Veterans for Common Sense

The situation at Robins, where thousands of workers repair military aircraft, is a case study on how the war overseas has affected those serving on the home front. Here, a different kind of strain and battle fatigue has surfaced, often in startling ways.

The wounded came not from engaging the enemy, but from scores of workplace injuries that increased as the war intensified. The low morale was measured in rises in drunken driving and domestic abuse, discrimination complaints and lost productivity. Most dramatic were the suicides — double the national rate in 2004 — and murders on the base, the first in Robins’ 65-year history.

“We do have the rigors of a wartime mission,” explains Lt. Col. Dan Mokris, the base safety officer. “We just have to do it right here.”

No one believes the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan is to blame for all the problems at Robins. Indeed, there’s no way to know for certain how much the hostilities play a part. Maj. Gen. Mike Collings, who has spearheaded the effort to cure the ills here, is convinced that the Pentagon needs to take note of what happened at Robins – the problems and the efforts to address them — as the military tries to reinvent itself while fighting a protracted war.

Stress at the base built as Defense Department demands for a leaner, meaner and more efficient military grew, base officials say. When Collings came to the base in 2004, he says workers were cutting corners, compromising safety and focusing on war production at all costs. “Morale,” he says “was in the pits.”

“People felt that they were being asked to do more and more and more and more and nobody necessarily worried about giving them the right training and making sure that they did their job correctly,” he says.

After U.S. forces invaded Afghanistan and Iraq, the demands of war exacerbated the challenges of trying to modernize and streamline the military, Collings says. As a consequence, he says, the needs of those at Robins were neglected, and the troubles at the base began to swell.

“Whether you’re talking about the soldier in the field who’s getting ready to take the next bunker, the fighter pilot, the maintainer who is turning wrenches on the flight line, the engineer doing software development here or Ronnie who works in the paint shop,” Collings says, “if you don’t have their heart and their belief that you are leading them in the right direction, it’s a non-starter.”

A steady state of change

Robins covers 13 square miles. Its 26,000 employees make it one of the largest employers in the state.

At its core are the almost 15,000 workers of the Air Logistics Center under Collings’ command. The center is tasked with keeping America’s fleet of heavy transport aircraft flying supplies, troops and missions into Iraq and Afghanistan. Air Force C-130s, C-17s and massive C-5 jets — the largest cargo aircraft in the U.S. arsenal — are in various states of repair across the base. The center also does maintenance on Air Force F-15 fighter planes.

Many are keenly aware of the role they play in the war. “I find myself trying to see if I can recognize a serial number on TV (war coverage) of an airplane from work,” says Greg Horton, 39, a sheet metal worker on C-130 aircraft.

Beginning with the Persian Gulf War of 1990-91, through operations in Bosnia and Serbia during that decade and the monitoring of no-fly zones over Iraq, the base has been on a near-continuous war footing. The fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq made the situation all the worse.

Combat deployments increased. Base closings in the 1990s brought new civilian workers to Robins, and many of them were disenchanted with relocating from California or Texas to central Georgia. Repair schedules were accelerated. Departments merged and then were re-organized; workers answered to new bosses.

The strain of war combined with the changes created a “perfect storm of events” that worsened stress and undercut morale, says George Falldine, the base’s longtime planning director.

Grease board messages reminded workers when they fell 20, 30 or 50 days behind schedule on an airplane. Delays grew particularly severe with older model C-5A cargo jets. When base closings brought the regular overhaul of C-5 aircraft to Robins in 2000, repair work slowed from roughly 250 days per jet to nearly 400. The average time for overhauling C-130H cargo planes has been longer than the 135-day target for each of the past four years.

“It just seems like you’re in a steady state of change. And yes, that does add stress,” says Barry Shepherd, 46, a hydraulic mechanic who works on C-130 aircraft. “And of course the war does add more because you have to be able to run these aircraft out much quicker.”

Across the base, there were signs the workforce was fraying.

Informal discrimination charges by civilian employees were at record levels in 2000 and 2001, and formal written complaints peaked in 2002. More than 1,000 union grievances were filed in 2000. A year earlier, 136 unfair labor practice complaints were filed, a 20-year high. Unfair labor complaints rose again to 111 three years later.

In June 2003, Robins had the highest number of lost workdays due to injury of any U.S. military installation of its size anywhere in the world.

Cases of child abuse among the base’s 6,000 military personnel more than tripled — from 25 in fiscal year 2001 to 83 in FY 2004. Incidents of spousal abuse increased from 41 in FY 2001 to 63 three years later. The base began tracking drunken driving arrests in 2003 among military personnel. The arrests increased from 63 that year to 73 in 2004.

Deaths were turning point

When he became head of occupational medicine at the base in 2004, Sanford Zelnick recalls weeks when at least one distraught employee came to him for counseling each day. Their problems included conflicts with co-workers or a supervisor, or concerns about work assignments. “I would see people in here who were crying,” he says.

But the deaths, particularly in 2004, prompted base leaders to focus on the work environment and culture.

The first murders in base history occurred on July 5, 2004. Senior Airman Andrew Witt, dressed in camouflage and armed with a combat knife, attacked and stabbed to death another airman and his wife. Witt, 23, is awaiting execution at a prison in Fort Leavenworth, Kan. Witt had been feuding with the couple after trying to kiss the wife two days before the murders, according to trial testimony.

A month later, Senior Airman Gregory Class, 24, was arrested and accused of beating to death a 17-month-old boy he was babysitting. His trial is pending.

And six people committed suicide that year, all in a period of seven weeks.

From 2002 to 2005, at least 24 deaths involved workers or residents of the base, including 15 suicides and six homicides blamed on airmen.

The most recent suicide was James Sturdivant, 43, a former civilian worker who had hurt his back on the job and was struggling to get worker’s compensation for corrective surgery. On July 22, he walked into base headquarters, sat at the personnel director’s desk and shot himself in the mouth with a 9mm pistol.

Another was Airman 1st Class Jeremy Monat, 24, a member of Robins’ honor guard. He was anguished by a troubled marriage, a boss he considered overbearing and the constant pressure to perform better at work, says his mother, Mary Keller, of Lewiston, Mich.

When his tearful call to her ended abruptly the night of June 2, 2004, Monat wrapped a belt around his neck and hanged himself in his kitchen.

“He hated that base,” Keller says bitterly.

Many unit commanders are reluctant to blame the homicides or suicides on conditions at Robins. Rather, they see them as simply a string of unfortunate events. However, Beth Zeiger, a base psychologist from 2002-2005, says conditions may well have played a part.

“We’re talking about stress,” Zeiger says. “In each of these situations, you’re looking at someone who is not coping very well. … If they are feeling not supported in their workplace for some reason, or if they are feeling like they are not fitting in or they are unwilling to reach out for help, that is a stress that can be overwhelming and then some people make pretty poor choices.”

After the murders, suicides and the death of an airman who fell 50 feet while changing a light bulb in a hangar, base leaders took action. Chaplains were already busy with grief counseling, but suicide prevention classes were expanded. A “wingman” program, designed to encourage civilians to look out for each other, grew.

In a series of addresses to base workers, Collings began promoting what he described as a work environment that “puts people first.” He urged civilian workers to embrace Air Force military values of integrity and service before self. He promoted his concept through the slogan, “People First, Mission Always.” He introduced a fitness program for civilians that allowed them three hours a week to work out. A new gymnasium for civilian workers is under construction. Days off became rewards for improvement.

And early this month, more than 800 lower-ranking aircraft mechanics were offered the chance to earn immediate promotions with annual raises of $4,000.

1,635 problems documented

Most dramatic, Collings gained permission from Air Force headquarters to bring in about 250 veteran airmen from around the country in late 2004 to spend three months scrutinizing base operations. The concept was to learn where training and practice had gone awry and reverse the trend.

In a scathing report issued last year, the investigative team found 1,635 problems ranging from minor procedural errors to life-threatening hazards.

The 155 most serious wrongs included:

•Mismanagement of a maintenance shop where an aircraft part made of depleted uranium was stored. Workers were neither educated about the risks of radiation nor monitored for exposure levels. No complete inspection of the facility had been done since 2001.

•A grenade-launcher firing range that was nearly 200 yards too short. As a consequence, buildings used for training and portions of an obstacle course were susceptible to wayward explosives.

•Cases in which police working on the base sped and ran stop signs when there was no emergency.

This year, Collings says he will use the findings to begin a series of training sessions for civilian and military workers. He says his efforts and emphasis on workers and their morale are paying off.

Key indicators, such as labor and discrimination complaints, accidents and lost workdays because of injury and cases of drunken driving, child and spousal abuse are all trending downward. Programs designed to streamline the repair and maintenance of aircraft are reducing the time for overhauls. Maintenance on a C-5 was finished in a record 159 days early this month.

Perhaps most important: no suicides in more than six months.

Even so, all is not perfect. Only about 10{cd9ac3671b356cd86fdb96f1eda7eb3bb1367f54cff58cc36abbd73c33c82e1d} to 15{cd9ac3671b356cd86fdb96f1eda7eb3bb1367f54cff58cc36abbd73c33c82e1d} of the civilian workforce is exercising, base officials say.

And during one of Collings’ troops talks last November, Leslie “Geri” Rogers, an inventory management specialist, complained about poorly trained supervisors and unhappy employees in an office that manages testing equipment. “There are very few people who are willing to stand up and raise a hand to a two-star general and I took that chance because morale is so bad,” Rogers says.

Collings says the lesson of Robins is clear.

“We could transform anything we wanted to,” he says, “But the only way you can sustain that is if you have complete buy-in from the people who are working. And it’s training. It’s taking care of them. And it’s their belief in a leadership that truly cares.”

 Recently returned from Iraq, single father Jeff McFall and his son, Josh, support expanded outreach for counseling and other service, though they haven’t needed to take advantage of these services yet themselves.

Jeff, 43, and Josh, 21, both served in the 2668th Army National Guard Transportation Company, out of Sacramento, for a year, returning to the Peninsula in mid-December. Serving together required a waiver, but Jeff, who served in the Army in during the 1983 invasion of Grenada, wasn’t about to let his son serve without him.

“It was a no-brainer,” said Jeff, who raised his son as a single father from the age of 4. Both now live in Redwood City

Although both went through debriefing counseling that addresses issues such as not driving aggressively down the middle of the road as they’d been trained to do in Iraq, readjusting for them has mostly been a pleasant experience. “It has been nice not having to wear body armor or carry a weapon,” Josh said. Both also appreciate having running water again, they said.

Trained to provide support services by hauling cargo in trucks overland, the unit found itself instead escorting such convoys as armed gunmen with .50-caliber mounted machine guns because of a shortage of personnel.

At one point Josh’s squad was attacked with two improvised explosive devices, rupturing his platoon sergeant’s eardrum and filling his eye with glass. “It looked like the Fourth of July too close to the ground,” Josh said. After being evacuated to Germany for medical treatment the platoon sergeant was able to return, Josh said.

Jeff’s squad, made up mostly of more experienced soldiers, avoided any serious casualties.

Jeff said he worries that Americans don’t get to see much of the good work and progress being accomplished in Iraq, including the building of schools, roads and other infrastructure.

“I hope Iraq is going to be better off in the long run,” he said.

The war in Iraq was too much for Brandon Price to cope with. Now the former Army reservist is fighting new battles here at home.

The 21-year-old Lawrence man is trying to escape the clutches of alcohol and deal with what may be post-traumatic stress disorder. But despite an honorable discharge last year, he can’t immediately get disability benefits and medical help from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

While in Iraq, Price was caught “huffing” from a compressed air container, which can cause someone to be affected by mind-altering chemicals. He didn’t finish his deployment.

And because of that, it could be at least a year before he can get any V.A. medical benefits by applying through organizations such as the American Legion or Veterans of Foreign Wars.

Price is in a catch-22 situation that shouldn’t be allowed to happen, said Kevin Lucey, a Massachusetts man who has become an advocate for veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress. His son, Jeffrey Lucey, committed suicide after serving as a Marine reservist in Iraq.

“If this country truly supports the troops, then there should not be any barrier to when they should be eligible to receive services,” Lucey said in an e-mail to the Journal-World.

In November, Lucey was contacted by Price’s stepmother, Leisa Price, after she read a story in the Journal-World about his visit to Lawrence. Lucey had discussed his son’s plight after watching a play at Kansas University about a soldier suffering from PTSD.

Leisa Price has spent the last several months writing letters, e-mails and making phone calls to anyone she can think of who might help her son. That includes V.A. officials, congressmen, President Bush and an aide to former presidential candidate John Kerry, Democratic senator from Massachusetts.

So far no one has been much help.

“Here we serve up our son on a platter and take great pride in the fact he’s serving our country and fighting in the war overseas,” Leisa Price said. “He had a problem. Because he didn’t fit into the criteria they set up, now he’s lost — totally abandoned. That just gets under my skin.”

Brandon Price said that he knew he made some mistakes and that he was trying to recover from them. But he can’t help feeling bitter.

“I used to think a great deal of the Army,” said Price, who served more than two years in the Army Reserve. “Now it makes me feel like they use you as long as they can, and then they throw you away.”

Casualty of war

Brandon Price was a member of the Army Reserve 917th Corps Support Group based in Belton, Mo. He was an E-4 when he was deployed to Iraq in October 2004. Among the duties he had were plotting convoy routes, going out on convoys, construction and various odd jobs.

He refused to talk publicly about what might have traumatized him in Iraq. He has told his parents that it involved a firefight or some type of battle. But the military hasn’t been able to confirm that such an incident occurred, Leisa Price said. Jeffrey Lucey, however, also described incidents in Iraq that the military couldn’t verify, his father has said.

In April 2005, Brandon Price returned to Lawrence on leave. That was when his parents realized their son had changed drastically. Brandon Price spent most of his time in a hotel room drinking and doing drugs, Leisa Price said. He missed his flight back to Iraq, and the military came looking for him. Army recruiters found him and this time made sure he got on a plane headed back to Iraq, the Prices recalled.

“That was the point when everything just started getting really crazy,” Leisa Price said.

By June 2005, Brandon Price had been sent back to the United States and was undergoing alcohol and drug rehabilitation at Fort Riley. He encountered more problems while he was there. He was still drinking and didn’t feel comfortable participating in group therapy. No individual therapy sessions were offered, and Brandon Price stopped going to the group sessions.

Brandon Price received an honorable medical discharge from the Army in September.

The bottom fell out for Brandon Price in November when he was in Lawrence living in his car and drinking heavily. He ended up at Lawrence Memorial Hospital for self-inflicted mutilation to his arm.

“He was a mess,” Leisa Price said. “I’d never seen him that way before. He was sobbing, hysterical and angry all at once.”

A hospital social worker sent information about Brandon Price to the V.A. medical centers in Leavenworth and Topeka. The word came back that because he didn’t finish his deployment in Iraq he was ineligible for V.A. benefits.

Outside help

Brandon Price hasn’t officially been diagnosed with PTSD. But his personal physician thinks the symptoms are there, according to the Prices.The doctor didn’t return phone messages Friday.Brandon Price is getting treatment at Bert Nash Community Mental Health Center, but it is for anger management.

In the meantime, he is jobless, and the Tricare medical insurance program he has from the military expires at the end of March. Leisa Price worries her son needs much more help than he’s getting — the kind of help only PTSD treatment at a V.A. hospital offers.

Jim Gleisberg, spokesman for Eastern Kansas Health Care, which manages the V.A. hospitals in Leavenworth and Topeka, said he couldn’t talk specifically about individuals receiving or seeking care at the hospitals. But he did confirm that a soldier who fails to complete a deployment because he was sent back to the United States because of problems such as alcoholism, bad morale or similar problems, isn’t immediately eligible for V.A. health programs. He said it would take action by Congress to change that.

Someone who spent time on active duty and received an honorable discharge can apply for V.A. compensation and pension from the American Legion or VFW, “but it could take up to a year, year and a half to get that done,” Gleisberg said.

Brandon Price now lives with his parents. He has done better about avoiding alcohol, he and his parents said. He plays with his younger brothers and sisters, and he helps his father coach a youth wrestling club called the Lawrence Coyotes. He had wrestled in high school.

“Brandon is kind of like the Pied Piper,” his father, Chris Price said. “Especially with the younger kids. They just kind of follow him around.”

Brandon also credits the support he’s received from a church group at Lawrence Free Methodist Church.

“Every day is a stressful one for me,” he said. “I just got to do what I can for myself.”

He is doing much better at staying sober, Leisa Price said.

“His commitment to his own sobriety seems to increase with every passing day,” she said. “It’s just too bad that the military couldn’t provide him with the help he needed, and that our government can’t provide him with continued help and support that he deserves.”

The Army said Wednesday it is reevaluating the way it handled the 2004 friendly fire shooting of a 21-year-old Ohio soldier whose death was initially blamed on a vehicle crash in Iraq.

Among other things, the Army inspector general will try to determine why it took nine months for the family of Army Spc. Jesse Buryj (pronounced BOO-dee) to learn that his death was a result of friendly fire, and why there was confusion over whether Buryj was shot by U.S. or allied Polish forces.

Buryj’s wife and parents were first told that Jesse Buryj died May 5, 2004, in Karbala after a dump truck hurtled through a checkpoint and crashed into the armored vehicle in which he was riding.

The Army still says Buryj, of Canton, Ohio, was killed in a crash, but the official cause of death is listed with the Combat Readiness Center as “friendly fire” by fellow U.S. soldiers.

“That’s how it’s recorded, but that’s not what I was told,” Peggy Buryj, the soldier’s mother, said Wednesday. “We were told it was suspected that it came from the Polish sector.”

The Army started an internal review after The Washington Post reported last month on the family’s struggle to learn details about the incident. The Pentagon told the Post on Tuesday that the Army inspector general “would review the matter to determine if proper policies and procedures were followed,” but wouldn’t elaborate.

Maj. Beth Robbins, an Army spokeswoman, told The Associated Press on Wednesday that the internal review would look at “how the incident was investigated and the family notification procedures.”

The procedures followed by crash investigators are under review because it remains unclear who shot Buryj, Robbins said. The response by U.S. and Polish forces to the crash itself is not under review, she said.

“It could not be definitively assigned (to one country’s soldiers or the other’s) and so it’s being categorized as U.S.-on-U.S.,” Robbins said. Polish officials have denied a Polish soldier ever shot toward Buryj’s position in the turret of an armored vehicle.

When asked about the different explanations given to Buryj’s family, Robbins said the Army “has to balance accuracy and timeliness and take very seriously its obligation to notify families with as much as is known as quickly as possible.”

Peggy Buryj has said she sought more details about her son’s death from President Bush during a July 2004 campaign stop. She said she still supports Bush and the war, but now wonders whether Bush knew at that time that there were disparate explanations of her son’s death.

“It’s a shame I had to have The Washington Post write a story before they would cooperate,” she said Wednesday. “Anything they tell me now is nothing they shouldn’t have told me a year ago. Now they want to review certain aspects of this? Yeah; too little, too late.”

DAMASCUS, Syria — A senior Hamas official called on the United States Thursday to remove the militant Islamic group from Washington’s list of terrorist organizations and to open a dialogue without preconditions.

Moussa Abu Marzook, deputy head of Hamas’ political bureau, told The Associated Press the U.S. should deal with Hamas “as it is, and later there could be a dialogue…but there should be no preconditions.”

“Hamas is not the only side that wants peace. …All the Palestinians want peace because they are the only people whose rights have been encroached upon and who have been expelled from their lands,” Abu Marzouk said.

Abu Marzouk described as “absolutely unacceptable” Israel’s call for Hamas to start an unconditional dialogue with the Jewish state, saying “Hamas…was chosen by the Palestinian people…this is democracy.”

Hamas won a landslide victory in last month’s Palestinian legislative elections and has dispatched delegations to Arab and other foreign capitals to win support the group’s efforts to form a new government.

Hamas, which has previously carried out a wave of suicide bombings that killed or wounded hundreds of Israeli’s, has not claimed involvement in any suicide attacks since February 2005.

The radical organization has hinted at a readiness for a long-term truce or some other accommodation with the Jewish state, short of recognition.

But the U.S. and the European Union have threatened to cut off aid to the Palestinian Authority if Hamas forms a government without first recognizing Israel and renouncing violence.

Abu Marzouk, who has been in Egypt, Sudan and Qatar, said Hamas found “all-out support” in the three countries, which back “the choice of the Palestinian people and the budget of the Palestinian Authority as it was in the past.” He did not elaborate.

In early 2004, Carl Mortenson left his job building trusses for a Howard Lake, Minn., lumber company and traded in his framing tools for a rifle and body armor.
Called to active duty in the Minnesota Army National Guard, specialist Mortenson spent the next year patrolling roads in northeastern Iraq, making sure the main supply routes were clear of roadside bombs.   
It was the 25-year-old’s first time in a combat zone and, he says, “It was a culture shock, that’s for sure.” Each long day began with the gnawing uncertainty that came with not knowing what waited on the road ahead for Mortenson and his comrades.
And for soldiers like Mortenson who go from the battle line to the unemployment line once they return from active duty, that feeling of uncertainty about the road ahead persists. 
Many come home from places like Iraq, Afghanistan and Kosovo worried about how they’ll pay the bills once they return to civilian life.
“I know a lot of them didn’t have a job to come back to,” says Mortenson, who now works in Hutchinson, Minn.  “It sounds like it should be something easy to do. Go get a job. But sometimes it’s not…. And some (soldiers) are a little too proud to admit it, but they need help.”
Whether hunting for a job, looking to change occupations, or researching career and education options, soldiers returning from active duty will find all the help they need at the Veterans Employment Service.
This dedicated staff of veterans serving veterans can help in a number of ways. Located in WorkForce Centers through Minnesota, they use their knowledge of the local community and a variety of resources – including the Minnesota Job Bank and other online services – to help veterans find employment. They also use labor market information and employment projections to help veterans identify occupations that are in demand – both now and in the future. 
The Veterans Transition Assistance Program (TAP) also offers free workshops that teach vets how to market their job skills to employers. Participants learn how to find hidden job opportunities, write effective resumes and cover letter, accentuate job skills in interviews and negotiate a fair wage. Veterans with barriers to employment may also be referred to other community-based organizations.
That kind of help is a welcome relief to soldiers struggling to readjust to civilian life, says Sgt. Ronald Huff, who did a tour in Iraq and now educates employers about returning soldiers.
“It’s a tough transition to make. It’s just overwhelming to be (back home),” said Huff. “It’s even tougher when you don’t have any job prospects beyond Taco John’s.”

Dean Eichelberger is the state’s coordinator of Veteran’s Transition Services through the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development. A Vietnam-Era veteran, he has been helping veterans find employment for 28 years. For more information on veterans services, or to register for a TAP workshop, contact him at 320-231-5174, ext. 7520 or by e-mail at Dean.Eichelberger@state.mn.us.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Most employers are “unprepared” for the return of wounded veterans of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and will have difficulty meeting their needs, according to a study released on Wednesday by the Insurance Information Institute (III).

At least 16,600 U.S. soldiers have been wounded, and many more of the 2 million who may serve in those arenas before the conflicts end could be traumatized, according to Robert Hartwig, chief economist for the III and author of the study.

Nearly a third of those troops are reservists and National Guard, who will be going back to their previous jobs. Hartwig said his survey shows that most employers don’t understand their needs or the special benefits they’re entitled to.

“These soldiers put their lives on the line and deserve the utmost respect,” said Hartwig. “But even big companies haven’t thought about their obligations to these people.”

Veterans are entitled to lifelong benefits, including mental health benefits. In addition, there are worker compensation issues for those wounded in battle or accidents, or have been traumatized by being in a war zone.

“There’s evidence that many soldiers will exhibit mental stress from their experience, and it’s important for employers to monitor them, particularly if they’re operating heavy machinery or driving,” said Hartwig.

After World War II and other conflicts, veterans faced discrimination when they returned home. In some cases, “Second Injury Funds” were set up to meet the needs of wounded soldiers whose injuries were aggravated by their stateside jobs.

Those programs have largely disappeared, and been replaced by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). That law prohibits discrimination against anyone with a disability.

Employers should be aware that failure to comply with the ADA can result in stiff fines, Hartwig said. Since 1992 the federal government has awarded more than a half-billion dollars to people who have been discriminated against in violation of the ADA

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – NATO allies would look kindly on new appeals for back-up help to African troops in Sudan’s violent Darfur region, but rule out for now a major deployment of their own, NATO diplomats said on Tuesday.

Fears that Western soldiers would be unwelcome and even counterproductive in Sudan, along with the strain of existing alliance peacekeeping in Afghanistan, mean there is little appetite for rushing into a new NATO ground mission.

“I don’t think anyone wants that,” said one senior alliance diplomat of calls from aid groups and politicians for NATO to send thousands of its own soldiers to bolster an over-stretched, 7,000-strong African Union (AU) force there.

“The focus is more about extending our support role in the transition from an AU to a blue helmet (United Nations) force,” said the diplomat, who requested anonymity. Last year NATO began help in training and transporting AU troops, insisting back then that it did not seek a major presence on the ground.

The U.N. Security Council assigned Secretary-General Kofi Annan this month to draw up options for a UN force to take over from the AU in a renewed bid to end mass killings and rape in a three-year-old war between the government and rebels.

U.N. officials point to the Western armies of NATO as having the equipment, training and transport to make a real difference in Darfur, echoing aid groups who have long urged a NATO role.

Humanitarian groups Human Rights Watch and the International Crisis Group urged U.S. President George W. Bush in a letter this month to rally NATO allies to offer troops and equipment toward a force numbering as many as 20,000.

Others, including a number of U.S. Democratic senators, have appealed for a NATO contribution of up to a few thousand. But those calls are unlikely to be answered.

AFRICAN SOLUTIONS

While Annan emerged from a meeting with Bush in Washington on Monday confident the United States was committed to helping, he insisted it was too early to discuss any U.S. presence.

One obstacle is that many in the alliance doubt that Sudan would accept Western soldiers on its soil.

U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick stressed at a conference in Munich this month the need for “African solutions for African problems” and said he hoped many of the AU forces would be retained within a future UN operation.

More fundamentally, some NATO allies such as France have doubted whether the alliance should have any role at all in Africa, insisting it cannot be the “gendarme of the world.”

Despite recent visits to NATO headquarters by Jean-Marie Guehenno, the UN’s top peacekeeping official, and Jan Pronk, Annan’s representative to Sudan, there has been no formal UN or AU request for it even to consider providing more help.

“As a result it is simply too early for any kind of formal discussion,” said one NATO official. Others said Darfur had not come up in meetings of NATO envoys in Brussels nor featured much at talks among alliance defense ministers in Sicily last week.

Those talks, days after NATO troops in north Afghanistan were attacked by protesters angered by European cartoons of Islam’s Prophet Mohammad, highlighted for some a need to bolster existing missions rather than embark on new ones.

“We had great difficulty mobilizing for south Afghanistan,” said one senior diplomat of a plan to extend NATO’s presence with a further 6,000 peacekeepers this year. “Those attacks showed the need to consolidate in the north too,” he added.

Since the AU made a first request for help last April, NATO planes have transported some 4,000 African soldiers into Darfur, trained AU officers and helped with troop rotations.

Diplomats said there was a willingness to extend that help if requested, and possibly help to better arm the AU troops. “There is no serious discussion of anything else,” said one