Eddie Beaver

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtmiLdzzgGE/] Portraying Marine Lt. Col. Michael Strobl, Kevin Bacon escorts a slain Marine home to Wyoming to be buried by his family. The film is stirring and faithful to the people it focuses on through minimized dialogue (making it remarkably brief, demanding perhaps more detail) and effective cinematography, especially adept in showing the level of effort and detail people in the military take to render honors and respect to their fallen comrades. Along his journey escorting PFC Chance Phelps home, Lt. Col Strobl interacts with a great many Americans who already know of or soon realize his singular duty. Their parts are exceptionally played and make the movie so effective because they portray what many a veteran of this generation has come to realize. That is, we know the overwhelming majority of Americans from all walks of life treat the military with respect and grace. This is not the 1960's/1970's all over again. May those days never return for the vitriol and hatred targeted at ordinary men and women serving their country as best they can. "Taking Chance" shows how we have moved on as a country from those days and is well-worth your viewing time.

Peggy Noonan steps away from politics for most of her work this morning and talks about the Marine investigation into the University City tragedy, where 4 civilians were killed when a F/A-18 Hornet crashed into their house. If you will recall, the husband who lost his wife, two infant children and his mother in that crash showed incredible grace when he publicly forgave the pilot. With local anger growing over what nearly all (correctly) believed to be a debacle, the Marines released their internal investigation results this week.

They could not have been tougher, or more damning. The crash, said Maj. Gen. Randolph Alles, the assistant wing commander for the Third Marine Aircraft Wing, was "clearly avoidable," the result of "a chain of wrong decisions." Mechanics had known since July of a glitch in the jet's fuel-transfer system; the Hornet should have been removed from service and fixed, and was not. The young pilot failed to read the safety checklist. He relied on guidance from Marines at Miramar who did not have complete knowledge or understanding of his situation. He should have been ordered to land at North Island. He took an unusual approach to Miramar, taking a long left loop instead of a shorter turn to the right, which ate up time and fuel. Twelve Marines were disciplined; four senior officers, including the squadron commander, were removed from duty. Their military careers are, essentially, over. The pilot is grounded while a board reviews his future. Residents told the San Diego Union-Tribune that they were taken aback by the report. Bob Johnson, who lived behind the Yoons and barely escaped the crash, said, "The Marines aren't trying to hide from it or duck it. They took it on the chin." A retired Navy pilot who lives less than a block from the crash and had formed, with neighbors, a group to push the Marines for an investigation, and for limiting flights over University City, said after the briefing, "I think we're out of business." In a later story the paper quoted a retired general, Bob Butcher, chairman of a society of former Marine aviators, calling the report "as open and frank a discussion of an accident as I've seen." "It was a lot more candid than many people expected."

I am impressed with the frankness of the report and the seriousness with which the Marines took the seething anger of the populace of San Diego. Then again, in my dealings with Marines for 5 years, I always took note of how seriously they took accountability and responsibility, to a level some sailors never could imagine. It reminded me of how careful (for various obvious political reasons) the US military is with its operations in Japan. For whatever reason, dating back to the horrors inflicted on innocent Americans with the military's nuclear tests in the 40's & 50's, this has not always been the case in America, as the University City tragedy highlights again. Let us hope the behavior of the Marines, along with the kind of sterling leadership Secretary Gates showed with the idiocy that occurred within the Air Force nuclear program, are the harbinger for a better attitude towards the safety of Americans.

Op tempo in the past seven years or so for the military has been extraordinarily high for some. Hundreds of thousands have served abroad in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. Strain, stress and assorted personnel problems (divorces, DUIs, etc) are a significant weight on the shoulders of many service members, whether through their personal experiences or the added responsibility and duties such events place on an individual unit's plate. That said, for those serving, this is a promising time. Secretary Gates has returned and the prospects of more reform and improvement have rarely been more feasible. For those departing the service, a new VA Secretary and a new GI Bill promise and outright offer significant benefits that are a good down payment on a better post-service future. There is much work to be done, yet already progress not conceivable years ago has happened.  Organizations like IAVA have been stood up in recent years and are already paying dividends (consider the new GI Bill). Thus, I read William Lind's latest (H/T The Strategist) and I can't help but blanch a bit. Yes, the possibility of a small minority of disgruntled veterans bringing 4GW to America is a disturbing thought. Indeed, I think (especially with the eventual spread of violence from Mexico's ongoing troubles) that this will happen, as it was bound to occur to some degree irregardless of whatever security theater program was crafted to secure the borders. Considering the hundreds of thousands of veterans who will receive extensive education benefits from the new GI Bill (on a far greater scale than anything since the post WW-2 era), I believe this will far outweigh any eventual blow back from a minority of malcontents (whether they be freelancers for the Mexican drug lords or anti-government militias). The sort of expertise offered by veterans joining the law enforcement, intelligence and security communities alone is worth considering against the prospective negatives. In harsh economic times, beginning in August of this year, a community of veterans from across the country will be able to attend college with nearly all their expenses paid while receiving a monthly living stipend between $750-1250 based on their geographic location.  Save those who suffer from debilitating mental anguish incurred during their service (made worse by a severe problem of access, time and resources that President Obama will find enormous pressure from a new generation of veterans and their friends to resolve sooner than later), most post 9/11 veterans and their families will have an emotion in August unlike most Americans:  genuine hope for a better future and the tools and opportunity to pursue it.

Having personally witnessed the enormous lengths to which some military parents will go to take care of their children and nearly been disciplined myself while in the service for going to bat for someone who went UA (unauthorized absence) to get his son from his hard-partying, alcoholic ex-wife who had custody of him (mainly because he was on a 10 month deployment with the Abraham Lincoln strike group at the time of the custody hearing), I heard this story on NPR this week and my blood boiled. To add insult to injury, the soldier at the center of this particular story (and there have been quite a few over the last few years about this avoidable tragedy) is damn near penniless because of the legal effort she's had to mount to try to regain custody of her oldest son. Towne still works full time for the National Guard. But she says the legal battle over custody of her son has left her penniless."So it's been very, very traumatic just trying to sustain day-to-day life while still trying to get my son back," Towne says. This should never be the case; the military should pick up the full tab for the best legal effort reasonably possible for military parents in custody battles where their deployment in defense of this country is utilized by the contesting parent as a significant reason for their desire to take custody of the child in question. Notice how the lawyer for the soldier's ex-husband denies her most basic rights as a parent because she (Gasp!) joined the National Guard: Diffin's attorney, Robert Cohen, goes a step further, arguing that soldiers such as Towne put their rights as parents on the line when they volunteer for military duty. "She was not drafted. This was a job choice. She went into it with open eyes," Cohen says.     This kind of legal argument is not only dishonest in many cases (how many service members have their kids while in the service?) but its a grievous assault on their rights as parents. How is this not an argument for disenfranchisement of their rights as parents because they joined the military? How many courts are buying this nonsense and what is the impact on the family, especially the service member who has just been told they're not fit for parenting because they serve in the military. Let's look at what can be done here. - DOD needs to coordinate with all 50 governors and attorney generals and discuss, propose and implement legislative solutions immediately. Obviously custody battles are local and state issues, but if necessary federal legislation will have to be considered to protect the rights of military parents. - DOD and Congress need to find funding to support the legal costs of parents in custody battles (only in cases where a service member's deployment is at the heart of the reason for challenging custody) so that they don't further harm their cause by going broke just trying to keep or regain custody. - More funding for counseling services, marriage support activities and other family-centric aids needs to happen, even giving the occasionally generous increases over the past 7 years.  There is a widely acknowledged crisis among military marriage rates, and inevitably if children involved they suffer even if the custody arrangements are cordial, which in far too many cases they are not. - Tax credits should be passed for family law firms willing to take military parents as their clients at reduced fees. There are certainly likely better ideas out there to help address this situation.  I hope active milbloggers and others would consider this issue (if they haven't already).

 

 

 

Pat Lang details a serious concern for the social structure and fabric of the post-Iraq Army: "This week in Washington, The Association of the US Army (AUSA) held its convention.  At that convention the Chief of Staff said that 20 years of conflict are anticipated by the Army.  That is bad news for an army that is still wedded to the concept of soldiers as middle class married men with young families.  A succession of pious, middle class uniformed leaders created that ideal for America's army after the Vietnam War.  People in today's army are expected to conduct themselves socially like small town Americans.  Drinking, smoking, sexual adventure are all severely sanctioned even in combat zones.  Where is the "safety valve" for these guys?  A set of mores of that type is not feasible in an army that lives at war in far flung places with often repeated and protracted combat tours.  My active duty friends tell me that the "middle class" army is already breaking down as a form.   Divorce, family dissolution and other symptoms abound.  A different kind of army will emerge from the meat grinder." Currently, while the fight continues in Iraq, re-enlistments are consistently steady (though there seems to be some issues with certain NCO's and mid-grade officers leaving).  Yet what happens after the endgame in Iraq and the fiscal chickens come home to roost with the degraded state of equipment, rising need for medical and psychological treatments, outdated materials and a host of other issues that keep being pushed onto the backburner (understandably in a sense) because of the immediate war effort?  What will get cut and what will get postponed in response to this? How will it affect the force? Morale is rather hard to gauge across the Army, but there are enough credible reports of anger and frustration with civilian and military leaders both in Iraq and here at home that one must consider what happens when the next time to re-enlist comes up. The breakdown of the "middle-class" army is even harder to gauge, though divorce rates and the behavior upon return from the war zone clear up the picture somewhat.  The stories I hear from (also other retired/ex Army family members and friends) my 20 year + Army veteran parents (one is currently working in SC, the other in VA, and they previously worked in the Orlando, FL, Dayton, OH and Greenville, NC areas... yes this is a lot for 60 year-olds but my father loves his helicopter job with Sikorsky, I digress) are disturbing in their all too common portrait of disturbed soldiers who've returned home to unfaithful or fed-up wives, or the slow breakdown of natural support networks like relatives and friends who just don't understand what it was like in Iraq amid a stoic despair to keep it together just long enough for the Army or the VA to finally give them a detailed, honest examination after months of waiting for appointments.  There are many exceptions, but these tend to be the older, more senior soldiers, and they have serious enough problems of their own, from kids and wives who have had enough of their father being gone for 2-4 years out of the past six to exasperation with civilian leadership across the board that just does not get it. At a time when we demand ever more from our military men and women, (while standards have dropped for recruits, the penalties for poor behavior once in the services have gotten ever more severe and far-reaching) we're not giving them nearly enough back considering what they're enduring on our behalf.  Even more so, we're expecting them to return home from combat and just get on with life, as if there are not serious consequences and effects from being away for so long.  This may be the life they are destined to have while they serve, but in the long run, will they choose to adopt it for 20 years? Again, pointing to consistent re-enlistments miss the point here.  Not only is there a major question of exactly who is re-enlisting and who is getting out, but the even larger proviso here is that many are re-enlisting to "finish the fight" so to speak.  Well the fight has been going on for 4 years now and it still shows no signs of letting up, with no victory in sight and no political campaign to match the military one.  Will they continue to re-enlist in such numbers in the next few years?  And are the right people re-enlisting, or is this similar to the Navy where many top sailors in their first enlistments are choosing to opt out and move on because of the far-reaching changes in the Navy? (more on that below) Lastly, we're aware of the stories of families who have literally reached the breaking point (the heartbreaking phone call of a Texas soldier's wife to Bill Kristol on C-Span 2 months ago was the best example).  At what point does this receive more attention?  What will the effects be on discipline, morale and unit cohesion?  A soldier in Iraq is in close contact with his family more than any other soldier in history.  Keep that in mind in the future when people are asked to do their 3rd, 4th or even 5th deployment next year and in 2009.

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