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U.S. Sailor Unexpectedly Gives Birth Aboard USS Dwight D. Eisenhower in the Persian Gulf

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By Debbie Gregory.

A sailor who hadn’t previously disclosed her pregnancy gave birth recently aboard an aircraft carrier currently involved in military operations against ISIS, the Navy has confirmed.

The birth took place aboard the aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower while it operated in the Persian Gulf, according to the Navy.

According to Cmdr. Bill Urban, spokesman for U.S. Naval Forces Central Command, the sailor was admitted to the ship’s medical department after complaining of abdominal pain. Nine hours later, she gave birth to a 7-pound baby girl.

Mother and baby were both doing well. Luckily, the doctor on-board had experience delivering babies. Necessities such as diapers and formula were flown out to the carrier as soon as it was clear that a baby was on the way, along with an incubator, which was used to support the helicopter medical evacuation to shore.

Urban said the sailor’s chain of command wasn’t aware of the pregnancy. It wasn’t immediately clear Monday whether the sailor herself knew she was pregnant.

“As the baby was born at sea aboard an operational unit, the main focus for the U.S. Navy, the ship and its crew is the safety and well-being of the baby and the mother. The mother and baby have arrived in Bahrain via helicopter with a medical escort and have been taken to a shore-based hospital for follow on care,” Urban said.

The Navy requires annual health examinations and for expectant mothers to self-report pregnancy within two weeks of confirmation from a medical care provider, according to Navy Personnel Command.

Navy policy says that expectant mothers are allowed to remain on a ship up to the 20th week of pregnancy and only if the time for medical evacuation to an emergency treatment facility is less than six hours away, according to Urban. The Eisenhower left Norfolk on June 1.

Military Connection salutes and proudly serves veterans and service members in the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard, Guard and Reserve,  and their families.

Sgt. Elizabeth Marks Wins Gold At Rio Paralympic Games

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By Debbie Gregory.

Sgt. Elizabeth Marks win medals not for the medals’ sake, but for the story of perseverance behind them. And the 25-year-old is once again winning medals for swimming, this time at the Paralympics in Rio.

Marks, an active-duty Army soldier, first received attention at the 2016 Invictus Games that were held in Orlando, FL. She won a gold medal, and requested Prince Harry take it back to the London hospital that she said saved her life.

The Arizona native was injured in Iraq in 2010. She went to London to compete in the inaugural Invictus Games, where she was struck down with a serious lung condition when she arrived in London.  The medical staff at Papworth Hospital in Cambridge put Marks in an induced coma, which saved her life.

Cut to Rio, with Marks competing in the women’s 100-meter breaststroke, earning a gold medal, and shattering a world record with a time of 1:28.13.

“I had no idea (I was winning),” Marks said. “I can’t see when I am swimming. About 25-meters in I have no idea where anybody else is. As long as I feel pressure on my hands I know it is going well. I was just hoping for the best and putting everything I had into it.”

This is Marks’ first Paralympic Games, and she says her motivation is the support of her fellow troops.

“When I step onto the blocks, I never think, ‘I want to win,'” she says. “I think, ‘I want to pour all of myself into this race because there are people who can’t physically, mentally or emotionally, do that.’ So it’s my way of performing for them.”

Military Connection salutes and proudly serves veterans and service members in the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard, Guard and Reserve,  and their families.

Can Changes at the Wounded Warrior Projects Save the Non-Profit?

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By Debbie Gregory.

On the heels of a lot of bad press, the Wounded Warrior Project (WWP) is making a number of changes, including firing former executives, closing offices, and redirecting funds to counter the previous spending scandal.

After an internal investigation, the foundation’s board of directors fired CEO Stephen Nardizzi, who often made flamboyant entrances at staff parties, for focusing too much on fundraising rather than veterans’ programs.

Retired Army Lt. Gen. Michael Linnington, who took over as CEO earlier this year, said that changes are being made in order to provide the best resources possible to veterans.

The moves come months after the 13-year-old organization came under attack for accusations of reckless spending: exorbitant staff salaries, lavish staff parties and corporate retreats, expensive dinners and alcohol.

Linnington acknowledged that the recent scandals have hurt fundraising totals this year, but change is on the way.
The non-profit is boosting support for programs such as the Long-Term Support Trust initiative, and ending others such as the Transition Training Academy.

“We had to look at the programs that are the most essential to who we serve, and make sure we’re providing the greatest assistance to those in the greatest need,” Linnington said.

While trimming the fat from the payroll, the non-profit is planning to add staff  to mental health programs, long-term home-based support services, and helping veterans engage with each other in community activities.
Linnington said the group is planning to continue its support of veterans’ charities. In fiscal 2015, Wounded Warrior Project handed out about $11 million in grants to outside groups.

Hopefully, the changes made at the WWP will be able to change public perception of the organization.  Linnington is confident they will.

“We are strengthening our programs to better serve our warriors and their families, and will strengthen relationships with community partners in caring for our military community, as well as facilitating partnerships with organizations and businesses doing great work in the civilian sector,” he said in a statement.

Military Connection salutes and proudly serves veterans and service members in the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard, Guard and Reserve,  and their families.

Veteran’s Suicide Tragedy Compounded by Financial Consequences

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By Debbie Gregory.

On July 5th, Stephen Coning, a 26-year- old veteran who had served three deployments as a Marine Infantryman, tragically took his own life. Coning was part of the infamous 2/7 Marines, a unit that has been plagued by a suicide rate sixteen times that of the national average.

Two days later, the Department of Veterans Affairs released data showing that the rate of suicide for those who served is much higher than for civilians. But despite that connection, the VA does not presume all suicides to be “service connected.”

After Coning transitioned out of the military in 2013, he went to school on the GI Bill and got a job as a veterinary tech.

Although Coning was a great father, he had trouble sleeping, was short-tempered, and didn’t do well in crowds. He always wanted his back to a wall. His wife, Sky, believed her husband had post-traumatic stress disorder, but he was never tested for it by the VA.

“The VA recommended that he go through PTSD testing but he did not,” she says. And not getting tested had consequences that her husband surely never intended, as there is no medical record that Coning was depressed or had PTSD.

With nothing formal to show a strong connection between his time in Afghanistan and his suicide, the VA can’t rule his death service connected.

If a veteran has been rated as 100 percent disabled, or has a VA diagnosis linked to suicide, then the VA can pay several thousand dollars for a funeral and grant a surviving spouse a monthly support payment. But without proof a death is connected to military service, the VA pays just a few hundred dollars for burial and can help find a plot in a cemetery.

Unofficial help has come from the local Indiana state VA, which used a discretionary fund and paid thousands of dollars for the funeral. Additionally, the Marine Corps League covered Sky’s mortgage for two months, and many strangers have contributed to the family’s GoFundMe page.

Also, the anti-suicide group Spartan Weekend donated $4,000 for Coning’s burial, and has started a memorial fund in his name. They are also petitioning to increase the amount the VA pays for burials, even if they’re not service connected.

Sky will now need to collect testimony from friends and family that her husband’s 30% VA disability rating for nerve damage and hearing loss was not the only disability her husband had. Only then might the VA grant service connection and pay benefits and burial.

Military Connection salutes and proudly serves veterans and service members in the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard, Guard and Reserve,  and their families.

Zero-rated Veteran Charity Goes Belly-up

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By Debbie Gregory.

The National Vietnam Veterans Foundation (NVVF), a zero-rated charity that we reported on a few months ago, has closed its doors for good, according to one of the charity’s executives.

David Kaufman, the charity’s vice president, says the organization “has severed all ties” to the organization’s president, Thomas Burch, and is shutting down completely.

“All fundraising has ceased and the only thing being done is the distribution of blankets, personal care kits and related items in the warehouse.”

NVVF was enormously successful in fundraising, but a complete and utter failure when it came to helping veterans. In fact, most of the money spent by the “charity” was paid to telemarketers, with less than 2 percent being used for the benefit of veterans and veterans’ charitable causes.

If you donated money to this “charity” in 2014, here is where some of your money went: $133,000 for travel, $21,000 for “awards”, $70,000 for “other expenses” (????) and $8,000 for parking!

Even more disturbing is the fact that Burch’s day job is working as an attorney for the Department of Veterans Affairs!

Rolls Royce-driving Burch is deputy director in the VA’s Office of General Counsel, where he pulled down $127,000 in salary in 2014. That’s the same year he drew a salary of $65,000 as head of his “charity.”

Michael Thatcher, the CEO of Charity Navigator, said the foundation deserved is zero rating.

“If one really cared about Vietnam veterans, is this an effective way of making a difference? I don’t think so. I can’t justify it. I can’t explain it.”

There are thousands of wonderful non-profits that work tirelessly to help those in need.

Thank goodness this stinker is no longer.

Military Connection salutes and proudly serves veterans and service members in the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard, Guard and Reserve,  and their families.

Pay For Success Veterans Employment Program Launched By VA

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By Debbie Gregory.

The VA Center for Innovation (VACI) and VA’s Vocational Rehabilitation and Employment teams are partnering with the Corporation for National Community Service to launch the Veterans Employment Pay for Success (VEPFS) Program.

Transitioning from military service to civilian life can be an uncertain time for Veterans. For Veterans returning home with complex PTSD symptoms, jobs for military veterans can be hard to maintain, and the lack of employment can have compounding consequences for their PTSD symptoms.

The idea behind Pay for Success is simple; instead of paying upfront for a social service that may or may not achieve the desired results, the government only pays once an intervention produces specific, measurable, and positive outcomes.

In Pay for Success programs, the payout occurs only after a rigorous evaluation determines that the pre-agreed-upon outcomes have been achieved due to the intervention. In other words, the VA is only paying for what works, what is successful.

While transitioning from military to civilian life is unique to each veteran and their circumstances, regular and supportive employment can provide the stability to tackle mental, physical and social challenges.

The Pay for Success program is the first of its kind to be attempted by the VA. This goal is consistent with the mission of VA, which is to fulfill President Lincoln’s promise, “To care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan” by serving and honoring the men and women who are America’s Veterans.

The VA’s Office of Economic Opportunity within the Veterans Benefits Administration has a further defined mission to “Help Veterans attain personal and economic success” through a variety of benefits, services, and activities including promoting employment opportunities for Veterans. The targeted veterans for this Pay for Success pilot will need to have Service-connected Disability of PTSD.

Military Connection salutes and proudly serves veterans and service members in the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard, Guard and Reserve,  and their families.

Army Wants Greater Role in Space Operations

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By Debbie Gregory.

At last month’s Space and Missile Defense Symposium, Army Col. Joe Guzman made the case for the Army to play a greater role in Defense Department space operations.

Guzman said the Army has a new policy that calls for the service branch to contribute to the Defense Department’s space capabilities, rather than just using the capabilities provided.

Generally, the Air Force is in charge of building and operating the Defense Department’s most expensive space systems, with the Army as the largest user.

And while the Army is still a long way away from flying its own satellite constellations, Guzman said the service “must make its voice heard on next-generation systems.”

The Army no longer narrowly consumes space products but shares responsibility to shape the future of an evolving combat environment, he said, which includes satellite communications, surveillance and reconnaissance, missile warning, precision navigation and timing and environmental monitoring.

Ensuring the vitality and reliability of these capabilities is critical to the way the Army plans and fights, Guzman said.

Guzman said the Army must learn to operate in a more contested space environment where enemies have jammed GPS and communications satellites by training for those scenarios. He noted that the Army must do a better job of training soldiers against an improved threat, including through more realistic simulations. Additionally, the Army must continue to develop, acquire and improve space applications.

“The future Army will need modernized systems and weapons that capitalize on the attributes of satellites,” he said. “There’s nothing else that can regularly overfly the sovereign territory of other nations. Satellites operate at altitudes beyond the reach of conventional air defense weapons, altitudes which facilitate information transport over extreme distances into and out of austere environments.”

Military Connection salutes and proudly serves veterans and service members in the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard, Guard and Reserve,  and their families.

Veteran Education Disrupted by ITT Closure

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By Debbie Gregory.

Valuable veteran education benefits could be affected for as many as 7,000 veteran students using their GI Bill benefits at ITT Technical Institute.

The company has shut its doors at all 137 locations over 38 states. ITT places blame for the closure on the U.S. Department of Education, which has stepped up oversight of for-profit colleges, and imposed tough financial sanctions against ITT over recruitment and financial aid practices

The Department of Education, which has online information and webinar Q&A sessions through September 22nd, banned the school from enrolling new students who used federal financial aid.

ITT’s career-focused degree programs in specialties mainly centered on technical fields, such as electronics technology, drafting, auto mechanics, nursing, criminal justice and information technology. Their personal, direct testimony ads from past and present students were a staple on television.

“The sudden shuttering of ITT Tech will hurt thousands of veterans who enrolled in search of a promising career but will receive an uncertain future instead,” said Rep. Mark Takano, (D-CA) a member of the House Veterans Affairs Committee.

Takano said student veterans often are targets of aggressive and even deceptive recruiting practices, noting that Corinthian Colleges and ITT Tech together received a total of $1 billion in GI Bill money between 2009 and 2015. Corinthian Colleges Inc. closed the doors on its remaining campuses following government allegations of falsified job placement rates.

Therefore, in order to make the most of your military education benefits, it is imperative that you do your homework (so to speak) before choosing a college, university or technical school. You may want to use The Department of Education’s College Scorecard to find the program that’s right for you.

Military Connection salutes and proudly serves veterans and service members in the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard, Guard and Reserve,  and their families.

18 Month Experiment Can Change How Combat Troops Deploy

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By Debbie Gregory.

An ongoing 18-month experiment by the Marine Corps could transform the basic infantry unit into a deadlier revolutionized team.

Kilo Company, 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines, was chosen earlier this year by Commandant Gen. Robert Neller to help the Corps figure out what company landing teams need to be successful. They were sent out to the desert, equipped with new high-tech gear like drones, robotic vehicles — some with weaponry — and self-supporting energy systems.

The 18-month experiment, with the goal of making the expeditionary landing team more self-sufficient and combat ready, will rely on user feedback from the Marines and sailors involved.

The experiment began when Kilo Company was flown into a mock urban environment via helicopters and MV-22B Ospreys. Their mission was to assist after a UN helo went down in a foreign town that had the potential to turn hostile. Capt. Joe Patterson, Kilo’s company commander, had reason to believe his Marines faced a credible risk of being ambushed, so he opted against traditional patrols that could leave them vulnerable to threats like roadside bombs.

There were no options for quick resupplies or large-scale logistics support. The company was in their desert on their own.

What made this exercise unlike any others, though, was the gear the Marines were given to help sustain themselves. The Marines carried items such as the Small-Unit Water Purification System and the Joint Infantry Combat Prototype, which can harvest a Marine’s energy to charge up equipment. They also had self-driving vehicles that could help carry their equipment, special medical gear, and the drones they used to collect intel and drop bombs.

They also had the High-Efficiency Internally Transportable Trailer which has a “green” energy hub to power and recharge batteries. The power-generating exoskeleton called the Joint Infantry Combat Prototype  slides up and down as a Marine walks or runs, which captures the energy. The item can be used with Marines’ existing packs and an additional waist pouch holds rechargeable batteries and other nodes that the grunts could use to charge their stuff.

MQ-9 Reaper unmanned aerial vehicles (drones) not only provided aerial intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capability to Kilo Company but could also be equipped with Hellfire missiles and bombs.

Kilo Company, along with the rest of its battalion, will continue this experiment through the fall with an integrated training exercise.

While some of the lessons learned during this test could be applied to future exercises, Brig. Gen. Julian Alford , Warfighting Lab’s commander, said no final decisions on technologies, equipment or company structure have been made.

Military Connection salutes and proudly serves veterans and service members in the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard, Guard and Reserve,  and their families.

Are Crewless Ships in the Navy’s Future?

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By Debbie Gregory.

Autonomous vehicles are becoming more common by the day, and new autonomous ships could change the future of the Navy.

To that end, a team of senior Navy officials is examining the feasibility of turning over some jobs to unmanned vessels and submarines.

Naval analyst Bryan Clark of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments and other outside experts have participated in a series of “fleet architecture studies” led by the office of the chief of naval operations. Their findings will shape the future fleet.

The review could be a potential turning point in the modernization of the Navy’s fleet. Those in the robotics industry are optimistic that the fleet studies will open the door for autonomous systems to become mainstream.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has offered a glimpse into the possible future of crewless ships, deploying a 132-foot autonomous trimaran off the coast of San Diego.

The Sea Hunter is able to operate on its own, using modern technology such as radar, sonar, and global positioning systems to navigate. Sea Hunter will be able to cut through the waves at speeds of up to 30 miles per hour. The ship cost $120 million to develop, although engineers say each ship would likely cost around $20 million to produce.

“You now have an asset at a fraction of the cost of a manned platform,” said Rear Admiral Robert Girrier, who directs the Navy’s unmanned warfare systems program.

“Sea Hunter is designed to operate for extended periods at sea with no person on board and only sparse supervisory control,” according to Leidos, the contractor firm that built the ship for DARPA.

While initial tests require a pilot on board the ship, later tests are planned to have no human operators. The two-year program is funded by DARPA and the Office of Naval Research. Upcoming tests will dig deeper into the performance of sensors, the vessel’s autonomy suite and compliance with maritime collision regulations.

Military Connection salutes and proudly serves veterans and service members in the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard, Guard and Reserve,  and their families.


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