Military Resistance: thomasfbarton@earthlink.net 11.1.10 Print it out: color best. Pass it on.

Military Resistance 8K1

“He Didn’t Like The Situation”

“He Just Didn’t Know Who The
Enemy Was”
“He Said I Will Be Glad When I Can Get
Out Of Here And Get Home”

Army Sgt. Eric Newman

Oct 19, 2010 By Doug Walker, WLOX

The streets of Waynesboro are lined with hundreds of American flags, and dozens of
light poles are adorned with yellow ribbons. It’s all to honor the memory of Army Sgt. Eric
Newman.

Those who knew him, remember a man who loved his family, life, and the quiet county
lifestyle.

Mayor Joe Taylor remembers better days.

“Well, I knew him personally,” Taylor said. “I’ve known the boy all his life and I always
called him my little buddy. And he was just an outstanding young man.”

And the mayor said the city is coming together to honor one its own.

“It seems to bring everybody closer together in a situation like this, and the whole
community, not just the city but the whole county, it just kind of brings everybody
together.”
Everyone we talked to today had nothing but great words to say about Eric Newman,
calling him a fine outstanding young man, who was tuned into service to his country,
even before he joined the military, including serving as a police officer.

James Bunch is the Waynesboro police chief.

“Eric was a good police officer when he worked here,” Bunch said. “He had a dedication
to duty that was unparalleled. He always believed in doing the right thing and pursuing
justice. He left here in August of ‘05 to pursue his military career.”

John Gunn is the city attorney, and knew Eric Newman better than most.

“Eric was almost like a second son to me,” Gunn recalled. “I have a son and the last
time he was home before he was deployed to Afghanistan, he and I went fishing
together and had a long talk, and it hurts.”

And Gunn said the Army Sgt. also felt something was wrong in Afghanistan, and voiced
his concerns to his mother.

“He let her know that it was different, and that he didn’t like the situation, that he just
didn’t know who the enemy was. And he said I will be glad when I can get out of here
and get home.”

And Newman will be coming home soon, not the way anyone wanted, but a hero
nonetheless.

This was Newman’s second deployment, the first one in Iraq where he was injured and
received the Purple Heart. He leaves behind a wife, mother and sister, as well as other
relatives.

Funeral arrangements are incomplete at this time, but Newman will be buried with full
military honors.

AFGHANISTAN WAR REPORTS

Midlands Soldier Among Two SC

Guardsmen Killed In Afghanistan
Oct 08, 2010 WIS

LEXINGTON, SC

Two South Carolina Army National Guard soldiers were killed in combat October 1 in
Afghanistan.
32-year-old Specialist Luther Rabon of Lexington and 48-year-old Staff Sergeant Willie
Harley of Aiken were killed in Paktika province, Afghanistan, when the vehicle they were
riding in was attacked by insurgents with an Improvised Explosive Device.

Major General Stanhope S. Spears, Adjutant General for South Carolina, said,
“Specialist Rabon and Staff Sergeant Harley were serving their country with honor and
pride. The South Carolina National Guard has lost two more members of our family. My
thoughts and prayers go out to their families and friends.”

The mission of the 1221 Engineer Clearance Company is to clear roadways for military
convoys. The unit is scheduled to return to South Carolina next summer.

Rabon is survived by four young children and his parents.

Albany Marine Killed By Roadside Bomb

In Southern Afghanistan

Lance Cpl. Joseph Rodewald: Courtesy of the Rodewald family

October 14, 2010 Michael Russell, The Oregonian

Lance Cpl. Joseph Rodewald wanted to enlist for as long as anyone can remember,
even asking his father if he could attend a military school as a boy, family and friends
said Thursday.

Rodewald’s family couldn’t afford to send him to the expensive school, so the energetic
young man waited until after his graduation from South Albany High School in 2007 to
sign up with the U.S. Marine Corps.

The former high school football player and wrestler, who would have turned 22 next
Tuesday, was killed Wednesday by a roadside bomb in southern Afghanistan.

He is the 29th service member with Oregon or Southwest Washington ties to die in
Afghanistan, and the 142nd to die in the combined Iraq-Afghanistan conflicts.
Rodewald’s father, John Rodewald, described Joseph as a rambunctious kid who grew
into a natural leader while playing sports in high school.

“He was a very strong-willed person, very confident,” John Rodewald said, surrounded
by supporters at the family’s Albany home. “I had no doubts that he was going to go and
defend our freedoms, and come home and start a normal life.”

Lori Vigna, the wife of the family’s pastor, remembered Rodewald as a strong young
man who took pride in serving his country.

“He had the curliest hair,” she said. “You could tell how curly it was even after he had
his military haircut.”

Asked why his son wanted to join the military, John Rodewald, 46, said the answer was
complicated, though he never doubted the young man’s commitment.

“Millions of people are in the same boat as our family,” he said. “Large family, limited
income, economy in the toilet, grades aren’t the best. What are your options?
Community college? Washing dishes? And the military comes in and says, ‘Hey, we’ve
got a deal for you.’

“But I don’t think it was that for him,” the father continued. “If I had won the lottery and
could afford to help my kids out with college, would it have been different? I don’t know
with Joseph, because he was a patriot, and he wanted to serve his country.”

He planned to marry his girlfriend, Kandi Hargett, when he returned from Afghanistan.

Rodewald was the lead gunner in a four-vehicle convoy engaged in combat operations
in Helmand province, in southern Afghanistan near the Pakistan border, when they
drove over an improvised explosive device. Four men in his vehicle were killed.

The others were: Cpl. Justin J. Cain, 22, of Manitowoc, Wis.; Lance Cpl. Phillip D.
Vinnedge, 19, of St. Charles, Mo.; and Pfc. Victor A. Dew, 20, of Granite Bay, Calif. All
were from the 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division, I Marine
Expeditionary Force, based in Camp Pendleton, Calif., the Department of Defense
announced.

According to the casualty monitoring website iCasualty.org, 384 U.S. troops have died
so far in 2010, making it the deadliest year in the Afghan war to date.

John Rodewald said he would fly late Thursday to meet his son’s body at Dover Air
Force Base in Delaware, where he would be joined by Rodewald’s mother, Jacque
Brotherton, 44.

Besides his parents, Joseph Rodewald is survived by three brothers: John Rodewald II,
24; Josh Rodewald, 23; and Josiah Rodewald, 17. John Rodegard II is an army Sgt.
stationed at Joint Base Lewis-McChord.

Service arrangements will be held at the Eastside Christian Church in Albany.

 Wooster High School Graduate Dies In
The War In Afghanistan

Sgt. Frank Zaehringer III

October 13, 2010 Andrew Del Greco, News 4

The war in Afghanistan has been made personal again. One of Reno’s own young men,
born and raised in Northern Nevada, has been killed in action.

It’s fair to say that sometimes, some of us lose sight that every day our fellow Americans
are overseas risking their lives for this country. But now, the war in the Middle East is as
close to home as it can be.

The parents of 23 year-old Sergeant Frank Zaehringer flew to Maryland Tuesday

evening to greet his body and bring it home.

Now, we look back at the life of a young soldier, born and raised in Reno.

Sergeant Frank Zaehringer graduated from Wooster High School in 2005. Two years
later, he joined the Marines. Last year, he was deployed to Iraq. A few months ago, in
July, he was deployed to Afghanistan as a Sergeant. His Aunt and Uncle tell us that the
Marines say Zaehringer was made Sergeant rather quickly, because he was a “great
leader, able to bring men together.”

The U.S. Department of Defense says Zaehringer was killed Monday while conducting
combat operations. He reportedly was hit by an IED while conducting foot patrols in the
Helmand province, according to family members and military officials.

He was assigned to 2nd Battalion, 9th Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Division, I Marine
Expeditionary Force, Camp Lejeune, N.C., according to the Department of Defense.

Zaehringer’s Aunt told us the family has been so proud of his service to this country, but
so worried that something like this might happen.

It goes without saying the family is extremely distraught.

That’s why Paula Fleming and her group of “Blue Star” mothers, is reaching out to the
family. Blue Star Mothers of America is a group of moms with children in the military,
who support each other in these times of need. Whether that be emotional support, or to
help with the funeral services, etc., Fleming says mothers like her who know what it’s
like to have children in war, will be here for the family.

“It is a huge effect these deaths have on family members,” said Fleming. “People who
aren’t involved in the military can’t always understand the depth and honor and pride
someone has, knowing your child has been in another country and actually died in
another country.”

Zaehringer, at age 23, leaves behind his wife, Cassie, and two step daughters, his sister,
brother-in-law, niece and nephew, as well as his aunt and uncle, and his parents. They
say they have received a huge outpouring of support from their family and friends.

Zaehringer had served for almost four years, and had recently signed up for another tour
of duty, according to his aunt and uncle. His mother, Sharon Zaehringer, said the he
joined the Marines in 2007 “to help those who could not help themselves.”

Crisp County Mourns The Death Of

Young Marine

Oct 10, 2010 By Stephanie Springer, WALB

CORDELE, GA

South Georgia is mourning the loss of another military son. 21-year old Coty
Sockalosky, a Marine from Cordele, died Wednesday from wounds he suffered in an
explosion in Afghanistan Friday.

Although he was young, he made a lasting impression of several people.

SFC Cooper says he can’t get his former JROTC student Coty Sockalosky off his mind.
So this morning he wrote a special message on the board, as a reminder of Coty’s
mission and the sacrifice he made as a Marine to other JROTC students, “We fully
understand what we are getting into when we sign on the dotted line, but no one expects
this, it touched me deeply,” said SFC Cooper.

Coty was wounded last week in an IED blast in Afghanistan. The 21-year old died from
his injuries yesterday in Germany. “We all have our number and unfortunately it was just
Sockalosky’s number, we can’t question God,” said Cooper.

But Sockalosky died a Marine, something he always wanted to be. “From the moment I
met him, he was about joining the Marines and being a good Marine,” said his former
teacher Brandi Reid.

And teachers have the paperwork to prove it, today Cooper pulled out a list of
Sockalosky’s goals in high school. “At the time they were going to the military, raising a
family and one of the most unique things I found in this packet was that he wanted to get
closer to God,” said Cooper.

And before his death, teachers say he achieved those goals. “Prior to graduating high
school he already had a ship date and everything was set up for him to join the United
States Marines.

He married his high school sweetheart Brittany. “They talked about getting married after
he went into the military which they did,” said Reid.

And he even developed a closer relationship with God. “Coty was a practical person and
for him religion was not something you practiced one day a week but something you
incorporated into your everyday life,” said former teacher Roy Gibbs.

While he didn’t have a long life, he had a full life and he died a true American hero.

Coty graduated from Crisp County High School in 2007. His wife and mother traveled to
Germany to be with him after he was wounded. The family has not made funeral
arrangements.

U.S. Navy Sailor’s Medical School

Dreams End With Deadly Blast In
Afghanistan
10.10.10 By FRED TASKER, The Miami Herald|

U.S. Navy sailor Edwin Gonzalez’s friends called him Superman. He liked the idea so
much he had a five-inch “S’’ tattooed on his chest.
“It was because he was always getting in accidents and coming out fine,” said Claudia
Herrera, a former high school classmate of Gonzalez’s, who lived in North Miami Beach.

“He was hit by cars twice and came out without a scratch,” said Victor Medina, another
friend.

On Friday, Gonzalez, 22, a newlywed, was killed when a roadside bomb exploded
during combat operations in the Helmand Province, Afghanistan, the U.S. Department of
Defense reported Sunday.

Gonzalez’s body was to be flown back to Miami-Dade for burial late Sunday night.

News spread quickly among his tight-knit group of friends, many of whom had served
with him as student leaders in the Junior Reserve Officers Training Corps at Dr. Michael
J. Krop Senior High School in North Miami-Dade. He graduated from high school in
2007.

“We were in the ROTC and we socialized outside it,” said Herrera. “We called ourselves
The Gang . . . Probably 10 of us are in the military now. This is the first time anything
has happened to us.”

Gonzalez’s friend Herrera is scheduled to report for Navy basic training later this month.

Gonzalez, also known as Gonzo, was serving as a hospital corpsman in the 2nd Marine
Division out of Camp Lejeune, North Carolina.

“He was a medic; he talked about becoming a doctor,” said Marina Leventhal, another
high school classmate. “He wanted to be a medic because he always wanted to help
people.”

Shortly before going to Afghanistan two or three months ago, Gonzalez married his
girlfriend, Neshme Bazan, whom he had met in the military, friends said. She is
stationed in Germany, they said.

Gonzalez’s parents in North Miami Beach declined to comment on Sunday.

Funeral services have not been announced. Several of his friends plan a dinner to
commemorate him this week at a local bar and grill.

“And every sixth of the month we’re going to go to his backyard and drink beer, light a
candle and just talk about him,” said Leventhal.

Gonzalez was born on the sixth of February, she said, and his friends want to
commemorate his birth, not his death. He liked to throw parties in his back yard
whenever he was back in town, she said.

“He was just a really great guy -- always happy, having fun,” said Leventhal. “We all
really miss him.”

On Sunday, friends left heartfelt messages on Gonzalez’s Facebook page. A YouTube

memorial was quickly put together for the fallen sailor.
Friends posted and shared their own photos of Gonzalez. Among them was Victor Olmo.
“A friend like Edwin deserves it,” Olmo said.

U.S. Military Goods For Sale

“Stolen From Trucks Carrying
Military Supplies Into Afghanistan”
“Along The Road To The Afghan
Border, You Can Buy U.S. Army Gear,
Computers And Manuals Instructing
Soldiers How To Avoid Roadside
Bombs”
“American Goods Are No. 1. Everything
Is The Best”
Pakistan’s Frontier Corps raided warehouses and recovered helicopter spare
parts, medical instruments, flak jackets and photos sent by the family members of
U.S. soldiers. The head of the Pakistani Taliban was filmed last year driving a U.S.
Humvee seized from one container.

Oct 7, 2010 By Chris Brummitt - The Associated Press

PESHAWAR, Pakistan — In this town along the road to the Afghan border, you can buy
U.S. Army gear, computers and manuals instructing soldiers how to avoid roadside
bombs.

Traders are coy about where their stock comes from, but much is stolen from trucks
carrying military supplies into Afghanistan.

Not only does the trade include materials of potential value to insurgents, it also
illustrates the challenges of securing supply lines into landlocked Afghanistan, a task
underscored in recent days by the closure of the main route through Pakistan and
subsequent fiery attacks on convoys.

The Sitara Market, on the outskirts of Peshawar, is some 100 yards from the border that
separates the tribal regions of northwest Pakistan from the rest of the country. Across
the frontier, there are no courts or regular police.
Hashish and heroin, smuggled goods and firearms are big business, and Islamist
militants have long found haven there.

The market’s proximity to the crossing is no coincidence. For more than 25 years, scores
like it have sprung up, dealing in Western goods such as diapers, food and electronics
either smuggled from, or headed into, Afghanistan.

In 2002, several small shops in the two-story, rundown complex began selling looted
goods from the several hundred containers that rumble across the border each day.

The boots, torches, tools, medical equipment, office supplies, food and military
uniforms are in demand because they are of better quality and cheaper than
similar goods for sale in northwest Pakistan.

“American goods are No. 1,” said one shopkeeper who gave his name only as
Muhammad. “Everything is the best.”

Earlier this month, Pakistan’s Frontier Corps raided warehouses in the tribal regions and
recovered helicopter spare parts, medical instruments, flak jackets and photos sent by
the family members of U.S. soldiers.

The head of the Pakistani Taliban was filmed last year driving a U.S. Humvee seized
from one container.

One trader said some of the material came from Afghanistan, where there are also
markets in Kabul that sell similar goods. He suggested that some NATO soldiers or
contractors might sell off unwanted supplies there.

A rummage through some of the roughly dozen stalls at the market in Peshawar
unearthed several documents that would be of potential use to militants, perhaps
most alarmingly a booklet showing in words and pictures how “jammers” on
military vehicles can stop remote-controlled bombs.

The 171-page manual is marked “for official use only” and urges the information
in the book not to be talked about in an open area and destroyed rather than
thrown away.

The owner of the market, Hanif Afridi, pointed out a shop, closed during a recent visit,
that sold army computers and other electronic equipment he said were “so heavy you
need a truck” to lift them.

Traders said it was possible to order most goods, including bulletproof glass and
fortified vehicle chassis.

Rumor has it that firearms, even American-issue ones, are also for sale.

While an Associated Press reporter had no luck finding any, occasional bursts of gunfire
could be heard in the distance.
“That is people trying before buying” at stalls just across the frontier, explained
one man who asked not to be named.

U.S. Navy Capt. Gary Kirchner, a spokesman for NATO forces in Afghanistan, declined
to comment on specific items for sale.

The market has no problems with the police, but Taliban militants visited last year
demanding store owners with signs reading “American Goods” paint over them, which
they did, Afridi said.

More Amazing News!

Afghans Increasingly Angry About
Foreign Troops Presence In Afghanistan
Oct 7, 2010 By Robert Kennedy - The Associated Press [Excerpt]

In a report released Thursday, the Open Society Foundations — a think tank backed by
billionaire George Soros — said Afghans are increasingly angry and resentful about the
international presence in Afghanistan and do not think insurgents are responsible for
most attacks and civilian deaths.

“While statistics show that insurgents are responsible for most civilian casualties, many
we interviewed accused international forces of directly stoking the conflict and causing
as many, if not more, civilian casualties than the insurgents,” researchers said in the
report.

“Many Afghan communities drew these conclusions only after they suffered from
civilian casualties, night raids, detention operations, and saw few signs of
progress in their country.”

The report was based on interviews in late 2009 and 2010 of more than 250 Afghans in
seven provinces, along with discussions with community leaders in other parts of the
country.

Taliban Operating Courts, Jails And

Prisons:
“The Prisons In Helmand Appear To Be
The Largest And Most Formal”
October 7, 2010 By ALISSA J. RUBIN, New York Times [Excerpts]
Across the regions where the Taliban have expanded their control, the insurgents are
gradually reinstituting much of the same brand of justice they were notorious for when
they ruled Afghanistan — swift, brutal and intimidating enough to ensure obedience and
order — with the help in a few places of substantial prisons.

The Taliban have used their jails to appeal to Afghans’ thirst for justice in a country
where the government’s judicial system is frequently slow and corrupt.

“Taliban are very harsh to those who have been convicted of spying and those who have
an affiliation with the government and the foreigners,” said one elder, Hajji Maitiullah
Khan. “People convicted of such crimes can be beaten up severely.” One man, he said,
was given 500 lashes a day for several days.

The prisons in Helmand appear to be the largest and most formal used by the Taliban.

Elsewhere in Helmand, the Taliban run another similarly large detention center, the
elders said. The detainees occasionally include people captured in the neighboring
provinces of Oruzgan and Kandahar, where the Taliban run smaller holding centers
often associated with courts, they said.

Many of those detained are accused of theft, murder or failure to pay debts. The crimes
are sometimes dealt with through payments and beatings, slightly less draconian
punishments than when the Taliban ran the country and stonings or cutting off limbs was
common, the elders said.

However, judgments are often left to the Taliban shadow governor or local Taliban
commander, and punishment can be unpredictable.

In Musa Qala, a daily procession of prisoners’ families wended their way to the prison
gates to plead — or pay — for the release of their relatives and bring them food.

A NATO spokesman said the area was remote and that previously there had not been
any coalition troops there. But Attiqullah’s account also demonstrated the hazards for
American and NATO forces when they do undertake prison rescues.

“They killed 5 prisoners, and when the raid occurred 13 Taliban were killed and 27
prisoners were rescued,” said Dawoud Ahmad, a spokesman for the Helmand governor.
At least in two cases, the prisoners were killed by the Taliban, but it was not clear whose
shots killed the others.

A NATO spokesman insisted that only Taliban were killed in the raid.

Good News For The Afghan

Resistance!!
 U.S. Occupation Commands’
Stupid Tactics Recruit Even More
Fighters To Kill U.S. Troops

A foreign occupation armed forces member from the USA body searches an Afghan
citizen without consent on a public road during a patrol in Marjah, southern Afghanistan,
October 4, 2010. (AP Photo/Todd Pitman)

Afghani citizens have no right to resist humiliating public body s by occupation soldiers
from the USA. If they do, they may be arrested, wounded, or killed.

Foreign occupation soldiers from the USA make a daily practice of publicly humiliating
Afghan citizens.

This encourages self-respecting honorable Afghans to kill them.

[Fair is fair.

[Let’s bring 94,000 Afghan troops over here to the USA.

[They can kill people at checkpoints, bust into their houses with force and
violence, bomb and butcher their families, overthrow the government, put a new
one in office they like better and “detain” anybody who doesn’t like it in a military
prison endlessly without any charges being filed against them, or any trial.

[Those Afghans are sure a bunch of backward primitives.

[They actually resent this help, have the absurd notion that it’s bad their country
is occupied by a foreign military dictatorship killing them wholesale, and consider
it their patriotic duty to fight and kill the soldiers sent to grab their country.

[What a bunch of silly people.

[How fortunate they are to live under a military dictatorship run by Barrack
Obama.

[Why, how could anybody not love that? You’d want that in your home town,
right?]

GUESS WHO’S WORRIED

GUESS WHO ISN’T
GUESS WHY
ALL HOME NOW

U.S. soldiers from 1-22 Infantry Battalion outside their combat outpost in Kandahar
province in southern Afghanistan October 4, 2010. REUTERS/Erik de Castro

IF YOU DON’T LIKE THE RESISTANCE

END THE OCCUPATION
 MILITARY NEWS

HOW MANY MORE FOR OBAMA’S WARS?

The remains of Army Spc. Pedro A. Maldonado of Houston Texas, at Dover Air Force
Base, Del. Oct. 31, 2010. Spc. Maldonado, 20, of Houston, Texas, died Oct. 29 in
Kandalay, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when insurgents attacked his unit with
rocket-propelled grenades and small arms fire. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

Suicidal Soldiers Humiliated And

“Publicly Ridiculed” By Superiors
With Fatal Results, Military Medical
Experts Say:
“They Tell Them, ‘You Dishonored Your
Unit. You’re Worthless’”
[Thanks to Alan Stolzer, Military Resistance organization & Michael Letwin, New York
City Labor Against The War & Military Resistance, who sent this in.]

October 8th 2010 BY Richard Sisk, DAILY NEWS WASHINGTON BUREAU [Excerpts]

WASHINGTON - Depressed soldiers who seek help for suicidal thoughts have been
publicly mocked by higherups, military medical experts told the Daily News.
The bullying involves “humiliating-type behavior in ranks, formations, where soldiers
were singled out and identified as someone who is suicidal, publicly ridiculed, and things
along that nature,” said Army Maj. Gen. Philip Volpe.

“They call a person out in front of a formation and chew ‘em out” in a misguided effort at
“tough love,” said Bonnie Carroll, a retired Air Force major and head of the Tragedy
Assistance Program for Survivors.

“They tell them, ‘You dishonored your unit. You’re worthless.’”

Volpe, who with Carroll led the Pentagon’s suicide-prevention task force, said he has
witnessed bullying - and in one case relieved a lieutenant colonel who was verbally
abusing a distraught soldier.

“Does the issue of stigma and soldiers being stigmatized exist? Yes. Have soldiers
been demeaned, belittled, ostracized? The answer is yes,” said Col. Chris Philbrick of
the Army’s Health Promotion, Risk Reduction Council.

For Marine Gunnery Sgt. Jim Gallagher, 40, of Brooklyn, that stigma - the fear of being
seen as weak and how that might affect his career - was too much for him to ask for
help.

After a tour in Iraq, Gallagher hanged himself at Camp Pendleton, Calif., in 2006.

“For him, it was an insult to be that vulnerable,” said his widow, Mary Gallagher. “He
knew it would be the termination of his position” if he sought counseling.

Congressman Catches
Pentagon In World-Class Stupid
Lie:
DoD Says Their Review Found Not
One Error In Cases Of 23,000
Soldier Kicked Out For “Pre-
Existing Personality Disorders”
“‘I Think All Of You, All You Civilians,
Should Be Examined For Personality
Disorders,’ Filner Said”
“Discharges Have Increased For
‘Adjustment Disorder’ Raising Questions
About Whether The Services Have Found
A New Way Of Doing The Same Thing”

Former Sgt. Chuck Luther says the Army improperly discharged him for mental
health issues stemming from a “pre-existing personality disorder” that were
actually the result of combat trauma. He was later diagnosed by the Veterans
Affairs Department with post-traumatic stress disorder and other problems.
THOMAS BROWN/STAFF

That so many are discharged for a condition that should have kept them out of the
military to begin with has raised questions among veterans groups and some
lawmakers over whether the services are using this diagnosis as a quick and less
costly way to shed potential problem troops.

Two years ago, under pressure from Congress, a review of personality disorder
separations was ordered, but it found no cases of improper discharges.

“Does it sound reasonable that out of 23,000 of anything, no mistakes were

made?” Filner asked the witnesses.

Sept. 27, 2010 By Rick Maze, Army Times [Excerpts]

A contentious congressional hearing about whether the military is too quick to diagnose
and discharge people for pre-service mental health issues that actually may have
resulted from combat stress or injury left a key lawmaker with concerns that troops are
being treated unfairly.
“You are not giving me a lot of confidence you know what the hell you are doing,”
House Veterans’ Affairs Committee Rep. Bob Filner, D-Calif., said to a panel of
defense, service and veterans officials who were seeking to justify a review of
“personality disorder” discharges since 2001 that has failed to turn up a single
case of military error.

The review also has not explained how so many people who enlist with serious
mental issues are not picked up by pre-enlistment screenings.

“I think all of you, all you civilians, should be examined for personality disorders,”
Filner said.

The Government Accountability Office reported that from Nov. 1, 2001, through June 30,
2007, about 26,000 troops were given administrative discharges for personality
disorders.

Of those, about 2,800 had deployed at least once in support of the current wars, GAO
said. The focus of the hearing was on a particular type of condition called “pre-existing
personality disorder,” a mental illness that Dr. Thomas Berger, a combat stress and
substance abuse specialist with Vietnam Veterans of America, said normally emerges
during childhood.

That so many are discharged for a condition that should have kept them out of the
military to begin with has raised questions among veterans groups and some
lawmakers over whether the services are using this diagnosis as a quick and less
costly way to shed potential problem troops.

Two years ago, under pressure from Congress, a review of personality disorder
separations was ordered, but it found no cases of improper discharges.

“Does it sound reasonable that out of 23,000 of anything, no mistakes were

made?” Filner asked the witnesses.

Lernes Hebert, the Defense Department’s acting director of officer and enlisted
personnel management, said some of those separated troops — those who had served
in a combat zone — would soon get letters telling them how to appeal their discharge
status or how to get the Veterans Affairs Department to approve them for service-
connected disability benefits.

Clifford Stanley, DoD’s personnel chief, issued an order on Sept. 10 for the services to
provide that notification, according to Pentagon spokeswoman Eileen Lainez. She said
the Defense Department owes “special care” to those who deployed on contingency
operations since Sept. 11, 2001, who received an administration separation for a
personality disorder before “enhanced” screening procedures were put in place in 2008.

Since Congress moved two years ago to tighten the rules specifically on
discharges for pre-existing personality disorder, the number of those discharges
has declined from 1,072 in 2006 to 260 last year, according to Pentagon data
released earlier this year by Sen. Christopher “Kit” Bond, R-Mo.
At the same time, discharges have increased for “adjustment disorder,” which is
folded into a broader discharge category of “other designated physical or mental
conditions.” Discharges under that category have risen from 1,453 in 2006 to
3,844 last year, according to Bond’s data.

The data shifts raise questions about whether the services have found a new way
of doing the same thing, said Paul Sullivan, executive director of Veterans for
Common Sense.

“It looks as though somebody is playing shell games,” Sullivan said.

Separation for a pre-existing condition has big ramifications in terms of health care and
other benefits available to veterans, Sullivan said.

Questions about the Defense Department’s possible motives for using pre-
existing conditions to discharge people with disabilities that may be combat-
related created some of the more heated moments at the hearing.

Freelance journalist Joshua Kors, who has spent 3½ years investigating

personality disorder discharges, and former Army Sgt. Chuck Luther, who
received one of the disputed discharges in 2007, both told lawmakers they believe
military doctors often are too quick to jump to a diagnosis of a preexisting
condition, and might even be doing it as a matter of policy.

Luther, who now gets veterans disability compensation and health care after VA
determined he has service-connected post-traumatic stress and other disabilities, has
tried but failed to get the Army’s Board for Correction of Military Records to revise his
discharge.

“It has been hell to just get my mind somewhat back on track,” Luther said.

“I get angry every time I look at my (discharge papers).”

Kors, who had a series of articles published in The Nation magazine, said military
medical personnel who provided the “wrong diagnosis” of Luther’s mental problems
“have been rapidly promoted,” which he charged is evidence that this was an organized
effort by the military to deny benefits to veterans.

POLITICIANS CAN’T BE COUNTED ON TO

HALT THE BLOODSHED
THE TROOPS HAVE THE POWER TO STOP
THE WARS
 FORWARD OBSERVATIONS

“At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed. Oh had
I the ability, and could reach the nation’s ear, I would, pour out a fiery stream of
biting ridicule, blasting reproach, withering sarcasm, and stern rebuke.

“For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder.

“We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake.”

Frederick Douglass, 1852

Hope for change doesn’t cut it when you’re still losing buddies.
-- J.D. Englehart, Iraq Veterans Against The War

I say that when troops cannot be counted on to follow orders because they see
the futility and immorality of them THAT is the real key to ending a war.
-- Al Jaccoma, Veterans For Peace

“What country can preserve its liberties if its rulers are not warned from time to
time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms.”
-- Thomas Jefferson to William Stephens Smith, 1787
“The Nixon administration claimed and received great credit for withdrawing the
Army from Vietnam, but it was the rebellion of low-ranking GIs that forced the
government to abandon a hopeless suicidal policy”
-- David Cortright; Soldiers In Revolt

It is a two class world and the wrong class is running it.

-- Larry Christensen, Soldiers Of Solidarity & United Auto Workers

Stopping The Madness

From: Mike Hastie

To: Military Resistance
Sent: October 16, 2010
Subject: Stopping The Madness

Stopping The Madness

This Vietnam veteran works relentlessly

in the anti-war movement to stop the wars
in Iraq and Afghanistan.
He does this,
because he cannot not do this.
He knows the lies of these wars,
because he knows that America
is a Global Imperialist Empire that will stop
at nothing.
Over 50,000 Vietnam veterans have
committed suicide because of these lies.
Three of my best friends did not die in Vietnam,
but as a result of being there.
The last one hung himself in a motel room three
years ago.
In America,
there is no such thing as
The Fog of War.
There is only The Fog of Memory.
I did not serve in Vietnam for the cause of freedom.
I served Big Business in America for the cause of profit.
This Vietnam veteran holds a picture that was taken in Iraq.
It is the same picture that tens of thousands of other
Vietnam veterans hold in their memories.
Day in and day out,
we will never forget that
Lying Is The Most Powerful Weapon In War.

Mike Hastie
U.S. Army Medic
Vietnam 1970-71
October 16, 2010

In memory of Bobby Drew.

In memory of Willie Hemphill.
In memory of Sean Daley.
When you take your last breath,
your eyes open to a new world.

Photo and caption from the I-R-A-Q (I Remember Another Quagmire) portfolio of
Mike Hastie, US Army Medic, Vietnam 1970-71. (For more of his outstanding work,
contact at: (hastiemike@earthlink.net) T)

One day while I was in a bunker in Vietnam, a sniper round went over my head.
The person who fired that weapon was not a terrorist, a rebel, an extremist, or a
so-called insurgent. The Vietnamese individual who tried to kill me was a citizen
of Vietnam, who did not want me in his country. This truth escapes millions.

Mike Hastie
U.S. Army Medic
Vietnam 1970-71
December 13, 2004

The Assassination Of Fred

Hampton:
How The FBI And The Chicago Police
Murdered A Black Panther
[Book Review]
The Assassination Of Fred Hampton: How The FBI And The Chicago Police Murdered A
Black Panther, By Jeffrey Haas; Lawrence Hill Books, 2009;$27; 376 pages

Review by Michael Steven Smith, March-April 2010 International Socialist Review

Michael Steven Smith, in the sixties, was in the Detroit National Lawyers Guild collective
of Lafferty, Reosti, Jabara, Papahkian, James, Stickgold, Smith and Soble.
He practices injury law in New York City, is on the board of the Center for Constitutional
Rights and is the author of Notebook of a Sixties Lawyer: An Unrepentant Memoir.

******************************************************************************************

This is a remarkable work, a well-told tale, a true crime story, a legal and political page-
turner of a thriller that is as important for us to comprehend now as it was in the sixties.

Just over forty years ago, National Lawyers Guild attorney Jeffrey Haas was in a
Chicago jail interviewing Fred Hampton’s fiancée, Deborah Johnson.

She was in her nightgown, pregnant, shaking, and sobbing, having barely survived the
hail of eighty bullets that came into her apartment just four hours before.

She had been sleeping at 4AM next to Fred Hampton, the extraordinary young leader of
the Chicago Black Panthers. Johnson described to Haas how the police pulled her from
the room as Hampton lay unconscious on their bed.

She heard one of the officers say, “He’s still alive.” Next, two gunshots. A second
officer said “He’s good and dead now.”

She looked at Jeff and asked, “What can you do?”

Haas tells the story, interwoven beautifully with his own personal and political biography,
of a truly amazing piece of movement lawyering.

It took thirteen years of grueling litigation, including more than 37,000 hours of work, and
political agitation outside the courtroom.

After losing an eighteen-month trial, Haas and his colleagues — Flint Taylor, his
People’s Law Office (PLO) collective, Dennis Cunningham, and Morty Stavis from the
Center for Constitutional Rights — won an appeal in Federal Circuit Court in a famous
civil rights decision (Hampton v. Hanrahan).

They finally nailed the FBI, the Cook County State’s Attorney, Edward Hanrahan, and
the Chicago police for their summary execution of the exceptionally promising — he was
only twenty-one at the time — Black leader.

“Who knows what he may have become, if they hadn’t killed him,” his mother, Iberia, told
Haas.

FBI director J. Edgar Hoover had an idea of what Hampton might become.

He was concerned, as he wrote in one directive, about “the rise of a new black Messiah.”

Martin Luther King and Malcolm X had already been murdered. Haas and Taylor
uncovered the story of how the government killed Hampton, and made the government
admit its guilt by winning a wrongful-death settlement for Hampton’s parents.

The feat is especially remarkable, considering that Haas was barely out of the University
of Chicago Law School when he undertook to represent the family, and Taylor was still a
law student at Northwestern. Their law collective had no resources to speak of against a
government whose litigation fund was unlimited.

Even at twenty-one, Fred Hampton was an accomplished person. He worked a factory

job and saved money to pay his college tuition. Like Malcolm, he wanted to be a lawyer.
Hampton studied Malcolm’s speeches and was, by all accounts, a master orator.

While in high school, he founded a youth chapter of the NAACP. When he turned
eighteen in 1966, he refused to register for the draft, the same year that Muhammad Ali
refused to be inducted.

Hampton was well-read, rising at least two hours before facing the day to read Marcus
Garvey, Che Guevara, Malcolm X, Mao, Marx, Lenin, and DuBois. Like them, he
understood that “a revolution is a class struggle. It was one class — the oppressed —
versus those other classes — the oppressor.”

Indeed it was this sort of radicalism — the advocacy of Black Power and socialism —
that made him dangerous. And Hoover knew it.

Black Power for Hampton, as Haas observes, was “not a tool to attack whites, but.. .a
concept to bring blacks together and build their confidence.”

Hampton was targeted by the police and arrested several times on technical traffic
violations. After being arrested for “mob action,” he was put on the FBI’s Key Agitator
Index, a group Hoover ordered agents to monitor closely.

The NAACP gave only lukewarm support to Hampton. Meanwhile, the radical program of
the Black Panthers in Oakland, California, had caught Hampton’s attention.

His mother, Iberia, a factory worker and union activist, was upset when he became a
Panther. She thought the rhetoric of the Panthers was provocative and might get him
killed. Fred himself said, “You kill one pig, you get some satisfaction, you kill all the pigs,
you get complete satisfaction.” Haas recalls, “The rhetoric that energized the Panthers
was often the same rhetoric that the police used to justify attacks on them.”

The murderous raid on Hampton’s apartment was ostensibly performed to exercise a

warrant in search of weapons.

Fred’s bodyguard was actually a police informer, a provocateur who urged the Panthers
to do illegal acts and got them guns. Hampton’s bodyguard drew up a floor plan of the
apartment, including where Hampton slept, so the police knew exactly where to find him.

A second autopsy, performed at the request of Haas’s team, showed that the two
gunshot wounds to Fred’s head were fired at a downward angle at close range. It
also showed he had been drugged with barbiturates, which accounts for the fact
that he was unable to rouse himself when the police shooting started.

Most Black people in Chicago were horrified by the killing. To them, it was a
police assassination, and they remained active in supporting the exposure of the
crime.
The People’s Law Office worked with the Black community and presented the case in a
political, not only a legal, framework. They put the state on trial. This public approach
became critical in determining how the People’s Law Office would represent the
movement and victims of police and official misconduct in the future.

Today, forty years later, the firm is suing and scandalizing the police for torturing and
extracting false confessions from more than 100 Black men in a South Side police
station. The current mayor, DaIey’s son, was involved in the cover-up.

Jeff Haas left the firm a few years ago in order to write this book. He writes, “Like others
who heard Malcolm X, Dr. King, and Fred Hampton speak in the 1960s, I learned that
fighting injustice and inequality is the struggle of our lives, and perseverance in this
struggle is what makes our lives valuable.”

DO YOU HAVE A FRIEND OR RELATIVE IN THE

MILITARY?
Forward Military Resistance along, or send us the address if you wish and
we’ll send it regularly. Whether in Afghanistan, Iraq or stuck on a base in
the USA, this is extra important for your service friend, too often cut off
from access to encouraging news of growing resistance to the wars, inside
the armed services and at home. Send email requests to address up top or
write to: The Military Resistance, Box 126, 2576 Broadway, New York, N.Y.
10025-5657. Phone: 888.711.2550

DANGER: POLITICIANS AT WORK

CLASS WAR REPORTS
 Troops Invited:
Comments, arguments, articles, and letters from service men
and women, and veterans, are especially welcome. Write to Box
126, 2576 Broadway, New York, N.Y. 10025-5657 or send email to
contact@militaryproject.org: Name, I.D., withheld unless you
request publication. Same address to unsubscribe.

NEED SOME TRUTH?

CHECK OUT TRAVELING SOLDIER
Traveling Soldier is the publication of the Military Resistance Organization.

Telling the truth - about the occupations or the criminals running the government
in Washington - is the first reason for Traveling Soldier. But we want to do more
than tell the truth; we want to report on the resistance to Imperial wars inside the
armed forces.

Our goal is for Traveling Soldier to become the thread that ties working-class
people inside the armed services together. We want this newsletter to be a
weapon to help you organize resistance within the armed forces.

If you like what you've read, we hope that you'll join with us in building a network
of active duty organizers. http://www.traveling-soldier.org/

And join with Iraq Veterans Against the War to end the occupations and bring all
troops home now! (www.ivaw.org/)
Military Resistance distributes and posts to our website copyrighted material the use of which has not always been
specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in an effort to advance
understanding of the invasion and occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. We believe this constitutes a “fair use” of any
such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law since it is being distributed without
charge or profit for educational purposes to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included
information for educational purposes, in accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107. Military Resistance has no
affiliation whatsoever with the originator of these articles nor is Military Resistance endorsed or sponsored by
the originators. This attributed work is provided a non-profit basis to facilitate understanding, research,
education, and the advancement of human rights and social justice. Go to:
www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml for more information. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for
purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use’, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

If printed out, a copy of this newsletter is your personal property and cannot
legally be confiscated from you. “Possession of unauthorized material may not
be prohibited.” DoD Directive 1325.6 Section 3.5.1.2.