http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175136/jamail_and_lazare_who_will_be_sent_to_afghanistan_
Tomgram: Jamail and Lazare, Who Will Be Sent to Afghanistan?
In a grim November 3rd Wall Street Journal piece (buried inside
the paper), Yochi Dreazen reported record suicide rates for a
stressed-out U.S. Army. Sixteen soldiers killed themselves in
October alone, 134 so far this year, essentially ensuring that
last year's "record" of 140 suicides will be broken. This
represents a startling 37% jump in suicides since 2006 and, for
the first time, puts the suicide rate in the Army above that of
the general U.S. population.
After eight years of two major counterinsurgency wars (and various
minor encounters in what used to be called the Global War on
Terror), with many soldiers experiencing multiple tours of duty,
with approximately 120,000 U.S. troops still in Iraq and almost
70,000 in Afghanistan, with the Afghan War clearly in an
escalatory phase, commanders in the field calling for
40,000-80,000 more American troops, and base construction on the
rise, the military's internal problems are clearly escalating as well.
As Dahr Jamail, author of The Will to Resist: Soldiers Who Refuse
to Fight in Iraq and Afghanistan, and Sarah Lazare report, under
these circumstances, the Army is digging deep for deployable
troops; in fact, it's dipping into a pool of soldiers who have
already been damaged or even broken by their experiences in our
war zones -- and that's just to meet present deployment needs.
Perhaps it's not surprising then that Dreazen included this
striking passage in his report: "At a White House meeting Friday,
the Joint Chiefs of Staff urged President Barack Obama to send
fresh troops to Afghanistan only if they have spent at least a
year in the U.S. since their last overseas tour, according to
people familiar with the matter. If Mr. Obama agreed to that
condition, many potential Afghanistan reinforcements wouldn't be
available until next summer at the earliest."
In translation (if Dreazen is correct), that means, in a private
brainstorming session with the president, the Joint Chiefs have
evidently put the brakes on implementing the full-scale plan of
Centcom Commander David Petraeus and Afghan War commander Stanley
McChrystal to send a massive infusion of new troops to Afghanistan
any time soon.
It's worth asking -- though no one, as far as I can tell, yet has
-- whether this may be a modest Afghan equivalent of the "Shinseki
moment" before the invasion of Iraq. (Then, Army Chief of Staff
General Eric Shinseki warned in Congressional testimony that, if
we invaded, we would need "several hundred thousand" troops --
numbers not available -- for the occupation to follow. He was
laughed into retirement by the Bush-appointed civilian leadership
of the Pentagon.)
At the same time, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Admiral Mike
Mullen, has just made it clear that the Pentagon will once again
request supplemental war-fighting funds sometime next year, over
and above the $130 billion Congress appropriated only a month ago
in the Defense Department budget. These will be based, in part, on
a calculation that each 1,000 new troops sent to Afghanistan must
be supported by an extra billion dollars in funds. (You can do the
math yourself on those 40,000 troops and then wonder just where
all that money is going to come from.)
We are, in fact, facing an ongoing disaster not just for the U.S.,
but for the U.S. military. Read the following piece and ask
yourself: What state would a military have to be in to consider
sending such men back into a war zone? A desperate military is, of
course, the answer -- a military rubbed raw and, as the shocking
mass murder spree at already stressed-out Fort Hood may indicate,
on edge in a way that perhaps no one has quite grasped. Tom
----
Where Will They Get the Troops?
Preparing Undeployables for the Afghan Front
By Dahr Jamail and Sarah Lazare
As the Obama administration debates whether to send tens of
thousands of extra troops to Afghanistan, an already overstretched
military is increasingly struggling to meet its deployment
numbers. Surprisingly, one place it seems to be targeting is
military personnel who go absent without leave (AWOL) and then are
caught or turn themselves in.
Hidden behind the gates of military bases across the U.S.,
troops facing AWOL and desertion charges regularly find themselves
in the hands of a military that metes out informal, open-ended
punishments by forcing them to wait months -- sometimes more than
a year -- to face military justice. In the meantime, some of these
soldiers are offered a free pass out of this legal limbo as long
as they agree to deploy to Afghanistan or Iraq -- even if they
have been diagnosed with severe post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
In August 2008 at TomDispatch.com, we reported on the
deplorable conditions at the 82nd Replacement Barracks at Fort
Bragg, North Carolina. There, more than 50 members of Echo Platoon
of the 82nd Airborne Division's 82nd Replacement Detachment were
being held while awaiting AWOL and desertion charges.
Investigations launched since then -- in part in response to our
article -- have revealed that the plight of members of Echo
Platoon is not an isolated one. It is, in fact, disturbingly
commonplace on other bases throughout the United States. And it is
from these "holdover units," filled with disgruntled soldiers who
have gone AWOL, many of whom are struggling with PTSD from
previous deployments in war zones, that the military is hoping to
help meet its manpower needs for Afghanistan.
Nightmare in Echo Platoon
On August 16th, determined to put an end to unbearable mental
and psychological pain, Private Timothy Rich, while on 24-hour
suicide watch, attempted to jump to his death from the roof of
Echo Platoon's barracks (where he had been held since being
arrested for going AWOL). Prior to his suicide attempt, Rich had
been offered amnesty by the military in exchange for agreeing to
deploy to Afghanistan or Iraq.
He had already been through a hellish year awaiting a
discharge and treatment for mental health problems. "I want to
leave here very bad," he explained. "For four months they have
been telling me that I'll get out next week. I didn't see an end
to it, so I figured I'd try and end it myself."
He fell three stories, bouncing off a tree, before hitting
the ground and cracking his spine. The military gave him a back
brace, psychotropic drugs, and put him on a renewed, 24-hour
suicide watch.
While he has recently been discharged from the military, Rich
was not atypical of the soldiers of Echo Platoon, some forced to
wait a year or more in legal limbo -- in dilapidated buildings
under the authority of abusive commanders -- for legal proceedings
to begin, and many struggling with mental illness or PTSD from
previous deployments. As Specialist Dustin Stevens told us last
August: "[It's] horrible here. We are treated like animals. Some
of us are going crazy, some are sick. There are people here who
should be in mental hospitals. And the way I see it, I did nothing
wrong."
Shortly after our story was published, Stevens told us that
at least half a dozen soldiers in the platoon, including him, were
suddenly given trial dates. Although he was likely to be found
guilty and face punishment, Stevens claimed to be "relieved" to
have an end in sight. Soon after, according to Echo Platoon
informants, their barracks were condemned as a result of a
military investigation of the site and, on October 19th, the
platoon itself was disbanded.
Recently, due possibly to the attention his story drew to the
mistreatment and indefinite detention soldiers were facing in Echo
Platoon, Stevens was informed by the military he would be
"chaptered out" -- in other words, given an administrative
discharge from the Army -- and will not be forced to serve formal
prison time.
James Branum, Stevens' civilian lawyer, as well as the legal
adviser to the G.I. Rights Hotline of Oklahoma and co-chair of the
Military Law Task Force (MLTF), summed developments up this way:
"After repeated complaints and congressional inquiry, Echo Platoon
was shut down. The whole place was shut down. Everyone was
scattered to other units. If your old unit still exists, they are
sending you to your old unit. We know that at least one of the
NCOs [non-commissioned officers] in charge of Echo Platoon was
fired. I think this is a positive thing."
Echoes of Echo
The troubling state of affairs in Echo Platoon may only have
been the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Army holdover units.
Evidence suggests that soldiers being held on other bases in the
United States for AWOL and desertion face similar apathy or
intentional neglect – and that they, too, are often left with the
choice between living in legal limbo or agreeing to be sent to a
war zone.
Scott Wildman, a former Army Specialist, went AWOL in 2007
when he was unable to receive adequate help for severe PTSD
sustained after a 15-month deployment to Iraq. In February 2009,
he finally turned himself in at Fort Lewis in Washington State,
only to find himself lost in a labyrinthine bureaucracy. For the
first four months, he was not allowed to leave a confined area and
was forbidden even to walk around by himself.
Here's how he describes his experience: "I was flipping out.
My wife had left me while I was over there. I hadn't seen my kids
in a couple years. I came home and tried to get help. At Fort
Lewis, they do not care about you. I had been diagnosed by
civilian and military doctors with severe depression, PTSD, and
severe anxiety. When you are at the unit, they make fun of you.
They crack PTSD jokes. They all have it too, but they're too cool."
During the eight months he has been held at Fort Lewis,
Wildman claims he has suffered verbal abuse and substandard mental
healthcare. "The command treated me like dirt. My commander
ignored me for the first couple months until my roommate jumped
me. They'll make sure you're in the room and call you a 'bunch of
PTSD pussies.'"
Four weeks ago, Wildman was informed that he would be
court-martialed, but was not given a trial date. Feeling he had no
other choice, he went AWOL again and remains so today.
"I'd been going to see some military counselors, but we
weren't making progress on the real problem…. They give us classes
on calm and peacefulness, but they are right near the shooting
ranges. There's gunfire and explosions all around, people being
screamed at all the time because it's infantry. It's not a good
place for someone with [mental health] issues."
At one point, despite a confidentiality protocol that should
have prevented it, Wildman's commanders went through his medical
evaluations and found out that he had been involved in the
accidental killing of two little girls in Iraq. They proceeded to
needle him by threatening to write him up for war crimes.
Explaining why he once again went AWOL, Wildman says, "I
didn't know what was going to happen next. I had to remove myself
from that situation."
"Examples of how the military is treating soldiers, like the
case of Wildman, are common," comments Kathleen Gilberd, co-chair
of the MLTF. She also points out that the Army, stretched thin by
years of multiple deployments to two war zones, has taken to
downplaying potentially severe medical conditions to keep soldiers
eligible for service overseas. It is commonplace, she reports, for
formerly AWOL soldiers to be "bribed" with offers of having all
charges, or potential charges, dropped, as long as they accept
deployment to Iraq or Afghanistan.
"A lot of folks who are under-diagnosed or misdiagnosed are
being deployed second and third times," she adds. "Barrier
mechanisms that should prevent this from happening are being
routinely ignored... If someone is on psychotropic medication or
is diagnosed with a fresh psychiatric condition, there should be a
90-day observation period and delay, under DOD [Department of
Defense] policy."
Remarkably, that sometimes-ignored 90-day hold period for
military personnel on psychotropic medications does not always
apply to soldiers who are diagnosed with traumatic brain injury
(TBI) of a sort commonly caused by roadside bombs. According to an
Armed Forces Health Surveillance Center analysis, reported in the
Denver Post in August 2008, more than "43,000 service members --
two-thirds of them in the Army or Army Reserve -- were classified
as nondeployable for medical reasons three months before they
deployed" to Iraq. The process, if anything, only seems to be
accelerating when it comes to Afghanistan.
Deploying the Undeployables
Not all soldiers go AWOL in order to save their minds and
bodies. Some are trying to save their families. One soldier held
in Bravo Platoon, a holdover unit of the 3rd Brigade, 4th Infantry
Division at Fort Carson in Colorado Springs (who did not want his
name made public) disclosed that, having returned from service in
Iraq, he was told he would soon be redeployed there. Because his
mother was ill, he refused and was threatened with a court martial.
"When I turned myself in, I submitted a binder with letters
from my mom's doctors and state officials that made clear that I
needed to be home to take care of my mother. At that time, they
had me on restriction and lockdown 24/7 to keep me from leaving
again. Later they punished me. I was assigned extra duty and
received a rank reduction from E3 to a private. I was treated like
crap."
He and the other soldiers in his holdover platoon were
subjected to verbal abuse and made to do menial jobs. He claimed
that he was threatened daily with being sent to the United States
Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, the military's
maximum security correctional facility -- and then was urged to
agree to go back to Iraq instead. It made no difference that he
had "no-go" orders from doctors at Fort Carson exempting him from
overseas deployment.
His commander promised him a clean slate if he would redeploy
to Iraq, insisting that the only alternative was a court-martial.
Despite a regimen of humiliation, he stood his ground and was
finally discharged for family hardship in September 2008. There
were at least 11 other soldiers then in Bravo Platoon. Like their
counterparts in Echo, most were told that their records would be
wiped clean once they agreed to redeploy. The alternative was a
non-judicial punishment, followed by a court-martial some months
down the line.
As he tells it, Sergeant Heath Carter, originally based at
Fort Polk, Louisiana, found himself torn between pressing family
needs and an indifferent military command. On returning from the
invasion of Iraq, he discovered his daughter living in what he
believed to be an unsafe environment. Heath and his new wife
started consulting attorneys in order to secure custody of the
child. Precisely during this time, the military began changing
Carter's duty station. He was moved from Fort Polk to Fort
Huachuca, Arizona, then on to Fort Stewart, Georgia, reducing his
chances of gaining custody.
Convinced that this was a crucial matter for his daughter, he
requested compassionate reassignment to Fort Leavenworth,
Missouri, about two hours away from her. His appeals to the
military command, to his chaplain, even to his congressman failed.
In May 2007, having run out of options, he went AWOL from Fort
Stewart, heading home to fight for custody, which he won.
This January 25th, however, he was arrested at his home by
Military Police, who flew him back to Fort Stewart where he has
been awaiting charges for the past eight months. Being a sergeant,
he is in a regular unit, not a holdover one. Initially, his
commander assured him he would be sent home within a month and a
half. Several months later, the same commander decided to
court-martial him.
Carter feels frustrated. "If they had done that in the
beginning, I would have been home by now. It's taken this long for
them to decide. Now I have to wait for the court-martial. If we
had known it would take this long, my family could have moved down
here. Every time I ask when I'll have a trial, they say it's only
going to be another two weeks. I get the feeling they're lying.
They've messed with my pay. They're trying to push me to do
something wrong."
His ordeal has forced Carter to reflect on America's wars.
Once, he admits, he was proud of his mission in Iraq. Now, he sees
things differently. "I don't think there is any reason for us to
be there except for oil."
His wife, who witnessed her husband's callous treatment,
says, "He's been there [Iraq], done that, and seen horrible,
terrible things, so of course he doesn't want to go back."
While the Obama administration decides how many thousands of
troops to send to Afghanistan, service men and women are already
facing repeated deployments, oftentimes while having already been
diagnosed with medical conditions that should render them unfit
for deployment.
Nothing has changed for these beleaguered troops, except the
venue of their maltreatment and the desperation with which the
military is now struggling to make the necessary deployment
numbers as it continues to fight two endless wars.
Dahr Jamail, an independent journalist, is the author of The
Will to Resist: Soldiers Who Refuse to Fight in Iraq and
Afghanistan (Haymarket Books, 2009), and Beyond the Green Zone:
Dispatches From an Unembedded Journalist in Occupied Iraq
(Haymarket Books, 2007). Jamail reported from occupied Iraq for
nine months, as well as from Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and Turkey
over the last five years.
Sarah Lazare is the project coordinator for Courage to
Resist, an organization that supports troops who refuse to fight
in Iraq and Afghanistan. She is also a freelance writer.
Bhaswati Sengupta contributed to this report.
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