The superintendent says he may have been absent when remains were moved, but an employee's log says otherwise

By Mark Benjamin Salon

The top official at Arlington National Cemetery claims he was unaware of the most recently reported burial error at the cemetery, possibly, he says, because he was away at the time it occurred. Cemetery employee records, however, show Superintendent John Metzler present and working at Arlington when the cemetery discovered this most recently disclosed burial foul-up, which resulted in digging up and moving the remains of one service member the cemetery had accidentally buried on top of another.

By Donna Teresa Monterey Herald

On May 13, 1864, the first military service man was interred in Arlington National Cemetery. Ever since, the cemetery has been a symbol of dignity and valor. Presidents, slaves, civilians and other notables have had the privilege of having their final resting place in this sacred ground. However, the majority of those buried at Arlington are the men and women in uniform.

TROOPS DIE WHILE THE BRASS LIES

By Gordon Duff STAFF WRITER/Senior Editor

Our professional military, cut from the same cloth that killed off a generation in Vietnam, is pushing for a decade of war in Afghanistan, a decade of promotions, massive budgets, big "after retirement" defense contracting jobs and the adrenalin rush of sending others out to die.  Stuck in a land locked country with an enemy impossible to fight, and no cause of any kind to speak of, keeping a war going takes imagination and tons of lies and backstabbing.  What group could be better at it than the Perfumed Princes of the Pentagon?

DEFINITION:  PERFUMED PRINCE: a man who is seen as bureaucratic or careerist; a man who is said to be effete, feminine, ineffectual, vacillating, or cowardly; (hence) a member of the U.S. military leadership (at the Pentagon); top brass. (by Col. David Hackworth)

By Golnar Motevalli Reuters

BARCHA, Afghanistan (Reuters) – U.S. Marine Lance Corporal Tiffany Jones chews tobacco, spitting the juice into the Afghan desert as she talks, and wears her M-16 automatic rifle slung across her chest just like her male colleagues.

Jones wanted to be a sniper but, like many women on active service in the U.S. military, she has never been outside "the wire" -- the heavily guarded razor-wire perimeter of her base.

Dr. Kamal S. Kalsi stands Thursday, June 4, 2009, near Saint Joseph's hospital in Paterson, N.J., where he works.

By The Associated Press

RIVERDALE -- The U.S. Army will make an exception to a decades-old rule and allow a Sikh doctor from Morris County to serve without removing his turban and cutting his hair, an advocacy group said Friday.
Captain Kamaljeet Singh Kalsi, of Riverdale, is the first Sikh to be allowed to go on active duty with a turban, beard and unshorn hair in more than 20 years, according to the New York-based Sikh Coalition.

Beirut October 23, 1983: Truck Loaded With TNT Wrecks Headquarters of a Marine Unit

By Thomas L. Friedman The New York Times October 23, 1983

Beirut, Lebanon, Oct. 23 -- A suicide terrorist driving a truck loaded with TNT blew up an American Marine headquarters at the Beirut airport today, killing at least 161 marines and sailors and wounding 75.

In an almost simultaneous attack, another bomb- laden truck slammed into a French paratroop barracks two miles away.

By Sherwood Ross Staff Writer

From every appearance, President Obama intends to step up the war in Afghanistan . Even though the American people voted for peace last November and would prefer to devote themselves to the ways of peace –working a full-time job if they can find one, educating their children, providing essential services in their communities, etc., Obama plans to remain in Afghanistan, squandering billions more on a war that the latest poll shows 57% of the American people oppose. Obama also has given no signal that he will withdraw the remaining U.S. troops from Iraq and is providing the Pakistanis with the money, means, and encouragement to expand President Bush’s criminal wars’ into yet a third nation.

MASSIVE WEAPON BEING RUSHED INTO PRODUCTION

By Gordon Duff STAFF WRITER/Senior Editor and  The London Daily Mail

The recent discovery of a second uranium enrichment facility in Iran, near the holy city of Qom, has pushed forward US plans to deploy a massive 15 ton 'bunker buster' bomb capable of penetrating any known underground facility.  Originally slated by the Bush administration for testing in 2012, sources indicate this weapon could be ready for testing as early as December 2009.  Several times larger than the previous version and deliverable only using the B2 bomber, the new bunker buster will give the United States an option of destroying underground nuclear facilities otherwise unreachable without a ground invasion.

The U.S. military is speeding up delivery of a colossal bomb designed to destroy hidden weapons bunkers buried underground and shielded by 10,000 pounds of reinforced concrete.

Call it Plan B for dealing with Iran, which recently revealed a long-suspected nuclear site deep inside a mountain near the holy city of Qom.

THE MYTH OF STOLEN VALOR 

By Gordon Duff STAFF WRITER/Senior Editor 

World War 2 set the standard for judging manhood for generations to come.  Unless you hit a beach under withering enemy fire or parachuted behind enemy lines, you would spend the rest of your life labeled a yellow dog.  We forgot one reality of the human condition, not everyone is comfortable with the idea of dying a horrible death at 19 years old.  Dozens of John Wayne movies weren't enough to get millions of Americans over being scared stiff about the idea of serving in Vietnam.  Reserve units, the National Guard, college deferments or a plethora of doctor's excuses saved the rich and resourceful.  Others, many with non combatant military service, more with none at all, took a different road and began living a lifetime of lies.  Author B.G Burkette calls this:  Stolen Valor.

 DEAD VET'S FAMILY CHEATED FOR DECADES

By Terry Richards for Veterans Today

The SunNews.Com

GREENSBORO, N.C. -A former soldier said Wednesday he believed that the deputy who initiated a fateful traffic stop in 2002 was part of an Army role-playing exercise - a belief broken only when the officer fired two fatal shots at a Special Forces colleague.

In testimony that ranged from tearful to forceful, Stephen Phelps laid out for a federal jury in North Carolina his recollection of the bizarre and tragic encounter with deputy Randall Butler. Phelps filed a federal lawsuit against the officer for using excessive force, while Butler insists he feared for his life.

By Tony Perry LA Now

The widow of Marine Sgt. Michael Ferschke Jr. paid a visit to Camp Pendleton last month to show her young son to the Marines who served with his father before his death in Iraq.

Now those same Marines are supporting an effort to let Hotaru Nakama Ferschke stay in America with her 8-month-old son, Michael "Mikey" Ferschke III.

Michael Ferschke met his future wife, a Japanese citizen, while he was stationed in Okinawa. After he deployed to Iraq they were married in a ceremony conducted by telephone. Hotaru was three months pregnant.

 This is the last part and follow up on how the Military Provides Training On Extremists Preying on Service members.

by Bob Hannafin, Staff Writer

The Department of Defense sponsored a study during the Bush administration, on Screening for Potential Terrorists in the Enlisted Military Accessions Process (April 2005).

They came to similar conclusions as the Department of Homeland Security and FBI did during both the Bush and Obama administrations to wit Obama Secretary of Homeland Security was forced to apologize for hurting a few right-wing Veterans feelings.

The Air Force says that within a few weeks it will release a list of preferred bases for the next generation fighter aircraft, which is now being flight-tested. As many as 200 bases around the country are candidates for the F-35, also known as the Joint Strike Fighter.

But while many of the communities near those bases would welcome the economic benefits of the new mission, they would not be as welcoming to the noise the aircraft bring.

By Michael Cieply The New York Times

SAN ANTONIO — In a bare-walled room at the main library here, Kris Rodriguez, a military veteran, was struggling to explain his confusion as a new writer.

A first step, Jenny Lumet suggested, might be to choose a format. Writing a novel might be different than, say, a cookbook, said Ms. Lumet, a screenwriter whose credits include “Rachel Getting Married” and who was there to offer help

Veterans' groups call Tuesday, October 13 Press Conference at Seattle Marriott

Veterans' groups are reacting with alarm to reports that two Army soldiers imprisoned in the Fort Lewis Regional Correctional Facility (RCF) have been subjected to human rights abuses. Travis Bishop (recognized by Amnesty International as a "Prisoner of Conscience") resisted deployment to Afghanistan, and Leo Church left his unit to prevent his family from going homeless. Their civilian defense attorney James M. Branum reports that they have been strip-searched while being possibly filmed. Bishop and Church have also been watched by female guards during strip searches, while using the restroom and in the showers. The prisoners were denied one in-person visit by counsel and all phone calls with their attorneys have been illegally monitored by guards.

Photo: Navy F/A-18 from Staff Sgt. Aaron Allmon, USAF

By Susan Kraemer Clean Technica

The US Air Force has placed an order for 100,000 gallons of Camelina-based jet fuel, in addition to the 40,000 gallons the Navy ordered last month for $2.7 million, with delivery to begin this year. Sustainable Oils is supplying them with a biofuel grown in Montana with 80% lower carbon emissions than jet fuels now.

By Richard Lardner The Associated Press

WASHINGTON — In the chaos of an early morning assault on a remote U.S. outpost in eastern Afghanistan, Staff Sgt. Erich Phillips' M4 carbine quit firing as militant forces surrounded the base. The machine gun he grabbed after tossing the rifle aside didn't work either.

By Tony Perry The Los Angeles Times

The Marine Corps is moving to ban dogs with aggressive temperaments from Camp Pendleton and other bases under a policy developed after a 3-year-old boy at Camp Lejeune, N.C., was fatally bitten by a pit bull. The banned breeds are pit bulls, Rottweilers and wolf hybrids.

Families moving into base housing are no longer allowed to bring those breeds. Families already in housing can keep their dogs until Sept. 30, 2012, but only if they receive a "good-dog" waiver.

HATE CRIME BILL ATTACHED TO DEFENSE SPENDING GETS GOP AMENDMENT

GOP PROVISION PROTECTS KILLERS OF WOMEN AND MINORITIES FROM DEATH PENALTY

By Gordon Duff STAFF WRITER/Senior Editor

In one of the most bizarre political tradeoffs in recent history, the current Defense Spending Authorization Act, has undergone a number of transformations.  The one getting the most press is the move by Democrats to attach a hate crimes provision meant to protect women and minorities (including gays) from attacks based on their gender, race or sexual orientation.

A few stories from this morning's Email

The first headstone stamped "Unknown" since 1984 is the result not of war's chaos, but of human error

By Mark Benjamin Salon

Oct. 7, 2009 | For the first time in a generation, Arlington National Cemetery has marked the burial of an unknown on its storied grounds. Only this time, 25 years since the last interment at the Tomb of the Unknowns, the identity of the body remains a mystery not because the ravages of war made identification impossible, but because in a bureaucratic error the cemetery lost the paperwork showing the identity of the remains.

[Editor's note: This is pat one of a four-part series based on the just published "News Media In Crisis"(Doukathsan) book from the Massachusetts School of Law at Andover.]

By Sherwood Ross

Television reporters embedded with the U.S. forces that invaded Iraq "didn't actually report" the news but provided "color commentary" instead, a Pulitzer Prize-winning war correspondent says.

Even though some 650 journalists were embedded with U.S. troops, "we actually learned less because there was less reporting and because these people, in essence, saw their role as providing color commentary," says Christopher Hedges, formerly a war correspondent for The New York Times.

(This is a tragic story from every vantage point that I can find. Like most other veterans I was schooled and drilled in the finer points of the "Code of Conduct." This piece doesn’t provide a lot of background but I'd be interested in hearing how others respond to this story. Bob Higgins)

After a night of heavy drinking, Sgt. Justin A. Boyle used a martial-arts choke hold to subdue an intoxicated member of his unit, who died of brain damage. Boyle faces as many as 10 years in prison.

By David Zucchino, The Los Angeles Times

Reporting from Ft. Bragg, N.C. - An Army paratrooper was found guilty today of involuntary manslaughter for choking to death a fellow soldier during an hour-long struggle to bring the unruly soldier back to base after a night of heavy drinking.

Army Establishes Program Executive Office Integration to Support Modernization

The Department of the Army announced to today that it established the Program Executive Office (PEO) Integration to support current and future acquisitions programs.  This office supports the April 2009 Secretary of Defense decision to cancel Future Combat Systems (FCS) and restructure the program in accordance with guidance by the Defense Acquisition Executive to the Army outlined in the June 2009 Acquisition Decision Memorandum.

by Bob Hanafin, Staff Writer 

A few months ago there was a controversy that got just as much a radical reception from the right-wing as the tea parties and Fox news coverage of the never ending Health Care debate.

The controversy I'm really talking about is when the Director of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano was forced by pressure from right-wing talk radio commentators and other conservative mouth pieces like the American Legion to apologize to America's Veterans and Troops for something that actually is a real threat. The potential threat of right-wing extremists or domestic terrorists attempting to recruit our troops is real as this story will affirm.

The American Legion meant well but takes it for granted our troops are too patriotic to be recruited by right or left wing extremists. WRONG! It is just that patriotism that patriotic extremists play on and manipulate. [See Right-wing extremism memo controversy in comments section. VT. Ed]

We will leave it to the Department of Homeland Security (unless they have been too intimidated by the right wing), Department of Defense, and our readers to decide if what Oath Keepers is doing to attract our troops to take an Oath to potentially disobey orders from their Chain of Command is legitimate or if the Department of Defense and Homeland Security needs to closely monitor such recruitment.