Tag: Veterans

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Ex-military man shoots neighbor in noise dispute

A friend who lives near this shooting incident said that the shooter was a retired military man.  He stared blankly after the shooting as police handcuffed him.

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http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2010303160014

Updated at 8:12 a.m., Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Man arrested following Mililani shooting

By Curtis Lum

Advertiser Staff Writer

A 54-year-old Mililani man faces multiple attempted murder charges following a shooting Sunday night that left one man in serious condition.

Michael J. Graham was booked on five counts of second-degree attempted murder. He remained in police custody Monday night pending charges.

Police were sent to a home on Kaholo Street in Mililani about 10 p.m. Sunday after someone reported hearing gunshots. Police said they found a man in the home with multiple gunshot wounds.

The man was taken to the hospital in critical condition, but he later improved to serious condition.

Several other people told police that a man fired a gun at them while they were in their backyard, police said. Police located Graham and arrested him without incident.

Reach Curtis Lum at culum@honoluluadvertiser.com

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http://www.starbulletin.com/news/20100317_Shots_erupted_over_noise_police_say.html

Shots erupted over noise, police say

A Mililani dispute ends with a charge of attempted murder

By Leila Fujimori

POSTED: 01:30 a.m. HST, Mar 17, 2010

Prosecutors charged a 54-year-old Mililani man yesterday with second- degree attempted murder for allegedly shooting his 45-year-old next-door neighbor multiple times with a revolver.

Police said the suspect, Michael J. Graham, had a long-standing dispute with his neighbor over noise. Police and neighbors identified the neighbor as Jerome Cristobal.

Graham also was charged with four counts of first-degree terroristic threatening for allegedly firing the gun at his neighbor’s three children and Cristobal’s daughter’s boyfriend.

Graham was also charged with use of a firearm in the commission of a felony and possession of a firearm to commit a felony. His bail was set at $150,000.

Police said Cristobal was covering a generator in his backyard about 9:45 p.m. Sunday at his 94-235 Kaholo St. house.

When his son went outside to ask his father for a cigarette, he heard a loud pop, saw his father fall to the ground and began screaming for help, a police affidavit said.

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John Murtha, Pennsylvania’s “King of Pork” dies

John Murtha, a longtime hawkish congressman from Pennsylvania, dubbed the “King of Pork”, died at age 77.   His legend as a master of pork-barrel politics rivals that of Hawai’i’s Senator Daniel Inouye.   But now that Ted Stevens has been toppled from his throne in Alaska, and Murtha has died, Inouye is coming under greater scrutiny for his own activities that also qualify him for the title “King of Pork”.

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/08/AR2010020802352_pf.html

John Murtha dies; longtime congressman was master of pork-barrel politics

By Carol D. Leonnig and Martin Weil
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, February 9, 2010; A01

Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.), a Vietnam War veteran who staunchly supported military spending and became a master of pork-barrel politics, died Monday at Virginia Hospital Center. The 19-term lawmaker died from complications of gallbladder surgery. He was 77.

Elected to Congress in 1974 from a southwestern Pennsylvania district that has been economically devastated by the decline of the nation’s coal-mining and steel industries, the gruff and jowly Murtha was beloved by his constituents for tapping billions of dollars in federal money to seed new industries there.

He was revered among Democrats — and even some Republicans — for his skill in using the power of the federal purse to make kings and deals. A right-hand man of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), he was considered one of the most influential lawmakers on Capitol Hill and credited with her ascension.

Critics dubbed Murtha, the chairman of the powerful subcommittee that controls Pentagon spending, the “King of Pork” for the volume of taxpayer money he could direct to the area around his home town of Johnstown. Most of the largess came in defense and military research contracts he steered to companies based in his district or with small offices there.

The former Marine became a mentor to lawmakers trying to learn how to work Washington’s power levers but also a symbol of the controversial congressional practice of “earmarking.” In that process, lawmakers can add federal money to the budget to give no-bid contracts to pet projects and companies of their choosing. Murtha faced a drumbeat of questions about possible ethical conflicts in his earmarks, as executives and lobbyists for the firms receiving the earmarks were among his most generous campaign contributors.

Murtha was firmly unapologetic, saying it was his duty to help his district create jobs and U.S. troops gain new research and tools to help them in battle. To a television crew following him in a House office building with questions about potential conflicts, he held up his miniature red, page-worn copy of the Constitution.

“What it says is the Congress of the United States appropriates the money,” he said. “Got that?”

Volunteered for combat

John Patrick Murtha Jr. was born June 17, 1932, in New Martinsville, W.Va., and raised in Westmoreland County, Pa. He long credited the resilient women in his family, including his mother, with being key to his success. His father, an alcoholic, died early. Murtha said he didn’t drink for that reason, and despite the many political fundraisers where a congressman is either honored guest or host, Murtha was known for making an early appearance and an early departure.

He entered the Marine Corps in 1952, during the Korean War period, and served until 1955. He returned to Johnstown to run the family carwash and finish his undergraduate degree from the University of Pittsburgh in 1962, and he joined the Marine Corps Reserve. During the Vietnam conflict, he volunteered for combat and served near Da Nang in 1966 and 1967.

In 1955, he married Joyce Bell. She survives, along with their daughter, Donna Murtha; twin sons, Pat Murtha and John M. Murtha; and three grandchildren.

Back from Vietnam, Murtha was recruited by the local Democratic Party to challenge longtime Rep. John P. Saylor (R) and presented himself as hawkish on military affairs. “To me, it is academic whether we should be in Vietnam,” the young veteran said at the time. “Our men are fighting their hearts out so we can sit at home and enjoy the luxuries of this great nation. We have to unite.”

He lost that race but won election to the Pennsylvania House. When Saylor died in office, Murtha won a special election to the U.S. House in 1974. In a district with a strong conservative tradition, Murtha’s victory was taken in part as a rejection of then-President Richard M. Nixon. His slogan: “One honest man can make a difference.”

Murtha, whose military decorations included the Bronze Star and two awards of the Purple Heart, was one of the first Vietnam veterans to sit in the House. His district returned him regularly to office, and after 10 years Murtha had quietly established himself as a key Capitol Hill player who could woo lawmakers of divergent views to join forces.

“His reputation is, if you’re going to put a coalition together, you have to have Murtha,” then-Rep. Mike Synar (D-Okla.) told The Washington Post for a 1985 profile of Murtha.

In one of the more painful moments of his career, Murtha was listed as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Abscam scandal of the late 1970s. As a result of the FBI undercover operation, several Capitol Hill figures were charged with agreeing to pay bribes to agents posing as representatives of Arab sheiks. Murtha was taped talking with an undercover agent about his interest in helping his district, but he was not charged and said he did nothing wrong.

In 2005, he became a darling of the Democratic antiwar movement when the prominent hawk announced that he was in favor of withdrawing troops from Iraq. He had supported the resolution to go to war in 2002, but he later denounced the Bush administration’s war effort as badly planned, calling it “a flawed policy wrapped in illusion.”

Murtha lost his shot, however, to become House majority leader after Democrats retook control of the House in 2006. He had successfully led Pelosi’s campaign to be speaker at that time, but some colleagues argued that he could be a political liability in the leadership because of what they called his old-style politics.

Ethics investigations

In the past two years, Murtha and several close associates came under the scrutiny of ethics and investigative panels.

In 2008, the FBI raided a powerhouse lobbying firm, PMA Group, whose founder, Paul Magliocchetti, was a close friend of Murtha’s and which had had unique success in winning earmarks from Murtha for its clients.

In January 2009, federal investigators raided Kuchera Industries, a Pennsylvania company that Murtha had helped grow with more than $100 million in military contracts and earmarks. The company was suspended from receiving further Navy contracts pending an investigation into allegations that the company had defrauded the government in its billing.

In May 2009, the Justice Department subpoenaed records from the offices of a Murtha protege, Rep. Peter J. Visclosky (D-Ind). Investigators were looking into allegations that Visclosky’s chief of staff, who announced his resignation shortly after the subpoena, had pressured lobbyists to donate to Visclosky’s campaign in exchange for earmarks for their clients, two sources familiar with the probe said.

In December 2009, the Office of Congressional Ethics reported that it saw no reason to continue its investigation of Murtha’s actions on behalf of PMA Group and recommended that the House ethics committee take no action against him.

In March 2009, Murtha told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that every lawmaker looks out for his own: “If I’m corrupt, it’s because I take care of my district. . . . Every president would like to have all the power and not have Congress change anything. But we’re closest to the people.”

He had a bravado that even his critics admired, in part because he could often back up his seemingly big talk. He publicly squared off with many a heavyweight, including Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, then-Vice President Richard B. Cheney and even a few presidents.

Last month, Murtha chuckled when asked about President Obama’s assertion that he was going to freeze all discretionary spending.

“Well, he can call for it, but we’re the guys who make the decision,” the congressman said. “I always remind them of that.”

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Exorcising war’s demons, in poetry and prose

http://www.starbulletin.com/news/nyt/20100208_exorcising_wars_demons_in_poetry_and_prose.html

Exorcising war’s demons, in poetry and prose

By Elisabeth Bumiller / New York Times

POSTED: 01:30 a.m. HST, Feb 08, 2010

WASHINGTON — Brian Turner was focused on staying alive, not poetry, when he served as an infantry team leader in Iraq. But he quickly saw that his experience — “a year of complete boredom punctuated by these very intense moments” — lent itself to the tautness of verse.

The result was a collection called “Here, Bullet,” with a title poem inspired by Turner’s realization during combat patrols that he was bait to lure the enemy.

If a body is what you want,

then here is bone and gristle and flesh,

1/2hellip 3/4 because here, Bullet,

here is where the world ends, every time.

“Poetry was the perfect vehicle,” said Turner, who had a master’s in fine arts from the University of Oregon before joining the Army. “The page was the place where I could think about what had happened.”

Turner is a literal foot soldier in what might be called the well-written war: a recent outpouring of memoirs, fiction, poetry, blogs and even some readable military reports by combatants in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Soldier-writers have long produced American literature, from Ulysses S. Grant’s memoirs about the Civil War to Norman Mailer’s World War II novel, “The Naked and the Dead,” to Tim O’Brien’s “The Things They Carried,” about Vietnam.

The current group is different. As part of a modern all-volunteer force, they explore the timeless theme of the futility of war — but wars that they for the most part support. The books, many written as rites of passage by members of a highly educated young officer corps, are filled with gore, inept commanders and anguish over men lost in combat, but not questions about the conflicts themselves. “They look at war as an aspect of glory, of finding honor,” said O’Brien, who was drafted for Vietnam in 1968 out of Macalester College in St. Paul, Minn. “It’s almost an old-fashioned, Victorian way of looking at war.”

The writers say one goal is to explain the complexities of the wars — Afghan and Iraqi politics, technology, the counterinsurgency doctrine of protecting local populations rather than just killing bad guys — to a wider audience. Their efforts, embraced by top commanders, have even bled into military reports that stand out for their accessible prose.

“The importance of good official writing is so critical in reaching a broader audience to get people to understand what we’re trying to do,” said Capt. Matt Pottinger, a Marine and former reporter for The Wall Street Journal who is a co-author of the report “Fixing Intel,” an indictment of American intelligence-gathering efforts in Afghanistan released last month. “Even formal military doctrine is well served by a colloquial style of writing.”

The report, overseen by the top military intelligence officer in Afghanistan, Maj. Gen. Michael T. Flynn, is an anecdote-rich argument against intelligence officers who pursue secrets about insurgents but ignore data for winning the war right in front of them — local economics, village politics and tribal power brokers. The report compares the American war in Afghanistan to a political campaign, “albeit a violent one,” and observes, “To paraphrase former Speaker of the House Thomas P. ‘Tip’ O’Neill’s famous quote, ‘all counterinsurgency is local.”‘

Another report, an unreleased Army history about the battle of Wanat in July 2008 — the “Black Hawk Down” of Afghanistan — unfolds in stiffer prose but builds a strong narrative. Written by Douglas R. Cubbison, a military historian at the Army’s Combat Studies Institute at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., the draft report lays bare the failures of an American unit to engage the local population in a village in eastern Afghanistan — “these people, they disgust me,” one soldier is quoted as saying — and graphically tells the story of the firefight that killed nine Americans.

Most of the writing by combatants has been memoirs that bear witness to battles of their own. Craig M. Mullaney, a former Ranger and Army captain, writes in “The Unforgiving Minute” of a 2003 ambush on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border that killed one of his men, Evan W. O’Neill.

“Small-caliber rounds dented the Humvees around me, but it was strangely silent, as if someone had pressed the mute button. … All I could remember were those eyes, glacial-blue, like my brother’s. There’s no way O’Neill’s dead. This wasn’t a game or an exercise or a movie; these were real soldiers with real blood and real families waiting back home. What had I done wrong?”

Mullaney, who has left the Army and is now a Pentagon official handling policy for Central Asia, said he wrote his book in part as catharsis, and as a way of telling Pvt. 1st Class O’Neill’s parents what had happened to their son. “I had a lot of ghosts I was still wrestling with,” he said. “I thought by writing I could make some sense of this jumble of experiences and memories and doubts and fears.”

Nathaniel C. Fick, a former Marine officer who wrote of taking heavy fire during the 2003 invasion of Iraq in “One Bullet Away,” had his own troubles coming home. Fick, now the chief executive of the Center for a New American Security, a military research group in Washington, also appears in Evan Wright’s book (and the HBO miniseries) “Generation Kill,” based on Wright’s experience as a Rolling Stone reporter embedded with Fick’s platoon.

Fick, a Dartmouth graduate who applied to graduate school after leaving the Marines, describes getting a call from an admissions officer.

“‘Mr. Fick, we read your application and liked it very much. But a member of our committee read Evan Wright’s story about your platoon in Rolling Stone. You’re quoted as saying, “The bad news is, we won’t get much sleep tonight; the good news is, we get to kill people.”‘ She paused, as if waiting for me to disavow the quote. I was silent, and she went on …. ‘Could you please explain your quote for me?’ …

‘You mean, will I climb your clock tower and pick people off with a hunting rifle?’

It was her turn to be silent.

‘No, I will not. Do I feel compelled to explain myself to you? I don’t.”‘

Other books started as soldier blogs, at least before commanders shut them, among them “My War” by Colby Buzzell, a former machine gunner in Iraq. Another soldier’s blog, shut by the Army in 2008 but to be published as a book in April, is “Kaboom: Embracing the Suck in a Savage Little War,” by Matt Gallagher, a former Army officer in Iraq.

There are far fewer books by women, but one of them, “Love My Rifle More than You” by Kayla Williams, an Arabic-speaking former sergeant in a military intelligence company, is particularly critical of the military. (Williams writes of how she was instructed to verbally humiliate a naked Iraqi prisoner in Mosul.)

So far there are relatively few novels, although “The Mullah’s Storm” by Tom Young, a flight engineer in the Air National Guard, is to be published in the fall. The story is about a soldier shot down in Afghanistan.

O’Brien, whose own memoir, “If I Die in a Combat Zone, Box Me Up and Ship Me Home” was published in 1973, said that the dearth of novels did not surprise him. His first war novel, “Going After Cacciato” was not published until 1978. “The Things They Carried” was published in 1990. Soldiers need more time to explore “what happened inside,” O’Brien said — suggesting that the flow of their war books will not stop anytime soon.

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Agent Orange’s lethal legacy, part 2 of 5

This is the second article in an excellent investigative series from the Chicago Tribune on the disastrous legacy of Agent Orange, a toxic defoliant, in essence a chemical weapon,  used in the Vietnam War.

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http://www.chicagotribune.com/health/agentorange/chi-agent-orange2-dec06,0,7742805,full.story

AGENT ORANGE: PART 2 OF 5

Agent Orange’s lethal legacy: For Vietnam War veterans, injustice follows injury

Vietnam vets wait years and fight skeptical agency to get disability

By Tim Jones Tribune reporter

December 6, 2009

Part 2 of a Tribune investigation finds that for many U.S. veterans, the bureaucratic fight to be compensated for health problems linked to Agent Orange amounts to a new and unexpected war, long after the shooting ended overseas.

Jack Cooley delivered his final argument in a long, distinguished legal career from a hospital bed.

Four months before succumbing to multiple myeloma, the Chicago-area Vietnam veteran and federal magistrate judge wrote a 140-page claim for justice and filed it with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. Cooley’s message to the government was personal and direct: Agent Orange is killing me, and you need to take responsibility.

Cooley didn’t know it last spring, but when the former Army artillery captain filed his disability claim, he was just entering a maddening bureaucratic maze many veterans know well. The VA would kick back Cooley’s claim after a month, saying he lacked the required proof he’d served in Vietnam.

Cooley could have spent months navigating this convoluted path. But with Cooley’s life fading, his family reached out to an old friend, a member of his West Point class of 1965. It was former Army Chief of Staff Eric Shinseki, recently appointed secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs.

In short order the obstacles to Cooley’s claim disappeared. The VA delivered three monthly disability checks for $2,700 before Cooley died July 21, at 65, in Evanston.

“This was insult to injury,” said his daughter Christina. “If Gen. Shinseki was not … a family friend and a West Point classmate, we would have never seen a dime. It makes me think about everybody else out there struggling without resources.”

The Vietnam War ended almost 35 years ago, but for many veterans, battles with cancer, diabetes, Parkinson’s disease and other maladies associated with defoliants used in the war are only now beginning. Until 2007, Jack Cooley had been in good health.

For many veterans, this is the unexpected new war, long after the old one ended.

The government has been slow to recognize the connection between wartime service and debilitating diseases that strike Vietnam veterans decades later. Even when they suffer from conditions officially linked to Agent Orange, veterans can wait years for their requests for disability compensation to run through the VA system.

Jack Cooley’s death from multiple myeloma, a form of blood cancer associated with exposure to Agent Orange, opens a window into the clogged workings of the VA, the final arbiter on war-related disability claims.

“The truth is, veterans who went to Vietnam returned much sicker than their (civilian) peers. Something happened over there. Why arm wrestle over it?” said Linda Schwartz, commissioner of veterans affairs in Connecticut and the author of early studies on the health of female veterans.

The VA declined requests to interview Shinseki, who has said he wants to change the culture at the agency and make it more of an advocate for those who serve the country.

As long-dormant effects of Agent Orange begin to surface in many Vietnam War veterans, the backlog of disability claims has been growing fast, despite the VA’s adding more than 3,000 employees to handle the traffic jam.

“They’re overwhelmed,” said Joe Moore, a former VA attorney who now represents veterans in cases against the agency. “They simply can’t do the decision-making fast enough.”

In response to a December 2008 lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Washington seeking to force the VA to decide claims in 90 days, the government acknowledged that “certain diseases for Vietnam-era veterans” are contributing to the backup.

The lawsuit, filed by the Vietnam Veterans of America and Veterans of Modern Warfare, argues that “thousands of veterans die each year” before the VA acts on their disability claims. The lawsuit alleges the VA takes at least six months to consider an initial request, and appeals can drag on for years.

“In the face of such delays, many veterans simply give up, choosing to accept less than they deserve rather than to endure years of delay and frustration,” it said.

Or they just die early. According to data from the VA, 58 percent of the 490,135 Vietnam veterans who died from 2000 to 2007 were younger than 60.

A 3-act tragedy

For Vietnam veterans, the ongoing drama over Agent Orange can be broken into three acts. In the first, soldiers are totally unaware of the dangers posed by dioxin-laced defoliants sprayed in Vietnam. With the second comes outrage at the belated discovery of harm. And the third act is frustration with the bureaucracy set up to help veterans.

James Sprandel, a retired truck driver for the Chicago Department of Streets and Sanitation, has lived through all three.

Sprandel left South Vietnam almost 41 years ago, relieved to have survived his one-year tour as a combat medic at Tan An Airfield, about 20 miles south of Saigon. Today Sprandel, 64, uses a wheelchair because of diabetes and neuropathy, a nerve disorder that has drained the strength from his legs. The VA took 14 months to approve his disability claim.

Although he has little desire to revisit the war, Sprandel said he clearly recalls being assured that nothing was wrong with the water from rivers and streams around the air base. “There was a huge tank for bathing. … We bathed in it, we drank it. They told us it was potable water,” Sprandel said.

Never informed of the health risks, soldiers commonly reused Agent Orange barrels as barbecue pits, toilets and holding tanks for shower water. Studies show that as much as five gallons of residue often remained in 55-gallon barrels.

Not long after the war, it appeared the government would respond to the emerging realization that veterans faced a health threat from their exposure. Upon learning about Agent Orange’s risks, Congress ordered a full epidemiological study in 1979 with the intent of determining and monitoring the health impact of exposure to the defoliants.

But the government balked at the directive and has yet to carry it out.

Early studies on women who served in Vietnam suggested a higher risk of several types of cancer, as well as reproductive problems and birth defects in their children. But, as with male veterans, extensive studies still have not been completed.

Meanwhile, veterans joined a massive class-action lawsuit against Dow Chemical Co., Monsanto and other chemical companies that produced herbicides used in Vietnam. The case was settled out of court in 1984 for $180 million. The most common payment, distributed from 1988 to 1997, was for mental disorders — which, ironically, research has never linked to Agent Orange.

Out-of-court settlements often suggest closure of a dispute, but the controversy has only grown in the last 25 years. At the time of the agreement scientists did not fully understand the long-term effects of dioxin, especially its connection to cancer and other slow-developing diseases, gradually documented in small studies.

In 1998, attorneys filed a new lawsuit against chemical companies that manufactured defoliants, contending that the settlement money had dried up by the time thousands of veterans developed illnesses linked to the defoliants. The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the argument, and the Supreme Court declined to hear the case in March.

The most comprehensive study on the defoliants’ health effects was conducted by the Air Force, which over 27 years took biological samples from and tracked the health of a small number of soldiers who personally handled and sprayed the chemicals during the war.

The Operation Ranch Hand study, named for the defoliation effort, has long been criticized for underestimating the impact of the chemicals. More recently, new information has emerged showing that some herbicides used in the war contained even more dioxin than was once thought.

Scientists who worked on the study say re-examining the rich data in this light could bring crucial new insights. “I believe the whole thing needs to be reconsidered,” said Joel Michalek, an epidemiologist at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio.

Last year, Congress directed the VA to provide funding to do just that. So far the money has not been made available.

A war on 2 fronts

Mary Ann Dove’s husband, a Vietnam veteran and former Marine, was diagnosed in 1989 with the same disease that killed Cooley, multiple myeloma, which the VA did not link to Agent Orange until five years later.

In fact, the Vietnam War had been over for 16 years before the VA acknowledged that Agent Orange exposure was associated with a higher risk of any postwar illnesses. The first three to be recognized, in 1991, were soft tissue sarcoma, non- Hodgkin’s lymphoma and chloracne, a skin disorder that chemical companies had linked to dioxin decades earlier.

From 1991 to 1997, the VA accepted evidence that 10 diseases, including several cancers and neuropathy, were linked to Agent Orange. In the next six years, two diseases were added to its list.

Dove, a retired Army nurse who also served in Vietnam, recalls her husband saying early on: “You can fight the disease or you can fight the government — you can’t do both.” He chose to fight the disease, which killed him within six years.

The government “is clueless about what it did in Vietnam and the damage that was done,” Dove said.

The sheer number of claims contributes to the delays. According to annual reports from the VA, the number of Vietnam veterans receiving disability benefits grew 20 percent from 2003 to 2008 to 1,015,410.

At the same time, the number of veterans receiving aid after fighting in the Persian Gulf, Afghanistan and Iraq jumped 88 percent, to 897,000.

“There’s a lot of pressure to decide the cases from Iraq and Afghanistan quickly. What seems to be getting lost is those cases in the middle, where the veteran has already been denied and is now appealing,” said Barton Stichman, joint executive director of the National Veterans Legal Service Program, a Washington-based advocacy group for veterans.

Stichman said the VA is generally tightfisted and “with Agent Orange, they are skeptical adjudicators.”

Shinseki, a veteran wounded in Vietnam, proposed new rules in October for adding diseases to the expanding list of illnesses presumed to have been caused by the defoliant. The rules will undergo a period of public comment. He says he also wants to speed up the claims process.

“Since my confirmation as secretary, I’ve often asked why, 40 years after Agent Orange was last used in Vietnam, we’re still trying to determine the health consequences to our veterans who served in the combat theater,” Shinseki said in a statement at the time. “Veterans who endure a host of health problems deserve timely decisions.”

Paul Sutton, the former chairman of Vietnam Veterans of America, called the announcement too little, too late.

“At this stage, about a million-and-a-half of us are already gone,” Sutton said.

Feeling ‘betrayed’

Jack Cooley never expected to fight his government. He attended a military high school in St. Louis and, at West Point, developed a deep respect for Civil War Gen. Ulysses Grant. “Jack is not the type to ‘take things by storm,’ ” his classmates said of him in the 1965 West Point yearbook, the Howitzer.

One July day in 1968, Cooley flew by helicopter to Quang Tri province’s Landing Zone Jane, which he described in a letter to his wife, Maria, as “God-forsaken.”

Cooley was traveling the area as an artillery officer based at Camp Carroll. In all, 168,000 gallons of Agent Orange and other defoliants were dumped on the province in the year he spent there, according to a Tribune analysis of spraying data.

“This is one of the better places to be at the present time,” Cooley assured his mother in a tape recording he mailed home in early 1968.

After leaving the Army, Cooley would earn a law degree from the University of Notre Dame, clerk for a federal judge in Chicago and be appointed a federal magistrate. He earned a reputation as a skilled mediator who could bring people together. He wrote textbooks on problem-solving and taught at Northwestern and Loyola universities.

When he was diagnosed with multiple myeloma, Cooley quickly made the connection to Agent Orange.

“I then (in the summer of 2007) put 2 and 2 together and realized that I had been exposed to massive amounts of toxic chemicals in the air observer assignment and other job assignments I had while in Vietnam,” Cooley wrote in his claim to the VA for disability compensation.

The Cooleys started work on his claim to the VA while he was in intensive care in an Evanston hospital, having earlier undergone a stem cell transplant that failed to stop the spread of the disease.

Christina Cooley said her father “felt very betrayed” by the government’s failure to disclose the dangers of Agent Orange to the men and women serving in Vietnam.

“He strongly believed the government is there to watch out for us,” she said.

At Cooley’s memorial service in September, friends from the West Point class of ’65 attended, including Shinseki. At the end of the service, a short prayer was recited for “families who have lost a member to Agent Orange.”

Two weeks later a packet from the federal government was dropped in Cooley’s mailbox in Evanston. Inside were documents requested nearly four months earlier, verifying that Cooley had served in the Vietnam War.

Tribune reporter Jason Grotto contributed to this story.

Copyright © 2009, Chicago Tribune

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Report on protest at Hilo Veteran’s Parade

Aloha kakou,

About 40-50 people in total turned out, during the nearly 3 and l/2 hour protest at today’s Hilo Veterans Parade. The protest focus was the U.S. illegal wars of aggression and occupation in Iraq and Afghanistan and the military including vehicles from Pohakuloa Training Area (PTA) recently returned from Iraq. Among those present were Kanaka Maoli leaders, Kelii, “Skippy” Ioane, a Vietnam vet, Moanikeala Aka, Moana Tavares, and Noelani Mason, who together with David Schlesinger and others were broadcasting the protest live on Youthbuiltmedia.com <http://www.youthbuiltmedia.com/> . Also joining the protest was 95 year old Don Swergfegger, a retired methodist minister. About l500 leaflets were distributed to people along the parade route and even some parade participants. The leaflet was entitled “Help Protect Veterans & Public Health.” It warned about the dangers of possible DU contamination of the military vehicles in the Hilo parade.

PTA’s commanding officer, Lt. Col. Warline Richardson’s words that there would be no mobile weapon systems on military vehicles in todays’ parade turned out to be false Two command Stryker vehicles at the end of the parade (just in front of the ending firetruck) were preceded by several Humvees armed with machine guns. It’s interesting that the Strykers and Humvees were placed at the end of the parade, even though we stated clearly we had no intent of blocking such vehicles. The military obviously did not believe us. They made sure that if we attempted to block the Strykers it would only block them and not the rest of the parade. It should also be noted that members of a right wing citizen group called “The Eagles” were walking as escorts for the Strykers and there were several Hawaii County police on bicycles also acting as a security escort for the Strykers.

The Strykers and Humvees, recently returned from Iraq, are currently training at the PTA in the center of our island home that is officially acknowledged to be contaminated with DU. Hawaii’s Stryker brigade is training for redeployment to either Iraq or Afghanistan. These vehicles participated in the Hilo parade in violation of Army Regulation 700-48 according to Doug Rokke, PH.D. Major, reitred U.S. Army, and Director U.S. Army Depleted Uranium (DU) Project. Rokke says: “Any and all combat vehicles and equipment (everything) returned from Iraq should be prohibited from any civilian area. (including this parade) A standard wash rack is useless for decontamination… Army regulation 700-48, section 2-4 requires isolation from all human contact. Even after extensive depot level cleaning I found DU, and other radiological, chemical and biological contamination in vehicles years later. The gross contamination of equipment, vehicles, terrain, air, water, soil and food is reflected in, and verified by the hundreds of thousands of US casualties with serious medical problems that are unrelated to bullets or bombs, but are directly related to all of these toxic exposures. Hawaii’s isolated and pristine environment should not be exposed to, and consequently placed in danger through, any exposure to any of the contaminants brought back by the US military from war zones.”

All in all, the day of leafleting and protest went very well. There was minimal hostility. The leaflet was crafted to focus on protecting Veterans and Public Health. Who can be against that? We had a very good location for the protest and even many of the vets in the parade gave positive thumbs up signals to many of our signs such as: “No War Surge,” “Protect the Troops from DU,” “Aloha Means Peace,” “Stop the Wars,” and “End Occupations.” Clearly the current wars are not popular even at a veterans parade. And the fact that the Strykers — the modern chariots of empire, had to be placed last in the parade and be under right wind (Eagle) and police escort, was a sign of the military’s unpopular status as occupier of the independent nation of Hawaii.

There will be a peace meeting on Monday, Nov. 9th 7-9PM at the Keaau Community Center. Among items for discussion will be an evaluation of today’s protest and next steps for justice and peace. Please come and bring friends. We need everyone’s mana’o.

Mahalo.

Jim Albertini

Malu ‘Aina Center for Non-violent Education & Action

P.O.Box AB

Kurtistown, Hawai’i 96760

phone: 808-966-7622

email: JA@interpac.net

Visit us on the web at: www.malu-aina.org <http://www.malu-aina.org>

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Hilo groups will protest Strykers on parade

According to the Honolulu Advertiser article Strykers will be included in the Hilo Veterans parade:

Organizers hoped to keep word of the vehicles a secret from peace activists like Jim Albertini of the Malu Aina Center for Non-Violent Education and Action, in an attempt to ward off conflict.

Albertini found out anyway, and on Sunday wrote an open letter to Lt. Col. Warline Richardson of Pohakuloa Training Area, asking that the vehicles be kept out of the parade.

Albertini says he’s concerned that the presence of the vehicles “glorifies war” under the guise of honoring veterans. He’s also raised concerns that the Strykers, which are involved in training exercises at Pohakuloa, could be contaminated with depleted uranium and may pose a health risk to citizens.

Richardson called Albertini on Monday to confirm that two Strykers would be in the parade, but they would be unarmed command vehicles. There would be numerous other, non-controversial vehicles in the parade, including an ambulance and transport vehicles.

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Strykers (and DU) on Parade in Hilo?

Mahalo to Joan Conrow and the Hawaii Independent for this article about Hilo residents’ opposition to Strykers and possible Depleted Uranium contamination being in the Veteran’s Day Parade. 

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http://thehawaiiindependent.com/page-one/read/veterans-parade-hit-with-du-concerns/

Hilo Veterans’ Day parade hit with depleted uranium concerns

Nov 05, 2009 – 12:35 PM | By Joan Conrow | The Hawaii Independent

HILO—Plans to include vehicles from Hawaii Island’s Pohakuloa Training Area (PTA) in Saturday’s Veteran’s Day parade in Hilo have met opposition from those concerned about glorifying war and possible contamination by depleted uranium (DU).

Jim Albertini, director of the Malu Aina Center for Non-violent Education & Action, said that after event organizers told him Stryker vehicles would be participating in the parade, he wrote to Lt. Col. Warline S. Richardson, the PTA’s commanding officer, to express his concerns.

“Including Stryker vehicles in the parade is a provocative action that glorifies war disguised as honoring veterans,” Albertini wrote in his October 30 letter. “I urge that Strykers and other combat weapons be kept out of the parade. To parade these killing machines through our peaceful streets desensitizes young and old to the horrors of war.

“As you know, basing Strykers in Hawaii has been a major controversy,” the letter continued. “Their use of Depleted Uranium (DU) weapons in Iraq contaminating that country forever is equally controversial, and likely related to the Gulf War Syndrome that has effected [sic] the health of hundreds of thousands of disabled U.S. veterans and millions of Iraqi citizens. The fact that these Strykers are currently doing live-fire training at Pohakuloa, known to be contaminated with DU, risks spreading that contamination, endangering the health and safety of troops and the citizens of this island. Bringing these Strykers, that may be contaminated with DU, down the streets of Hilo adds insult to injury.”

Albertini said that Richardson contacted him early the next morning and said she was willing to keep mobile weapons out of the parade in order to avoid a protest, and instead would send “command Strykers” that were outfitted with communications equipment rather than weaponry.

But he said Richardson was not receptive when he raised the concern that any vehicles from PTA could be contaminated with DU oxide: “I don’t think she takes that issue very seriously.”

Albertini said that fear about possible DU contamination from the training area was widespread on the Big Island, and had prompted the Hawaii County Council to pass a 2008 resolution “ordering a complete halt to B-2 bombing missions and all live firing exercises and other actions at PTA that create dust until there’s an assessment and clean up of the depleted uranium already present.”

When contacted by The Hawaii Independent, Richardson said: “Those vehicles aren’t contaminated. What would they be contaminated with?” Richardson also denied that she had agreed to let command Strykers participate in the parade. “I don’t control those vehicles,” she said.

“She’s telling two different stories,” Albertini countered.

Loran Doane, media relations chief for the U.S. Army Garrison, said that event organizers had asked the Army to participate in the parade, but “no final determination has been made as to exact form that participation will take.” He said a decision likely would be made by noon Friday.

He also said that the Army has a “process and standards for cleaning military vehicles before entry into the U.S.”

The fact sheet for cleaning vehicles states: “Those identified as contaminated with DU are wrapped in plastic and tarps (encased) to prevent the spread of any removable contamination or residues. They are then shipped through the Port of Charleston, South Carolina, to the U.S. Army’s Aberdeen Proving Ground (APG), Maryland. Here, the vehicles are assessed for decontamination and repair, or for recovery of parts.”

Richardson also said she could not understand the objection to Styrkers. “It’s just a wheeled type of a piece of equipment. I just don’t understand a little bit of the concern,” she said, likening them to Toyota releasing a new version of the Maxima. ”Part of it is education. That’s why you want to let them participate in parades.”

Meanwhile, Major Doug Rokke (Ret.), the former director of the U.S. Army Depleted Uranium project, issued a statement in response to the parade plans that read:

“Any and all combat vehicles and equipment (everything) returned from Iraq should be prohibited from any civilian area. A standard wash rack is useless for decontamination. Keep all contaminated equipment isolated to the army post. Army regulation 700-48, section 2-4 requires isolation from all human contact.

“Even after extensive depot level cleaning, I found DU and other radiological, chemical, and biological contamination in vehicles years later.

“The gross contamination of equipment, vehicles, terrain, air, water, soil, and food is reflected in, and verified by, the hundreds of thousands of U.S. casualties with serious medical problems that are unrelated to bullets or bombs, but are directly related to all of these toxic exposures.

“Hawaii’s isolated and pristine environment should not be exposed to, and consequently placed in danger through, any exposure to any of the contaminants brought back by the U.S. military from war zones.”

Dr. Lorrin Pang, a consultant to the Big Island County Council on the issue of DU, also advised caution, noting that Dr. Rosalie Bertell has said the weaponry causes nano-particles to be released, as well as DU oxide.

“There is a newly recognized associated threat called nanotoxicity, especially from small metallic particles,” Pang said in a written statement. “Yet another unknown. With so many unknowns I suggest we adhere to the precautionary principle and honor our veterans by not further exposing them (and the public) to further unknown agents. Remember both Rokke and I are former Army and we are still watching out for the soldiers.”

 

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Strykers in Hilo veteran’s parade

CENTER FOR NON-VIOLENT EDUCATION AND ACTION

Malu ‘Aina Farm

P.O. Box AB

Kurtistown, Hawaii 96760

Phone 808-966-7622 email ja@interpac.net http://www.malu-aina.org

Lt. Col. Warline S. Richardson October 30, 2009

Commanding Officer

Pohakuloa Training Area (PTA)

Dear Col. Richardson:

I have received a report that Stryker urban assault vehicles from PTA, recently returned from Iraq, will be in the Nov. 7th Hilo Veterans parade. Including Stryker vehicles in the parade is a provocative action that glorifies war disguised as honoring veterans. I urge that Strykers and other combat weapons be kept out of the parade. To parade these killing machines through our peaceful streets desensitizes young and old to the horrors of war.

As you know, basing Strykers in Hawaii has been a major controversy. Their use of Depleted Uranium (DU) weapons in Iraq contaminating that country forever is equally controversial, and likely related to the Gulf War Syndrome that has effected the health of hundreds of thousands of disabled U.S. veterans and millions of Iraqi citizens The fact that these Strykers are currently doing live-fire training at Pohakuloa, known to be contaminated with DU, risks spreading that contamination, endangering the health and safety of troops and the citizens of this island. Bringing these Strykers, that may be contaminated with DU, down the streets of Hilo adds insult to injury.

Our organization supports veterans being given the best possible medical care but we are opposed to U.S. illegal wars of aggression that keep producing more and more disabled veterans. It’s time to end these U.S. illegal wars and the illegal U.S. occupations of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Hawaii. If your goal is to truly honor vets, take the money you would spend to transport the Strykers to and from downtown Hilo and use it for their medical care.

With gratitude and aloha,

Jim Albertini

President

cc: government officials and the media

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Navy vet sentenced to life for murder of stepfather

Timothy Adarna, who took an early discharge from the Navy, was sentenced to life in prison for the murder of his stepfather Robert Ramos. Adarna stabbed Ramos numerous times then set the body on fire.   Here are a couple of earlier articles:

http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/2006/Nov/17/ln/FP611170359.html

http://starbulletin.com/2008/07/19/news/story10.html

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March 13, 2009

Man who killed stepfather in Ewa Beach sentenced to life in prison

By Jim Dooley
Advertiser Staff Writer

Timothy Adarna was sentenced to life in prison this morning for killing his stepfather, Robert Ramos, two years ago in Ewa Beach.

Relatives of Ramos waited in court for Adarna to apologize for his actions or explain them, but he said nothing.

Adarna remained silent as Circuit Judge Michael Town imposed a life sentence with the possibility of parole for the murder and 20 years for a related arson charge.
The two prison sentences will be served simultaneously. Under terms of a plea agreement, both the prosecution and defense agreed that Adarna will not seek parole until he has served at least 20 years behind bars.
Robin Turner, niece of the victim, spoke for Ramos’ family after the hearing.

She said the family was “dumbfounded that something like this, in such a gruesome manner, could happen.”
She described Ramos, 55, as “a great person.”

“We don’t have any ill wishes toward anyone, toward Timmy,” Turner said. “It’s just a loss for everyone.”
But she said the Ramos family hoped for an apology and an explanation from Adarna, 23.

“When you accept responsibility but you can’t say you’re sorry or apologize, that makes it much more difficult,” she said.

Adarna was convicted in a jury trial last year of first degree arson for setting fire to the house in which Ramos’ body was found. But the jury couldn’t reach a verdict on the murder charge.

Adarna pleaded guilty to that charge in January.

Adarna, a Campbell High School graduate and military veteran, has said previously that he didn’t remember the circumstances of the crime.

After Adarna pleaded guilty in January to second degree murder, defense lawyer David Hayakawa called the case a “mystifying” one that will apparently never be fully explained.

Source: http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/20090313/BREAKING01/90313054/-1

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Aidan Delgado Interviewed in the Hawaii Independent

The Peter Serafim did an interview with Aidan Delgado for the Hawaii Independent. Delgado is an Iraq war veteran and conscientious objector who will be speaking in Hawai’i this week. Here’s the intro to the article:

Aidan Delgado grew up in Thailand and Egypt, where his father was a U. S. Foreign Service staffer. In 2000 he returned to the United States to attend college. He joined the Army Reserve and signed his final enlistment document on September 11, 2001 – minutes before the terrorist attacks.

Delgado, a Buddhist, served as a truck mechanic and was part of the initial American invasion of Iraq in 2003. Because he spoke some Arabic, he also translated for his unit. Later he was stationed at Abu Ghraib prison.

He filed for conscientious objector status while in Iraq and continued to serve in the combat zone until CO status was granted and he was discharged 15 months later. He wrote about his experiences in “The Sutras of Abu Ghraib: Notes from a Conscientious Objector in Iraq.”

Delgado will be speaking on O‘ahu and the Big Island this month.

Read the full interview here.

Aidan Delgado:
Thursday, March 12, 7:30pm
UCB-100
UH-Hilo
Info: Dr. Marilyn Brown (933-3184) or Catherine Kennedy (985-9151).

Friday, March 13, 7:30pm
Church of the Crossroads
1212 University Avenue
Honolulu
Info: Revolution Books (944-3106)

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