The Political Conundrum!

I was just informed that March is the month of Traumatic Brain Injury Awareness month. Since I have been diagnosed and deal with TBI myself, this is an important topic to me personally.

I was forwarded the article below from Care Meridian (http://www.caremeridian.com/) and I wanted to post it here to help raise awareness to the injury and its impact.

Traumatic Brain Injuries in the Military

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is becoming a common wound of modern warfare. It has even been coined the “signature wound” of the War on Terror. While TBI is becoming more
prevalent in wartime activity, many service men and women continue to go undiagnosed. Institutions, like the US Department of Veterans Affairs, are working to make quick and accurate diagnoses in order to prescribe appropriate and effective treatment.

TBI is caused by forced trauma to the head, either by being shaken or hit. The severity of a TBI varies from case to case, but symptoms range from mild concussions to a debilitating state. The majority of TBI’s acquired by military personnel are classified as mild traumatic brain injuries (MTBI). Initial symptoms of MTBI consist of loss of consciousness, disorientation, loss of memory, headache, and temporary loss of hearing and vision. They are often partnered with anxiety, irritability, difficulties processing information, limited concentration amongst other problems experienced down the road. While MTBI is most common amongst the men and women of the armed forces, more severe cases of TBI are
happening much more frequently and often require the victim to attended specialty rehabilitative nursing centers, like CareMeridian.

The most common cause of a TBI in the military is due to blasts. There are three degrees of
blast injuries where a TBI is common; Primary (due to blast itself), Secondary (due to objects being propelled by a blast) and Tertiary (due to a collision with a third party object). According to the Veterans Health Initiative, active male members of the military from the ages 18-24 are hospitalized with a TBI at a rate of 231 per 100,000 and females 150 per 100,000. Based on military force projections this would mean that 4,141 military personnel are hospitalized on average each year with a TBI, and these numbers often rise during wartimes.

The best prevention for veterans to avert the long-term effects of a brain injury is to recognize the symptoms of a TBI. Once the symptoms are identified an individual should take basic precautionary measures in order to begin the healing and recovery process until a more specific diagnosis can be made.

Service men and women give so much to protect this country and they deserve to come home to a happy and healthy life. Creating awareness about TBI will help ensure their long term health. By helping our veterans, their friends and their families recognize the early warning signs of a TBI, treatment can be sought as early as possible.

Over the next couple of days I will be doing a majority of my blogging and tweeting for You Served. The blogging will be happening at www.youserved.com. The tweeting will be happening at www.twitter.com/youserved.

The reason I am spending my time over there is because I have been so very lucky to be invited to the TRADOC Sr. Leader Conference. This is the first year that TRADOC has opened up the conference to bloggers. There are only three MSM representatives present and three bloggers. I am joined by Uncle Jimbo from blackfive.net and Mark Seavey from The Burn Pit. I am honored and blessed to be in the company of such great people and be extended this invitation. This is another example of how blogging has opened up so many doors to me.

I will try to post one or two things here on Bouhammer, but keep an eye over at You Served for the next week at least if you don’t normally as I will be posting interviews (both audio and video), blogs, etc.

For more than a week, there has been a flurry of counter-terrorism raids across the country. This comes just ten days before President Barack Obama is set to make his first visit to Indonesia since spending part of his elementary school years in Jakarta.
Initially the police focused their attention on a 50-strong group of militants that was allegedly conducting paramilitary training at the foot of a mountain on the border of Pidie and Aceh Besar districts in Aceh province. As of this week, the police had killed or arrested nearly 20 persons tied to this group. They have also confiscated a small number of assault rifles, military uniforms purchased in Malaysia, and videotapes of various deceased Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) members.
Although the police investigation in Aceh is ongoing, it would appear like several of the members were not ethnic Acehnese and could instead be traced to the island of Java. This is an interesting development, as the Acehnese have traditionally exhibited fierce animosity toward those from Java, and many have found it hard to believe that the two sides have now put aside their long-standing differences to conduct risky paramilitary training in a relatively populated area of Aceh. Others have noted that the Acehnese, while pious and prone toward separatism, have rarely shown any radical tendencies along the Wahhabist lines pushed by JI.
But the questions raised by all this pale in comparison to developments yesterday. After the Indonesian authorities earlier announced that some of the Aceh gang could be traced back to Banten province on Java, and specifically the area of Pamulang (which is just outside the Jakarta city limits), the police conducted a pair of raids in Pamulang. The Indonesian media has since been speculating that at least one of the dead is Dul Matin, a JI electronics expert linked to the 2002 Bali bombings. It had been thought that Dul Matin had been in the southern Philippines since at least 2003, where he had been given sanctuary by both the MILF and Abu Sayyaf Group. But the media is now speculating that he made his way into Indonesia and was hiding out in a Pamulang house owned by a medical doctor that he had befriended during the communal violence in Ambon during 1999. That Dul Matin would risk taking up shelter on the outskirts of Jakarta on face appears to be out of character for a terrorist known for his caution as much as his extremism. The police expect the result of a DNA test to confirm the identity of the corpse later today.

About seven or eight months ago my good friend Scott Kesterson who was and still is in Afghanistan told me “things are changing here, they are going back to a Vietnam way of patrolling”. I was not sure what he was talking about or implying so I asked him. He told me that the troops were getting out of he vehicles and walking every where they go. Vehicles were limited to the roads for the most part and the enemy had them channeled and could focus the IEDs and EFPs on the roads. Soldiers were finding (along with GEN McChrystal’s direction) that if they went dismounted they were safer because the enemy could not IED wide open space.

In order to have freedom of movement and to increase the chance of survival, soldiers were going “cross-country” by dismounted patrols. Since that time I have read reports and stories where entire platoons and sometimes companies never even see vehicles. They spend their whole year walking everywhere. Not to mention that this is the most effective way to engage the local populace and truly exercise COIN. You cannot get to know the local people by speeding through the bazaars behind 3″ of glass and armor. So by going dismounted the troops are accomplishing several things both tactically, and for force-protection.

Of course I am speaking mostly of US Forces as local Afghan forces like to ride. My buddy vampire-6 wrote on several occasions over at his blog www.afghanistanshrugged.com about his ANA riding into an objective rather than walking, which was against the plan. I guess when you spend most of your life in dirt, farming dirt, and walking in dirt everywhere, if you get a chance to ride you are going to take it.

I am also glad to see our forces get out of the vehicles and back to the basics of movement, by foot. We have been our own worst enemy in the military by coming up with so many cool and beneficial technologies that in many areas we have lost sight of the basics. How many junior leaders even know how to land navigate with a compass and protractor anymore, much less even know what a protractor is.

Due to the fear of IEDs, the reliance on body armor and the concern by commander to lose any soldiers “on their watch”, our soldiers have been told to stick with the vehicle and never leave. Heck, when I was an ETT in 06-07 we had an idiot of a Corps Commander (COL) tell us that we should never leave the truck. That ETTs had no reason to be on the ground. We were the mentors, advisors, and even leaders (most of the time) of the ANA, so how were we supposed to “set the example” if we could not leave the vehicle, yet we would tell our ANA to do it. This is the same idiot of an officer that said we were…get ready for this, “non-combatant combatants”. I am not exaggerating, that is an exact quote. I am a pretty smart guy when it comes to military doctrine and tactics, and I know many other people that are too, but I still cannot find anyone that knows what the hell a “non-combatant combatant” is. By the way, this genius of a Colonel is now a General in a certain state’s National Guard.

Well back to the point of this blog, all of what I have written so far is really to prep you for what you are about to read below. This story, titled Willing to Walk by Heath Druzin, came out on March 5th, 2010 in the Mideast edition of the Stars and Stripes. You can see the online version of this story and the entire edition HERE.

Willing to Walk by Heath Druzin

KANE IZAT, Afghanistan — The airborne Soldiers of Company B walk. Then they walk some more. Through snow and mud, across apple orchards and frigid rivers, in the shadow of menacing, snow-capped peaks, when the Soldiers need to get somewhere, the road is almost never an option.

Roadside bombs have been the biggest killer in Afghanistan for coalition troops, and as armor has improved, the bombs have gotten bigger and more sophisticated.
Capt. Kirby Jones, the commander of the 1st Battalion, 503rd Infantry Regiment’s Company B, sees a simple solution to this: Never drive. Anywhere.

“We almost always walk,” he said. “I see two benefits to that: You get to interact with the people and you don’t get blown up.”

Jones, 31, of Bellingham, Wash., and his company of Soldiers, under the 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team, are based at Combat Outpost Nerkh, perched more than 7,000 feet up in the shadow of 11,000-foot peaks in northern Wardak province. Soldiers across Wardak, much of it with similar terrain, have also largely eschewed vehicles.

It means a boot-sucking slog with cold, wet feet, filthy uniforms, and a chill that penetrates every layer of clothing. It also means a much longer commute. What would be a 15-minute drive can become a two-hour walk, and for more remote missions, Soldiers in Wardak often rely on helicopters, which are subject to the whims of the weather.

Walking through the village of Kane Izat near Combat Outpost Nerkh, Jones’ Soldiers are mobbed by children asking for pens and stop to chat with residents. After stopping at an outpost of a local U.S.-backed militia, where fighters complain they are not getting their full pay, the Soldiers stop for tea with the principal of a nearby school.

Insurgents have been paying attention and there are signs they are adapting. In the Tangi Valley in the south of the province, one Soldier was injured by a booby trap laid for his foot patrol, and Soldiers in the area have found several similar explosives in the area before they detonated.

In three months, though, in an area notorious for roadside bombs, Jones’ men haven’t suffered a single casualty.

It’s still early, and with the melting snow traditionally comes more fighting, but Jones says he is more comfortable handling a firefight than playing Russian roulette with cleverly concealed bombs.

Even in the midst of a steady, chilly rain on a recent patrol through fields of mud and snow, the infantry Soldiers weren’t complaining.

“It doesn’t really bother me,” said Sgt. George Inana, 27, of Mobile, Ala. “That’s the job.”
What is perhaps more surprising than Company B’s almost complete abandonment of vehicles is the fact that more units haven’t followed suit. In 2009, 275 coalition troops were killed by roadside bombs, more than 60 percent of total casualties, with that percentage holding steady this year. Sixty troops already have been killed by the bombs, according to icasualties.org.

In Afghanistan’s bomb-plagued south, troops regularly commute to patrols in everything from heavily armored Mine-Resistant Ambush-Protected vehicles to the lightly armored eight-wheeled Strykers, a vehicle that has proven nimble in urban combat but has a miserable record of protecting Soldiers against buried explosives.

For Lt. Col. Matt McFarlane, who commands forces in Wardak province, pushing his men off the roads was an easy call, in line with directives from Gen. Stanley McChrystal to have a less intimidating presence and act more as guests than occupiers. Lumbering through a town in hulking armored vehicles sends a very different message from walking up with a handshake, said McFarlane, 40, of Burke, Va.

“When we’re walking around, we’re at the people’s level. It allows us to engage the population, it allows the population to engage us.”

(C) 2010 Stars and Stripes

Photo: Heath Druzin / S&S

Uncle Jimbo tells is like it is. My good friend and fellow milbloggers, Uncle Jimbo tells it like it is in this video clip that I got from his site at www.unclejimbo.com.

I have stated several times what Jimbo says here. I also understand and agree with what Gen McChrystal is trying to do, but just like the exercise where you tell someone something on one side of a room and tell them to repeat it exactly, but by the time it gets to the person on the other side of the room, the message has changed….that is what happens in the military too.

When you have a four-star General who is known to hold people accountable and discipline those leaders that don’t do their jobs, many leaders under that four-star General will interpret what they think that General said, meant, or implied. There are many other less than four-star Generals, Colonels, Lieutenant Colonels, Majors, Captains and even Sergeant Majors and First Sergeants that take it on themselves to second-guess or question the initial intent and policy of the top commander. The situation that Jimbo highlights below is good example of what the results are when a lower level commander does not understand the initial intent or are scared for their own careers to the point that they risk and lose American lives.

Good Job Jimbo, I owe you a beer at the Milblog Conference.

JOINT BASE BALAD, Iraq – Soldiers and Airmen gathered to pay their final respects to Sgt. William C. Spencer, at a fallen Soldier ceremony March 1 at the Joint Operations Center at Joint Base Balad, Iraq.
Spencer, a gunner with G Company, 106th Brigade Support Battalion, 155th Heavy Brigade Combat Team, 13th Sustainment Command (Expeditionary), died Feb. 25 from an aneurysm while serving at Contingency Operating Base Marez, Iraq.
Spencer, a Clinton, Ky., native, was born Aug. 11, 1969, and is survived by his mother, Sharon Welch, and his sister, Sharon Whittle.
He was posthumously promoted from specialist to sergeant Feb. 25.
Spc. Quentin K. Schul, the administrative operations chaplain assistant with the 13th ESC and a Victoria, Texas, native, spoke at the ceremony and read Spencer’s biography.
“(Sgt.) William Clifton Spencer gave the ultimate sacrifice,” he said. “We will not forget.”
Col. Knowles Y. Atchison, deputy commander for the 13th ESC, placed the ceremonial identification tags on the fallen warrior memorial in the foyer of the JOC.
Sgt. Spencer is a hero, said Atchison, a Fort Hood, Texas, resident.
“This is a sad moment,” he said. “If he had not been here, would he still be living? That is what I ask myself. We will never know the answer to that question, but the fact is that he was here and he was making a contribution, he was serving his country. That makes him a hero. It puts him in the top five percent of the American population.”
Spencer will not be forgotten, said Atchison.

Col. Knowles Y. Atchison, deputy commander with the 13th Sustainment Command (Expeditionary) and a Fort Hood, Texas, resident, places Sgt. William C. Spencer’s identification tags on the fallen warrior memorial March 1, after a ceremony in Spencer’s honor in the foyer of the Joint Operations Center at Joint Base Balad, Iraq. Spencer, a gunner with G Company, 106th Brigade Support Battalion, 155th Heavy Brigade Combat Team, 13th ESC and a Clinton, Ky., native, died Feb. 25 from an aneurysm while serving at Contingency Operating Base Marez, Iraq.

In 2006, Hizballah's popularity peaked in the Arab world as a result of its military performance against Israel. That summer, the Lebanese Shiite terrorist organization fought Israel to a standstill in south Lebanon. Since then, however, the organization's popularity has plummeted in the region, largely due to a series of miscues in Lebanon and abroad.

I wrote a lenghty article in the Weekly Standard online describing the drop in Hizballah's regional popularity since 2006, and the steps the organization has taken to get its mojo back. Bottom line: when the "Islamic Resistance in Lebanon" (as it calls itself) is not actively "resisting" Israel, the Shiite militia appears to hold little appeal in the Arab world. The article can be found here, and below.

The confrontation in the sub Indian continent between al Qaeda, the Taliban and their allies on the one hand and the three democracies they target, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India, on the other hand must be reevaluated in terms of international cooperation against the Jihadi threat. A regional system should be established to integrate the struggle against all Jihadi forces in the subcontinent. There needs to be a separation between the ethnic and territorial questions from the fight against Terrorism. Once that distinction is made the possibilities of internationalization of counter terrorism will be high. Jihadists based in any country of the subcontinent must not be given legitimacy by any Government on the ground of a local ethnic issue. Jihadi forces must be confronted collectively, while diplomacy and international mediations assist in solving the local problems.

The hosts and producer of You Served radio show, CJ, Troy, and Marcus, are issuing a challenge to the MilBlogosphere in a charity fundraising event with bald heads at stake.

Marcus has already lost a bet to shave his head bald from a bet on the second coin!

The new challenge is two-tiered with a third bonus tier added this evening during the You Served radio show.

The first tier is to raise $100 cumulative on the engravable memorial medallions we are auctioning in the You Served eBay Store (http://stores.ebay.com/userved). All proceeds will be donated to Soldiers Angels. The kicker and incentive on that cumulative total is that we have a generous anonymous donor who will donate $1,000 to Soldiers Angels if we can meet that $100 total. In addition to a donation of $1,000, CJ will shave his head along with Marcus! We currently have 2 coins auctioned with a total of $37.50, so we will need to raise $62.50 over the next 4 weeks (including this one). We will put up one coin a week to be auctioned.

The second tier is that if we can meet $250 cumulative total, not only will we garner that $1,000 donation, CJ and Marcus will allow Troy to shave their heads in Washington, DC during the Milblog Conference. It will be video recorded also, for all the listeners and donors to see! Imagine the fun and hilarity THAT would be.

The bonus challenge is if another person or organization donates an addtional $1,000 to the first tier, the Hero Maker Clayton Murwin, a regular listener of our show, will produce an orignal 16×20 military themed oil painting of the person or organization’s choosing!

This challenge is issued to all who enjoy a bit of good fun with a bit of humiliation mixed in. The You Served crew hopes everyone enjoys this bit of excitement for a good cause and that you don’t forget the real reason behind all of this; Soldier’s Angels!

It seems that our coalition partners in Afghanistan now see the value and experience of GEN McChrystal. I figure they must since they are allowing their troops to be put under his command.

Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top commander in Afghanistan, is being given expanded authority over U.S. and NATO forces in the country, a defense official said Thursday.
The move will put all but a small number of U.S. special operations forces and some support troops from other nations under the command of the American Army general.
McChrystal is already commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan but the additional authorities will give him greater control over the estimated 121,000 international troops in the country than any of his predecessors have had.
He “will have U.S. operational control of all U.S. forces less a small number of special operations forces,” an American defense official told AFP on condition of anonymity.
As the NATO commander, the only forces not under McChrystal’s control will be a special U.S. task force that handles detainees, the small number of special operations forces and some support troops from other nations, the official said.
McChrystal’s expanded authorities come amid a surge in U.S. forces to Afghanistan that will boost foreign troop levels in the country to 150,000 by August.
NATO officers, meanwhile, are planning a new U.S.-led military command in southern Afghanistan to prepare for a major offensive against the Taliban bastion of Kandahar, officials said Thursday.
The new command would oversee military operations in Helmand province, where an allied offensive has taken on Taliban forces in Marjah, while an existing NATO command under British leadership would be freed up to focus on the pivotal campaign planned for Kandahar, defense officials told AFP.