The world still moves

Sometimes it seems as though no major changes happen in the Army, at least not with any sort of swiftness. For example, I've been using the self-service options on Army Knowledge Online (AKO) to check on the status of some paperwork in Washington. Every day, it has the same status: submitted, paperwork open. It's becoming, despite myself, almost comforting in its incompleteness-familiar. Army slow on paperwork-yep, tell another one.

Then sometimes it seems as though they move all too quickly. I have to say that for the last eight months, I've had a pretty decent squad leader. He's hated my politics, but hasn't held them specifically against me or treated me any differently because of them. He's avoided triggering my PTSD whenever possible and has allowed me reasonable accommodation. Normally, I'd be afraid to mention that having him as a leader has made my life easier, because with the harassment I've been under for this blog and my IVAW membership, I'd fear a transfer. However, at this point, it doesn't really matter, because he's already being transferred. It's something he wants, going back to a line unit, so I can't really be too bitter. But at the same time, I'm wondering who the Army is going to put me under. Will it be the squad leader who already has multiple sexual harassment complaints against him? Will they bring in a new squad leader?

Never fear, I'll keep you all posted as soon as I learn more. And I'm going to do my best not to let it spoil my leave.

This Is Where We Stand: Broken Soldier

The latest piece is out from Zeiger and Displaced films, This Is Where We Stand I highly recommend that everyone check out the website itself, because there's a lot of great stuff there, and information about the individuals.

Their latest installment contains some of the testimony about veteran mental health issues that came out of Winter Soldier. It also contains some footage of one of the most gruelling processes of the event-obtaining testimony. As I may have mentioned before, I was a part of the Verification team, the crew of IVAW members who did interviews about testimony and helped to confirm it and get evidence. I can't talk about individual details, but there were so many soldiers who had not expected some of the questions..they had stories, but not ones they were ready to testify about yet. We respected that. But the testimonial experience itself was very difficult, just hearing all of the stories and seeing these guys was painful.

Best to Zollie Goodman.

Broken Soldier from Displaced Films on Vimeo.

I also realized that I completely forgot to promote the last webisode, as well, so here it is. The first stage showed here is a Winter Soldier planning session, far in advance of Winter Soldier, still hammering out all the details.

Why We Fight 7/21 from Displaced Films on Vimeo.

Warrior Writers Website is Live!

Some of you may have experienced the incredible experience which is Warrior Writers. Veterans and servicemembers, getting together to turn their experiences of war in a positive and healing direction.

Some videos of past Warrior Writer times:





But really, what you should do is go check out the new stuff which is complete and ver impressive, at www.warriorwriters.org. You won't regret it. Also if you are an IVAW member and are interested in writing or other forms of art, I highly encourage you to get involved with them, they're great.

"Now that we're in a recession, we can afford to be picky about the terrible NCOs we tolerated for years.."

Today's issue of the Stars and Stripes really made me laugh. Some of us have been complaining for years about the poverty of leadership in senior NCO slots, and about how in time of war, the military seems uninterested in ensuring that those who sit over our troops are actually competent-or as Stars and Stripes puts it, not just 'marginal'.

Well, now that the recession's going on, and people are signing up like crazy because the unemployment rate is up, apparently the Army has decided that it can afford to get rid of senior NCOs with "driving under the influence, sexual harassment charges, drug abuse and alcohol problems".

The Pentagon official in charge of carrying out the program said, "We're trying to target those NCOs who don't understand by looking in the mirror that they are not what the Army needs."

Really? I'm honestly amazed it takes an actual program, but I can't say I'm surprised. After all, I've seen a good chunk of senior leadership not living up to the Army values and/or behaving inappropriately. Usually they don't even get to the level of being 'removed for cause'. Usually, unfortunately, they stay right where they are.

But I have to say, that, amused as I am that just two years after denying that there had been any 'military breakdown' because of the Iraq War the Army is now admitting they have some dirtbags in charge of troops, I fully support this program.

Yes, that's right. You heard me. I fully support a Pentagon program and stand 110% behind it.

In fact, I stand so much behind it that I'm ready, willing and eager to help the Pentagon out. You see, they may not be aware of some of the poor examples of senior leadership they have within the ranks. So I'm going to provide a space for both poor examples I've seen, and also open it up to my fellow soldiers. Have you seen examples of poor leadership? Please, comment on it here!

Now, I encourage everyone to be careful of getting in trouble for disrespect. Cite only specific examples. I.e. /not/ "My first sergeant is an asshole" but rather "First sergeant X sent a suicidal soldier to work in the arms room. I think this may be an example of poor leadership."

I'll start, of course.

I think a first sergeant Hudson I once served under should certainly go on the consideration list for being encouraged to retire. The specific examples of poor leadership I cite include: 1) discouraging soldiers to seek mental health counseling, as a result of which we had an avoidable suicide in the unit 2) Denigrating a soldier under his command who died by saying "He came from the ghetto and returned to the ghetto", 3) Refusing protection or assistance in obtaining protection to a domestic violence survivor, because "if he had meant to kill you he would have done it already".

Anyone else feel like contributing?

And why's our healthcare substandard again?

This week I found myself dealing with one of life's unexpected expenses. Unexpected, because being used to the Army covering all of /my/ healthcare, I never expected to have to pay out the nose for dependent healthcare for something non-cosmetic.

What is it, you ask? Something really simple. Something covered in most company insurances under medical care. Something that seems to be covered by really..everything except Tricare.

Vision.

See, while other healthcare providers recognize that being able to have accurate vision is kind of important, Tricare figures that eyesight is just a luxury. Have a spouse who can't see well enough to drive? Well, clearly they should have gotten a job with their own health insurance, don't you know? What about a kid that keeps bumping into things? Hazard of the profession. You shouldn't have married someone nearsighted.

I'm putting it wide open here. Can anyone figure out exactly why soldiers need to be the only people out there with ridiculously crappy health insurance for dependents? You can't even /buy/ vision insurance as an add-on. Or, anyone have a tricare horror story they'd care to share? Go for it.

We Have Always Been At War With Eastasia

There have been a lot of self-congratulatory puff pieces going on in the newspapers of the past few months about how the Army is becoming so much more tolerant of social networking, and how they're taking it off the blocked list. That the Army wants everyone to tell the Army story, blah blah blah, etc etc etc ad nauseum.

I knew it was BS. My own experience of being treated like an unperson for my thoughtcrime while supposedly fighting for the right for other people to express their ideas freely has taught me that the Army is not tolerant of other people's views. CJ, over at Soldier's Perspective, expressed some doubts, though he's got a lot more faith in the higher ups than I do.

Right now the pieces coming out are Orwellian doublespeak. Just months afterwards, Stars and Stripes reports that...

Defense officials are looking into a military-wide ban on social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook because of security concerns..

"Security concerns". What, security concerns that magically materialized in the past three months? Security concerns that managed to evade everyone's notice until somehow they realized that not everyone in the Army was marching in lockstep?

I have to believe instead that, not having the luxury of a Winston Smith to sort through newspapers and throw unflattering articles down the memory hole, the Army politicians (and oh, they do exist) decided to come up with an alternate excuse that wouldn't be questioned, and wouldn't make them look like too big an idiot if they decide to change their mind later.

The part I'll wonder about is, if this ban goes through, does that mean the military will stop using facebook and twitter to recruit? I imagine the military official Facebook pages and Twitter feeds are just as susceptible to hacking as soldier's personal accounts, if not more so. Or are the rules about social networking sites that they're safe enough to use to sucker people, but not for actual soldiers?

Opposite Day Has Begun-Right Wingers Now Defending Refusal To Deploy

Man, this story has me cracking up but good. I'll probably be laughing all weekend.

For those on the sidelines, for a long time, a large part of the conservative sector has been loudly and vociferously protesting anyone who didn't want to deploy because they thought the war was wrong. From conscientious objectors to people who believed we should never have been there in the first place, there was pretty clear rhetoric: if you don't want to deploy, you're a traitor who's bringing the Army down. Any attempt to portray these evil, evil people as heroes was loudly decried as crazy talk.

Enter Major Stefan Cook. Major Cook says he refuses to deploy because his orders to war are illegal. He, however, doesn't challenge the legality of the entire war, just President Obama's piece. If he can't see President Obama's birth certificate, he won't deploy.

You would expect, if the right wing were internally consistent, to see condemnation on all sides. After all, this guy is depriving his fellow soldiers of a body/his experience!! He must just be a coward! Maybe a traitor! He is after all trying to get military folks all over to do the same!

To give the man his due, my frenemy(now legal in the OED, booyah) TSO, has attempted to be internally consistent and has condemned the man, and his crazy lawyer.

Let's have a look at what the right-wingers had to say, shall we? Normally I might not clip comments, but given that IVAW facebook conversations have become fair blogfodder, here goes:



Hmm. Deja vu, anyone?

And once again, this is different from the soldiers that refused to deploy took court martials so that they could put the war on trial....how?

Even funnier are the guys calling TSO a godless communist bastard for daring not to be uberimpressed by Major Cook's refusal to deploy. You know, the same ones that called Victor & co godless communist bastards for refusing to deploy...I wonder, is it just that they don't have any other insults?

Either way, I am sitting back with a can of pop and watching this hilarity unfold.

Now what I do think is kind of screwed up is that for this Major, rather than punish him, they simply canceled his deployment orders. So the way it seems to go is...if you're an enlisted soldier who refuses to deploy, you go to jail. If you're an officer, you must be taking a principled stand and so you shouldn't have to go.

Oy. However, this? STILL FUNNY.