GI SPECIAL
4G26:

[Thanks
to Phil G, who sent this in.]
“The Military
Just Keeps Putting People Out There To Get Blown Up”
Cedarburg Man Says
Son Killed On Duty In Iraq
Jul 25, 2006 (AP)
CEDARBURG, Wis.
A Cedarburg family is in mourning after
learning their son was killed in Iraq.
Stephen Castner says his son, 27-year-old
Steve Castner, died only days after being sent to the Middle East.
He says his family learned of the death just
after noon yesterday.
According to his father, Specialist-Four
Castner was a member of the 121st Field Artillery Regiment. He also served four years in the Air Force.
Castner says his son studied at U-W-Milwaukee
and later transferred to U-W-Stevens Point.
He says the Army hasn't figured
out how to protect its soldiers from explosive devices set by insurgents.
He says the military just keeps
putting people out there to get blown up.
IRAQ WAR REPORTS
SERVICEMEMBER KILLED IN ACTION
7/25/2006 HEADQUARTERS UNITED STATES CENTRAL
COMMAND NEWS RELEASE Number: 06-07-02C
BAGHDAD, Iraq: A Servicemember assigned to the 43rd Military
Police Brigade was killed in action while conducting combat operations north of
Baghdad, July 25.
Texas Soldier Killed

Capt. Blake H. Russell, 35, a 101st Airborne
Division soldier from Fort Worth, Texas, died July 22, 2006, while
investigating a possible mortar cache during combat operations in Baghdad. (AP Photo/U.S. Army)
Cavalry Scout, 22, Dies Five Days After Roadside
Bomb Attack

Cpl. Matthew P. Wallace of Lexington
Park "chose to do this," his mother said of his Army career. (Family
Photo)
July 24, 2006 By Donna St. George, Washington Post Staff Writer
Her son was a cavalry scout in Iraq, and
yesterday Mary Wallace recalled his childhood in St. Mary's County -- shaping
coat hangers into toy guns, asking for a bedspread done in Army camouflage.
"I'm going to be a soldier man," she remembered him telling her.
Wounded on a combat mission, Cpl. Matthew P.
Wallace, 22, died Friday in a military hospital in Germany, five days after a
roadside bomb detonated near his Bradley Fighting Vehicle in Baghdad. His
family was gathered at his bedside -- mother, father and three sisters.
One sister read a final letter. One sang to
him. "I think the most important
thing to say about Matthew was that he chose this," his mother said.
"He wasn't drafted. He knew he was taking a risk, but he chose to do
this."
Deployed to Iraq eight months ago, Wallace
was atop his vehicle as the gunner July 16 when the bomb went off, his family
said. A fellow soldier was killed. Wallace survived but was burned over 95
percent of his body. Hopes that he would somehow make it faded, and his family
members flew to Germany.
Told that he was brain dead, they withdrew
life support.
The Wallace family returned to their
Lexington Park home Saturday night, passing a convenience store where Wallace
had once worked. The American flag
outside "was all lit up and at half-mast, and it just touched us all so
much," Mary Wallace said.
Just before her son went to war, he explained
his reasons, his mother said. "He
chose to go to war so that his sisters' children didn't have to," she
said. "They don't even have children yet, but he didn't want them to have
to go through what he knew he was getting into. He wanted to let them play in
the shade of trees and laugh at what amused them with no fear of bombs dropping
on them."
This was a decision he came to at 19, she
said, after a period when he felt undecided about his life's course. He had
dropped out of Great Mills High School, then earned his General Educational
Development diploma in 2001.
When Wallace became a cavalry scout -- often
working out in front of the larger unit -- he told his father, "I found
the thing I do well," Keith Wallace recalled.
His father said Wallace had been partly
inspired by his paternal grandfather, who served in the Army but died before
Wallace's birth. "I told him all kinds of stories and showed him pictures
of my dad, and we went through all sorts of scrapbooks," Keith Wallace
said.
In Iraq, Wallace was assigned to the Army's
10th Cavalry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division. Based
out of Fort Hood, Tex., he had earned distinctions as a marksman and the Army
Achievement Medal, his family said.
His parents said Wallace had a gift for humor
and loved handwritten letters with details about ordinary life -- what his
mother referred to as "the blah, blah letters . . . like, 'Then we went to
Wal-Mart.' " "It must have made him feel he was with us
vicariously," she said.
Lately he had called his family every few
days, including just three days before the bomb blast.
"I asked him how he was," his father
recalled. "He was kind of silent for a moment. 'Oh, okay, I guess,' he
said." His father went on: "I made sure I comforted him with my
abiding love for him and my pride in him. I think the rigors of war were
beginning to wear on him."
Wallace, thin and muscular, had always loved
music. He played guitar with friends in garage bands, went to concerts and
bought piles of CDs. He wore a Walkman
"even after they went out of style," said Mathew Korade, his closest
friend since childhood.
After sending Wallace many care packages in
Iraq, Korade said he had recently bought his friend an acoustic guitar, so he
could play in the war zone. "I imagined him opening it," he said.
His voice softened into a near-whisper.
"We were like brothers. I loved him more than anything. . . . I just wish
he was coming home."
Iraq Whack-A-Mole Rolls On
July 26, 2006 By Washington correspondent Kim
Landers, ABC/Reuters
The United States is shifting
more troops into Baghdad from other parts of Iraq to try to curb violence in
the capital.
The redeployment comes after the failure of a
six-week-long security crackdown in the Iraqi capital.
AFGHANISTAN WAR REPORTS
Foreign Occupation Soldier Killed Near Dag
Village:
Nationality Not Announced
7/25/2006 HEADQUARTERS UNITED STATES CENTRAL
COMMAND NEWS RELEASE Number: 06-07-02PL
BAGRAM AIRFIELD, Afghanistan: A Coalition
Soldier was killed July 24 while conducting combat operations against enemy
extremists in the Pech District of Kunar Province.
The Soldier was a member of a Coalition
patrol responding to an attack by insurgents near Dag Village.
THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NO COMPREHENSIBLE REASON TO BE
IN THIS EXTREMELY HIGH RISK LOCATION AT THIS TIME, EXCEPT THAT A CROOKED
POLITICIAN WHO LIVES IN THE WHITE HOUSE WANTS YOU THERE, SO HE WILL LOOK GOOD.
That is
not a good enough reason.

U.S. army personnel in the southern city of
Kandahar July 24, 2006. A blast struck a vehicle carrying U.S. led forces in
the southern Afghan province of Kandahar on Monday wounding two soldiers. REUTERS/Ismail Sameem (AFGHANISTAN)
Two U.S. Soldiers Serious Wounded In Khost
Province;
One Wounded In Paktika
July 25 (Xinhua) & FISNIK ABRASHI,
Associated Press
The U.S. military said Tuesday that two
American engineer soldiers were seriously wounded in a roadside bomb attack in
eastern Khost province.
Their convoy was on its way Sunday to an
engineer road project between Khowst and Gardez when they were attacked.
The two soldiers are listed in serious but
stable condition, according to the Coalition.
One coalition soldier was slightly wounded in
Paktika province.
TROOP NEWS
The Last Japanese Troops From Iraq Have Returned
Home:
No More For Them

Japanese soldiers arrive at
Somagahara military base in Shinto-mura, Gunma Prefecture, Japan. The last
Japanese troops from Iraq have returned home. (AFP/File/Kazuhiro Nogi)
U.S. Troops Say
Torture Of Detainees In Iraq Ordered By Officers;
Honorable Soldiers Threatened For Objecting
Human
Rights Watch said that the report showed that criminal investigations of abuses
need to follow the military chain of command, rather than focusing on low-level
soldiers.
Human
Rights Watch said that the report showed that criminal investigations of abuses
need to follow the military chain of command, rather than focusing on low-level
soldiers. To date, not a single military
intelligence officer has been court-martialed in connection with abuse
allegations in Iraq.
23rd July, 2006 Irish Sun
Torture and other abuses against detainees in
U.S. custody in Iraq were authorized and routine, even after the 2004 Abu
Ghraib scandal, according to new accounts from soldiers.
A Human Rights Watch report released Sunday
contains first-hand accounts by U.S. military personnel of abuses at an
off-limits facility at Baghdad airport, and at other detention centers
throughout Iraq.
"Soldiers were told that the Geneva
Conventions did not apply, and that interrogators could use abusive techniques
to get detainees to talk," said John Sifton, the author of the report and
the senior researcher on terrorism and counterterrorism at Human Rights Watch.
"These accounts rebut U.S. government claims that torture and abuse in
Iraq was unauthorized and exceptional, on the contrary, it was condoned and
commonly used."
The accounts reveal that detainee abuse was
an established and apparently authorized part of the detention and
interrogation processes in Iraq for much of 2003 through 2005. They also
suggest that soldiers who sought to report abuse were rebuffed or ignored.
An interrogator who served at Camp Nama told
Human Rights Watch that the leadership of his interrogation unit encouraged
abuse. "People wanted to go, go, go harsh on everybody," he said.
"They thought that was their job and that's what they needed to do, and do
it every time."
The interrogator stationed at Camp Nama, said
the commander of the interrogation unit there had to authorize the use of the
abuse techniques, but that the authorizations were so common that interrogators
used a template to fill out authorization forms.
"There was an authorization template on
a computer, a sheet that you would print out, or actually just type it in. And
it was a checklist, you would just check what you want to use off, and if you
planned on using a harsh interrogation, you'd just get it signed off. I never
saw a sheet that wasn't signed. It would be signed off by the commander,
whoever that was. He would sign off on that every time it was done."
Human
Rights Watch said that the new report shows how soldiers who felt abusive
practices were wrong or illegal faced significant obstacles at every turn when
they attempted to report or expose the abuses.
For example, an MP guard at the facility near al-Qaim, who complained to
an officer about beatings and other abuse he witnessed, was told, "You
need to go ahead and drop this, sergeant."
The guard
told Human Rights Watch, "It was repeatedly emphasized to me that this was
not a wise course of action to pursue.
'You don't want to take this inquiry anywhere else,' kind of thing. 'You should definitely drop this; this is not
something you wanna do to yourself.'
Human Rights Watch said that
the report showed that criminal investigations of abuses need to follow the
military chain of command, rather than focusing on low-level soldiers.
To date, not a single military
intelligence officer has been court-martialed in connection with abuse
allegations in Iraq. Human Rights Watch
says it is unaware of any criminal investigations into wrongdoing by officers
overseeing interrogations and detention operations in Iraq.
The organization Sunday called
on the U.S. Congress to appoint an independent, bipartisan commission to
investigate the true scope of detainee abuse in Iraq, the complicity of
higher-level officials, and the systemic flaws that make it difficult for
soldiers to report abuses they witness.
Human Rights Watch also called on the
president to appoint an independent prosecutor to investigate and prosecute the
perpetrators of abuse, including the military and civilian leaders who
authorized or condoned abuse.
"It is now clear that leaders were
responsible for abuses that occurred in Iraq," Sifton said. "It's time for them to be held
accountable."
Military Suicides
Rise With Endless Combat Rotations:
“The Fact That
The DoD Isn’t Following Up With Almost 80
Percent Of Them Is An Outrage”
2006-07-24 By Terry Gildea, OPB News
The rate of suicide among US military
personnel is on the rise.
It was nearly a year ago that the Army
awarded Specialist Leslie Fredrick of Fort Lewis, Washington the Combat Action
Badge for his service in Iraq.
Two weeks after getting the honor, Fredrick
shot himself.
88 active duty soldiers killed
themselves in 2005, a number that was up 13% over 2003 and more than 70% over
2001.
Paul Rieckhoff, executive director of Iraq
and Afghanistan Veterans of America, calls the figures alarming.
And he says an overstretched military and
repeat tours of duty are taking a toll on soldiers.
Paul Rieckhoff: "The last
rotation, roughly 40% were there for the second time. Many are there now for the 3rd or 4th
time. Divorce rates are going up, the
violence continues to increase, and roughly one in three are coming home with
mental health issues or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, so our people are
really showing signs of wear."
Recent evidence suggests the Defense
Department is not effective in referring soldiers for mental health care.
About 5% of soldiers who've
fought in Iraq and Afghanistan met criteria for PTSD in a study by the
Government Accountability Office. But only one in five of those soldiers were
referred for treatment by military clinicians.
The study's bottom line: the Pentagon cannot
provide reasonable assurance that Afghanistan and Iraq service members who need
referrals receive them.
Paul Reickoff calls the GAO results shameful.
Paul Reickoff: "That's a
failure on the part of the DOD and a failure on the part of Secretary
Rumsfeld. Most people won't even admit
or be flagged on an issue, but when they do the fact that the DOD isn't following
up with almost 80 percent of them is an outrage."
The Pentagon does not yet have figures on
military suicide rates for 2006.
7000 From 25th ID Off To Bush’s
Imperial Slaughterhouse, Again
July 24, 2006 Army Times
Schofield Barracks, Hawaii
About 7,000 soldiers with the 25th Infantry
Division have begun deploying to Iraq.
The division’s 3rd Brigade, Combat
Aviation Brigade, and 45th Sustainment Brigade are among the units being sent
to northern Iraq for a yearlong tour.
Members of the 3rd Brigade
fought in Afghanistan from March 2004 to March 2005. It is the unit’s first deployment to
Iraq.
Straws In The Wind:
War Critics Emerge In Areas Tied To Military
7.25.06 USA Today
Some of the most pointed critiques of the
administration's policy in Iraq are coming from lawmakers who represent
constituencies with close ties to the military.
Equal Pay For Equal Work:
Mercenaries Get $12,000 A Month For Convoy Duty:
Pay The Troops The Same!
7.25.06 Norfolk Virginian-Pilot
Private military contractors [translation:
mercenaries] can earn substantially more money than members of the armed
services. A Government Accountability Office study last year found that
contractors were earning $12,000 to $13,000 a month working on security convoys
in Iraq.
Irish Jury Finds Attacking U.S. Military Aircraft
Not A Crime;
Stopping Attacks On Iraq OK
July 25, 2006 By HARRY BROWNE, CounterPunch
It took nearly three-and-a-half
years for the case of the Pitstop Ploughshares to reach a jury. It took the jury less than three-and-a-half hours
to find the five activists not guilty of criminal damage to a US Navy plane at
Shannon Airport in western Ireland in February 2003.
Having been instructed not to respond audibly
to the verdict, the crowd in the courtroom sobbed quietly with joy and relief
as the verdicts were read out for all five defendants earlier today.
This trial was the first time a jury was
allowed by Judge Miriam Reynolds to hear it argued fully that the
'disarmament' of the navy C40 transport was done with 'lawful excuse'.
In the the two trials of Mary Kelly for
earlier damage to the same plane the judge ruled out the 'lawful excuse'
defence.
The defence under Ireland's
criminal-damage statute allows damage to property if it's done in the 'honest
belief' that so doing will protect lives and/or property, and if that belief is
reasonable in the circumstances as the accused perceived them to be.
Judge Reynolds said only the reasonableness
of the belief, not its honesty, was at issue in the case, and said the question
was so tied up with the facts of the case that it wouldn't be appropriate for
her to prohibit the jury from considering it.
The trial heard from activist
and Counterpuncher Kathy Kelly, who met the five shortly before their action
and told them about the horrors inflicted on Iraq by sanctions and bombing
prior to February 2003.
It also heard from ex-Royal Air
Force logistics expert Geoffrey Oxley that he couldn't rule out the possibility
of damage to a transport plane having a knock-on effect that could result in
lives saved in Iraq.
An international-law expert
also testified as to the illegality of the US war.
In effect, the jury agreed that to damage an
American military plane in these circumstances couldn't be considered a crime.
Whatever about the technical reasons for the
verdict, its quickness and unanimity sends a message to the Irish government
about its policy of facilitating the US military at Irish airports, especially
Shannon. More than 300,000 troops have
passed through there in the last year alone.
The five read a statement outside the
courtroom that highlighted the political importance of the verdict: "The
jury is the conscience of the community, chosen randomly from Irish society. The conscience of the community has spoken. The government has no popular mandate in
providing the civilian Shannon Airport to service the US war machine in its
illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq.”
"The decision of this jury
should be a message to London, Washington DC and the Dail that Ireland wants no part in waging war on
the people of Iraq. Refuelling of US
warplanes at Shannon Airport should cease immediately."
“Model Employer” DoD Fights Giving
It’s Deployed Workers Equal Pay
July 24, 2006 Army Times
The Defense Department has
named the federal government one of its “model employers” of
mobilized National Guard and reserve members. In a June 28 ceremony, Cabinet secretaries
and heads of independent agencies signed a statement of support of employment
and re-employment rights for reservists who are also federal civilian
employees, and pledged to go above and beyond what the law requires to support
reservists when they are mobilized.
The award comes as a shock to
some because the Bush administration and Defense Department have opposed
legislation that would require the federal government to pay both military and
federal civilian salaries to mobilized workers, or even to simply make up any
difference in pay for reservist-employees who earn less in the military than in
civilian life: a fairly common benefit offered in the private sector.
Rep. Tom Lantos, D-Calif., and Sen. Richard
Durbin, D-Ill., chief sponsors of leg
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