Army Recruits Prisoners To Make Body Armor
Spc. Guy Mellor tries on his helmet for the perfect fit.
Another deal for Unicor. Via Wired News:
Building parts for Patriot missile systems was just a warm-up, apparently, for a government-owned company that relies on federal inmates making as little as 23 cents an hour. On Wednesday, the U.S. Army announced that it handed Federal Prison Industries a no-bid, nearly $20 million contract to build body armor.
It’s the latest in a decades-long string of military deals for FPI, also known as Unicor.
Over the years, the company has supplied parts for F-15 and F-16 fighter jets, the Cobra attack helicopter, and the iconic Patriot interceptor system. (More about that in a second.)
But this deal is particularly odd, because FPI’s track record with protective equipment is, to put it generously, uneven. In May of last year, the Army recalled 44,000 FPI-made protective helmets after they failed ballistic testing. FPI then promptly got out of the helmet…
Last U.S. WWI Veteran Dies
Frank Buckles at age 16
Via BBC:
America’s last surviving veteran of World War I, Frank Buckles, has died aged 110.
Mr Buckles, who joined the US army in 1917, at the age of 16, lying about his age to get enlisted, died of natural causes at his home near Charles Town, West Virginia, on Sunday.
He was one of more than 4.7m Americans who signed up to fight in the Great War between 1917-18.
He served in England and France, as a driver and a warehouse clerk.
Mr Buckles was turned down by the marines and the navy for being too young to serve, but managed to convince an army recruiter he was 21.
“A knowledgeable old sergeant said if you want to get to France right away, go into the ambulance corps,” he said in a 2001 interview with the Library of Congress.
[Continues at BBC]
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Army Deploys Psy-Ops On U.S. Senators
Lt. Gen. William Caldwell
Proving that some magazines are still able to practice important investigative journalism, Rolling Stone’s Michael Hastings shows how the U.S. Army deliberately misled Senators on a fact-finding visit to Afghanistan. You might think this kind of plotting by the military against its own government only happens in places like Egypt and Libya … but you’d be wrong:
The U.S. Army illegally ordered a team of soldiers specializing in “psychological operations” to manipulate visiting American senators into providing more troops and funding for the war, Rolling Stone has learned – and when an officer tried to stop the operation, he was railroaded by military investigators.
The orders came from the command of Lt. Gen. William Caldwell, a three-star general in charge of training Afghan troops – the linchpin of U.S. strategy in the war. Over a four-month period last year, a military cell devoted to what is known as “information…
God, The Army, And PTSD
From a 2009 article in the Boston Review by Tara McKelvey:
When Roger Benimoff arrived at the psychiatric building of the Coatesville, Pennsylvania veterans’ hospital, he was greeted by a message carved into a nearby tree stump: “Welcome Home.” It was a reminder that things had not turned out as he had expected.
In Faith Under Fire, a memoir about Benimoff’s life as an Army chaplain in Iraq, Benimoff and co-author Eve Conant describe his return from Iraq to his family in Colorado and subsequent assignment to Walter Reed Army Medical Center. He retreated deep into himself, spending hours on the computer and racking up ten thousand dollars in debt on eBay. Above all, he was angry and jittery, scared even of his young sons, and barely able to make it through the day. He was eventually admitted to Coatesville’s “Psych Ward.” For a while the lock-down facility was his home. He wondered…
Utah Biological Weapons Center Locked Down
Looking north toward Dugway Proving Ground Testing Range. Photo: David Jolley (CC)
It’s a day for scary sci-fi stories apparently. Following on from the genetically modified mosquitoes, the U.S. Army has admitted to placing its Utah high security biological weapons facility under lockdown orders — meaning that something bad has happened within. Let’s hope it stays within, but don’t be surprised if some scary new ailment like Lyme Disease results. Report from CNN:
A Utah military facility that tests chemical and biological weapons was locked down “to resolve a serious concern,” and authorities were working to reopen the base, officials said Thursday.
All base personnel were safe and working, and no evacuation was needed, said spokeswoman, Bonnie Robinson. She would not say why the base was locked down.
The U.S. Army’s Dugway Proving Ground has been locked down since 7:25 p.m. (ET) on Wednesday, said another spokeswoman, Paula Thomas.
As of about 6:15 a.m. (ET) Thursday,…
U.S. Combat Troops Taking 6-Month Supply Of Psychotropic Drugs To Wars
Fox News reports:
As U.S. military leaders gathered Wednesday to give their latest update on the rash of Army suicides, new questions are being raised about a U.S. Central Command policy that allows troops to go to Iraq and Afghanistan with up to a six-month supply of psychotropic drugs.
Prescription drugs have already been linked to some military suicides, and a top Army official warned last year about the danger of soldiers abusing that medication. Psychiatrists are now coming down hard on the military for continuing to sanction certain psychotropic drugs for combat troops, saying the risk from side effects is too great.
“There’s no way on earth that these boys and girls are getting monitored on the field,” said Dr. Peter Breggin, a New York-based psychiatrist who has extensively studied the side effects of psychiatric drugs. “The drugs simply shouldn’t be given to soldiers.”
Anxiety, violent behavior and “impulsivity” are all side effects of…
U.S. Army Has A ‘Spiritual Fitness’ Test
Thanks to Will C. for sending us this latest bit of “separation of church and state” hypocrisy, reported by Jason Leopold at TruthOut:
An experimental, Army mental-health, fitness initiative designed by the same psychologist whose work heavily influenced the psychological aspects of the Bush administration’s torture program is under fire by civil rights groups and hundreds of active-duty soldiers. They say it unconstitutionally requires enlistees to believe in God or a “higher power” in order to be deemed “spiritually fit” to serve in the Army.
Comprehensive Soldier Fitness (CSF) is a $125 million “holistic fitness program” unveiled in late 2009 and aimed at reducing the number of suicides and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) cases, which have reached epidemic proportions over the past year due to multiple deployments to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the substandard care soldiers have received when they return from combat. The Army states that it can accomplish…
Birther Faces Court Martial For Refusing Deployment Orders
If Obama isn’t a US-born citizen is he fit to act as Commander in Cheif? That’s the question that brought Lt. Col. Terrence Lakin to trial for refusing to report for duty. Lakin, and other “birthers,” question whether President Obama is a US-born citizen or not. He pleaed guilty to one of two charges against him, stating he believed his orders for deployment were illegal because he still questions that Obama has a US birth certificate. MSNBC reports:
An Army doctor who disobeyed orders to deploy to Afghanistan because he questions President Barack Obama’s citizenship pleaded guilty Tuesday to one of two charges against him.
Lt. Col. Terrence Lakin of Greeley, Colo., pleaded guilty in a military court to a charge that included not meeting with a superior when ordered to do so and not reporting to duty at Fort Campbell.
Lakin faces up to 18 months in prison and dismissal from the Army.…
Robot Wars – For Real
I always liked the Robot Wars organized by Mark Pauline’s Survival Research Laboratories in the ’80s and ’90s. I wasn’t the only one and eventually they graduated from cool underground happenings to a TV series (yes, I know the creators will claim that SRL was not the inspiration, but I ain’t buying it!). Now the United States military is gearing up for real life robot wars. The New York Times‘ tech expert John Markoff reports from Fort Benning, Georgia:
War would be a lot safer, the Army says, if only more of it were fought by robots.
And while smart machines are already very much a part of modern warfare, the Army and its contractors are eager to add more. New robots — none of them particularly human-looking — are being designed to handle a broader range of tasks, from picking off snipers to serving as indefatigable night sentries.
In a mock city here used…
The Fake Taliban Scam That Fooled NATO
Taliban flag
Joshua Foust’s analysis of the fake Taliban scam that duped the U.S. Army and NATO is spot on, for The AfPak Channel at Foreign Policy:
Remember last month, when all the news was atwitter about the prospect of meaningful negotiations with the Taliban in Kabul?
The story was moderately shocking: a senior Taliban figure was being flown around the region, talking directly with General Petraeus, President Karzai, and other senior figures in the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and the Afghan government. The driving force behind coverage of those negotiations was New York Times reporter Dexter Filkins, who wrote that NATO had provided air transportation and secure road travel for Taliban leaders to visit Kabul for the negotiations.
Almost precisely one month later, Filkins and Carlotta Gall are writing the exact opposite:
In an episode that could have been lifted from a spy novel, United States and Afghan officials now say the Afghan man was an impostor, and high-level discussions conducted with the assistance of NATO appear…
School Enlists All Ninth Grade Freshmen In JROTC
From The Sun News in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina:
Welcome to high school. Now drop and give me 50.
The entire freshman class at Carvers Bay High School has been automatically enrolled in the Junior Reserve Officers Training Corps, a military-sponsored program that trains high school students in military discipline and concepts. Principal Richard Neal, a Navy veteran, said the school’s Marine Corps JROTC class is fulfilling the student’s physical education requirement and is part of the school’s Ninth Grade Academy.
But Charles Holloway, the parent of a freshman student at Carvers Bay, said he did not want his son in that program and when he asked that his son be taken out, his son was put in a class by himself. Holloway said he feels his son was being punished for not wanting to take part in that class…
[continues at The Sun News]
Grave Mistake at Arlington National Cemetery Could Be Over 6,000
The most disciplined organization in our government seems to have the least organized cemetery. With more and more records being lost or found incorrect, and graves left without tombstones, the number of burial errors has risen from hundreds to thousands at Arlington National Cemetery. The Associated Press reports:
Estimates of the number of graves that might be affected by mix-ups at Arlington National Cemetery grew from hundreds to as many as 6,600 on Thursday, as the cemetery’s former superintendent blamed his staff and a lack of resources for the scandal that forced his ouster.
John Metzler, who ran the historic military burial ground for 19 years, said he accepts “full responsibility” for the problems.
But he also denied some of the findings by Army investigators and suggested cemetery employees and poor technology were to blame for remains that may have been misidentified or misplaced. He said the system used to track grave sites relied…
U.S. Army Report: Crime, Prescription Drug Use Makes Soldiers ‘More Dangerous Than the Enemy’
The content of the report is not as shocking as its source: the U.S. Army itself. ABC News investigates:
After nine years of war, the U.S. Army is showing signs of stress because of repeated deployments and inadequate support for soldiers when they return, according to a blunt internal report released today. It blasts the Army’s leadership for failing to recognize the problem.
The figures in recent years are staggering.
The number of soldiers committing suicide has increased since 2004, surpassing civilian rates in 2008. Use of prescription drugs has tripled in the past five years; prescription amphetamines use has doubled between 2006 and 2009. One third of soldiers take at least one prescription drug and 14 percent of soldiers are on some form of powerful painkiller.
Crime is rising every year as well. Each year has seen an increase of 5,000 misdemeanors over the previous year, meaning soldiers are expected to commit around 55,000…
U.S. Soldiers Remake Lady Gaga’s ‘Telephone’ Music Video
From urlesque.com:
If this is what it takes for our men in uniform to deal with whatever daily horrors they face, then bring on the hip-shaking, heart-pumping fabulosity.
Sadly, unlike the original version of Lady Gaga’s ‘Telephone’ video, Beyonce doesn’t make an appearance, but this little number’s coming straight out of Afghanistan and it is FIERCE.
Also, ferosh.
Professors Help U.S. Army With Social Media Networks Research
By Molly Johnson for Indiana Daily Student:
IU statistics professor Stanley Wasserman points at the map of the “Celebrity Twitter Ecosystem” from the New York Times that he has tacked to his bulletin board. “Networks are hot,” he says.
Social networks, such as Facebook and Twitter, have pervaded almost every aspect of our society –they help us make friends, get jobs, and now, thanks to a new military effort, they could help us catch terrorists.
The project, sponsored by the U.S. Army, will urge researchers, including two professors at IU, to come up with new ways to analyze data surrounding networks. The project is designed to aid military operations, including anti-terrorism efforts, and to explain how knowledge is spread between peers in the modern military, according to the IU press release.
“They want to be able to understand networks better, all kinds of networks,” said Wasserman, one of the IU professors on the team. “To…
US Army Corps Blamed for Katrina Floods
From BBC News:
A US judge has ruled that negligence by the US Army Corps of Engineers led to massive floods in parts of New Orleans as Hurricane Katrina struck in 2005.
The court upheld complaints by six residents and a business against the Corps over its maintenance of a navigational channel.
They were awarded damages totalling $720,000 (£431,000), and the ruling could lead to thousands more claims.
About 80% of New Orleans was flooded by Hurricane Katrina.
More than 1,800 people died on the US Gulf coast in the devastating storms.
The Corps is responsible for maintaining a system of canals and earthworks that protect New Orleans from storm surges.
US district judge Stanwood Duval ruled “negligent failure” to maintain the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet – a shipping channel – had led to flooding in the city’s Lower 9th Ward and nearby St Bernard Parish.
[Read more at BBC News]
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