Sarah Palin, holding son Trig, greets fans outside a Grand Rapids, Mich bookstore, Nov. 18, 2009. (Rex Larsen / The Grand Rapids Press/AP Photo)

By Frank James

Updated at 9:14 PM ET--

Army officials at Fort Bragg have relented somewhat and now say a small "pool" of journalists will be allowed to cover Sarah Palin's book-tour visit to the base on Monday. However, the journalists won't be permitted to interview Palin or her supporters who attend her book signing.

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If a tree falls in the forest and the media isn't there to record it, does that tree make a sound? The answer the Army brass would give appears to be "no" given how it has decided to handle a Sarah Palin appearance scheduled for Monday at Fort Bragg in North Carolina.

The Army is banning the media from covering her appearance for fear the media might document the enthusiasm of Palin's on-base fans or, worse yet from the Army's point of view, Palinites making overtly political statements in favor of their heroine and opposing the Commander-in-Chief, President Barack Obama, from the grounds of a military reservation.

As the Associated Press reports:

The U.S. Army plans to prevent media from covering Sarah Palin's appearance at Fort Bragg, fearing the event will turn into political grandstanding against President Barack Obama, officials said Thursday.

Fort Bragg spokesman Tom McCollum told The Associated Press that the military post's garrison commander and other Army officials had decided to keep media away from Palin's book signing, which will not include a speech.

The AP and The Fayetteville Observer were protesting the decision to ban media.

Continue reading "Palin Ft Bragg Visit Opened To Media, With Restrictions" >

By Frank James

As part of the Pentagon's effort to prevent another disaster like the Fort Hood Army Base shootings, Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced Thursday a broad review of the military's ability to suss out servicemembers who might pose a threat to their comrades as well as its capacity to respond to mass casualty events.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates ordered a 45-day review to examine, among other issues, the military's ability to spot and deal with members who represent a physical threat to their comrades. (Manuel Balce Ceneta / AP Photo)

Gates said he had named Clinton-era Army Secretary Togo West and former Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Vern Clark to head the 45-day review.

The move is the result of a growing number of reports that the behavior of Maj. Nidal Hasan, the Army psychiatrist and accused killer of 13 people at Fort Hood, worried some colleagues and supervisors but apparently not enough to prevent him from being promoted or transferred from Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C. to Fort Hood.

At a Pentagon briefing with reporters, Gates said:

The shootings at Fort Hood raise a number of troubling questions that demand complete but prompt answers. As you know, the president ordered a government-wide review to look at all intelligence related to this matter, how such intelligence was handled, shared and acted on within and between individual departments and agencies.

Today, I am announcing that the Department of Defense will conduct a separate review to ensure the safety and health of DOD employees and their families. We do not enter this process with any preconceived notions.

However it is prudent to determine immediately whether there are internal weaknesses or procedural shortcomings, in the department, that could make us vulnerable in the future. To this end, I've ordered a 45-day review with three areas of emphasis.

Continue reading "DOD's Gates Orders Review Of Military's Ability To Spot Internal Threats" >

By Frank James

Sen. Joe Lieberman on Sunday said he wants to look at the question of whether alleged Ft. Hood shooter, Army Major Nidal Hasan, gave off any warning signs, missed by the Army, that he had extremist Islamist views that made him capable of committing what the senator said is possibly an act of terrorism. The senator said he will conduct a hearing on the question.

That's an interesting line of inquiry. But as I wrote Friday, a question that likely has more relevance to the thousands of military patients suffering from post traumatic stress disorder, and their families, has to do with why Hasan was allowed to treat patients when his behavior had deeply disturbed colleagues at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C.

A congressional hearing on this question and the larger issue of quality control in the provision of military mental health could go a long way towards answering some important questions now have a spotlight hon them after last week's shootings.

For instance, according to a Washington Post story over the weekend, it appears the demand for competent and compassionate mental health professionals in the military is great, but the supply isn't.

An excerpt:

Since the shooting, officials have been looking for warning signs in Hasan's career that could have tipped them off to his potential to carry out the attack. Some of his Walter Reed colleagues said patients complained that Hasan seemed uncomfortable talking about soldiers' emotional needs and was himself a loner. He was also not very productive but was gentle in nature and showed no signs of potential for violence, they said.

Continue reading "Capitol Hill Hearings On Military Mental Care Could Answer Key Questions" >

By Frank James

The U.S. military has a problem. And when the military has a problem, the nation does too.

The trouble is that only a quarter of the eligible young people in the country are able to join the military. About 75 percent are unfit to serve, according to a new report titled "Ready, willing and Unable to Serve."

The report's introduction:

The Pentagon reports that 75 percent of Americans aged 17 to 24 cannot join the United States military -- 26 million young Americans. The reasons behind this are serious and, if left unaddressed, will adversely affect the future strength of our military. In the interest of national security, we must understand and deal with these problems now. We cannot rely on a continuation of what may be the worst recession since the Great Depression to ensure that America has enough qualified men and women to defend our country.

Continue reading "Three Quarters Of Young People Unfit For U.S. Military" >

Joseph Rocha on duty in Bahrain before he left the Navy after being hazed for being gay. (Hasan Jamali / AP Photo)

By Frank James

A non-commissioned Navy officer who ordered the harassment of homosexual sailors in his unit will be forced from the service, according to reports.

According to a piece on the website of the Virginian-Pilot newspaper which serves Naval Station Norfolk in Virginia:

Senior Chief Michael Toussaint, a dog handler assigned to Naval Special Warfare Group 2 in Virginia Beach, has also received a letter of censure from the Secretary of the Navy. The letter will become part of his permanent military record, said Cmdr. Elissa Smith, a Navy spokeswoman at the Pentagon.

Smith said Adm. Gary Roughead, the chief of naval operations, canceled Toussaint's enlistment extension, which will force him to leave active duty and retire in January. He won't necessarily be able to retire as a senior chief: Navy officials ordered that he be subject to "retirement pay grade determination," in which the secretary of the Navy will decide at what pay grade he may retire. Smith could not speculate on what that might mean, except to say that it "has the potential to significantly impact Senior Chief Toussaint's retirement pay."

Continue reading "Navy Forces Out Non-Com Officer In Gay Hazing Case" >

By Nishant Dahiya

BAGHDAD -- On May 11th, four American soldiers and a sailor were shot to death at the U.S. Army's sprawling Camp Liberty base next to Baghdad International Airport. Army Sgt. John Russell of Sherman, Texas, was arrested at the scene.

It all happened at Camp Liberty's Combat Stress Center. The sergeant had been sent there for treatment. He was nearly finished with his third tour in Iraq.

The nature of the crime -- and especially whether the stress of being deployed had caused the suspect to crack -- led to President Obama himself weighing in on the issue. The president said he would "press to ensure that we fully understand" what led to the killings.

The U.S military has now released the details of its investigation into some of the circumstances surrounding the incident. The report, which is posted online here, is incredibly detailed. It's 325 pages long and hard to read both for the nature of the subject being discussed and because the military uses acronyms to identify some persons; other names are blanked out completely. Entire sections are missing in some cases.

With evidence based on considerable testimony, the report illustrates the stress and pressure that multiple combat tours in Iraq (and Afghanistan) are putting on military personnel, and how that is also straining the staff of the Army's Combat Stress Clinics.

The findings of the report (pg. 302 onwards) are critical of the operational tools and training aimed at preventing such tragedies as occurred at Camp Liberty. The findings show that policies were unclear; those that existed are improperly implemented; and soldiers were unsure of how to deal with fellow soldiers who have behavioral health problems. The findings highlight lapses in dealing with the situation, on or before the day of the incident, right from the soldier's unit, to the Combat Stress Clinic, to the Military Police.

Stars and Stripes summarizes the findings this way: "Despite years of emphasis on mental health issues, commanders in Iraq lack the necessary tools, training and guidance to deal with at-risk soldiers, according to an Army investigation into mental health services."

The recommendations of the report are blanked out.

There are some signs of what's been suggested, though. In an online press release, the U.S. military says that:

Multinational Corps Iraq already has implemented several of the investigation's recommendations, officials said, including a commandwide review of behavioral health care services, updates to all suicide-prevention programs, the training and appointment of two behavioral health advocates per battalion, and new procedures for dealing with servicemembers attempting or threatening suicide.

While homicides like the one on May 11 are rare, suicides in the U.S. Army have spiked as the Afghanistan and Iraq missions head into their 7th and 9th years respectively. At least 128 soldiers killed themselves last year. And, according to the Army, the suicide rate in the military surpassed that for civilians for the first time since the Vietnam War. The number of suicides has seen an upward trend for four years running now. In 2007, 115 soldiers killed themselves; 106 in 2006. Numbers for 2009 will only be available at the end of the year.

The criminal investigation into the case against Russell continues.

(Nishant Dahiya is an NPR producer currently on assignment in Iraq.)

By Frank James

The U.S.'s all-volunteer military dates back to 1973. And in all that time all four services have never at the same time met their recruiting goals. Until now.

The U.S. military's services have all hit their recruiting goals for the first time in the 36 year history of the all-volunteer army.

NPR's J.J. Sutherland reported the following for the network's newscast:

The numbers were up across the board in all four services. And quality was up too. Ninety six percent of all recruits this year had a high school diploma, almost 75 percent scored above the 50th percentile on the Armed forces aptitude tests and the number of waivers given, whether for criminal history, or for medical conditions, are down.

Defense Department officials attribute the increase to two factors --better recruiting -- but more than that, a poor economy. For every one percent increase in unemployment, they say, there's a half a percent more recruits.

The recruiting was so good this year that the Army already has about 40 percent of next year's recruits, about 30,000, already in the pipeline for training camp.

As a result, the Defense Department is cutting hundreds of millions of dollars from next year's recruiting budget.

Continue reading "In First, Entire All-Volunteer MIlitary Meets Recruiting Goals" >