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Secretary of Defense Freedom Award Semifinalists Named

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By Debbie Gregory.

The Employer Support of the Guard and Reserve (ESGR), a Department of Defense office, has selected 139 employers as semifinalists for the 2016 Secretary of Defense Employer Support Freedom Award, commonly referred to as the “Freedom Award.”

Almost half of the U.S. military is made up of National Guard and Reserve members, many of whom also hold jobs with civilian employers. The Secretary of Defense Employer Support Freedom Award is the highest recognition given by the U.S. Government to employers for their support of their employees who serve in the Guard and Reserve.

ESGR organizes the annual award program. The award was instituted in 1996 by then Secretary of Defense William Perry, and has since presented the honor to 220 employers.

Each year, up to 15 awards are presented to employers in the three categories – large (500 or more employees), small (fewer than 500 employees), and public sector.

This year’s semifinalist group is comprised of 48 large employers, 46 small employers, and 45 public sector employers. The nomination process is open to all Guard and Reserve personnel or a family member acting on their behalf and applications are submitted online to ESGR.

“Each of these 139 semifinalists have given great support to our citizen warriors,” said ESGR Director of Outreach Navy Capt. Steve Knight.  “They play a key role in maintaining the strength of the National Guard and Reserve, as they help take care of our troops and their families.”

ESGR received 2,424 nominations for employers in all 50 states, Guam-CNMI, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands and the District of Columbia.  This year’s 30 finalists are expected to be announced in April, with the recipients being announced in late June.

In 2008, ESGR launched a web site for the Freedom Award. Using videos, news articles, profiles of recipients, and tips about employer best practices, the site provides information about the support that employers across the nation provide to their Guard and Reserve employees and their families. The site also houses the nomination form for the award.

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.

Did U.S. Have Cyberattack Plan if Iran Nuclear Dispute Led to Conflict?

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By Debbie Gregory.

Shortly after President Obama took office, his administration developed an elaborate plan to cyberattack Iran’s power grid, air defense system, communications, and command and control apparatus. This was to be carried out in the event diplomatic effort to limit its nuclear program failed and led to a military conflict.

This information is about to be released in an upcoming documentary film.

Code-named Nitro Zeus, the plan would have been a retaliatory alternative to a full on conventional military response if Iran had lashed out against U.S. interests and allies in the region following failed nuclear negotiations.

Nitro Zeus, which involved thousands of intelligence personnel and operatives, costing tens of millions of dollars over multiple years, was shelved after the nuclear deal struck between Iran and six other nations last summer was fulfilled.

This was just one of the contingency plans the U.S. military develops for all kinds of possible conflicts.

At the same time, American intelligence agencies developed a separate cyberplan to disable the Fordo nuclear enrichment site, built by Iran near the city of Qum, deep inside a mountain. Fordo, one of the hardest targets in Iran. The operation would have inserted a computer “worm” into the facility with the aim of frying Fordo’s computer systems

The development of the two secret programs suggest how seriously the Obama administration was concerned that its negotiations with Iran could fail.

The existence of Nitro Zeus was uncovered in the course of reporting for “Zero Days,” a documentary that describes the escalating conflict between Iran and the West in the years leading up to the agreement.

A zero-day (also known as zero-hour or 0-day) vulnerability is a previously undisclosed computer-software vulnerability that hackers can exploit to adversely affect computer programs, data, additional computers or a network. It is known as a “zero-day” because once the flaw becomes known, the software’s author has zero days in which to plan and advise any mitigation against its exploitation.

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 Steps Up Efforts to Recruit Women

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By Debbie Gregory.

Because women are 23% better at recruiting other women, the Army will increase the number of female recruiters to better target women. The goal is to add 1 percent each year for the next three years in order to get at least one woman at each of the Army’s more than 780 larger recruiting centers across the country.

And soon, local Army recruiting offices will have a set of physical tests, including running, jumping, lifting a weight and throwing a heavy ball, in order to determine what military jobs a recruit is physically capable of performing.

The tests will help the Pentagon set physical standards for every job that both men and women will have to meet. In December, Defense Secretary Ash Carter ordered all military services allow women to compete for all combat jobs. But he and other military leaders have been adamant that the physical standards for the jobs will not be lowered in order to allow more women to qualify.

And as women move into combat roles, Army commanders want to have women in leadership positions, such as drill sergeants and platoon sergeants, in order to lead by example and serve as mentors

The new physical tests will judge core strength and endurance. Recruits still will have to take the routine aptitude tests and physical evaluations.

And while the tests coincide with the campaign to recruit more women, military officials say that setting specific physical standards for all jobs may prevent some men from getting into certain infantry or armor posts if they don’t qualify.

The tests stem from a three year study done by the Army and are made up of four tasks: a standing long jump; an interval, aerobic run; a dead lift of weights; and a seated power throw of a weighted ball. It is expected that the cost to get all the testing equipment to the Army’s 1,300 recruiting locations will run approximately about $3 million.

 

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.

MyBivy App Helps Veterans Combat Night Terrors

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By Debbie Gregory.

Millions of United States military veterans have Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) diagnoses, many due to witnessing traumatic and life-threatening events during deployment.

One major symptom of PTSD is ‘night terrors,’ in which a person gets little or poor sleep due to recurring troublesome thoughts or emotional triggers. Sgt. 1st Class Patrick Skluzacek, who spent a year in Iraq, was one of the people experiencing night terrors.

In his fight against PTSD, Skluzacek tried counseling, psychiatric drugs and self-medicating alcohol. He lost his job, his marriage, and a lot of friends.

Skluzacek’s son Tyler, wanted to do something to help his dad. Inspired by his dad’s struggles, Tyler developed myBivy, (short for bivouac, temporary soldier’s quarters) an application for smartphone and smartwatch that tracks a veteran’s heartbeat and movements in order to track night terrors and actually prevent them over time. Post-sleep, the veteran can see how they slept the previous night, while also having the option to submit a statistical report to their VA doctor or clinician.

“After a couple weeks of tracking the soldier we can find … the exact symptoms of the onset of the panic attack and try to use the watch or use the Android phone to disrupt that or take them out of the deep sleep but keep them asleep,” Tyler said.

Tyler likens the app to a service dog. “Veterans with really bad PTSD go to bed with a service dog and if that person starts to get shaky, the dog will put a paw on the person exactly at the point they need it.”

He said the app will use sound or vibration to prevent night terrors. He has been working with the Department of Veterans Affairs and sleep experts.

For Tyler, making myBivy available to veterans can’t come soon enough. He and his father have been in conference calls with the VA, which is trying to fast-track testing of the app.

“My team and I kind of have a saying right now that my team and I won’t sleep until the veterans can,” he 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 Develops Pizza MREs with Three Year Shelf Life

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By Debbie Gregory.

After working on it for the last five years, scientists have almost perfected a recipe for pizza that doesn’t require any refrigeration or freezing that will remain edible for years.

The biggest hurdle scientists had to overcome was the moisture in tomato sauce, cheese and toppings that migrated to the dough over time, resulting in soggy pizza Soggy pizza provided the perfect conditions for mold and disease-causing bacteria to grow. But through the use of “Hurdle Technology” which creates a kind of barrier that protects the pie from bacteria and mold, the lab was able to stop bacteria from forming. They also tweaked the acidity of the sauce, cheese and dough to make it harder for oxygen and bacteria to thrive, and added iron fillings to the package to absorb any air remaining in the pouch.

In the not-to-distant future, U.S. soldiers will be able to open a meal pouch and pull out a ready-to-eat pizza. Food technologist Lauren Oleksyk, who works at the Army’s Natick Soldier Research, Development, and Engineering Center, says that the meal is a fully-cooked piece of pizza that comes in a package. The lab specializes in creating meals-ready-to-eat for the military. Co-worker Michelle Richardson said, “You can basically take the pizza, leave it on the counter, packaged, for three years and it’d still be edible.”

Soldiers have been asking for pizza since lightweight individual field rations — known as meals ready to eat (MREs) replaced canned food in 1981 for soldiers in combat zones or areas where field kitchens cannot be set up.

While the pizza unsurprisingly won’t be the same as a fresh slice, it’ll taste more like the ones served during lunch time in a school cafeteria. That doesn’t sound bad at all. The pizza has so far been well-received.

According to Jill Bates, who runs the lab, “It pretty much tastes just like a typical pan pizza that you would make at home and take out of the oven or the toaster oven.”

In addition to creating the ready to eat meals, scientists at the Natick labs are also responsible for developing equipment and clothing that improves soldiers’ combat effectiveness and their survival.

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.

Do Virtual Reality Benefits Carry Any Risks?

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By Debbie Gregory.

Researchers are exploring how Virtual Reality (VR) can help with everything from treating PTSD to overcoming addiction.

VR replicates an environment that simulates a physical presence in places in the real world or an imagined world, allowing interaction in that world. Virtual realities also artificially create sensory experiences including sight, touch, hearing, and smell.

There is, however, much that we don’t know about how the brain reacts to prolonged exposure to the new medium.

While the virtual world can help veterans overcome post-traumatic stress syndrome, there is the risk that overexposure to VR may generate its own trauma.

At the University of Southern California, pioneering VR researcher Albert “Skip” Rizzo has developed Virtual Iraq and Virtual Afghanistan VR software that is being used at dozens of VA facilities to help veterans plagued by PTSD.

In 2003, he says, he ran across a battle simulation game that the Army had helped

develop. He knew that exposure therapies had been shown to work for trauma cases.

“I said why not take this and modify this and use it as a virtual Iraq for people that come

back from the war with PTSD?” Rizzo said.

The idea is to allow patients to gradually confront their trauma through a series of

increasingly intense scenarios in the safety of a clinical setting, so that they can “unlearn the association between the stimuli and its consequences,” says Rizzo. He developed three scenarios, a sniper situation, a market place and the convoy on the highway.

“We try to address the trauma and activate a memory, and it’s hard medicine for a hard problem,” says Rizzo, the director of medical virtual reality at USC’s Institute for Creative Technologies. “But the point is to learn that the present can’t hurt you. For anyone saying that we’re re-traumatizing people, we say this is better than having them see Middle Eastern garb at a Walmart and freaking out.”

VR technology is still in its early days, and therefore so too is any research into what, if any negative affect it will have on the brain.

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 Green Beret Who Protected Afghan Boy From Molestation Be Discharged?

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Sgt. 1st Class Charles Martland’s Army career changed course during his second deployment to Afghanistan in 2011. The decorated Army sergeant who protected an Afghan boy from a child molester will find out any day whether his actions will end his career in the military.

Army Secretary John McHugh “agreed to postpone Sgt. 1st Class Charles Martland’s discharge from the Army” to allow him to file an appeal with the Army Board for the Correction of Military Records. But that postponement is up.

The Green Beret admitted that he lost his cool and struck an Afghan police commander who had allegedly confessed to raping a boy and then beating the child’s mother for telling authorities. Martland served in the Special Forces for 11 years, and many of his teammates say that he is the finest soldier they have ever served alongside.

Martland had said that he had encountered corrupt police officials who were conducting beatings, honor killings and rapes that went unpunished. When he became aware of the atrocity that had befallen this child and his mother, Martland said it was too much.

In a memo to the Army Enlisted Records and Evaluation Center, Martland admitted to striking the Afghan.

Last year, amid military cuts, the Army Human Resources Command recommended Martland be discharged in part based on his disciplinary record, but an official decision by U.S. Army brass is expected by March 1.

“After acting to protect a child from sexual assault from an Afghan commander, SFC Martland was punished and could be kicked out of the military at any time,” said Jay Sekulow, of the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ). “What’s equally disturbing are reports that the military has allowed Afghanistan forces to sexually abuse young children on U.S. bases.”

On the ACLJ website, Sekulow wrote: “Here’s the bottom line: SFC Martland acted in compliance with U.S. and international law and should not face punishment – and ultimately expulsion – from the military. He should be commended – not castigated – for his brave actions. The fate of a U.S. war hero is at stake.”

We couldn’t agree more.

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.

Former Elected Official Resigns Over Exaggerated Military Service

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By Debbie Gregory.

Washington State Rep. Graham Hunt has resigned over accusations that he exaggerated his military record. He has also resigned as Washington state chairman for Sen. Ted Cruz’s presidential campaign.

Hunt met with Republican leaders as a series of accusations against him began to circulate. He was told he either needed to clear up his record or resign.

On February 2, 2016,  Hunt posted on his website: “It is with a heavy heart that I inform you that I hereby resign from my position as Representative for the Second District, effective today. Over the past week, substantial media attention has been devoted to inconsistencies in the records of my military service. In response to these questions, I have exerted my best effort in trying to compile a complete set of my military personnel files, which memorializes my service history. I have worked to identify and explain any remaining confusion to the best of my ability.”

Hunt claimed that he was a combat veteran in Iraq and Afghanistan, receiving three medals, although the Air Reserve Personnel Center had no record of him receiving any medals.

The military has confirmed Hunt’s service in the Arizona Air National Guard from 1998 to 2005, and he did deploy to Saudi Arabia for part of that time. But Hunt has been unable to produce record substantiating his claims of being in combat or deploying to Iraq or Afghanistan.

In a statement, Hunt apologized to “all those who have been affected by this situation.”

He also said, “None of us are without flaws, shortcomings, or mistakes. I take full responsibility for any errors I have made, and I fully accept the obligation to address them responsibly… I deeply appreciate those who have supported my family and me through these difficult times, and hope that they extend the same level of dedicated support to my successor. I look forward to working with my successor in his or her transition into office…”

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.

Yazidi Women Who Escaped ISIS Ready to Fight

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By Debbie Gregory.

They are the survivors, these young women. Most of them were taken from in and around the town of Sinjar, Iraq, which fell to ISIS in August, 2014. They witnessed the slaughter of their families on Mount Sinjar, and then were forced by ISIS into sexual slavery. Now the “Sun Ladies,” Yazidi women who have signed up to fight ISIS, are ready to take up arms against their former capturers.

Calling themselves “Force of the Sun Ladies” and driven by a collective desire for vengeance, the battalion is preparing for an offensive on the ISIS stronghold of Mosul, where many were exchanged by militants to serve as their sex slaves.

Some 123 Sun Ladies, ranging in age from 17 to 37, have undergone training and have taken their place alongside the Kurdish Peshmerga forces. There are another 500 who are awaiting training.

The “lucky” ones managed to escape after being sold off to low-level fighters, while others were ransomed back to their families. The Jiyan Foundation for Human Rights runs a small clinic in the Kurdish city of Duhok where Yazidi women can receive medical care and psychological treatment.

Nadia Murad Basee Taha, a 21 year old Yazidi survivor, has addressed British Parliament and the U.N. Security Council, asking for help in freeing the thousands of women and girls who remain captive. She has travelled to Egypt, Greece, Kuwait, Norway, the United States, appealing for aid for displaced Yazidis living in refugee camps. She has also asked for an investigation as to whether ISIS has committed genocide against the Yazidi people.

The Sun Ladies may come up against Yazidi boys who were kidnapped and brainwashed, and could now be fighting their mothers and sisters under the black flag of ISIS.

Capt Khatoon Khider, a member of the Sun Ladies, said, “… we are defending ourselves from the evil. We are defending all the minorities in the region. We will do whatever is asked of us.”

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.

Attack in US by Islamic State Likely in 2016, Experts Say

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By Debbie Gregory.

Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, testified in a rare public hearing on Capitol Hill about intelligence threats facing the nation.

Clapper is almost certain that the Islamic State (ISIS) will continue to launch or inspire attacks on American soil in 2016.

Attacks in the U.S. have included  the May attack on the Prophet Muhammad cartoon contest in Texas, the July attack on the Navy and Marine reserve center in Chattanooga, TN, and the San Bernardino, CA terror attack in December.

Clapper said that ISIS can “direct and inspire attacks against a wide range of targets around the world” and that the terrorist group has demonstrated ” the threat that homegrown violent extremists also pose to the homeland.”

The horrifying success of unprecedented terrorist attacks in the United States on 9/11 demonstrated that the U.S. government’s threat assessment was wrong. So much of the effort of how to deal with enemies was geared to overseas threats that the Pentagon turned out to be totally unprepared to defend its own headquarters.

Over time, if not significantly degraded, the ISIS threat to the U.S. will become a direct one; that is, an ISIS ability to plan and direct attacks on U.S. soil from the group’s safe haven in Iraq and Syria, just like the group did in Paris

As well as the threat from ISIS and homegrown terrorists, Al-Qaeda, which spawned the Islamic State, remains a danger. Additionally, we need to keep ever vigilant regarding Russia, China, Iran and North Korea.

Clapper explained that North Korea has expanded a uranium enrichment facility and restarted a plutonium reactor that could begin recovering material for nuclear weapons in weeks or months.

He also said that Pyongyang is committed to developing a long-range, nuclear-armed missile capable of posing a direct threat to the United States, “although the system has not been flight-tested.”

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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