UNACCEPTABLE CONDUCT: 26,000 Sexual Assaults in Military Raise Alarm ( NO… Means STOP! )

 Articles of Interest, Crimes & Criminal Activity (Organized Crime, Narcotics, Predators, Cyber Crime, Cyber Stalking, UnSolved), FALLEN & INJURED HEROES, Firearms, Weapons & Personal Safety, Social Media, U.S. MARINES & Military  Comments Off
May 142013
 

Sexual Assaults in Military Raise Alarm in Washington


The New York Times
by Jennifer Steinhauer
May 7, 2013

Survivors Share Experiences of Sexual Assault in the Military

Survivors Share Experiences of Sexual Assault in the Military

WASHINGTON —

The problem of sexual assault in the military leapt to the forefront in Washington on Tuesday as the Pentagon released a survey estimating that 26,000 people in the armed forces were sexually assaulted last year, up from 19,000 in 2010, and an angry President Obama and Congress demanded action.

 

The study, based on a confidential survey sent to 108,000 active-duty service members, was released two days after the officer in charge of sexual assault prevention programs for the Air Force was arrested and charged with sexual battery for grabbing a woman’s breasts and buttocks in an Arlington, Va., parking lot.

At a White House news conference, Mr. Obama expressed exasperation with the Pentagon’s attempts to bring sexual assault under control.

“The bottom line is, I have no tolerance for this,” Mr. Obama said in answer to a question about the survey. “If we find out somebody’s engaging in this stuff, they’ve got to be held accountable, prosecuted, stripped of their positions, court-martialed, fired, dishonorably discharged. Period.”

The president said he had ordered Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel “to step up our game exponentially” to prevent sex crimes and said he wanted military victims of sexual assault to know that “I’ve got their backs.”

In a separate report made public on Tuesday, the military recorded 3,374 sexual assault reports last year, up from 3,192 in 2011, suggesting that many victims continue not to report the crimes for fear of retribution or a lack of justice under the department’s system for prosecution.

The numbers come as the Pentagon prepares to integrate women formally into what had been all-male domains of combat, making the effective monitoring, policing and prosecuting of sexual misconduct all the more pressing.

Pentagon officials said nearly 26,000 active-duty men and women had responded to the sexual assault survey. Of those, 6.1 percent of women and 1.2 percent of men said they had experienced sexual assault in the past year, which the survey defined as everything from rape to “unwanted sexual touching” of genitalia, breasts, buttocks or inner thighs.

From those percentages, the Pentagon extrapolated that 12,100 of the 203,000 women on active duty and 13,900 of the 1.2 million men on active duty had experienced some form of sexual assault. In 2010, a similar Pentagon survey found that 4.4 percent of active-duty women and fewer than 0.9 percent of active-duty men had experienced sexual assault.

Pentagon officials could not explain the jump in assaults of women, although they believed that more victims, both men and women, were making the choice to come forward. In the general population, about 0.2 percent of American women over age 12 were victims of sexual assault in 2010, the most recent year for which data is available, according to the Justice Department’s Bureau of Justice Statistics.

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Honor Betrayed

A two-part series that examined women in the military who were sexually assaulted.

Part I: Attacked at 19 by an Air Force Trainer, and Speaking Out

Part II: Trauma Sets Female Veterans Adrift Back Home

*********

In response to the report, Mr. Hagel said at a news conference on Tuesday that the Pentagon was instituting a new plan that orders the service chiefs to incorporate sexual assault programs into their commands.

“What’s going on is just not acceptable,” Mr. Hagel said. “We will get control of this.”

The report quickly caught fire on Capitol Hill, where women on the Senate Armed Services Committee expressed outrage at two Air Force officers who suggested that they were making progress in ending the problem in their branch.

“If the man in charge for the Air Force in preventing sexual assaults is being alleged to have committed a sexual assault this weekend,” said Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, Democrat of New York, “obviously there’s a failing in training and understanding of what sexual assault is, and how corrosive and damaging it is to good order and discipline.”

Ms. Gillibrand, who nearly shouted as she addressed Michael B. Donley, the secretary of the Air Force, said that the continued pattern of sexual assault was “undermining the credibility of the greatest military force in the world.”

She and some other members of the committee are seeking to have all sex offenders in the military discharged from service, and she would like to replace the current system of adjudicating sexual assault by taking it outside the chain of command. She is particularly focused on decisions, including one made recently by an Air Force senior officer, to reverse guilty verdicts in sexual assault cases with little explanation.

Senator Claire McCaskill, a Missouri Democrat who is also on the Senate Armed Services Committee, is holding up the nomination of that Air Force officer, Lt. Gen. Susan J. Helms, to be vice commander of the Air Force’s Space Command. Ms. McCaskill said she wanted additional information about General Helms’s decision to overturn a jury conviction in a sexual assault case last year.

Gen. Mark A. Welsh III, the Air Force chief of staff, told the committee at the same hearing on Tuesday that he was “appalled” by the conduct and the arrest of Lt. Col. Jeffrey Krusinski, the Air Force officer accused of sexual battery on Sunday. The police say that Colonel Krusinski was drunk when he approached the woman in the parking lot and that the victim was ultimately able to fend him off and call 911.

Mr. Hagel called Mr. Donley on Monday evening to express his “outrage and disgust” over the matter, a Pentagon statement said.

Ms. McCaskill was particularly critical of Colonel Krusinski as well as the Air Force for placing him in charge of sexual assault prevention. “It is hard for me to believe that somebody could be accused of that behavior with a complete stranger and not have anything in his file,” she said.

While Mr. Hagel and others in the military seem open to changes to the system that allows cases to be overturned, they remained chilly to the idea of taking military justice out of the chain of command.

“It is my strong belief that the ultimate authority has to remain within the command structure,” Mr. Hagel said, which is almost certain to meet with objections as the issue continues to come under the scrutiny of the Armed Services Committee.

Under Mr. Hagel’s plan, the military would seek to quickly study and come up with ways to hold commanders more accountable for sexual assault. The chiefs of the Army, Navy and Air Force and the commandant of the Marines have until Nov. 1 to report their findings. Mr. Hagel also directed the services to visually inspect department workplaces, including the service academies, for potentially offensive or degrading materials, by July 1.

 

Sarah Wheaton contributed reporting.

 

 

“FALLEN HERO” TRAGEDY: Navy SEAL commander dead in Afghanistan in suspected suicide

 Articles of Interest, Crimes & Criminal Activity (Organized Crime, Narcotics, Predators, Cyber Crime, Cyber Stalking, UnSolved), FALLEN & INJURED HEROES, National security, Terrorism, Cyber Terrorism & Related Crimes, U.S. MARINES & Military  Comments Off
Dec 242012
 

Navy SEAL commander dead in Afghanistan in suspected suicide

The commander of an elite U.S. Navy SEAL unit has died in Afghanistan, the Defense Department said on Sunday, and a U.S. military official said his death was being investigated as a suspected suicide.
Reuters
Reporting by Ian Simpson and Phil Stewart
editing by Christopher Wilson
December 23, 2012

 

Naval Special Warfare Group TWO photograph of Commander Job Price of Pottstown Pennsylvania

Commander Job Price, 42, of Pottstown, Pennsylvania, shown in this Naval Special Warfare Group TWO handout photograph, died of a non-combat related injury in central Afghanistan’s Uruzgan Province, the Pentagon said in a statement. Photo: Reuters

 

Commander Job Price, 42, of Pottstown, Pennsylvania, died on Saturday of a non-combat related injury in central Afghanistan’s Uruzgan Province, the Pentagon said in a statement.

“This incident is currently under investigation,” it said.

Price, was assigned to a Naval Special Warfare unit in Virginia Beach, Virginia, and was the commanding officer of SEAL Team Four. He failed to show up for an event on Saturday and colleagues found him dead in his quarters, the U.S. military official told Reuters on condition of anonymity.

NBC News and CNN also quoted unnamed military officials as saying that the death was being looked at as a possible suicide.

Lieutenant David Lloyd, a spokesman for Naval Special Warfare Group Two, which comprises the four SEAL teams on the U.S. East Coast, declined to comment on the cause of death, saying it was under investigation.

Price was married and had a daughter. He had been a naval officer since May 1993, Lloyd said.

Captain Robert Smith, the Group Two commander, said in a statement: “The Naval Special Warfare family is deeply saddened by the loss of our teammate. We extend our condolences, thoughts and prayers to the family, friends, and NSW community during this time of grieving.

“As we mourn the loss and honor the memory of our fallen teammate, those he served with will continue to carry out the mission.”

SEAL is an acronym for sea, air, land.

 

Direct Link:  http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/12/24/us-usa-afghanistan-seal-idUSBRE8BN00T20121224

Giving Needed Understanding To Those Who Served: Maricopa County Veteran’s Court!

 Articles of Interest, FALLEN & INJURED HEROES, G.E. Investigations Articles, U.S. MARINES & Military  Comments Off
Oct 042012
 

Giving Needed Understanding To Those Who Served: Maricopa County Veteran’s Court! 

 

 

I hope that this idea to HELP & SUPPORT Our Military Veterans, especially the ones returning from combat continues and grows to help those who served to protect us!

 

The Superior Court of Maricopa County founded its Veterans Court in 2011 in order to address the growing number of veterans involved in the criminal justice system.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

U.S., Vietnam exchange personal war artifacts

 Articles of Interest, FALLEN & INJURED HEROES, U.S. MARINES & Military  No Responses »
Jun 072012
 

U.S., Vietnam exchange personal war artifacts

 

 Marine Corps Times
By Marcus Weisgerber – Staff writer
Monday Jun 4, 2012
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, second left, participates in an arrival ceremony with Vietnamese Defense Minister Phung Quang Thanh, left, at the Ministry of Defense in Hanoi, Vietnam, on Monday.  Panetta and Quang Thanh traded artifacts from the Vietnam War during a meeting at Vietnam’s military headquarters.
Photo: Jim Watson / Pool photo via AP

HANOI, Vietnam —

The U.S. and Vietnam on Monday exchanged personal items recovered during the Vietnam War in the 1960s, marking the first time the two nations have swapped such artifacts.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Vietnamese Defense Minister Gen. Phuong Quang Thanh traded the items during a meeting at K2000, Vietnam’s military headquarters.

The U.S. returned a diary that was recovered from Vu Dinh Doan, a Vietnamese soldier killed in the war. Robert Frazure, a Marine, took the diary following Operation Indiana in 1966, according to Pentagon officials.

Quang Thanh presented personal letters of Army Sgt. Steve Flaherty, who was killed in action in 1969.

In addition, the Vietnamese government has granted the U.S. access to three locations that might contain the remains of U.S. troops who have been missing since the Vietnam War.

Hanoi-based Detachment 2 of the Joint Prisoner of War Missing in Action Accounting Command is responsible for locating and identifying U.S. service members’ remains in Vietnam.

Detachment 2 was established in 1991. It was the first U.S. government presence in Vietnam following the war.

About 100 American officials are serving on teams searching for remains in Vietnam. More than 500 Vietnamese officials are also part of the recovery teams. The teams search for remains on land and in coastal waters.

There are still 1,284 Americans unaccounted for from the Vietnam War. The majority of the victims went missing after their aircraft were shot down during the conflict.

“All of these efforts, hopefully, will result in us sending Americans home,” Ron Ward, a casualty resolution specialist at JPAC Detachment 2, said Monday of the three newly opened sited during a briefing with reporters.

U.S. officials are not totally sure why potential remains sites across Vietnam have been restricted.

In all, there have been about 34 restricted sites. The Vietnamese government said the locations were restricted because they were in sensitive border areas or in military restricted zones, Ward said.

The U.S. has lobbied for access to these sites for several reasons: The acidic soil in Vietnam erodes bones quickly. Many witnesses to potential sites are more than 70 years old, with fading memories. And the families of the missing servicemen are also aging.

With the opening of the three additional locations, there are only eight restricted sites remaining, Ward said.

The majority of the missing remains are believed located near the former demilitarized zone between North and South Vietnam.

Two of the three locations opened to U.S. recovery teams are believed to be the sites of aircraft crashes. The other is believed to be the location of an Army private first class killed in combat.

The first site, in central Vietnam’s Quang Binh province, is believed to be the location of a 1967 crash of an Air Force F-4C. Two airmen are missing.

The aircraft was flying from Cam Ranh Bay airfield but never returned from the mission and is believed to have been shot down by enemy fire. JPAC found the site of the crash in 2008, but the Vietnamese government restricted access to the site.

The second site, in Kon Tum province near the triborder area between Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, is believed to be the location of the Army private first class who went missing in 1968.

“We have … witnesses that we believe can take us to the site,” Ward said.

The private’s unit was on a search-and-destroy mission in January 1968 around the time of the Tet Offensive, Ward said.

“Recently, our research and investigation team located witnesses that talked about this case, and we hope they’ll be able to lead us to a site associated with the case,” he said.

The third site is believed to be the location of a Marine Corps F-4J aircraft. The aircraft was on a surface-to-air missile suppression mission when it was shot down by ground fire in Quang Tri province near the demilitarized zone.

One member of the two-person crew ejected prior to the crash and was rescued. The other is still missing.

“This site needs to be excavated,” Ward said.

Here is background information on the artifacts, as provided by the Defense Department:

Sgt. Flaherty’s letters

In March 1969, Army Sgt. Steve Flaherty of Columbia, S.C., was killed in action in northern South Vietnam while assigned to the 101st Airborne Division. Vietnamese forces took Flaherty’s letters and used excerpts for propaganda broadcasts during the war. At that time, Vietnamese Senior Col. Nguyen Phu Dat retained the letters and following the war and contemplated how to return them to Flaherty’s family. Decades later, Phu Dat referenced the letters in an August 2011 Vietnamese online publication about documents kept from the war years.

In early 2012, Robert Destatte, a retired Defense Department POW/Missing Personnel Office employee, found the online publication referencing the letters and brought the issue to the Pentagon’s attention. The State and Defense departments began work with the Vietnam Office for Seeking Missing Persons to assist in returning the letters to the Flaherty family. Now that Secretary Panetta has received the letters from the Vietnamese government, the Office of the Secretary of Defense will work with the United States Army Casualty office to present the letters to the surviving family.

Vu Dinh Doan’s diary

In March 1966, 1st Platoon, Bravo Company, 1st Battalion, 7th Marines, was engaged in a firefight near Quang Ngai during Operation Indiana.

Following the battle, Robert “Ira” Frazure of Walla Walla, Wash., saw a small red diary on the chest of Vu Dinh Doan, a Vietnamese soldier who was found killed in a machine gun pit. Frazure brought the diary back to the U.S. Frazure was discharged from the Marine Corps in November 1966 after three years of service.

Also in March 1966, a friend of Frazure, Gary E. Scooter was killed in action during Operation Utah. Decades later, Frazure was introduced to Scooter’s sister, Marge, who was conducting research for a book about Scooter’s life and service in the Marine Corps. Frazure asked Marge for her help to return the diary to the family of Vu Dinh Doan. In February 2012, Marge Scooter brought the diary to the PBS television program “History Detectives” to research and find the Vu Dinh Doan family. Last month, after finding the family, detectives asked the State Defense departments to help return the diary to the Vietnamese government so it can be returned to the Vu Dinh Doan family.

Excerpts from the letters

The following are quotes from the four Flaherty letters:

 

Letter to “Betty”

“I’m sorry for not writing so long but we have been in a fierce fight with N.V.A. We took in lots of casualties and death. It has been trying days for me and my men. We dragged more bodies of dead and wounded than I can ever want to forget.”

“Thank you for your sweet card. It made my miserable day a much better one but I don’t think I will ever forget the bloody fight we are having.”

“RPG rockets and machine guns really tore my rucksack.”

“I felt bullets going past me. I have never been so scared in my life. Well I better close for now before we go in again to take that hill.”

 

Letter to “Mother”

“We couldn’t retrieve the bodies of our men or ruck sacks and when we brought air strikes, jets dropped napalm and explosives that destroyed everything that was there.”

“I definitely will take R&R, I don’t care where so long as I get a rest, which I need so badly, soon. I’ll let you know exact date.”

“If Dad calls, tell him I got too close to being dead but I’m O.K. I was real lucky. I’ll write again soon.”

 

Letter to “Mom”

“Our platoon started off with 35 men but winded up with 19 men when it was over. We lost platoon leader and whole squad.”

“The NVA soldiers fought until they died and one even booby trapped himself and when we approached him, he blew himself up and took two of our men with him.”

 

Letter to “Mrs. Wyatt”

“Our company and Alpha Company lost a total of 50 men in fierce fight.”

“Our platoon leader was killed and I was the temporary platoon leader until we got the replacement. Nothing seems to go well for us but we’ll take that ridge line.”

“This is a dirty and cruel war but I’m sure people will understand the purpose of this war even though many of us might not agree.”

 

 

** More about Panetta’s Asia trip

Direct Link:  http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/2012/06/dn-vietnam-war-artifacts-060412/

New Stealth Sub Is Fully Networked, But Cut Off From the Outside World

 Articles of Interest, National security, Terrorism, Cyber Terrorism & Related Crimes, Social Media, Technology & Digital Security, U.S. MARINES & Military  No Responses »
May 312012
 

New Stealth Sub Is Fully Networked, But Cut Off From the Outside World

 

WIRED

By Spencer Ackerman

May 31, 2012

 

 

 

*** SEGMENT VIDEO ****

 

UNDERWAY ON THE U.S.S. MISSISSIPPI —

Practically every system aboard the Navy’s newest fast attack submarine is state of the art. Unlike earlier subs, the U.S.S. Mississippi’s control room, a hive of classified software and hardware, places sonar technicians and weapons specialists barely five feet apart. The periscope is mostly virtual: fiber optics allow the control room to see the surface world, rather than a physical tube running down from the bridge. But for all the advancements aboard the Mississippi, there’s one persistent challenge — staying connected to the outside world.

Bandwidth on subs is practically a throwback to the era of Magic cards, Discmans, and the best Fresh Prince of Bel-Air episodes. To send and receive messages, the U.S. submarine fleet needs to rise to a depth shallow enough to raise periscopes and antennas; aboard the Mississippi, periscope depth is 60 feet. While there are exceptions to that rule, it sets up a basic tradeoff. To remain undetected and ready to complete their missions, submarine commanders have to be prepared for long periods of silence.

“There are some missions or taskings where you don’t go to periscope depth frequently and put antennas out of the water,” says Cmdr. Aaron Thieme, the deputy commander of Submarine Squadron 4, which includes the Mississippi. “There are some missions or taskings where you spend all your time at periscope depth with your antennas out of the water. There are some that require us not to transmit at all.”

The subs receive their internet access from bandwidth provided by satellites, same as the Navy’s surface ships. But unlike aircraft carriers, destroyers and frigates, submarines can’t augment their connectivity with 4G networks. And once the subs go below periscope depth, they’re effectively cut off from the outside world.

 

All this makes bandwidth on the subs an even scarcer resource than it is aboard the surface fleet. On the Mississippi, red Ethernet cables dangle from the ceilings of the officer’s wardroom. Only when the sub rises to periscope depth do officers plug the cables into their laptops, allowing them to access the Navy’s classified networks. That doesn’t happen often. The Mississippi has the capability to stay submerged — and silent — for up to 90 days.

For all the Navy’s formidable technological advancements, many of which are visible aboard the Mississippi, connectivity lags behind. The Navy has yet to overcome some basic physical limitations. The deeper the sub dives, the harder it is for it to access a satellite. Thieme confirms that there is a depth beyond which the submarine fleet is totally disconnected, but understandably declines to disclose what that depth is. And like surface ships, the further the fleet disperses on or under the open water, the harder it is to keep the subs in contact.

And there’s an additional communications challenge for subs. Allowing sailors to e-mail their families risks compromising the stealth that’s central to the subs’ missions.

“Any time you transmit energy, whether it be electromagnetic or acoustic, fundamentally, it could be detected,” Thieme explains. “At some point, there could be a technology developed that can identify that energy source. Just as we go to great efforts to minimize the acoustic energy we put into the water, we go to efforts to minimize the counter-detectability of the electromagnetic energy that we transmit when we communicate.”

But don’t let that conjure up visions of rogue sub commanders, à la The Hunt for Red October. The chain of command informs the submarine how frequently and even when it needs to reach periscope depth to check in or receive orders. And the command has technical mechanisms — which the crew of the Mississippi will not discuss — for augmenting the bandwidth available to submarines in an emergency. More regularly, a text-only e-mail program called SailorMail allows sub crews to send and receive e-mails over an unclassified network — provided those e-mails are free of attachments, and sailors don’t mind waiting for transmissions at speeds slower than dial-up. For morale, the sub can stream news programs and sports when it’s at periscope depth.

Still, the Navy’s lack of consistent bandwidth for submarines could complicate some its broader plans. Its new super-concept for working seamlessly with the Air Force might founder if fighter jets can’t talk to Navy subs.

But underway on the Mississippi, officers are convinced bandwidth deserts are a manageable problem — and one that feeds into the culture of submarine warfare.

“It’s in our DNA to be able to go out and do a mission by ourselves without somebody looking over our shoulder,” says Thieme. “If the capability gets developed so that, regardless of whatever speed or depth we are we can maintain a communications tether or connectivity path, I [still] don’t see submariners becoming less autonomous.”

 

Direct Link:  http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/05/sub-bandwidth/#more-81520

 

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