It begins...

The Facebook group "PT Belt" has created a photo contest in order to produce a sexy reflector belt pinup calendar. I can't tell if this is real or fake, but let's just send them pictures anyway...

(If you're a sexy reflector belt girl, just CC me the pics also)

ATTN: European Readers

Since the tragic air strike in Kunduz Province of Afghanistan which killed roughly 140 civilians, there have been a number of articles questioning the German Army's fitness for operations in Afghanistan, to the point where it's become somewhat of a running gag at this blog (Airstrikes and alcohol, German Eurofighter Typhoon gets groceries). The latest round of Bundeswehr-bashing comes from the Wall Street Journal, which includes a quote from the governor of Kunduz, who asked for more American troops, not Germans, noting that the Americans "love to fight".

Now, on one hand, I should be counting my blessings, as the new-found German pacifism in the wake of the Second World War is greatly preferable to, well, watching the Germans invade France and Poland on a regular basis. Still, the performance of the German Army in Afghanistan has left much to be desired--which is surprising, as I've interacted with the German Army on a few occasions (not the least of which was during an airborne operation with paratroopers from the 26th Luftlandebrigade serving as jumpmasters), and they didn't seem to be as bad as their record in Afghanistan makes them out to be.

Anyway, I have a lot of foreign readers, and was wondering if there's anyone in the Bundeswehr with experience in Afghanistan that might be able to fill us in on the difficulties, or maybe even set the record straight in some areas. I suspect much might result from extreme risk aversion within the political leadership.

Unlikely sources

Adam Elkus pointed me towards some great reading on Effects Based Operations and Systemic Operational Design. (I swear that I do go out on Saturday nights) Most notably, he pointed me towards a critique of SOD written by Milan N. Vego. I will fully incorporate Mr. Vego's thoughts into a coherent essay, but it's funny how many times he brings up the fact that SOD--the military's new planning process for complex environments like Afghanistan--is based on French postmodern theory.

It's almost as if he brings this up in the same way COINtras point to FM 3-24 and note that it's based on French Captain David Galula's experiences in Algeria--as if coming from a French source discredits its military value completely (the Franco-phobia was soooo 2003...get over it).

I should also point out the fact that David Galula isn't the only one who gets heavy mention in FM 3-24: Counterinsurgency Theory and Practice. T.E. Lawrence also gets plenty of ink in the new manual. Which is certainly to be expected--Lawrence was one of the greatest writers and thinkers on the topic of insurgency in the 20th Century, (in fact, Seven Pillars of Wisdom is my favorite book of all time).

But what makes his inclusion in FM 3-24 chuckle-worthy is that that an American military manual heaps great praise upon a British officer who, according to a number of biographies, might not have been completely straight.

The US Air Force is my new favorite branch...

I did a double-take when I saw the headline:

Physical Fitness is an individual responsibility, says US Air Force.

Dithering? Depends on whom you ask...

(Excuse the before coffee post)

We're all well aware that former Vice President Cheney has accused President Obama of "dithering" on Afghanistan--taking a long time to formulate a cohesive strategy for the country. His sentiments have been echoed by Republican Congressman John Boehner, who used his time on the House floor to fling partisan attacks at President Obama, making some bizarre connection to the increase in casualties and Obama's deliberations on Afghanistan. (Nice try, but no).

So we have former VP Cheney, with a dubious grasp on American strategy on one hand, and General David H. Petraeus on the other hand, who felt that the time spent formulating an Afghanistan strategy is well spent:

In Iraq, getting the right strategy was just as important as the surge in personnel, the general said. “The real key in Iraq was the surge of ideas, not just the surge of troops,” Petraeus said. “Yes, the 30,000 additional troops that ended up being deployed during the surge enabled us to … implement time-honored counterinsurgency concepts more effectively and more rapidly than we could have.” ...

...When the Iraq and Afghan strategies were first formulated in this administration in March, he said, the process was rushed. The current process has allowed Obama to engage in forming the process in a way he did not before, the general said.

“There have been very good debates, very good discussion,” he said. “This is the kind of intellectual discourse you want. It does sharpen your thinking. It does expose differences of opinion. It helps you come to grips with the assumptions.”

The president has committed an enormous amount of time to the process, and it is an appropriate use of his time, Petraeus said. “This decision will be forthcoming pretty soon, perhaps when he comes back from the Asia trip, and then we will all press forward,” he said. “And I think we will do so with enormous benefit from having had these discussions.”

American, NATO and Afghan officials recognize the dangers of corruption in Afghanistan. Petraeus said Afghan President Hamid Karzai has to set the tone, and he looks forward to Karzai’s inaugural speech on Nov. 19.

“There are several subjects in that address that we look forward to hearing: his plans to deal with corruption, to confront the issues that have to do with legitimacy of governance and how to achieve that in the eyes of the people to be seen as serving the people,” Petraeus said. Karzai also will make a statement with the men and women he asks to be in the government, the general added.

Addendum: Joe Galloway, the reporter who covered Lt. Col. Hal Moore and the men of the 1st Cavalry Division at the Battle of Ia Drang, has this to say about the planning process.

He seemingly is unwilling to buy a pig in a poke from any of the players — not from Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. military commander in Afghanistan, who wants another 40,000 to 80,000 American troops; not from his own national security wizards who've proffered four different pigs in four different pokes; not from Vice President Joe Biden, who wants to leave the fight to Special Forces and unmanned Predators.

The word is that none of the options contains what the president wants to see — an estimate of how many more years beyond the eight already invested would be needed and an exit strategy.

Bravo!

Simple question and a vital requirement: How much longer will it take, and how do we get out when that time is up?

Let's call that Military Planning 101 and, like the president, we're left to ponder why that basic first step in committing a nation and its military and its treasury to a war wasn't taken before now and was missing from all the alternatives offered at this critical junction in a war that's now in its ninth year?

The previous president's strategy was simple: Stay the course in Afghanistan, but divert the resources to Iraq.

What McChrystal and his Pentagon overlords wanted was a blank check for Afghanistan, an open-ended commitment of years, troops and money.

The military request on the table, if rubber-stamped as they'd hoped, would bring the number of American troops from today's 70,000 to well over 100,000. What experience teaches is that they'd be back next spring or summer asking for another 50,000 or 75,000. And again next fall.

When was the last time you heard a military commander ask for fewer troops and less money?

So this president is due a polite round of applause for not letting the generals stampede him into a swift, decisive and totally wrong decision to give them what they want.

Around the Blogosphere...

Today's foreign policy and military analysis, brought to you by some of the usual suspects.

I received a link yesterday from CourtneyME109 regarding an interesting article in Foreign Policy Online entitled "No Good Choices", referring to President Obama's four proposed courses of action in Afghanistan.

I need to begin with the following caveat. I will always be suspicious of computer models regarding insurgent environments, and it stems from my experience fighting the 21st Century Maginot Line in the Aviation Captains Career Course on the JANUS system*. There are far too many variables to be modeled accurately. Decades worth of formulas and wargames didn't help Helmuth van Moltke (the Younger) in August of 1914--and that was a mere 2GW battlefield, not the modern 4GW one.

Nevertheless, they shouldn't be completely discounted, either.

In the article at FP Online, two defense analysts partook in a series of wargames concerning Afghanistan. I'd be highly curious to see the raw data, and the methodology behind the wargames, but it brings up a number of issues which I think I'd suspected all along. Not the least of which is that the counterinsurgency landscape in Afghanistan is significantly more complex than the French experience in Algeria and the British experience in Malaya (around which much of our current counterinsurgency doctrine is based).

Says the article:

What explains the inability of any additional deployment to reduce the likelihood of insurgency in Afghanistan? Our analysis suggests that the U.S. counterinsurgency swims against two very strong currents.

First, the combustible mix of Afghanistan's relatively immutable social and political characteristics -- its ethnic and religious divisions, low level of economic development, and large population -- almost guarantees continued insurgency. The country's poverty and large population encourage competition for scarce resources, and that competition gins up violence. Democracy itself seems to further destabilize the country: Our analysis shows that when foreign countries institute democracy in countries with deep ethnic and religious divisions (and Afghanistan is a tribal-based society), insurgency results.

A second factor suggesting that additional U.S. troops won't do much to quell political violence is the length of the war in Afghanistan. Insurgency develops momentum and is more difficult to eliminate the longer it persists. A force that might nip a fledgling insurgency in the bud is unlikely to do so once it is embedded -- and the rebels in Afghanistan have been around for nearly a decade.

While the continued high probability of insurgency in Afghanistan is bad news by itself, its implications for the survival of democracy in Afghanistan are even more sobering. Indeed, the same ethnic and religious divisions, poverty, and large population that make Afghanistan ripe for the Taliban also undermine the viability of the democratic government -- and additional foreign soldiers do little to ameliorate those underlying conditions.

If the United States keeps the current force in place, our analysis predicts a nearly 20 percent chance that democracy will fail in Afghanistan within three years, 40 percent in five years, and 62 percent in 10 years. The most aggressive force expansion, adding 60,000 troops, actually increasesthe risk of democratic failure, to 22 percent in a three-year time frame and 73 percent in 10 years. Our analysis indicates that larger force deployments increase the risk of democratic failure because they stimulate discontent within the civilian populace -- even if they increase security -- making the durability of the elected government more tenuous.

On the flip side, however...

We also explored the consequences that continued insurgency in Afghanistan might have for its regional neighbors. Our research shows that the successful development of democracy in Afghanistan would promote regional democratization and peace, creating a powerful example for the wider region to follow and encouraging democracy in Pakistan and Iran. But democratic failure in Kabul would carry severe negative effects. In particular, the failure of democracy in Afghanistan raises the risk of civil conflict in Pakistan by a non-negligible 4.2 percent. Not only would the failure of the fledgling Afghan democracy undermine regional hopes for democracy, but the instability would no doubt spill over the country's borders.

Ultimately, our forecasts paint a bleak picture for Afghanistan, regardless of the strategy Obama chooses. Our analysis clearly shows that the time for the stabilization of Afghanistan, if such time existed at all, has passed. The deployment of additional troops to Afghanistan shows little chance of either ending the insurgency or sustaining Afghan democracy. At the same time, the collapse of democracy in Afghanistan raises the specter of something even more worrying: instability in a nuclear-armed Pakistan. As such, our analysis suggests that the resources proposed for the continuation of a losing bet in Afghanistan would be better applied to supporting Pakistan and maintaining its stability.

I'm somewhat skeptical of the claims that instability in Afghanistan will automatically lead to instability in Pakistan (andits arsenal of nuclear weapons). Note that Afghanistan had been stable throughout the 1990s, with seemingly minimal risk to Pakistan's stockpile of nuclear weapons.

Moving along, the next link comes from SWJ's Council and it regards the real threat in the region, al-Qaeda. The guys at SWJ link to another article in FP Online ("Destroying al Qaeda is Not an Option Yet") which discusses the current state of al-Qaeda: one that has been significantly wounded not only by Predator strikes--with a good portion of its top leadership dead--but also appearing increasingly illegitimate in the eyes of many Muslims.

Good news for us.

However, the author brings up a puzzling argument. He believes that the concentration of anti-Western Wahhabists in al Qaeda gives NATO a center of gravity to act upon. Should al Qaeda be destroyed, Wahhabists might flock to a number of other groups, with the dispersion making them that much harder to target and kill.

Oh, you mean like al Qaeda in Mesopotamia (Iraq), al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (Yemen), Lashkar e-Taiba, and any one of a number of other groups? Thanks, it already happened.

The last link isn't about foreign policy--it's about the families of Soldiers. In an article in the Washington Post, the wife of a battalion commander in Iraq notes a number of issues within the family readiness groups Army-wide. One of her top complaints is one which I agree with:

Finally, the Army should directly fund its mandated Family Readiness Groups. Currently, Army regulations require that fundraising be done within units -- so we bake cupcakes and sell them to our own husbands in the motor pool, effectively taking from the people we are trying to support. We shouldn't have to fundraise to treat families to pizza and bowling while their soldiers are deployed.

Yes, the FRG fundraiser. I would be all for nixing these in favor of direct funding to family readiness groups, although for a different reason than the author puts forward...my issue is with the time spent on fundraisers. I'd rather simply pay $50 out of my own pocket than give up a weekend selling cupcakes or sodas, and I'm certain many soldiers and families feel the same way as well. Many fundraisers take away precious time away from families on weekends and weekdays. Not to mention, in this era, many spouses work--when are they going to find the time to participate in a bake sale?

And that's the blogosphere for today. Oh, with one more note for the guys at al-Sahwa.

*--Good luck in your career course. To beat the game, just put tanks all over the battlefield and the Soviet Army will be destroyed. Don't leave a gap in your line like one student did, or the Soviets will break through. Seriously, we have students that fight like the French Army in 1940. God help us all...

The New Media: The Dark Side

Additional links: Adam Elkus--Ft. Hood: A Social Media Failure, ABC News "Fort Hood Soldier Causes Stir on Twitter"

In September of 2009, the Associated Press came under intense criticism for publishing pictures of Lance Corporal Joshua Bernard, as he lay dying in Afghanistan. The picture was published soon after his death, against the wishes of the family. Although the Associated Press’ actions were protected under the First Amendment, their actions were, as Tom Ricks puts it, “morally indefensible”. Indeed, the pictures were decried by many throughout the defense community, including Secretary of Defense Robert Gates.

Nevertheless, last week we were treated to an even more disturbing picture—taken while Soldiers lie wounded and dying in hospitals throughout central Texas. This picture was taken with a cell phone camera and posted to the social networking site Twitter as the events at Fort Hood continued to unfold. Although the picture has since been taken down, and the Twitter account has been placed on private mode, some sites still have the picture and caption. In the picture, a Soldier is being rushed through a set of doors, presumably into the emergency room. Although there is no blood in the picture, the caption from the picture says it all: “The poor guy that got shot in the balls”. In all likelihood, this would have been the first indication the family would have had regarding this Soldier’s wounds. It was paparazzi-style journalism at its worst, preying on the misery and hardships of the Soldiers who were wounded in Maj. Hasan’s killing spree last Thursday.

But before anyone blames the news media, understand that this picture and caption came from TV news, but rather, another Soldier--Tearah Moore, a 30-year old from Michigan who recently returned from Iraq.

She damned well should have known better.

Social networking technologies have been used in recent years to document tragedies and news stories as they happen—witness the recent example of the “Miracle on the Hudson”. In military organizations, however, it is the cause of great concern. Take the example of the INS Hanit, an Israeli corvette hit by a Hezbollah anti-ship missile during the 2006 Lebanon War. The book War 2.0: Irregular Warfare in the Information Age describes Israeli sailors calling their loved ones in regards to the casualties aboard the ship with personal cell phones—with the story hitting news outlets and families before it even hit Israeli military sources.

During military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, Soldiers are used to what are known as “NIPR Blackouts”—mandatory outages of Internet services which occur whenever a fatality or accident occurs. This is primarily done in order to prevent family members from receiving news about casualties—with dubious accuracy--from cell phone calls and news reports, and instead, through official casualty notification channels.

Tearah Moore would have known about this. She should have known better.

Ms. Moore capitalized on the misfortune of others, not to get the word out, but to receive attention. As Paul Carr writes at TechCrunch, she wanted to tell the world, “look at me looking at this”!

Two weeks ago, I wrote here about how the ‘real time web’ is turning all of us into inhuman egotists. How we’re increasingly seeing people at the scene of major accidents grabbing their cellphones to capture the dramatic events and share them with their friends, rather than calling 911. Last week I went even further with my doom-mongering, suggesting that the trend of adding people’s homes to Foursquare without permission was indicative of a generation that prioritised their own fun over the privacy of their friends.

In the actions of Tearah Moore at Fort Hood, we have the perfect example of both kinds of selfishness.

There surely can’t be a human being left in the civilised world who doesn’t know that cellphones must be switched off in hospitals, and yet not only did Moore leave hers on but she actually used it to photograph patients, and broadcast the images to the world. Just think about that for a second. Rather than offering to help the wounded, or getting the hell out of the way of those trying to do their jobs, Moore actually pointed a cell-phone at a wounded soldier, uploaded it to twitpic and added a caption saying that the victim “got shot in the balls”.

Her behaviour had nothing to do with getting the word out; it wasn’t about preventing harm to others, but rather a simple case of – as I said two weeks ago – “look at me looking at this.” (I don’t know about you, but if I spotted someone taking a picture of one of my friends or relatives in a hospital then they would probably need a hospital bed of their own. “Tell me, Ms Moore, exactly how did the iPhone end up in your lower intestine?”)

Perhaps fittingly, I posted some of these thoughts on Twitter yesterday, as events were still unfolding. Many people agreed with me – replying with links to the specific military codes that cover what information solidiers can share, and the HIPAA which deals with patient privacy. But plenty of others felt that by criticising Moore I was advocating censorship.

As one reply put it, sarcastically: “Yes indeed, let’s moderate twitter and vet all tweets…” Others pointed out that it was just this kind of photography and ‘citizen journalism’ that ensured that the truth got out during the Iranian elections. What about the global outrage at the famous YouTube video of Neda Agha Soltan, shown dying after being shot by (alledgedly) pro-government agents?

Yes – what of it?

Yes, the new media has led to a new form of narcissim. Admittedly, I give in to this, as do most of us: Look at me with women at the bar…look at me drinking from a beer bong…look at me diving with a shark. Unfortunately, in the case of Ms. Moore, it’s nothing quite so innocuous—it’s “look at me in the middle of these shootings…take a look at this guy’s wounds!"

Ms. Moore not only violated Army policies in regards to releasing casualty information, she violated the privacy of patients at the hospital. But most important of all, she made a spectacle of the human suffering at Fort Hood. She should be ashamed of herself.

11

On the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918, the fourth year of the Great War, the guns fell silent on the Western Front. Thus was the first Armistice Day, which was observed in Allied nations for years.

In the US, the name of the holiday was changed to Veterans Day by President Dwight D. Eisenhower, and remembered all service men and women who served in all American wars. I believe that the UK has also officially changed the name of the holiday to Remembrance Day as well.

ISAF (International Security Assistance Force) media has a set of pictures from a British Remembrance Day ceremony at Regional Command-South's HQ at Kandahar Airfield in Afghanistan.

SWJ has also linked to an excellent article from the Washington Post written by David Ignatius, entitled "Standing Tall in Harm's Way". An excerpt:

This picture of a traumatized military is misleading. Certainly, the Army and the other services are stressed by the demands of combat. But what's striking to me this Veterans Day is how healthy the military is, given all the weight it has been carrying for the country these past eight years.

Facing a new and disorienting kind of warfare, the military has learned and adapted. Rather than complain about their problems, soldiers have figured out ways to solve them.

In truth, the U.S. military may be the most resilient part of American society right now. The soldiers are clearly in better shape than the political class that sent them to war and the economic leadership that has mismanaged the economy. (I'd give the same high marks to young civilians who are serving and sacrificing in hard places -- the Peace Corps and medical volunteers I've met abroad and the teachers in tough inner-city schools.)

Through all its difficulties, the military has kept its stride. That sense of balance comes partly from the fact that soldiers are anchored to the American bedrock. This includes the stereotypical small towns in the South and Midwest that have military service in their DNA. But it also counts plenty of hardworking, upwardly mobile Hispanic and African American families in urban America that produce some of the best soldiers I know.

I had the pleasure of living in the military family when I traveled for 2 1/2 weeks recently with U.S. Central Command. What I heard, listening into the military's unscripted conversations, were the wisecracks and dark humor of soldiers trying to make the best of a hard situation. But there was also the satisfaction of fighting these tough and sometimes thankless wars: The troops don't boast about it, but they are very proud of what they have managed to accomplish.

That reminds me--today is the last day to donate to Soldiers' Angels Valour IT project, with proceeds being used to purchase voice-activated laptops for wounded troops.

Excellent Point re: Ft. Hood Shootings

I noticed that a lot of you are weighing in on the shootings at Fort Hood at Tom Ricks' blog, particularly in this post. I think the best response comes from Paul G (I assume he's the same Paul who also posts here at WOI). I hope that neither he nor Tom will mind me re-posting this, because I think that it's an excellent piece. In sum, although there are some huge red flags in Maj Hasan's life story, we still need to wait until we assemble all the facts before we make any hasty conclusions about his motivations. As Paul G notes, it's unfair to over-simplify his motivations.

Leave aside the military connection and you could almost substitute Seung-hui Cho [the Virginia Tech Shooter] for Major Hasan. The similarities are striking. Socially inept, depressed, descent into extremist thinking of one sort or another, real or perceived grievances against authority, a perception that “they” wouldn’t listen to him or were out to get him, a belief that he was better than/knew more than others. His writings became more infused with violent rhetoric as time went on. People around him started noticing that “something wasn’t right.”

The other thing that is consistent, and has been consistent in every one of these horrific acts, is the tendency to scapegoat and to search for simple (and usually wrong) answers. With the Columbine killers, it was because they were goths and liked violent video games — someone should have seen it coming. Someone should have done something about it. Cho was just so manifestly weird that somebody should have done something. Now we have Hasan who was spouting extremist rhetoric — someone should have noticed and done something. Have you ever noticed how many people spout extremist rhetoric without going off the tracks? In my state (Virginia) alone, there are at least several million of them who occasionally say something or write something that could be construed as “extremist.” Maybe it was because he was a Muslim, as if we haven’t already learned that this, by itself, isn’t an indicator of anything.

This is understandable. People like simple answers, even when there aren’t any. The problem with trying to isolate people who have the potential to do something like this is the extremely high number of “false positives” you’re going to get. Think of the “no fly” list that saved us from terrorists like Sen. Ted Kennedy, David Nelson (of the ‘60s show “Ozzie and Harriet”) and many, many others. When something like Ft. Hood happens, we ignore the fact that we are a country of laws, our authorities are bound to act within the law, and that law covers everyone, not just outliers. The law limits the information that can be obtained, the means that can be used to obtain it and what can be done with it (and who it can be disseminated to) once it is obtained. The military is made up of 2,000,000 people, all of whom see, hear and read things, assess them, draw conclusions, and take actions every day that are based on insufficient evidence. Often those decisions are wrong. Most of the time those decisions don’t matter; in the overall scheme of things, what does it matter that you made a left turn at the light instead of a right turn?

Here’s what we appear to know about this guy. He’s 39 years old, single, lived a frugal lifestyle, was a Muslim, went to church regularly, gave to charity, was a psychiatrist whose patients (or at least the ones we’ve heard from) seemed to think he did good work, acted a bit weird, wanted out of the Army, was the subject of a poor efficiency report for unknown reasons, and wrote some inflammatory things on the internet. Oh, and eight years ago, he attended the same church at the same time as did three of the 9/11 terrorists, as did at least several hundred other people. Can anyone really believe that this set of facts would justify anyone other than Jack Bauer taking any kind of action against this guy?

We need to get real and recognize that no matter how we cut it, this profile could apply to many, many people, most of whom are unlikely to ever present any kind of a threat to anyone. This kind of thing is the human equivalent of a lightning strike. There’s no reasonable way we can prevent it. We’re a nation of 300,000,000 people. A very few of them are going to turn out to be people who do this kind of thing and there’s very little we can do about it. Someone, possibly a few someones, in the Army are going to bear the brunt of Hasan’s actions. Were they really responsible? Probably not, but that won’t stop us from blaming the whole thing on them.

Those you least suspect...

When I first arrived in Iraq, I took the opportunity to compare notes with my counterparts in the unit that we were replacing. I asked whether or not this particular aviation brigade had suffered any casualties during the deployment.

"Well, we had one death", said one of the officers, "a suicide".

I knew full well that suicide was on the rise, and I was curious as to how to recognize the signs. A Soldier lost in battle was one thing--losing Soldiers to suicide was something even worse.

"Did anyone notice anything? Was he seeing the chaplain?" I asked.

"Dude", said my fellow officer, "he was the chaplain's assistant".

This came as a shock to me at first. However, after thinking about the circumstances, it made sense. The chaplain aides typically worked long hours, participating in the counseling sessions with the chaplain. Many work long hours in order to accomodate Soldiers who work both day and night shifts, and take part in all sorts of counseling--suicide prevention, post-traumatic stress, work-related stress, maritial stress, you name it. An aide--typically a single Soldier in their teens or early 20s--would be paired with a chaplain who might be twice his age, and married with children. Work would leave him or her with little time to interact with people in their usual demographic, outside of a counseling environment.

Certainly, I could see how that might lead to a sense of loneliness, even under the watchful eye of the unit's primary suicide prevention counselor.

With the recent shootings carried out by an Army psychiatrist, I wanted to take an opportunity to link to a story from the New York Times which discusses the unique stress placed upon the chaplains, and pose the question to everyone: who counsels those who are charged with counseling others?

As a casualty of war himself, he knows what soldiers can experience. Injured in Iraq in January 2005, Chaplain Brunk suffers from moderate brain trauma, post-traumatic stress disorder and depression. “I’ve been really pushed to my limits and beyond,” he said. “At times, I’ve really wondered if I could get through.”

Just as it has claimed so many other members of the military, the war in Iraq has taken a toll on chaplains. Although they do not engage in combat, chaplains face the perils of war as they move around Iraq to visit troops. None have been killed, but some, like Chaplain Brunk, have been wounded. Many report post-traumatic stress disorder and other stress problems.

In the past year, the Army has begun to recognize those problems among chaplains and is ensuring that those suffering from stress disorders receive medical treatment at military hospitals.

The Army’s chief of chaplains, Maj. Gen. Douglas L. Carver, has mandated that every military installation offer programs to ensure the mental well being of its chaplains. A spiritual center will open this summer at the chaplain training headquarters at Fort Jackson, S.C., and chaplains will be invited to retreats.

“We are doing more for the chaplains because the chaplains are doing more,” said Lt. Col. Ran Dolinger, a spokesman for the chief of chaplains. Because of multiple deployments to combat zones, Colonel Dolinger said, “they just needed more help.”

Sometimes it might be those you never suspect...

Which came first, The Awakening or The Surge?

Abu Muqawama provides a link to an article from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology-Zurich which provides a brief summary of the many reasons for the massive decrease in violence in 2007. I've gotten into this topic before, (and a number of great authors, such as Tom Ricks and Bob Woodward have also delved into this realm) but it bears some repeating.

I would say that the decrease in violence in Iraq in 2007 is not solely the result of the additional five brigades, nor is it fully attributable to the success of counterinsurgency theory (although, I would argue that they did, in fact, play a key role). Certainly the Sunni Awakening--well underway in late 2006--played a significant role in the decrease in violence, as was the stand-down of the Mahdi Army, a Shia milita. Additionally, some studies have also noted that, by early 2007, many of the mixed neighborhoods, particularly in Baghdad, had completed the process of driving out or killing their respective minority groups, leaving behind homogeneous and far less violent areas.

The decrease in violence was not the result of any one factor--rather, all of these elements came together at exactly the right time to quell the violence in Iraq...at least for right now. Let's see how tenuous the peace is when American troops begin to withdraw next year.

It continues...

More Star Wars Gangsta Rap...

ALL NEW! Star Wars Gangsta Rap: Chronicles

Atom.com: Funny Videos | Atom Originals | Star Wars Gangsta Rap

Best Onion Story Ever

Ultra-Realistic combat game features awaiting orders, doing paperwork. Click the title to see the video.

While we're talking about birthdays...

Happy Birthday to the US Marines (H/T SWJ)

Link of the Day

Thanks to Boss Mongo for letting us know that yesterday would have been the 95th birthday of Hollywood actress Hedy Lamarr. Lamarr was notable not just for her acting abilities, but also for her work in the development of "spread spectrum communications" technology--the basis for modern frequency-hopping radios, as well as Wi-Fi networks.