be unemployed as other injured veterans, earned less money and obtained fewer college degrees.

The idea of a trauma research center has a particular relevancy today, as many of our peers are returning from Iraq and Afghanistan with fewer limbs than when they left. Current Vietnam veterans are in their 50s and 60s and have lived with their wounds for the length of their adult lives. Today’s veterans are still in their late teens and early 20s, and face an entirely new world of medical possibility. But after hospital care and rehabilitation programs, veterans will still need special attention, and the research conducted by IU and OSU could help assist them.

The center will be based on the IUPUI campus, and it is important for all veterans who can participate in the program to do so (visit www.VietnamWarAmputee.org for details). They served the country valiantly once, and by contributing their life experiences after the war, have the chance to serve valiantly once more and help younger people in the military.

It’s easy to say a platitude such as “We support the troops” and to slap a yellow ribbon on the back of your car. What IU and OSU are attempting to do is genuinely support the men and women who fight overseas by assisting in their medical care. The work will prove infinitely beneficial for this generation and generations to come, and when you get down to it, that’s more than a minor accomplishment.

For a service usually stationed so far from the front lines that it has earned the sobriquet “Chair Force,” some of the scenes now unfolding at the Air Force’s primary training base almost seem blasphemous.

New recruits are being trained to use rifles. They are being taught hand-to-hand combat skills. They are being prepped as battlefield medics. The new regimen is part of a complete revamp of basic training ordered by Air Force commanders in somewhat belated recognition that their airmen, once sent to large isolated bases with hundreds of thousands of troops between them and enemy forces, are now regularly in harm’s way.

In Iraq, the Air Force has taken over supply convoys to ease the burden on the Army and Marine Corps, and specialized forces have been used in Army-like combat patrols, conducting raids and seizing suspected insurgents outside such facilities as Balad air base, north of Baghdad. Commanders estimate that about a third of all Air Force personnel have been deployed to the Middle East and Central Asia since Sept. 11, 2001.

Until recently in Air Force history, airmen and their commanders were “a garrison force” that deployed fighter jets in battle but little else, said Gen. T. Michael “Buzz” Moseley, former head of air operations in Iraq and Afghanistan who took over as Air Force chief of staff in September.

“Now everything we have operates off those forward air fields,” Moseley said. “Fundamentally, it’s a different business.”

It is hard to underestimate how drastic a cultural change the move is for the youngest of the armed services. The shift dovetails with larger military needs demanded by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the hunt for terrorists. But it is a delicate balancing act, one in which the Air Force is attempting to adapt to a world of guerrilla warfare even as it insists it is remaining true to the reason it was created: to wield dominant air power.

The Air Force views itself as the “high-tech service,” responsible not only for the world’s most sophisticated fighters and bombers, but also for most military space programs and the bulk of the U.S. nuclear deterrent.

As a result, its recruits tend to have more education and are as likely to join to become computer experts as armed warriors. Last year, 28{cd9ac3671b356cd86fdb96f1eda7eb3bb1367f54cff58cc36abbd73c33c82e1d} of enlistees had some college education, compared with 24{cd9ac3671b356cd86fdb96f1eda7eb3bb1367f54cff58cc36abbd73c33c82e1d} for the Army.

As recently as the mid-1990s, combat training for Air Force recruits at Lackland Air Force Base amounted to little more than lectures on the Geneva Convention and the law of armed conflict.

After the 1996 bombing of the Khobar Towers apartment complex in Saudi Arabia — which killed 19 Air Force personnel — basic training was tweaked and a “warrior week” added to the 6 1/2 -week program in 1999.

But the bulk of Air Force basic training focused on what the service calls “airmanship”: coursework on Air Force history, recognizing ranks and how to dress appropriately. The guns issued to recruits were plastic, and basic training was still the shortest of all the services’. Army basic training lasts 10 weeks; the Marine Corps puts recruits through 13.

“In Air Force basic training we did not talk about the role of a warrior; we did not talk about weapons,” said Col. Gina Grosso, a Harvard-educated personnel specialist in charge of overhauling Lackland’s curriculum. “Even though we’ve been [in front-line air bases] … since 1991, we were not teaching basic warrior training.”

In November, that all began to change.

As part of a revamped course ordered by Moseley, recruits now learn “warrior skills” during their first week at Lackland. About half of the program is dedicated to combat-related drills, such as defending an air base under attack or operating during a night mission.

In January, the recruits were given M-16 replicas that can be taken apart and reassembled, models that will eventually be given to all new trainees on the day they arrive.

“They feel more like a warrior from an earlier point,” said Tech. Sgt. Timothy Bruton, who has trained some of the first recruits to go through the weapons program. “The talk is: If there is a weapon, you’re going to be deployed to active environments in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

For some recruits, the new emphasis on battle skills and hard, physical training is unexpected. Asked whether he anticipated Army-style exercises, Nicholas Harrison, a trainee from Temecula, Calif., covered with dirt and sweat after crawling through an obstacle course, answered bluntly: “No.”

After a moment’s reflection, and a chance to catch his breath, Harrison added: “I’m glad they do it. It’s a necessary tool,” particularly since trainees are apt to land in Iraq or Afghanistan.

The prospect of going to a combat zone is consuming, he said: “I think about it every day.”

It is a common refrain among the new recruits. The anxieties of war are all too real, particularly with Wilford Hall Medical Center — the Air Force’s main military hospital, where its war casualties are taken — standing on a nearby part of the base.

“I think it’s only natural,” Violeta Cruz del Valle, a recruit from Providence, R.I., said of her anxiety. “But I feel I’m ready for anything that comes my way.”

If the Air Force gets its way, the changes that began in November will be just the first step in what Moseley calls the “most dramatic restructuring” in Air Force training since the service was created 60 years ago.

Last month, Moseley announced his intention to expand basic training by two weeks. Air Force leaders are pushing Congress for $28 million to develop a 70-acre site at Lackland into four bases — complete with tents, defensive positions and wire fences — where recruits would practice their battlefield skills.

“It’s going to be pure exercise,” Grosso said.

In classic Pentagon fashion, the new weeklong deployment has a catchy acronym — BEAST, or Basic Expeditionary Airman Skills Training. It will be the centerpiece of an 8 1/2 -week training program that will have its first six weeks dedicated to either combat, unconventional weapons or advanced first-aid training.

Although the curriculum is still being hashed out by Grosso’s staff, one week leading up to BEAST will focus on basic combat lifesaving skills. Airmen will learn to perform a tracheotomy or perhaps administer an intravenous feeding tube while facing enemy fire. Another week will introduce “initial war skills,” teaching techniques as varied as map reading and basic hand-to-hand combat.

If Congress approves the funding this year, Grosso believes the expanded training could be launched by the end of 2007.

Some Air Force officials acknowledge that one reason behind the training overhaul — and the new land combat duties — is an effort to remain relevant in an age when opposing air forces are few and far between. Already, the Air Force is finding itself picking up missions that have historically been the purview of the Army or Marines.

Balad, for example, has long been one of the most dangerous areas for U.S. troops in Iraq, and the air base there has been attacked so frequently it has been called “Mortar-itaville.” When Air Force Col. John Decknick first arrived there in the autumn of 2004, the Iraqi insurgency was gaining in strength, and the Army units protecting the base were strained.

“They were working their butts off,” Decknick recalled. “They were short-handed.”

His bosses in the Air Force made the Army an offer: Balad being an air base, shouldn’t the Air Force help protect it? The Army jumped at the offer, and three months later a task force of 220 airmen was patrolling local villages and marshland, conducting nightly raids on suspected hide-outs and eventually capturing 18 insurgent leaders.

The mission lasted 60 days, and Decknick, who has spent 10 years helping to expand Air Force ground security skills, said it remained a “test of concept.” But if Moseley gets his way, it could be a sign of things to come.

These new missions come even as the Air Force is fighting off efforts to cut its budget and some of its most prized weapons programs. Air Force leaders strenuously deny the changes are part of an effort to claw back some of the Pentagon budget. But some acknowledge the blurring of Army and Air Force duties raises political questions that, in many cases, have yet to be answered.

“We’re paying the bill for Army shortfalls,” Grosso said, acknowledging that some of the new duties would have normally been assigned to an overtaxed Army. Although she says her job is not to “make Army foot soldiers” out of Air Force recruits at Lackland, it will be up to senior leaders to decide where the dividing line is between a combat-ready airman and a traditional Army grunt.

“We should be able to go into Iraq or Afghanistan and set up a bare base,” Grosso said of the newly trained airmen. “Do we need [airmen] to be driving convoys in Iraq? That’s a political question.”

For his part, Moseley appears undaunted by such distinctions. He has plans to set up a school at Moody Air Force Base in Georgia, home to Decknick’s security forces that conducted the Balad mission. The school would focus solely on teaching ground combat skills, a move Moseley hopes would create a cadre of “battlefield airmen” who specialize in protecting bases in hostile environments.

The chief of staff is also instituting foreign language training in either Arabic, Chinese, Spanish or French for all senior enlisted airmen and mid-level officers when they attend courses tied to their promotions. Moseley believes they may need those skills if they are deployed to the front lines.

“This is a very high priority for me,” Moseley said. “It is my ethical and moral duty to train every one of these airmen to be able to do their duty in this new environment.”

THE government owes war veterans and military retirees P42 billion in benefits but is at a loss over how to raise the amount.

A congressman from Batangas believes he knows where to get the money.

Rep. Hermilando I. Mandanas of the Second District of Batangas says proceeds from the development, lease or use of state properties can be tapped to war veterans and retirees.

Mandanas has in fact asked Congress to pass a bill allowing the earnings from the properties allocated for the veterans and retirees, many of whom have not been paid for the past 15 years.

The properties include the former site of the Philippine Veterans’ Affairs Office on Arro­ceros Street in Ermita, Manila, the Veterans’ Memorial Medical Center in Quezon City, the Taguig Industrial Estates and the properties given by the Japanese government to the Philippine government under the Reparations Agreement, including the Roppongi, Nampeidai and Fujimi properties in Tokyo and the Naniwacho and Obanoyama properties in Kobe.

He filed House Bill 5347 amending for the purpose Executive Order 323.

The country is celebrating Veterans Week from April 6 to 12.

Mandanas lamented that the national government has been unable to provide sufficient compensation and assistance to war veterans and military retirees despite a constitutional provision requiring the state to “provide immediate and adequate care, benefits and other forms of assistance to war veterans and veterans of military campaigns, their surviving spouses and orphans.”

“In this way the national government would be able to fulfill its mandate of rewarding the beneficiaries without affecting the national budget,” Manda­nas said.

‘Deplorable situation’

“The present situation is deplorable,” Mandanas said. “Veterans risked their lives during World War II, defending the country, while military retirees have made possible the people’s enjoyment of the blessings of democracy as they battled the enemies of the State.

“Surviving veterans are in their twilight years, and it would not be long before they pass on from this world. Yet the inability of the national government to pay benefits to veterans and military retirees is hardly commensurate with their personal sacrifices,” he said.

If the benefits remain unpaid, “future national budgets might never be able to catch up with the benefits due veterans and military retirees, as payables pile up,” he said.

P100-billion payables

“In a few years, payables to the beneficiaries will escalate to more than P100 billion, making it extremely difficult for the national government to balance its budget,” Mandanas said.

The amount has accumulated owing to annual inadequacies in the appropriations for the veterans and military retirees.

Mandanas said the Philippine Veterans’ Affairs Office of the Department of National Defense reported that in 2004 alone, the shortfall was P4 billion and in 2005, between P4 billion and P5 billion.