Dave Philipps

The U.S. military is replacing the aging and little-loved Humvee, the all-purpose military truck that bumped and slogged and sweltered through decades of war in Iraq and Afghanistan. And the fact that it offered nowhere to put a drink was just one of the many shortcomings, large and small, that came to irritate, and even endanger, the troops who spent long deployments in its cramped confines.

Now the Pentagon is rolling out the Humvee’s successor, a 340-horsepower beast called the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle, or JLTV. And as a recent test ride at an Army training base made clear, it is leaps and bounds ahead of the Humvee.

The new truck, which began arriving at military bases in the spring, is faster, smarter and safer. It is powerful enough to bound through rough terrain, despite carrying armor so thick that the truck has to automatically level itself when parked, so that troops can swing open its 400-pound steel doors.

And unlike the stripped-down Humvee, the JLTV — which is far costlier than the latest Lamborghini Huracan — comes with a few conveniences, including a backup camera, phone-charging plugs, and not just one cup holder, but two.

“That may seem like a small thing, but not if you’re on a 10-hour convoy in the desert,” said Staff Sgt. Kelsi Anderson as she put the new truck through its paces.

Anderson, an Army veteran of the war in Iraq, trains soldiers in how to drive the JLTV. Speeding through an off-road course in the rolling terrain of Fort McCoy, the truck’s sophisticated suspension devoured each bump and rut while her caramel Frappuccino, sitting in its holder on the dash, barely swayed.

Whether the new truck will actually be a better match than the Humvee for the conflicts of the future is a matter of debate. Some warfare experts see questionable value in simply adding more armor and horsepower.

“This truck was built to solve problems from the last war — which, by the way, is still going on — but future wars will be different,” said Matthew Schmidt, who teaches national security at the University of New Haven and has taught at the Army War College.

“A heavily armored vehicle is an asset if the villagers are angry at you,” Schmidt said, “but in any real conflict against a foe like Russia or China, all armor will quickly be destroyed. In those wars, the advantage will go to speed and deception.”

Even so, if the next 50 years look anything like the last 50, with U.S. troops more often called upon to fight smoldering insurgencies than conventional armies, the JLTV’s thick armor is likely to save lives.

The truck will also be a far more comfortable ride for the men and women who do the fighting. It has seats designed to fit the bulky body armor and backpacks that soldiers now wear, and unlike the underpowered Humvee, it has air conditioning that actually worked in the sticky heat of a late-summer morning at Fort McCoy.

Anderson barreled down a winding trail, punching the JLTV’s bullet-resistant tires through deep, sandy ruts and dancing over rocks at speeds that would have rattled a Humvee to pieces.

“This thing is a monster,” she said as tree branches flew by, slapping the truck’s thick sides. “It wants to be driven off road. It loves it. The faster, the more aggressive you are, the smoother it is.”

The truck also comes packed with technology, including electronics that can communicate with fighter jets, drones and other military assets around the globe. In place of a sun visor mounted above the thick blast-resistant windshield, the JLTV has a fold-down night-vision driving system.

Just as important for Anderson, the seats can be adjusted to suit her 5-foot-3 frame. That new feature is crucial for the Army, which has a growing proportion of women in its ranks and plans to buy about 49,000 JLTVs over the next decade.

Eager to show a visitor what the truck can do, Anderson pulled to a stop at a broad creek cutting through the woods, and pushed a button marked “fording mode.”

The JLTV hitched itself up on its shock absorbers until it had 30 inches of ground clearance, and could easily splash through the creek. The air conditioning and much of the electrical system were automatically shut off to protect them from the water, and the truck limited its speed to 10 mph until Anderson switched modes again on the far bank, and the truck lowered to a more stable height.

“This truck is smart; it won’t let anyone damage it,” she said.

When the truck detects mechanical problems, it can limit its speed or shut itself down if necessary. To avoid any HAL 9000 moments when digital safeguards like those might accidentally endanger the crew, the JLTV also has a combat override switch that the driver can use to take all control away from the computer.

“All the soldiers who drive it, they love it,” Anderson said. “It’s fun, its powerful, and it’s safe.”

Soldiers generally agree that it’s long past time to replace the Humvee, which was conceived in the 1970s as a roomier, more powerful replacement for the World War II-vintage jeep. Just like the jeep, it was a light troop and equipment mover with no armor, meant mainly for use behind the front lines.

The Humvee was a welcome upgrade when it debuted in 1985, and the distinctive-looking turtle-backed truck even became a breakout star in the celebratory atmosphere that followed the brief blitz of the first Gulf War in 1991.

A civilian version — the Hummer H1 — soon hit the streets, and despite reviews calling it underpowered and noisy, it gained a cult following that included Arnold Schwarzenegger and other celebrities. “They’re like the American spirit,” one Hummer owner told The New York Times in 1994.

But after the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Humvees proved to be an easy target for roadside bomb attacks, which skyrocketed during the first year of the war. Shredded, blackened carcasses of the trucks became a common sight on Iraqi highways.

Troops in Iraq scrambled to add extra protection however they could, including welding on pieces of junked steel. And the soldiers who generations before had loved the jeep began to loathe the Humvee.

“We were sending soldiers out with no armor — heck, there weren’t even doors — and guys were putting sandbags on the floor for protection,” said Col. Charles Kidd, who was an operations officer in Iraq in 2003 and is now chief of staff of the 84th Training Command at Fort McCoy. “I was in a soft-skin Humvee at a checkpoint when I got hit. The truck was completely destroyed. It was one of the worst days of my life.”

He patted the cold steel side of one of his unit’s new JLTVs and smiled. “This is a game changer for our soldiers,” he said.

The military responded to the roadside bomb threat by building thousands of “up-armored” Humvees fitted with up to 3,000 pounds of hardened steel, but the extra weight made the trucks slow and prone to breakdowns. And insurgents reacted with more sophisticated and deadlier explosives to pierce the stronger trucks.

The military eventually replaced many Humvees with heavy-duty vehicles called MRAPs, designed specifically to withstand roadside bombs. But they were slow, top-heavy and had limited capability off-road.

Enter the JLTV, a concept approved by planners in 2006 but just now reaching military bases. The Army says it offers the protection of an MRAP with off-road performance approaching that of a Baja racer.

“It’s a blast to drive — you hit the skinny pedal on this thing, you’re going somewhere,” said Sgt. 1st Class William Almquist, who oversees JLTV maintenance at Fort McCoy.

In fact, some in the Pentagon worry that driving it may be too much fun, and that troops will be tempted to turn deployments into the Dakar Rally. Not without reason, perhaps: At Fort Stewart in Georgia, someone managed to roll one of the trucks within three days of the troops there receiving it.

The Army says there have been no more incidents since then. “You know, we rolled a lot of jeeps and Humvees too,” Almquist said.

If a soldier does decide to go Evel Knievel, he added, the JLTV’s onboard computer will record and report it — and the daredevil will probably be looking at long stints of weekend duty.

This article originally appeared in

Here Comes the Smooth Ride to Replace the Military's Hated Humvee

FORT McCOY, Wis. — The war zone of tomorrow may be a dystopian hellscape of crippling cyber strikes, autonomous death rays and swarms of killer bots. But whatever America’s future conflicts might bring, this much is certain: There will finally be cup holders.

His campaign manager, Abe Rakov, stopped him and asked, “Are you sure this is the thing you want everyone in the world to remember about you forever?”

Kander said yes. So his manager pressed Send.

In a strikingly candid public letter, Kander announced that day last October that he was dropping out of the race because of untreated post-traumatic stress disorder from his military service, saying it had become too much for him to bear.

“After 11 years of trying to outrun depression and PTSD symptoms, I have finally concluded that it’s faster than me,” he explained in the letter. “I have to stop running, turn around and confront it.”

Kander is surely not the first politician to grapple with the psychological wounds of war, but he appears to have been the first to do it so publicly, in the middle of a campaign.

It was not what some close supporters hoped he would do.

“People were telling him to deal with it in secret and stay in the race, but to him, that would be dishonest,” Rakov recalled in a recent interview. “Hiding it would be a disservice to other people. He wanted to be part of changing a stigma.”

Generations of politicians have assumed that openly acknowledging a psychiatric disorder would kill any chances of a public life. Kander now has a chance to test that assumption. After months of treatment, he has begun to take his first steps back into politics.

Kander, a Democrat, is not running for office, though he has not ruled out doing so in the future. He is leading a national expansion of a Kansas City nonprofit group called the Veterans Community Project that provides transitional housing and support services for homeless veterans. The group plans to build housing in eight other communities in the next three years.

That job has put him in a position to host national candidates passing through Kansas City. And so far, three Democratic presidential candidates — Pete Buttigieg, Seth Moulton and Beto O’Rourke — have made campaign stops at the group this summer.

“I haven’t experienced stigma,” Kander said. “If anything, it’s the opposite — party donors and boosters, candidates, they are asking me to get more involved.”

Until the moment Kander dropped out last fall, he had led such a charmed political life that even his losses were treated as victories. A progressive in a conservative state, he had served two terms in the state Legislature and one as Missouri secretary of state, all before his 37th birthday. In 2016, he nearly unseated an incumbent Republican senator, Roy Blunt, while Hillary Clinton was losing Missouri by 19 percentage points.

Though he lost that race, he gained national attention for a viral ad in which he assembles a military-style rifle blindfolded while explaining why, as a war veteran, he supported background checks on gun purchases. Soon after, when President Barack Obama was asked who best represented the future of the Democratic Party, Kander’s name was first on the list.

But all that time, Kander said, he was racked by nightmares, depression and suicidal thoughts stemming from his time as an Army intelligence officer in Afghanistan. Those symptoms had grown so persistent last year that whenever his wife returned home with the couple’s 5-year-old son, she made sure to enter the house first, in case she found her husband dead inside.

Kander joined the Army National Guard in 2005 after getting a law degree at Georgetown University. He deployed in 2006 to Afghanistan, where his mission was to assess the corruption levels of former Afghan warlords and government leaders.

That meant traveling dangerous roads in an unarmored SUV to meet armed men with questionable allegiances. Usually he had no backup other than his Afghan interpreter.

Back in the United States, Kander would often shrug off his deployment as uneventful. He was never shot or blown up, no one close to him was wounded, and he had never killed anyone.

But deep down, he could not seem to shake the stress of walking into so many meetings where there was a reasonable possibility of his being kidnapped and held hostage, or worse.

He developed a twitch in his left eye, he said. Stopping for red lights made his heart race. Sitting in crowded restaurants became excruciating. He would find himself simmering with anger for no reason. Nightmares of being abducted and killed seemed to play on repeat.

For more than a decade, Kander said, he refused to acknowledge to himself or anyone else that these might be signs of post-traumatic stress. “I didn’t feel like I did enough to earn it,” he said, looking back. “I was just some jerk who went to meetings. To even consider I might have PTSD felt like stolen valor.”

He dove headlong into politics, allowing himself few spare moments when his thoughts could wander. He would stay up late studying bills or answering constituents’ emails to put off the nightmares that would rush in when he went to sleep.

Rakov said Kander’s military service was a crucial icebreaker on the campaign trail. “A politician doesn’t start with the benefit of the doubt, but someone who served in the military does,” he said. “People know you have sacrificed something. They may not agree with you, but they are willing to listen to you.”

At the same time, Kander’s military experiences, and their psychological aftermath, were undercutting his ability to function. Close friends and supporters started to notice, but said nothing. “I saw him every day, and saw his symptoms, and didn’t do anything about it,” Rakov said with regret.

Military service has long been a steppingstone to a political career. But whether they fought at Kip’s Bay or Khe Sanh, political leaders have rarely been open about the aftereffects of combat.

Was George Washington jarred awake on winter nights by the memory of horses shot out from under him or musket balls passing so close that they ripped his coat? Was President Rutherford B. Hayes haunted by the memory of lying wounded in no man’s land while the men of his Union Army brigade fell around him? Was Sen. George McGovern troubled by the 30 bombing missions he flew during World War II, including the time his B-24 caught on fire and nearly crashed? If they were, they did not say so on the stump.

Few politicians have had to navigate this minefield quite like Sen. John McCain, who was held prisoner and tortured for years in North Vietnam. The senator, who died last year, suffered permanent physical injuries, but said he had emerged essentially unscathed psychologically, except for an aversion to the sound of jangling keys, which reminded him of his jailers.

“I pressed him on it,” his longtime aide and biographer Mark Salter said in an interview. “‘Nothing? You got nothing? Nothing keeps you up at night?’ He said no. He said he had left it all behind him.”

Even so, McCain was hounded during two presidential runs by whisper campaigns claiming that his years as a prisoner had made him erratic and unfit for office, even after he released thousands of pages of medical records to the media to support his denials.

Over more than 30 years in the Senate, McCain never spoke in depth publicly about the mental toll of his war experience. Neither did his peers.

“We never talked about it, because we couldn’t — you couldn’t say you were having problems and still be elected,” said Max Cleland, who lost both lower legs and part of an arm to a grenade in Vietnam, and went on to represent Georgia in the Senate from 1996 to 2002.

Cleland said several fellow senators who had fought in Vietnam had nightmares and other post-traumatic stress symptoms while in office, but they would only discuss them privately.

“There wasn’t the acceptance there is today,” he said. “And we didn’t have a name for the issues from combat. We just called it alcoholism.”

Kander decided to break with that tradition last fall. Feeling increasingly depressed and suicidal last fall as the mayoral campaign wore on, he decided to drop out of the race and seek help.

“It was an incredibly difficult decision, because he didn’t know there was a solution,” said his wife, Diana Kander. “He didn’t know he was trading being mayor for getting healthy, he just knew he was trading away the one thing that was going well.”

In May, Moulton, the Massachusetts congressman and Marine Corps veteran running for president, revealed that he was haunted by regrets and intrusive memories from four deployments to Iraq and was seeing a therapist regularly. When he suspended his presidential bid last week, political analysts generally blamed his failure to stand out from a crowded field of candidates, not his candor about his mental health. He remains in the House and said he would seek reelection.

When Kander dropped out of the mayoral race, he also tried to drop out of sight. He deleted his Twitter account, gave his phone to Rakov and changed his appearance, growing a beard and wearing a hat to be harder to recognize. He wanted to focus on healing, he said, and not the public reaction to his announcement.

During the next several months, he went to regular therapy sessions at a Department of Veterans Affairs hospital in Kansas City. Just learning how to recognize and address the symptoms made a huge difference, he said.

His therapist had him record himself telling the stories of his most harrowing experiences in Afghanistan, and then play them back repeatedly until the emotional reins of the episodes loosened. As he did, the nightmares steadily waned.

Kander said he started exercising and meditating, and he feels more at peace now than he had for a decade.

“I’m not cured, but I’m so much better,” he said. “PTSD is like an old knee injury. It’s always going to be there. If you treat it and manage it, it doesn’t have to restrict what you do.”

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/25/us/jason-kander-ptsd.html" id="a18f40a0-f95d-3911-afce-e46c3d62b07f">The New York Times</a>.

PTSD Made Him Walk Away From Public Life. Now He's Heading Back.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Jason Kander was a rising political star, in the homestretch of a race for mayor of Kansas City that he was widely expected to win. And he was moments away from upending it all.

Officials did not release any details. But a senior Navy official with knowledge of the matter said the Navy is investigating reports that the unit, Foxtrot Platoon of SEAL Team 7, held a Fourth of July party where some members consumed alcohol against regulations, and that a senior enlisted member of the platoon had raped a female service member attached to the platoon.

The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly about a continuing investigation.

Jeremiah Sullivan, a civilian attorney representing one of the SEALs in the platoon, confirmed that there was an investigation into reports of sexual assault and unauthorized drinking.

When commanders began investigating the allegations, the entire platoon invoked their right to remain silent, according to a U.S. official briefed on the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity. At that point, the official said, commanders decided to send the whole platoon home, including the lieutenant in command.

The commander of U.S. special operations troops in Iraq, Maj. Gen. Eric Hill of the Air Force, ordered the extremely rare removal of the platoon — the only group of SEALs in Iraq — “due to a perceived deterioration of good order and discipline within the team during nonoperational periods,” according to a statement from Special Operations Command.

“There were allegations of wrongdoing, and the commander initiated an investigation, which is still ongoing,” said Ken McGraw, a spokesman for Special Operations Command. “After the investigation began, the commander lost confidence in the platoon’s ability to accomplish the mission and ordered the platoon’s redeployment.”

The Navy ordered the SEALs to take drug tests, according to a Navy SEAL officer who has been briefed on the matter. The results of those tests are not yet known, the officer said.

Foxtrot Platoon — including 19 SEALs and four support troops — was in Kuwait on Thursday, en route to Seal Team 7’s base at Naval Base Coronado near San Diego. The unit was not immediately replaced in Iraq, increasing the burdens on other U.S. troops there, but the Navy said in a statement that “the loss of confidence in this case outweighed potential operational risk” from their absence.

Enlisted Navy SEALs at Coronado said that while individuals are occasionally removed from missions for misconduct, they could not recall another instance of an entire SEAL platoon being sent home. Last year, a Green Beret detachment from the Army’s 7th Special Forces Group was withdrawn from Afghanistan after members of the unit were implicated in the abuse of an Afghan prisoner.

The withdrawal of Foxtrot Platoon is the latest in a series of black eyes for the SEAL teams, which have been hit repeatedly over the last year by reports of drug use, misconduct and violence.

Two SEALs and two Marines were charged in the death of a Green Beret who was strangled in 2017 during a hazing incident while the commandos were on a secret deployment in Mali in West Africa. One of the SEALs pleaded guilty and was sentenced in May.

Earlier this week, Navy Times reported that cocaine use was widespread among members of SEAL Team 10, based in Virginia, and that SEALs in the team considered the Navy’s drug testing efforts “a joke.”

Accounts of broad drug use among senior enlisted SEALs emerged in the court-martial of Special Operator 1st Class Edward Gallagher. He was acquitted earlier this month of charges that he had shot unarmed civilians and stabbed a wounded captive to death while leading a platoon in Iraq in 2017, but he was convicted of posing for photographs with the teenage captive’s corpse.

During the trial, SEALs from his platoon testified that they had constructed a rooftop bar at their safe house in Iraq, and that officers in charge of enforcing regulations drank there with enlisted men, and even took turns acting as disc jockeys.

Bradley Strawser, who teaches ethics in war at the Naval Postgraduate School, said the reports of rogue behavior in the SEALs are partly a product of nearly 20 years of constant special-operations warfare.

“This kind of slide in the ethical culture, standards, ethos and expectations we have been seeing across the service now for several years is yet another cost of this kind of endless war-fighting,” he said. “Our military desperately needs time to circle the wagons, go deep in working out some of the systemic problems, and effectively right the ship. But it’s very hard to do that when we are literally at never-ending war.”

Military regulations forbid the consumption of alcohol in Iraq and Afghanistan, two predominantly Muslim countries. But its presence among U.S. troops serving there is hardly rare, and in many units, including the SEAL teams, leaders sometimes turn a blind eye to moderate use.

But this year, in response to repeated reports of misconduct, the commander of Navy Special Warfare, Rear Adm. Collin Green, took steps to clean up SEAL culture with a focus on accountability, character, and what he called “ethical compliance.”

When Green heard of the allegations about Foxtrot Platoon, he pushed for the unit to be withdrawn from Iraq, according to two Navy officials with knowledge of the event.

A spokeswoman for the SEALs, Cmdr. Tamara Lawrence, said that in general top commanders are increasingly focused on enforcing discipline.

“Naval Special Warfare insists on a culture where ethical adherence is equally important to tactical proficiency,” she said in a statement. “Good order and discipline is critical to the mission. We’re actively reinforcing, with the entire force, basic leadership, readiness, responsibility and ethical principles that must form the foundation of special operations.”

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/25/us/navy-seal-platoon-withdrawn-iraq.html" id="abe97da5-057b-3662-abb8-6593a8c04028">The New York Times</a>.

An entire platoon of Navy SEAL commandos was abruptly removed from Iraq this week after commanders heard reports of serious misconduct and a breakdown of discipline in the elite unit.

Platoon of Navy SEALs Is Sent Home From Iraq After Reports of Misconduct

Foxtrot Platoon — including 19 SEALs and three support troops — was in Kuwait on Thursday, en route to Seal Team 7’s base at Naval Base Coronado near San Diego. The unit was not immediately replaced in Iraq, increasing the burdens on other U.S. troops there, but the Navy said in a statement that “the loss of confidence in this case outweighed potential operational risk” from their absence.

A Navy SEAL Platoon Is Pulled From Iraq Over Misconduct Reports

Duncan, a Republican who has represented a conservative and heavily military district near San Diego since 2009, sent out a mailer this month attacking his opponent and some of his colleagues as radicals and terrorist sympathizers. On the envelope was the official U.S. Marine Corps emblem. This week, the California congressman got a letter from the Marine Corps telling him he did not have permission to use the symbol and should stop immediately.

The Marines said the Eagle, Globe and Anchor emblem was a registered trademark, along with the phrase “No better friend, no worse enemy,” which also appeared on the campaign materials.

“We thereby request your campaign immediately remove the emblem and the phrase from its mailers,” said the letter, which was first disclosed by NBC News.

The letter suggested that Hunter use an approved “Marine Veteran” emblem instead.

The mailer showed photos of Ammar Campa-Najjar, the Democrat who is running against Hunter in 2020, and two Democratic congresswomen, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, next to a boldface message: “These three radical Democrats want you to forget their anti-Semitism or family-terrorist ties!”

Hunter has repeatedly called attention to the fact that Campa-Najjar, who was born in California to Mexican and Palestinian parents, had a Palestinian grandfather who was assassinated by Israel in 1973 in retribution for the killing of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics. Campa-Najjar was born after his grandfather was killed and has condemned his actions.

Campa-Najjar responded to the latest mailer on Twitter, calling the accusations on the mailer hateful lies. “Hunter’s campaign has illegally used the Marine Corps emblem and phrase for years,” he said, “but these mailers were so dishonorable and discrediting that they drew the attention of the United States Marine Corps.”

He also noted that the mailer spelled Israel incorrectly.

Hunter’s office did not respond to requests for comment, but a spokesman told NBC that as soon as the campaign was aware of the problem, “The campaign immediately complied and is taking all appropriate measures to ensure this matter is addressed appropriately and thoroughly.”

The emblem issue is perhaps not the biggest of problems for Hunter, who is facing 60 federal charges including campaign finance violations, falsifying records, wire fraud and conspiracy. Prosecutors say the congressman and his wife improperly spent more than $250,000 in campaign funds on lavish trips, shopping sprees, private school tuition and airfare for their pet rabbit.

Hunter has pleaded not guilty and denies all charges. His wife recently pleaded guilty. Despite the swirling corruption accusations, the congressman won re-election last year.

Hunter served as an active-duty Marine Corps officer from 2002 to 2005, deploying to Iraq twice. He then joined the Marine Corps Reserve and deployed to Afghanistan. He is still in the reserve, where he holds the rank of major.

The Marine Corps said it was not uncommon to encounter politicians using the Eagle, Globe and Anchor, commonly referred to as the EGA, and officials routinely send letters telling them to stop.

“We encourage such individuals to be proud of their service,” the Marine Corps said in a statement. “But the use of the EGA or other indicia, where it could appear that the Marine Corps endorses or sponsors a particular candidate, is inappropriate.”

The U.S. military has registered hundreds of trademarks in recent years. The Marine Corps alone has more than 175. Entrepreneurs who want to use phrases like “Semper Fi,” “tip of the spear” or “Pain is weakness leaving the body” are required to secure a licensing agreement.

The military has fought for the past decade over improper use of its intellectual property, targeting everything from small businesses to unlicensed logos on thong underwear.

The appearance of partisanship is a chief concern. Former Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke got a cease-and-desist letter in 2012 when mailers critical of President Barack Obama sent by a political action committee he was running featured the logos of all four service branches.

“We can’t appear to endorse them,” Jessica O’Haver, director of the Marine Corps Trademark Licensing Office, said at the time. “We don’t currently license nonprofits and charities, especially if they’re promoting a political cause.”

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/19/us/duncan-hunter-marines-emblem.html" id="4062643d-87c2-35cb-ad93-dcd84345cb5f">The New York Times</a>.

Rep. Duncan Hunter wore the U.S. Marine Corps’ iconic Eagle, Globe and Anchor emblem on his uniform for years when he deployed multiple times to Iraq and Afghanistan. But that evidently did not give him license to put it on his campaign materials more than a decade later.

Marine Corps Tells Duncan Hunter to Stop Using Emblem on Political Mailers

The department’s annual Report on Sexual Assault in the Military estimated there were 20,500 instances of “unwanted sexual contact” in the 2018 fiscal year, based on a survey of men and women across the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines. That was an increase of 38% from the previous survey in 2016.

The grim data provide considerable ammunition for critics in Congress and veterans’ groups who have pressed repeatedly to change the way the military prosecutes sexual assault crimes. They want authority over such cases shifted away from military commanders and into the hands of an independent prosecutor’s office.

“These aren’t just numbers, these are people’s lives,” said Rep. Jackie Speier, D-Calif., who has pushed to remove the authority from commanders.

The issue took on added political visibility in March when Sen. Martha McSally, R-Ariz., said publicly that she had been raped by a superior officer and had suffered numerous sexual assaults while serving in the Air Force. She has opposed shifting authority over sexual assault cases away from commanders.

The survey found that while assaults on men in the military remained flat, assaults on women recorded their biggest increase in years.

Women now make up only about 20% of the military, but are the targets of 63% of assaults, the survey found, with the youngest and lowest-ranking women most at risk.

Overall, 1 out of every 16 military women reported being groped, raped or otherwise sexually assaulted within the past year.

“To put it bluntly, we are not performing to the standards and expectations we have for ourselves or for each other,” Patrick M. Shanahan, the acting secretary of defense, said in a message to senior military leaders this week. “This is unacceptable. We cannot shrink from facing the challenge head on.”

The secretary proposed a list of actions, including better tracking and training, and a new program to identify repeat offenders even if their victims do not want to come forward.

The figures come from a survey of about 100,000 active-duty troops, which the department has conducted every two years since 2006. The latest results are not the worst — assault rates were higher in both the 2006 and 2012 surveys. But the Pentagon has poured hundreds of millions of dollars into prevention efforts, education programs and resources for victims in recent years. It now has legions of sexual assault specialists and victims’ advocates, and the Army has even developed a hologram of an assault victim to help with training.

Still, the report noted that the latest data suggests current strategies are not enough.

“We’ve thrown about $200 million at this problem for eight to 10 years, and this report suggests it’s not working,” said Speier. Along with Senate Democrats, she has repeatedly introduced legislation that would create an independent prosecutor, but, she said, the military has always lobbied against eroding commanders’ authority, and the bills have languished.

“Now people that have opposed the legislation are starting to come around,” Speier said. “People are starting to see we need to do more.”

Opponents, including many in Congress, argue that military commanders are in the best position to understand individual cases, and that bringing in an outside prosecutor could tie their hands.

A separate report in January showed that the number of sexual assaults at the nation’s service academies had risen by 50% since 2016, suggesting that the problem is just as widespread among the military’s future leaders as it is in the current ranks. It was also in line with high rates reported at civilian colleges and universities.

The military-wide survey data released this week indicates that alcohol use remains a stubborn contributing factor, and was involved in 62% of assaults on women.

Assaults increased across all branches, but the Marine Corps, which has proportionally more young, low-ranking troops and far fewer women than the other services, reported by far the highest rates. One in 10 surveyed women in the Marines reported being assaulted, twice the rate of either the Army or the Air Force.

“Sexual assault erodes the trust and cohesion within the Marine Corps team, degrades our lethality and readiness, and is incompatible with our core values of honor, courage and commitment,” the Marine Corps said in a statement. “In the end, this is an issue of trust — trust that fellow Marines will look after each other.”

The survey found that the rate of assaults on men in the military was much lower than on women. Overall, about 1 in 100 surveyed men said they had been assaulted in the past year, with the highest incidence reported in the Navy.

While the survey found that troops were experiencing more assaults, they were somewhat less likely than before to report them. The reporting rate, a barometer for the troops’ confidence that the military will punish assaulters and protect victims — fell to 30% in fiscal 2018 from 32% in 2016.

That’s still much better than the estimated 7% reporting rate in 2006, according to the new report. But Don Christensen, a retired Air Force judge and chief prosecutor, said a large majority of victims do not trust the system.

“It shows the old ways aren’t working, and it’s getting worse, not better,” said Christensen, who is now president of Protect Our Defenders, a group that advocates for military victims of sexual assault.

Victims are often reluctant to come forward, he said, because “they are afraid the case won’t be handled well, and they are afraid they will be retaliated against.”

He noted that, according to the latest figures, there were about 6,000 unrestricted reports of sexual assault in the military in the latest year. But at a briefing Thursday, he said, Defense Department officials said that only about 300 cases had been prosecuted.

The Pentagon’s report notes that the military took “disciplinary action” of some kind in 65% of cases in 2018, a slight increase from 2017. But nearly all of that punishment was meted out by commanders at their discretion outside the court system, Christensen noted, and could be as minor as a stern admonishment.

“Commanders are basically being asked to practice law without a license,” he said. “It’s complicated, it takes up a lot of their time. It’s time to give this over to professionals.”

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/02/us/military-sexual-assault.html" id="7bfa4ac4-081e-372c-a082-f2529be0bab6">The New York Times</a>.

Pentagon Survey Finds a Surge in Sexual Assaults in the Ranks

Sexual assault in the U.S. military surged in the past two years, driven almost entirely by a 50% increase in assaults on women in uniform, according to a survey released Thursday by the Defense Department.

Navy SEAL commandos from Team 7’s Alpha Platoon said they had seen their highly decorated platoon chief commit shocking acts in Iraq. And they had spoken up, repeatedly. But their frustration grew as months passed and they saw no sign of official action.

Tired of being brushed off, seven members of the platoon called a private meeting with their troop commander in March 2018 at Naval Base Coronado near San Diego. According to a confidential Navy criminal investigation report obtained by The New York Times, they gave him the bloody details and asked for a formal investigation.

But instead of launching an investigation that day, the troop commander and his senior enlisted aide — bothlongtime comrades of the accused platoon leader, Special Operations Chief Edward Gallagher — warned the seven platoon members that speaking out could cost them and others their careers, according to the report.

The clear message, one of the seven told investigators, was “Stop talking about it.”

The platoon members eventually forced the referral of their concerns to authorities outside the SEALs, and Gallagher now faces a court-martial, with his trial set to begin May 28.

But the account of the March 2018 meeting and myriad other details in the 439-page report paint a disturbing picture of a subculture within the SEALs that prized aggression, even when it crossed the line, and that protected wrongdoers.

According to the investigation report, the troop commander, Lt. Cmdr. Robert Breisch, said in the meeting that while the SEALs were free to report the killings, the Navy might not look kindly on rank-and-file team members making allegations against a chief.

The enlisted aide, Master Chief Petty Officer Brian Alazzawi, warned them that the “frag radius” — the area damaged by an explosion — from a war-crime investigation of Gallagher could be wide enough to take down a lot of other SEALs as well, the report said.

As Gallagher’s men were sounding an alarm about killings in Iraq, his superiors were lavishing praise on him. An evaluation quoted in the investigation report called Gallagher the best chief of the 12 in the team, and said, “This is the man I want leading SEALs in combat.”

A few days after the March 2018 meeting, the chief was awarded a Bronze Star for valor under fire in Iraq.

A month later, the seven platoon members finally succeeded in spurring their commanders to formally report the killings of the three Iraqis to the Navy Criminal Investigation Service, by threatening to go directly to top Navy brass and to the media.

Gallagher was arrested in September on more than a dozen charges, including premeditated murder and attempted murder. If convicted, he could face life in prison. He has pleaded not guilty and denies all the charges.

The chief’s lawyer, Timothy Parlatore, said the Navy investigation report, which was first reported by Navy Times, does not offer an accurate account of what happened in Iraq. He said that hundreds of additional pages of evidence, sealed by the court, included interviews with platoon members who said the chief never murdered anyone.

Gallagher, through Parlatore, declined to be interviewed for this article.

The Navy has charged Gallagher’s immediate superior, Lt. Jacob Portier, with failing to report the chief’s possibly criminal actions and with destroying evidence. Portier has pleaded not guilty. Through his lawyer, he, too, declined to be interviewed.

Gallagher learned of the March 2018 meeting soon after it happened, the report indicates, and he began working to turn other SEALs against the accusers.

“I just got word these guys went crying to the wrong person,” Gallagher wrote to a fellow chief in one of hundreds of text messages included in the report. To another, he wrote: “The only thing we can do as good team guys is pass the word on those traitors. They are not brothers at all.”

Gallagher, who is 39 and goes by the nickname Blade, is known as a standout even among the elite SEALs. Over the course of five deployments with the SEALs, he was repeatedly recognized for valor and coolheaded leadership under fire. He is qualified as a medic, a sniper and an explosives expert, and has been an instructor at BUDS, the force’s grueling training program. To hundreds of sailors he trained, he was a battle-tested veteran who fed them war stories while pushing them through punishing workouts in the surf.

Investigators’ interviews with more than a dozen members of Alpha Platoon, included in the Navy’s criminal investigation report, as well as other interviews with SEALs, offer a more troubling portrait of the chief.

Two SEAL snipers told investigators that one day, from his sniper nest, Gallagher shot a girl in a flower-print hijab who was walking with other girls on the riverbank. One of those snipers said he watched through his scope as she dropped, clutching her stomach, and the other girls dragged her away.

Another day, two other snipers said, the chief shot an unarmed man in a white robe with a wispy white beard. They said the man fell, a red blotch spreading on his back.

Before the 2017 deployment, Gallagher ordered a hatchet and a hunting knife, both handmade by a SEAL veteran named Andrew Arrabito with whom he had served, text messages show. Hatchets have become an unofficial SEAL symbol, and some operators carry and use them on deployments. Gallagher told Arrabito in a text message shortly after arriving in Iraq, “I’ll try and dig that knife or hatchet on someone’s skull!”

On the morning of May 4, 2017, Iraqi troops brought in an Islamic State fighter who had been wounded in the leg in battle, SEALs told investigators, and Gallagher responded over the radio with words to the effect of “he’s mine.” The SEALs estimated that the captive was about 15 years old. A video clip shows the youth struggling to speak, but SEAL medics told investigators that his wounds had not appeared life-threatening.

A medic was treating the youth on the ground when Gallagher walked up without a word and stabbed the wounded teenager several times in the neck and once in the chest with his hunting knife, killing him, two SEAL witnesses said.

Among the text messages included in the investigation report are some between Gallagher and another SEAL chief, David Swarts, who is being prosecuted for the beating of detainees in a separate case dating from 2012.

Gallagher told Swarts about his looming investigation and said he felt he could not trust anyone any more. When Swarts responded that he never thought SEALs would report one another, Gallagher replied, “Me either, those days are gone.”

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/23/us/navy-seals-crimes-of-war.html" id="97a4dc78-c586-34f4-aeb9-7cea79e7c749">The New York Times</a>.

Navy SEALs Were Warned Against Reporting Their Chief for War Crimes

Stabbing a defenseless teenage captive to death. Picking off a school-age girl and an old man from a sniper’s roost. Indiscriminately spraying neighborhoods with rockets and machine-gun fire.

According to the investigation report, the troop commander, Lt. Cmdr. Robert Breisch, said in the meeting that while the SEALs were free to report the killings, the Navy might not look kindly on rank-and-file team members making allegations against a chief. Their careers could be sidetracked, he said, and their elite status revoked; referring to the eagle-and-trident badges worn by SEALs, he said the Navy “will pull your birds.”

Navy SEALs are regarded as the most elite commando force in the U.S. military. But that reputation has been blotted repeatedly in recent years by investigations of illegal beatings, killings and theft, and reports of drug use in the ranks. In January, the top commander of the SEALs, Rear Adm. Collin Green, ordered a 90-day review of the force’s culture and training; the results have not yet been made public.

At the same time, some conservatives have rallied to Gallagher’s defense, raising money and pressing publicly for his release.

The investigation report indicates that a number of other high-ranking SEALs also knew of the allegations against the chief, and did not report them. But no one else has been charged in the case.

Citing his texts, the Navy kept the chief in the brig to await trial, saying it believed he had been trying to intimidate witnesses and undermine the investigation. He denies that accusation as well.

The chief’s wife, Andrea Gallagher, and his brother, Sean Gallagher, have appeared repeatedly on Fox News and other news outlets, calling the chief a hero and demanding his release. They say the allegations against Edward Gallagher were concocted by disgruntled subordinates who could not meet his demanding standards and wanted to get rid of him.

A website soliciting donations for his defense says it has raised $375,000, and a prominent veterans’ apparel maker is selling “Free Eddie” T shirts.

Spurred by the Gallagher family, 40 Republican members of Congress signed a letter in March calling for the Navy to free the chief pending trial, and soon after, President Donald Trump said on Twitter that he would be moved to “less restrictive confinement.” Gallagher was released from the brig and is now restricted to the Navy Medical Center in San Diego, according to a Navy spokeswoman.

Andrea Gallagher did not respond to requests for comment.

Edward Gallagher, who is 39 and goes by the nickname Blade, is known as a standout even among the elite SEALs. Over the course of five deployments with the SEALs, he was repeatedly recognized for valor and coolheaded leadership under fire. He is qualified as a medic, a sniper and an explosives expert, and has been an instructor at BUDS, the force’s grueling training program. To hundreds of sailors he trained, he was a battle-tested veteran who fed them war stories while pushing them through punishing workouts in the surf.

When Gallagher took over leadership of the platoon in 2015, SEALs said, he already had a reputation as a “pirate” — an operator more interested in fighting terrorists than in adhering to the rules and making rank.

A number of platoon members told investigators that at first they were excited to be led by a battle-hardened “legend,” but their opinion quickly shifted after they were deployed to Iraq in February 2017 to help retake Mosul from Islamic State fighters.

The SEALs in the platoon did not respond to requests for interviews for this article. Their names and those of others who have not been identified publicly in court have been withheld from this article at the request of the Navy, because of the covert nature of their work.

A spokeswoman for Naval Special Warfare, Cmdr. Tamara Lawrence, said that while they are commandos, SEALs are still expected to follow the same laws as all other troops, adding, “It’s called special operations, not different operations.”

The investigation report said several members of the platoon told investigators that Gallagher showed little regard for the safety of team members or the lives of civilians. Their mission was to advise Iraqi forces and provide assistance with snipers and drones, but they said the chief wanted instead to clear houses and start firefights.

Dave Philipps

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