Today’s POV blog

In a story reported by CNN, Gen. Anthony Cucolo has outlined a number of new restrictions designed to ensure that soldiers under him fulfill their deployment. At his sole discretion, the 20,000 soldiers, 1682 of whom are female, will be held accountable — with the threat of court martial — for individual behavior that prohibits them from completing their deployment.

Prohibited actions include gambling, using drugs, and engaging in behavior that may offend Iraqis, but his restrictions on becoming or causing a pregnancy is at the heart of this controversy. Cucolo believes that unexpected leave, including maternity leave, creates a burden on the remaining soldiers and should be dealt with accordingly.

The rule prohibits a soldier from becoming non-deployable for reasons within the control of the soldier, including becoming pregnant, or impregnating a soldier that results in the redeployment of the pregnant soldier.

While the stricter application of existing rules may seem extreme, they appear to be legal, and in some cases have already been exercised.

In one of the worst killings ever reported on a US military base, a psychiatrist at the Fort Hood Army base opened fire and killed 12 people. Major Nidal Malik Hasan discharged two handguns that also left 31 others wounded. Hasan, shot multiple times, is now listed in stable condition at the Army hospital.

Asked whether the shootings were a terrorist act, Lieutenant-General Robert Cone, Fort Hood’s commanding officer, said, “I couldn’t rule that out, but I’m telling you that right now the evidence does not suggest that.”

Nader Hasan, the gunman’s cousin, said Hasan was a US-born Muslim who had joined the military from high school. He had served as a psychiatrist at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington DC, which treats many badly wounded troops. Hasan was due to be deployed to Iraq but was resistant to the deployment.

On June 1, 2009, 23-year-old Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad, upset about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, opened fire from his vehicle and killed one soldier and wounded another standing outside a military recruiting station in Little Rock, AR.

Muhammad fled the scene and was arrested minutes later and police confiscated a Russian-made SKS semiautomatic rifle, a .22-caliber rifle and a handgun.

These anti-war measures are a long way from sit-ins of the 60s and 70s. Where to from here?

CNN has reported that 20 Marines or sons of Marines who lived at Camp Lejeune training base in North Carolina between 1960 and 1980 have developed breast cancer. What’s alarming is that this group accounts for a full 1% of the total number of cases striking men in the US in a year.

Government records at Camp Lejeune show that drinking water was contaminated with high levels of toxic chemicals for three decades. The men are blaming their need for breast removal and treatment on these toxins.

In Clermont County, OH, WLWT reported in May 2007 that Marines fell severely ill after receiving vaccines in preparation for deployment overseas. One example, Lance Corporal David Fey, 20, is now relegated to dialysis three days a week due to failing kidneys and feels as though his country has abandoned him.

In an article posted by CityRoomPress.com, Thomas Cain reports that the 1960s Army scientists based in Dugway, Utah, conducted nearly two dozen secret chemical and biological germ weapons tests series on Army staff and civilians without their knowledge.

Of those tested, many have died of cancer and other deadly diseases in what is believed to be the result of these tests. The Pentagon continued to deny any correlation between the secret chemical test and deaths until recently.

Invoking the Freedom of Information Act, the Deseret News first broke this story prompting an investigation. It was found that 5,842 members of the armed services were recipients of deadly chemicals. Names of these persons have now been forwarded to the Veterans Affairs Department.

According to the Farlex Encyclopedia, the Gulf War Syndrome is an “illness suffered by soldiers who fought in the 1991 Gulf War. These symptoms include headaches, memory loss, listlessness, depression, respiratory problems, lethargy, muscle weakness, nausea, and pain.” There is much to learn, but the Gulf War Syndrome may be a form of shell shock, or the symptoms could have been caused by a cocktail of required vaccinations against tropical diseases and diseases likely to be used in biological weapons, nerve gas, anti-nerve gas drugs, and organophosphate (OP) insecticides.

In tracking down the source of the illness, it was discovered that soldiers had to spray mosquito-controlling pesticides (as ordered by the Ministry of Defense officials) without being issued protective clothing. The British government admitted in October 1996 that poisoning by OP pesticides may have caused the Gulf War Syndrome that affected about 1,040 British soldiers and 150,000 Americans.

It’s not just what have been done to them, but what the soldiers are doing to themselves. In April 2008, Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) emails turned over to a San Francisco federal district court revealed that the VA’s mental health unit recorded an unbelievable 1,000 suicide attempts every month among veterans receiving government care in 2007. Further, among all US veterans, the VA was aware of a suicide rate of 6,570 per year, or 18 suicides every day on average.

These young men and women are putting their lives on line – in many cases in very unexpected and unacceptable ways. Surely our brave deserve better treatment — before, during, and after their tour of duty.