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Army Looks to Tackle Anger Amongst Combat Vets

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By Debbie Gregory.

It is not uncommon for military veterans to join police forces and vice versa. Both jobs offer a strong sense of teamwork and reliance on others in life-or-death situations — in platoons and out on patrol.

That’s part of the reason why these attacks on police by former military men have touched a nerve among veterans who traditionally share a close bond with law enforcement.

In light of the shooting deaths of police in Baton Rouge and Dallas by former service members, the Army is trying to better understand why as many as 40 out of every100 troops return from war struggling with anger and aggression.

Whether there is a link between their military service and the shootings is unknown. And military researchers have been studying the issue of anger for almost a decade.

We all get angry sometimes; it’s part of being human. But if anger is expressed in ways that are harmful to ourselves or someone else, or persists for a long time, it can become a problem.

Reacting to a threat with immediate action, rather than freezing, is an important part of military training. The problem is, a lot of veterans have trouble turning off that survival instinct once they get home.

It is thought that anger and aggression may be linked to combat-zone ailments, including disrupted sleep patterns and recurring nightmares For some veterans, anger can be related to another mental health problem like depression, post traumatic stress disorder, alcohol and other drug use.

Amy Adler, an Army clinical research psychologist, said while military studies show the presence of anger and aggression in some troops returning from war, it remains uncertain whether those emotions reach the kind extreme behavior exhibited in the recent spate of shootings of police.

“I don’t think we know that,” Adler said.

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 Marksmen Set to Take Part in Rio Olympics

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By Debbie Gregory.

Today marks the opening of the 2016 Olympic Games from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. More than 10,500 athletes from 206 countries are scheduled to take part.

For Sgt.1st  Class Michael McPhail, participating in the games is his shot at personal redemption. McPhail, who is with the United States Army Marksmanship Unit (USAMU) came in 9th place in his first Olympics in London in 2012. He began shooting at the age of 16.

He has won three gold medals in international events in 2015, thus securing his spot on the U.S. Shooting Olympic Team. He will compete in men’s 50M rifle prone on August 12th .
Three other USAMU soldiers, Sgt. 1st Class Glenn Eller, Sgt. 1st Class Josh Richmond and Specialist Daniel Lowe , will also proudly represent the U.S. at the games.

The talented group has a shot at adding to the 24 Olympic shooting sports medals won by USAMU soldiers in past games. Eller, the most experienced member of the team, won a gold medal in the 2008 games in Beijing.

“I’ve also been way down before so I know both sides of the spectrum,” Eller said.

Although the men are hoping to win big at the Olympics, they have already racked up some medals this year: McPhail won the gold medal at the Rifle/Pistol National Championships, Eller won a bronze for double trap at the World Cup in Rio and Richmond won a gold medal in double trap at the World Cup San Marino.

McPhail no longer is an Olympic rookie, and hopefully will not have the freshman jitters that may have contributed to his disappointing finish in the last Olympics. He enters this year’s game as the No. 1 prone rifle shooter in the world.

“The U.S. delegation has 550 athletes, of those how many going to win medals? How many are supposed to or favored to win medals?” McPhail said. “A lot of people go and it’s a great thing to experience, but it’s a totally different thing to go there and be expected to win.”

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.

Federal Court Upholds Texas Hazelwood Act Requirements

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By Debbie Gregory.

A federal appeals court has upheld a much-watched Texas program that promises free college educations to military veterans if they lived in the state when they enlisted.

The Hazlewood Act, which dates back to the 1920s, is a State of Texas benefit that provides qualified Veterans, spouses, and dependent children with an education benefit of up to 150 hours of tuition exemption, including most fee charges, at public institutions of higher education in Texas. It does not include living expenses, books, or supply fees.

The Hazlewood Act was expanded in 2009 to include veterans who entered military service at a Texas installation.

The act was challenged by a veteran who enlisted in Georgia, and moved to Texas after he was discharged. On January 26, 2015, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas ruled that the requirement that Veterans must have entered service in Texas in order to be eligible to receive the Texas Hazlewood exemption of tuition and fees at public schools (the fixed point residency requirement) was unconstitutional.

The decision would have sent the program’s costs skyrocketing.

Texas appealed to the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, which ruled that Texas-residency rules were not unconstitutional, and said the state has the right to regulate its own education system.

Eligibility requirements include:

  • Entered the military service from Texas, or Home of Record at the time of entry into active duty was Texas, or was a Texas resident at the time of entry into military service
  • Served more than 180 days of federal military service- excluding Initial Entry Training (Unless otherwise permanently disabled or killed while on Active Duty prior to serving 180 days of federal military service.)
  • Received an Honorable Discharge or General Discharge under Honorable Conditions
  • Exhausted GI Bill benefits if eligible for Post-9/11 GI Bill benefits at the 100% rate
  • Reside in Texas during term of enrollment
  • Provide DD214 or equivalent supporting documentation
  • Meet the GPA requirement of the institution’s satisfactory academic progress policy in a degree or certificate program as determined by the institution’s financial aid policy and, as an undergraduate student, not be consideered to have attempted an excessive amount of credit hours.

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.

Should Military Service Earn Non-citizen Veterans a Second Chance at Citizenship?

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By Debbie Gregory.

A baby born on U.S. soil is automatically granted U.S. citizenship. Another path to citizenship is through military service. In fact, joining the U.S. military has always been one of the fastest ways to get U.S. citizenship. But it doesn’t happen automatically. And unfortunately, veterans who did not go through the process of becoming citizens, if they get in trouble, can be deported.

This is a fact known all too well by Hector Barajas-Varela. Born in Mexico, the 39-year-old Army veteran came to the U.S. illegally when he was seven. Although he donned a U.S. military uniform and received an honorable discharge, Barajas-Varela never followed through on his naturalization paperwork.

In 2002, Barajas-Varela was deported after pleading guilty to felony charges resulting from issues with alcohol and drugs. He founded the Deported Veterans Support House, known as the Bunker, a shelter for former U.S. military servicemembers who find themselves in the same situation.

The Bunker offers assistance and support from fellow veterans and volunteers.

Miguel Gabriel Vazquez is one of two Vietnam War veterans who offer counseling at the Bunker. Vazquez, a trained counselor with a master’s degree in psychology, comes to the bunker once a week to do individual counseling.

“They all have PTSD whether diagnosed or not,” said Vazquez, who has not been deported but lives in Rosarita Beach, Mexico, where he moved to write a book on healing PTSD naturally. “These guys get all that plus the trauma of being deported.”

The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) is considering Barajas-Varela’s application after his crime — discharging a firearm — was reclassified and is no longer an aggravated felony.

Naturalization used to be part of basic training, but the laws changed. As a result, lots of green card holders went to Iraq and Afghanistan without becoming citizens.

U.S. immigration law states that non-citizens who commit serious crimes forfeit their right to remain in the country. Deported veterans and their advocates say those who wear the uniform should be treated as U.S. citizens: punished for any crimes they commit, but not deported.

Army Investing In and Testing Dragon Silk for Armor

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By Debbie Gregory.

Although it may sound like something right out of Game of Thrones, the U.S. Army is testing a product called “Dragon Silk” for potential use in ballistic vests for soldiers, according to the product’s manufacturer.

Based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, Kraig Biocraft Laboratories Inc.  was recently awarded a contract that could potentially be worth $1 million to “deliver ballistic shoot packs constructed from its proprietary Dragon Silk material for performance testing,” according to a company press release.

The product is made from silkworms who have been genetically modified with spider DNA to weave stronger silk. Spiders spin incredibly strong silk — an order of magnitude stronger than that of silkworms.

“Dragon Silk scores very highly in tensile strength and elasticity, which makes it one of the toughest fibers known to man and the ideal material for many applications,” Jon Rice, the company’s chief operating officer, said in the release.

“Providing material for this ballistic shoot pack initiative is an important next step for Kraig and spider silk,” he added. “This contract reinforces the many significant potential applications for recombinant spider silk.”

“We’re proud to be working with the Department of Defense to assess the exciting potential of spider silk for military applications,” stated Kim K Thompson, CEO and founder of Kraig Biocraft Laboratories. “We are honored that the U.S. Army has selected us for this program. This effort will provide Kraig Labs with the opportunity to validate our longstanding belief that spider silk technology has had an incredible potential for protective and lifesaving materials and expand our ability to design and engineer innovative materials solutions.”

In recent years, the Pentagon awarded contracts to develop blast-resistant underwear featuring silk and Kevlar-like material to prevent genital-related. Between 2001 and 2013, there were 1,378 male service members who incurred injuries to the genitals and other parts of the genitourinary tract while serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.

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.

Virtual Reality Therapy Recognized as a Treatment for Trauma

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By Debbie Gregory.

Re-adjusting to being a civilian can be a tough transition, especially when accompanied by insomnia, irritability and anger issues.

Clinical psychologist Skip Rizzo at the University of Southern California Institute of Creative Technologies is using a new and unexpected way to treat post-traumatic stress disorder – with virtual reality (VR.)

According to the National Center for PTSD, some 8 million adults suffer from PTSD during a given year. PTSD can occur following a significant stressor, and often includes symptoms such as avoidance and hyper-vigilance.

One common method for treatment is called “exposure therapy.” The patient recounts their trauma, visualizing it in their imagination, and narrates it to a clinician. By repeatedly confronting and processing the trauma, the brain can start to reduce the level of anxiety and response to those memories.

Even though virtual reality itself is still a hard-to-grasp idea for most people who have not experienced it, the clinical use for VR as therapy has been generating a “rich scientific literature” for the past 20 years

That’s exactly the approach Rizzo uses with virtual reality therapy. I have been lucky enough to meet Rizzo and see his treatment in action.

“My mission is to drag psychology kicking and screaming into the 21st century,” Rizzo said, noting that virtual reality offers a unique opportunity for clinicians and clients alike: to be immersed in the environment that evokes the original trauma, rather than relying on the patient’s imagination.

Rizzo has created 14 virtual worlds for patients, and clinicians can add custom elements, including helicopters, clouds, small-arms fire and missiles.

Each session lasts for about an hour and a half, and the patient speaks about their experience with a clinician as they go through the virtual simulation. Although they can never replicate an exact simulation of what the patient went through, they really don’t need to.

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.

Elderly Marine Veteran Allegedly Held Captive for Years

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By Debbie Gregory.

In a story almost too tragic and inhumane to tell, 86 year old U.S. Marine veteran David McClellan was apparently held hostage for four years and abused by his captor.

It is alleged that 35-year-old Perry Coniglio has held McClellan prisoner so that he could cash the senior’s Social Security and pension checks, and collect his food stamps.

McClellan was the perfect prey, as he had a lot of money, no known friends or relatives, and he was in an advanced stage of dementia.

“The guy who was arrested who lived next door, he was giving him just one bowl of cereal a day, he would stick him back in the room with a stick, wasn’t bathing him, the old guy would just be walking around here naked, just terrible,” according to one neighbor.

Medics took McClellan to a local hospital to make sure he is physically OK. Orange County’s Adult Protective Services is working with the local police department and will assist in finding the veteran a new residence

Police recovered illegal drugs and drug paraphernalia from Coniglio’s room.

Town of Highlands police arrested Coniglio and charged him with unlawful imprisonment, grand larceny, criminal possession of a weapon, endangering an incompetent person, menacing and unlawful possession of marijuana.

Detective Joseph Cornetta of the Town of Highlands Police Department said Coniglio used “brute force and intimidation” to get the elderly and mentally diminished veteran to cooperate.

As was expected, calls for brute punishment have been flooding the media. So, too have been calls for the investigation of anyone else that may have been complicit in this heinous crime.

In order to prevent this type of elder abuse from happening, we need to be the eyes and ears for those who are most vulnerable.

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.

Senate Reduces BAH for Servicemembers Who Reside Together

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By Debbie Gregory.

How would you feel if your employer cut your salary because you and a co-worker were living together?

Well, the Senate has approved a fiscal 2017 defense authorization that calls for reduced housing allowances as part of the 2017 National Defense Authorization Act (S. 2943), with 85 senators in support and just 13 opposing.

The verbiage states that servicemembers who share off-base housing stateside will have the benefit cut.

The Senate wants the housing benefit for military troops to be more like the one offered to the State Department’s foreign service officers, who are compensated for actual rental or housing costs.

Beginning January 1, 2018, the Senate legislation sets the allowance for new entrants at “the actual monthly cost of housing” or an amount “based on the costs of adequate housing” for each military housing area, according to a copy of the legislation. It also states two or more service members occupying the same housing would split the allowance.

The BAH amount caps individual monthly payments to the lesser of two amounts: either what individuals actually pay to rent housing or to a local BAH maximum based on their rank and dependency status.

Last year the Senate proposed two other controversial changes to BAH. Neither survived final negotiations with the House.

The Senate committee under John McCain has said that the perception of housing allowances has become distorted from the original intent, which was to provide a housing benefit for servicemembers in recognition of the transient nature of military service, and in further recognition of the reality that civilian spouses are often unemployed and sacrifice careers of their own.

The DOD has made BAH integral to its calculation of Regular Military Compensation, which is used to compare compensation to civilian salaries and track the adequacy of military pay.

Although it’s a done-deal, what do you think? Is this fair?

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.

Military Spouses Are Not getting Fair Treatment

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By Debbie Gregory.

According to an Institute for Veterans and Military Families (IVMF) report entitled, “The Force Behind the Force: A Business Case for Leveraging Military Spouse Talent,” military spouses are not faring as well as their civilian counterparts.

There are more than one million active duty, guard, and reserve military spouses, more than 15 million veterans’ spouses, and an estimated 5.8 million surviving spouses of veterans in the U.S.

Yet, military spouses are largely overlooked as part of a talent pipeline.

The IVMF report, sponsored by Syracuse University and funded by Prudential Financial, was launched July 14, 2016. It is the first in a series of three research papers as part of an overall study on military spouse employment.

The report revealed that female military spouses earn significantly less than their civilian female peers

It also found that military spouses have a significantly higher unemployment rate (almost three times as many) as their civilian peers. When looking for reasons why there is this disparity, the report found that it was due to factors such as frequent relocations,  a lack of childcare, and the responsibility of single-parenting due to the absence of their active duty spouse

But employers may be missing out if they choose not to hire military spouses. As a rule, they are educated, motivated to work, and have numerous attributes that are valuable in the workplace.

“This research highlights that military spouses bring a variety of business enhancing characteristics to the workplace–such as diversity, resilience, adaptability and high civic-engagement–and offers a compelling business case to recruit and hire them,” said Dr. Nick Armstrong, senior director of research and policy at IVMF.

Additionally, each year, military spouses provide billions of dollars worth of free labor through their volunteerism.

It is often said that military spouses also serve. Their impact on military readiness and retention is invaluable.
“Military spouses are a great source of talent and an integral part of our talent pipeline strategy,” said James Beamesderfer, vice president, Veterans Initiatives at Prudential. “We know that more than one third of them say they are unemployed or underemployed. We want to help turn that around by providing them with meaningful career opportunities. That’s why we’re working with the IVMF to fund the research and share best practices with other employers.”

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.

Reuniting MWDs and their Battle Buddies

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By Debbie Gregory.

Molli Oliver has worked more than 40 years as a flight attendant. The 5-foot-2 United Airlines employee has worked many military charters in the past, serving both military K9 handlers and their Military Working Dogs (MWDs.)

Oliver is on a mission of her own: working to reunite retired MWDs with their former handlers.

It all started when she struck up a conversation with a soldier, who was still brokenhearted five years after parting ways with his military canine.

She asked him, “Well, where is the dog? I’ll get him for you.”

The 65 year old Los Angeles resident combines her deep bond with the military and her love for dogs. She has absorbed the costs associated with these reunions.

She was deeply touched by Sgt. Andrew Mulherron’s story as she flew with Marines heading for deployment overseas in April 2015. Mulherron was the first handler for another black lab, Boone, starting in 2009. Boone was a decorated MWD, receiving a medal for detecting 11 confirmed explosive devices in Afghanistan.

Mulherron settled in California and Boone went to another handler. Oliver tracked down Boone and was able to secure permission to fly him to California.

On October 22, 2015, Mulherron was reunited with Boone in 29 Palms, CA.

Another success story, Oliver’s fifth, is Taylor, a yellow lab who served her country in Afghanistan, with her handler, Sgt. Tom Hansen. Oliver flew to St. Louis to pick up Taylor, then to Boise to meet Sgt. Hansen.

Over the course of a dog’s working life, the animal typically goes through several handlers. When the dog is retired, the final handler usually gets first dibs. Other times, a past handler has made it clear he or she wants to adopt. If multiple handlers want the dog, the commander chooses “based on the best interest of the dog,” according to Doug Miller, working dog manager for the Department of Defense.

Oliver has created a nonprofit called MUMS DOGS (Molli’s Uniting Military Service Dogs) to help bring more retired military working dogs together with their former handlers.

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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