Target Centermass

Day: January 11, 2006

  • Mass. Guardsmen Sue for Post-9/11 Duty Expenses

    We all saw the beefed-up security as our oft-maligned “weekend warriors” (damn but I hated that phrase) stepped forth after September 11, 2001, and provided a comforting BDU-clad presence at airports and other facilities.

    Now, some of those troops want a little payback for their time on the clock.

    A group of National Guard soldiers who were ordered to protect possible targets after the Sept. 11 attacks sued the state and federal governments Wednesday, seeking tens of millions of dollars in living expenses they say were never reimbursed.

    The soldiers, who are from Massachusetts and New Hampshire, say they traveled hundreds of miles to security postings — such as Quabbin Reservoir, the Boston area’s primary water supply — and used their own money for gas, food and lodging, expecting to be paid back.

    But the soldiers say in their complaint that their requests for compensation were repeatedly denied until they were told by their commanding officers that they could be taken off their missions if they didn’t stop asking for reimbursement. The response, they said, had a “chilling effect.”

    “Plaintiffs concluded they could not seek the … reimbursement compensation they felt they were owed, without extreme and negative repercussions on their military careers,” the complaint reads.

    The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court by four soldiers, but it seeks to include hundreds of other guardsmen as a class action. It names the U.S. Department of Defense and the Massachusetts National Guard and seeks a total of $73 million in unpaid expenses.

    A spokeswoman for the U.S. Defense Department referred calls to the Justice Department, where spokesman Charles Miller declined to comment until after the agency reviews the lawsuit.

    The Massachusetts National Guard was investigating the allegations and had no immediate comment, said spokesman Major Winfield Danielson.

    I initially scoffed at this news, assuming that tales of individual woe were self-inflicted and that alternative but less preferable transportation, lodging and foodage were available but declined. I often took financial losses on drill weekends by choosing a hotel over a cot at the armory just for the sake of creature comforts and booze, so I had little sympathy for the soldiers involved … until I stumbled across the following in the story, the third article I’d read on the matter while trying to find details.

    The plaintiffs say that if the soldiers had been reimbursed properly, the state would have paid out tens of thousands of dollars per day in expenses, based on a minimum of $126 per day for every soldier in the roughly 320 Guard jobs involved in the mission.

    The plaintiffs multiplied that daily cost by the 1,570 days of the post-Sept. 11 mission to get the $73 million estimate, said John Shek, their attorney.

    The suit says federal law provides military personnel with meals and travel allowance while away from home on active duty. But Massachusetts guardsmen received orders that read: “Government quarters not available; … government meals are not available; … per diem: not authorized.”

    Shek said he knew of no other state where similar orders were given.

    If true, there’s a whole lot of explaining or paying needed.

  • Body Armor: a Quick Look

    Over the weekend, a Pentagon study on troop body armor and its effect on casualties made big AP news.

    Most torso wounds that killed Marines in Iraq might have been prevented or minimized by improved body armor, a Pentagon study found.

    The unreleased study last summer by the Office of the Armed Forces Medical Examiner looked at 93 fatal wounds from the start of the war in March 2003 through June 2005. It concluded that 74 were bullet or shrapnel wounds to shoulders or areas of the torso not protected by ceramic armor plating.

    […]

    According to a summary of the study obtained by The Associated Press, the 93 Marines who died from a primary lethal injury of the torso were among 401 Marines who died from combat injuries in Iraq between the start of the war and last June.

    Autopsy reports and photographic records were analyzed to help the military determine possible body armor redesign. A military advocacy group, Soldiers for Truth, posted an article about the study on its Web site this week. On Friday evening, The New York Times reported in its online edition that the study for the first time shows the cost in lives lost from inadequate armor.

    The study found that of 39 fatal torso wounds in which the bullet or shrapnel entered the Marine’s body outside of the ceramic armor plate that protects the chest and back, 31 were close to the plate’s edge.

    “Either a larger plate or superior protection around the plate would have had the potential to alter the final outcome,” the report concluded.

    Murdoc at Murdoc Online dissected the piece with a post where the title says it all about how increased armor could reduce casualties: So could carpet bombing and free-fire zones (hat tip to the Officer’s Club).

    There are limits. You need to be able to put your arms down. Otherwise laying there like a slug might be your only defense.

    Long-time readers of MO will know that I’ve been critical of the armor situation in the past. And I’ll continue to be critical in the future until absolute perfection is attained and US troops in combat zones are totally protected from every possible threat. But these stupid headlines and sensationalizing of a military study intended to improve our capability doesn’t help anyone.

    Well, let me correct myself right here. Sensationalizing this story, making it sound like negligence or inability to cope with enemy tactics is killing troops does help some. They’re called the “enemies of America”. And not all of them are not American. So many in the media seem so focused on the “good old days” of media glory that they appear unable to report on military matters in a meaningful way.

    Today, the military responded by pointing out that it is trying to find the proper armor that allows the best balance between troop safety and troop effectiveness.

    Protecting troops is a top priority, but weighting them down with so much body armor that they are practically unable to move is not the answer to the continued deaths and injuries among armor-wearing deployed forces, military officials said Wednesday.

    The Army and Marine Corps are rushing to buy and deploy improved body armor that provides more protection for the sides of the torso, which enemy sharpshooters have targeted as a weak point in U.S. troops’ body armor configurations.

    But military officials, called before the Senate Armed Services Committee to discuss the status of the improvements, said they have not yet found a perfect balance between fully protecting troops and weighing them down so heavily that they cannot accomplish their missions.

    Sen. John Warner, R-Va., the Armed Services Committee chairman, said he was satisfied the services had the money and authority to get the necessary gear and understood the limitations.

    “Everything that can be done is being done,” Warner said.

    Full body armor, with all the associated plates and extra protection, can weigh up to 125 pounds, a particularly heavy load in the extreme climates of Iraq and Afghanistan, he said.

    While at Texas A&M, I took a survey level course in American military history under the esteemed Dr. Joseph G. Dawson III. Many aspects and lessons of that class have stayed with me through the years, but one little piece of trivia stands out in my memory. Dr. Dawson pointed out that the average weight of arms and equipment carried by American troops into battle during the Revolutionary War was around sixty pounds. The average weight of the same carried by the typical American soldier in Viet Nam was … sixty pounds. I do hope that puts into a little perspective that 125-pound figure for full body armor. Oh yeah, don’t forget to add in weapons and ammunition. And rations and water. And needed communication devices. Yes, the troops could be encased in a cylinder of kevlar, but balance must be managed or the troops become worthless little knights, relatively safe from shrapnel and bullets but slow, ineffective and still prone to other dangers like RPGs.

  • Crisis as Iran Reopens Nuclear Research Plant

    Iran has taken the next step in its game of nuclear brinksmanship.

    Iran yesterday precipitated a fresh crisis over its nuclear programme by removing UN seals at a facility in the town of Natanz and announcing that it would begin research involving nuclear enrichment – which can produce weapons grade material.

    To counter, Russia has announced that it is “very disappointed” and “expressed deep concern” on the development. Great Britain, France and Germany, the Euro powers that have been in negotiation with Iran in hopes of halting the radical nation’s nuclear ambitions, announced that they “may meet on Thursday to discuss” the issue. The United Nations’ International Atomic Energy Agency bravely rushed forth with a “predictably lame response” (for once not my phrasing for anything the agency has managed for years and years). Apparently, there was even a “global outcry” today, though I seemed to have missed it.

    With a tad bit more effort, the civilized world could have come across looking even more limp-wristed and weak … maybe.

    It is time, actually well past time, to admit that the Euro diplomacy path was a gambit doomed to fail. The U.S. was forced to allow it, as the Bush administration had been painted into a corner with all the false and politically-driven accusations of unilateral action and rush to war surrounding the Iraqi theater. From the beginning, there was a key fault with the negotiations — one side didn’t actually want them to succeed.

    Negotiation in the classic diplomatic sense assumes parties more anxious to agree than to disagree.

    —Dean Acheson

    The Euro-Iranian talks have been along the lines of the negotiations preceeding the Munich Agreement, as one side sought “peace in our time” while the other merely sought to buy time.

    The danger to the survival of Israel is evident, especially given the fanaticism of the current Iranian president and his backing hard-line religious leaders. What may be less evident but no less true is the danger the West would face by a nuke-capable and quite radical Iran stepping forth as leaders of the Islamist world.

    Unless science suddenly helps the European powers regrow a spine, the time has come for the only nations actually willing and capable of facing the threat to step up to the plate. I’m speaking specifically about the U.S. and Israel. Bloody action by one of the two may quickly be needed, though such wouldn’t be easy. Unfortunately, current global politics would prevent an overtly-combined action by the two. As the Islamist threat matures and becomes more evident, at least to those not completely and pathetically blinded, that sad political reality may change or become a less-pressing consideration when compared to the survival of our civilization.