The Dark Side of "Comprehensive Soldier Fitness" Why is the world's largest organization of psychologists so aggressively promoting a new, massive and untested military program? The APA's enthusiasm for mandatory "resilience training" for all US soldiers is troubling on many counts. The January 2011 issue of the American Psychologist, the American Psychological Association's (APA) flagship journal, is devoted entirely to 13 articles that detail and celebrate the virtues of a new US Army-APA collaboration.
Built around positive psychology and with key contributions from former APA President Martin Seligman and his colleagues, Comprehensive Soldier Fitness (CSF) is a $125 million resilience training initiative designed to reduce and prevent the adverse psychological consequences of combat for our soldiers and veterans. Conceptual and Empirical Concerns Similarly, criminal justice researcher Joan McCord has demonstrated how well-meaning programs have caused actual harm. Ethical Concerns The Limits of Positive Psychology. The Kill Team | Rolling Stone Politics. Confining Manning and Falling Into the Outer Darkness. The Pentagon’s Biggest Boondoggles - Op-Chart. Why Your Boss Is Wrong About You. Defense secretary warns against fighting more ground wars.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates waves to West Point graduates on Friday. Future wars will likely be air and sea based, Gates saysThe United States has not been able to predict any of its recent military engagements, he saysGates encourages West Point cadets to look outside the armed forces to round out experienceSpeech is Gates' last as defense secretary Washington (CNN) -- Defense Secretary Robert Gates, in what he said is his final address to the cadets at the U.S. Military Academy, warned Friday against the United States getting involved in another major land battle.
He told the cadets that wars like Afghanistan are not likely, and in fact he would advise against it. "In my opinion, any future defense secretary who advises the president to again send a big American land army into Asia or into the Middle East or Africa should 'have his head examined,' as Gen. The defense secretary told cadets they'll be leading a force that has drastically changed how it fights. Government to Start Fighting Homelessness Among Veterans.
Veterans, particularly poor and minority veterans, are 50 percent more likely to become homeless compared to other Americans, according to a report released last week by the Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and Veterans Affairs (VA) departments. The report also stated that almost 76,000 veterans were homeless on any given night in 2009, and approximately 136,000 veterans spent at least one night in a shelter.
Approximately 44,000 to 66,000 are chronically homeless. Most often, underlying causes of homelessness among veterans are their socioeconomic backgrounds and "personal factors," as well as a lack of affordable housing, the report said. Veterans' experiences prior to joining the military also have a significant causal relationship, putting those who were physically or sexually abused as children at a greater risk for homelessness. Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and other brain injuries are also a high contributing factor.
Soldiers’ PTSD Tied to Lasting Psychosocial Effects. MONDAY, Jan. 3 (HealthDay News) — Post-traumatic stress disorder may have long-term effects on troops — including physical, emotional and cognitive problems — while those who suffer from concussions and mild traumatic brain injuries don’t appear to encounter symptoms over the long haul, a new study suggests. “Nearly 2 million troops have been deployed to Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom since 2001,” according to background information in the report published in the January issue of Archives of General Psychiatry. “High levels of combat exposure have been documented among Operation Enduring Freedom/Operation Iraqi Freedom-deployed soldiers, with increased risk of blast exposure and injury, and development of post-deployment mental and physical health problems,” the researchers explained. Melissa A. More than 90 percent of the troops were male and almost nine in 10 were white.
Nearly half were under 30 years of age and 87 percent were of enlisted rank. More information. Report faults FBI, Army in Fort Hood shootings. By Gregg Zoroya, USA TODAY Updated 2/4/2011 1:21:19 PM | A Senate investigation into a shooting spree at a Texas military base blamed the FBI and Army for failing to "connect the dots" that would have shown an Army psychiatrist had become an Islamic extremist. By Eric Gay, APA memorial commemorates the tragedy at Fort Hood, the worst mass shooting on a U.S. military base. By Eric Gay, AP A memorial commemorates the tragedy at Fort Hood, the worst mass shooting on a U.S. military base. Thirteen people died in the shooting at Forth Hood and 32 others were wounded.
"The evidence — with clarity of hindsight — just shouts out: 'Stop this guy before he kills someone,' " says Sen. "How did he get to that point to be able to stand up, shout out, 'Allahu Akbar,' and then kill 13 people? " The report characterized Hasan as a "ticking time bomb" — a description used by a military instructor and colleague before the shootings — that could have been disarmed. Among the report's findings: Nation & World | Army drops 'psy ops' name for influence operations. The Army has dropped the Vietnam-era name "psychological operations" for its branch in charge of trying to change minds behind enemy lines, acknowledging the term can sound ominous. The Defense Department picked a more neutral moniker: "Military Information Support Operations," or MISO. U.S. Special Operations Command spokesman Ken McGraw said Thursday the new name, adopted last month, more accurately reflects the unit's job of producing leaflets, radio broadcasts and loudspeaker messages to influence enemy soldiers and civilians.
"One of the catalysts for the transition is foreign and domestic sensitivities to the term 'psychological operations' that often lead to a misunderstanding of the mission," McGraw said. Fort Bragg is home to the 4th Psychological Operations Group, the Army's only active duty psychological operations unit. The name change is expected to extend to all military services, a senior defense official said in Washington.
Alfred H. The Wrong Stuff : Once a Marine, Always a Marine ... Maybe: J.E. McNeil on Conscientious Objectors and Wrongness. "When you join the military," says J.E. McNeil, executive director of the Center on Conscience on War , "one of the hundreds of forms you sign says, 'I didn't apply to be a conscientious objector for the draft, I've never been a conscientious objector, and I'm not a conscientious objector now.' " That requirement makes sense, McNeil says: "You don't want a military made up of conscientious objectors. They're not very useful in combat. " Fair enough, but what happens when members of the Armed Services realize that they no longer believe in the war they are fighting, or in fighting at all?
In another installment in this series , 22-year-old Iraq War veteran Josh Stieber tells the story of changing his mind about military service. In the below interview, we get a bird's-eye view of the situation facing conscientious objectors from McNeil, whose faith-based nonprofit organization has been defending the rights of conscientious objectors since WWII. But it's not easy, and it takes time. The Wrong Stuff. Every conversion story is, at heart, a story about being wrong. Whether they are agonizingly slow or all but instantaneous, whether they happen in a garden or in prison or on the road to Damascus, conversions don't just represent the embrace of a new worldview.
They also represent the utter rejection of the convert's past. Consider, for example, Chuck Colson, and the strange tale of how (as this magazine once put it) "a Watergate crook became America's greatest Christian conservative. " Today, Colson is a prominent evangelical leader and founder of the Prison Fellowship and the Chuck Colson Center for Christian Worldview . You have a fairly dramatic conversion story. I was the principle strategist behind the 1972 reelection campaign of Richard Nixon, and when it was all over I should have been absolutely on top of the world. Then I met a man who'd been a client of mine before I'd went to the White House.
Well, I'm not from the Bible Belt. Sure, I can remember vividly. Oh, yes. Ha.
Contractors Tied to Effort to Track and Kill Militants. How One Paragraph in a Single Speech Has Skewed the Eisenhower Record. The fiftieth anniversary of Dwight D. Eisenhower's farewell address and its famous warning about the military-industrial complex presents progressives with a dilemma. They can continue the popular trend of claiming Eisenhower as a prophetic voice against militarism and for peace. Or they can set aside that manufactured image and get Eisenhower straight: they can talk about him and his policies accurately, with analysis based on research straight from the original source documents, and straighten out the distorted image the peace movement has propagated for so long. But they cannot do both, since the image so directly contradicts the reality. It's not an easy choice.
On balance, though, I think that fiction does more harm than good. And even if you've read the most accurate op-eds of the last few days, believe me, you haven't heard anywhere near the whole story. He maintained elaborate plans for fighting a nuclear war. Melvin A. Would that it were true. "Indefinite duration. " Military Will Do Self-Review, Adm. Mike Mullen Says. Psychologist Martin Seligman Responds to Truthout Report on Army "Spiritual Fitness" Test. Why I no longer support Capt. Honors. Christopher Preble: Many back Capt. Owen Honors, saying he's been unfairly attackedPreble: First reaction is one of sympathy since Honors tried to connect personally to shipmatesBut those who felt videos caused a hostile environment cannot just leave ship, he saysOfficers have been let go over less, he writes, and Navy's reputation at stake Editor's note: Christopher A. Preble is director of foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute.
He earned his commission in the Navy in May 1989 and served more than three years, including two deployments, on board the guided missile cruiser USS Ticonderoga. (CNN) -- The proliferation of Facebook pages in support of Capt. Owen Honors -- one boasting more than 20,000 "likes" and others with thousands of members and comments -- shouldn't surprise anyone. The top three television networks included stories of the scandal, as did print newsrooms from London to Argentina. My first reaction was sympathy for Honors. Racy videos get Navy commander fired. Capt. Owen Honors relieved of Navy command because of raunchy videos. The captain of the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise was permanently relieved of his command Tuesday for making a series of ribald and offensive videos that aired on the ship's closed-circuit television system when he was the second-in-command several years ago.
The Navy cited a "profound lack of good judgment and professionalism" in relieving Capt. Owen Honors, who stars in the videos. The recordings, reportedly shown as a way of relieving boredom and boosting morale, include skits laden with sexual innuendo and barbs aimed at gays and the politically correct.
In a statement announcing the action against Honors, Adm. It is not clear why the videos are surfacing only now, or whether high-ranking Navy officials were aware of the videos earlier and decided to promote Honors to the USS Enterprise's top job despite their content. "The Navy does not endorse or condone these kinds of actions," Cmdr. Honors took command of the Enterprise, which is expected to deploy soon, in May. Navy to investigate lewd videos shown on carrier.
Veterans of recent wars confront grim employment landscape. IN HAUPPAUGE, N.Y. During the seven months that he was stationed in Iraq, Joe Janssen served as an assaultman, a job that involved manning the turret gun in a Humvee and using shoulder-fired rockets and other explosives to support his fellow Marines. Those skills were invaluable in war. But they are of little use now that he is back home in Hauppauge, N.Y., a Long Island hamlet.
He has applied for job after job since leaving active duty well over a year ago, but his efforts have proved futile. The Marine reservist used his veterans benefits to finish his bachelor's degree in criminal justice. Now he is scouring for a job in law enforcement while he waits for his name to rise to the top of the New York state police hiring list - which is unlikely to be anytime soon, given the state's severe budget problems. "I have a passion to be a cop," said Janssen, 23, a fitness buff who dabbles in mixed martial arts. (SPECIAL REPORT: The hard road back) Veterans get boost designing new careers. By Gregg Zoroya, USA TODAY Anthony Smith was pronounced dead and placed in a body bag in 2004 after a rocket-propelled grenade tore through his body and shattered his elbow, pelvis and thigh.
After about 10 minutes, a nurse discovered the National Guard soldier was alive. Smith spent years in recovery, then received assistance this fall from a group that helps returning veterans develop life-long careers. Now, he says, he has a reason to get out of bed each day, despite his pain. "I wake up in the morning now knowing somebody is counting on me," says Smith, 44, of Armorel, Ark.
Smith has taken a fellowship to teach karate to low-income children in an Arkansas after-school program. He used the stipend from that to help launch a martial arts school for all ages. He received the stipend from The Mission Continues, a St. "They actually gave me a challenge: If you really want to start your business, you need to get involved. ... Other efforts include: Disability Attorneys Social Security Veterans Compensation Long-Term | Law Offices of LaVan & Neidenberg, P. A.
Ex-soldier talks about slaying of Iraqi family - AP News Wire, Associated Press News. FRONTLINE: the wounded platoon: the platoon roster. Facebook brings the Afghan war to Fort Campbell. AT FORT CAMPBELL, KY. Emily Franks was playing with her toddler when a soldier called from Afghanistan with devastating news. A massive roadside bombing had killed five soldiers from her husband's 120-man infantry company.
The soldier was calling Franks, who was at the center of a wives' support network, in violation of a military-imposed communications blackout on the unit. Using an Afghan cellphone, he told Franks that her husband was safe, but that the company commander was probably dead. Franks's cellphone beeped. Kitty Hinds, the company commander's wife, was calling. "I gotta go," Franks told the soldier. She was sure that Hinds was going to tell her that her husband had been killed. Franks struggled to mask the dread in her voice. To ensure that a service member's family does not receive the news of a death by e-mail, phone or an errant Facebook posting, the military temporarily shuts down Internet access to deployed units that suffer a fatality. Facebook brings the Afghan war to Fort Campbell. Dealing with the unseen scars of war. More soldiers are dealing with combat-related health issues Many express frustration at "cookie-cutter" approach to dealing with unseen war injuries Inadequate training sometimes delays proper treatment Editor's note: Freelance war correspondent Alex Quade recently returned from nearly 18 months in Iraq and Afghanistan covering U.S. special operations forces on combat missions, including for CNN.
Quade moderated the recent Defense Forum on Capitol Hill dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury. New York (CNN) -- His vivid memories from the battlefield won't go away: a Taliban surface-to-air missile striking a Chinook helicopter, killing everyone on board. The ensuing firefight that nearly killed him. Shooting down an enemy combatant and watching his body fall, lifeless, in his tracks. The flashbacks led to post-traumatic stress disorder for the soldier, who shared his story but did not want his name used. But, he said, "the Army never followed through. " 1. 2. Back From The Brink: War, Suicide, And PTSD -- Capps 29 (7): 1407 -- Health Affairs. 'You don't forget': Medic's Holocaust diary tells story of hell. Stryker unit sought to defend killing at heart of Afghan murder probe.
US Navy Biographies - REAR ADMIRAL WILLIAM R. KISER.
Psyops. Death and Memory. DHC / Whistleblower. Barno: Woodward shows us how Obama was boxed in by his generals. Military 101. The inhumane conditions of Bradley Manning's detention - WikiLeaks. The Book the Pentagon Doesn't Want You to Read. Prudential invests troop death benefits. Atonement - Thursday, November 25, 2010.