1st Infantry Division soldier dies in Iraq
Associated Press - June 4, 2008 10:34 PM ET
WASHINGTON (AP) - A 26-year-old Fort Riley soldier has died of injuries he suffered in a noncombat-related incident in Iraq.
The Department of Defense identifies the soldier as Specialist Quincy J. Green of El Paso, Texas. He died Sunday in Tikrit.
Green was assigned to the 1st Combat Aviation Brigade of Fort Riley's 1st Infantry Division.
http://www.nebraska.tv/Global/story.asp?S=8434009&nav=menu605_1
Showing posts with label Fort Riley. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Fort Riley. Show all posts
Thursday, June 5, 2008
Thursday, May 8, 2008
Army barracks "better than sleeping in the woods"
Report: Thousands living in shoddy barracks
By Kristin M. Hall - The Associated PressPosted : Thursday May 8, 2008 12:08:47 EDT
FORT CAMPBELL, Ky. — Spc. Kaila Colvin is looking forward to getting married for the usual reasons, and for one more particular to a soldier: not having to live in Fort Campbell’s decrepit barracks anymore.
Spc. Loren Dauterman, who trained at Fort McCoy last month with the Wisconsin National Guard, found something good to say about the falling-apart floors and ceilings in his quarters. Barely.
“It is better than sleeping out in the woods,” Dauterman said last week, “but not a whole lot better.”
Thousands of soldiers are assigned to barracks built for the GIs who fought World War II and the Korean War. The buildings are showing their age, and the soldiers are getting fed up.
After a soldier’s father posted a video on YouTube last month showing the dilapidated barracks for paratroopers at Fort Bragg, N.C., Defense Secretary Robert Gates called those conditions appalling and ordered base commanders to ensure their troops have proper quarters.
The commanders have their work cut out for them.
A spot check by Associated Press reporters over the past week found many barracks plagued by recurring problems with mold, mildew and their plumbing and wiring.
Read:
• Barracks at Ga. posts in adequate condition
• Fort Lewis fixing up old barracks
• Fort Riley barracks undergoing changes
• Jackson barracks undergoing $1B in upgrades
• Knox working to improve housing conditions
• Meade barracks in need of repair
In many cases, the wooden, cramped and outdated housing units were scheduled for destruction, but the space and economic constraints from the war in Iraq have again filled the old barracks with soldiers. Major installations like Fort Campbell and Fort Stewart, Ga., report pumping more than $100 million into barracks improvements in recent years to make room for the flood of recruits and brigades.
go here for more
http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/05/ap_shoddybarracks_050808/
By Kristin M. Hall - The Associated PressPosted : Thursday May 8, 2008 12:08:47 EDT
FORT CAMPBELL, Ky. — Spc. Kaila Colvin is looking forward to getting married for the usual reasons, and for one more particular to a soldier: not having to live in Fort Campbell’s decrepit barracks anymore.
Spc. Loren Dauterman, who trained at Fort McCoy last month with the Wisconsin National Guard, found something good to say about the falling-apart floors and ceilings in his quarters. Barely.
“It is better than sleeping out in the woods,” Dauterman said last week, “but not a whole lot better.”
Thousands of soldiers are assigned to barracks built for the GIs who fought World War II and the Korean War. The buildings are showing their age, and the soldiers are getting fed up.
After a soldier’s father posted a video on YouTube last month showing the dilapidated barracks for paratroopers at Fort Bragg, N.C., Defense Secretary Robert Gates called those conditions appalling and ordered base commanders to ensure their troops have proper quarters.
The commanders have their work cut out for them.
A spot check by Associated Press reporters over the past week found many barracks plagued by recurring problems with mold, mildew and their plumbing and wiring.
Read:
• Barracks at Ga. posts in adequate condition
• Fort Lewis fixing up old barracks
• Fort Riley barracks undergoing changes
• Jackson barracks undergoing $1B in upgrades
• Knox working to improve housing conditions
• Meade barracks in need of repair
In many cases, the wooden, cramped and outdated housing units were scheduled for destruction, but the space and economic constraints from the war in Iraq have again filled the old barracks with soldiers. Major installations like Fort Campbell and Fort Stewart, Ga., report pumping more than $100 million into barracks improvements in recent years to make room for the flood of recruits and brigades.
go here for more
http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/05/ap_shoddybarracks_050808/
Sunday, May 4, 2008
Longer deployments taking toll on soldiers
'The human psyche can only take so much'
Longer deployments taking toll on soldiers as combat stress, suicides, depression and family pressures soar
By Kirsten Scharnberg Tribune correspondent
May 5, 2008
FT. RILEY, Kan.—On this historic Army post where more than 7,000 soldiers have been deployed to Iraq on extended tours of duty, virtually everyone has a story about how the long absences have affected those back home.
The young wives who decide the lifestyle is too hard and pen "Dear John" letters before packing up.
The families that begin to unravel when a soldier comes home mentally or physically damaged from more than a year in combat.
The chaplains who work round-the-clock to staff new family intervention programs: for war-strained marriages, for suicide prevention, for kids missing their parents.
"The human psyche can only take so much," said Capt. Jeff Van Ness, a chaplain who returned from duty in Iraq just two weeks ago. "And a 15-month deployment seems to be where we really began to see some breaking points."
Just over a year ago, the Defense Department announced that the Army would shift from 12-month tours to 15-month tours to support a surge of forces into Iraq. Since then, there has been constant debate about how well that gambit worked militarily and politically.
But it is on Army installations like Ft. Riley, a sprawling base in the heart of Kansas, where officials are taking stock of the human toll these extended tours have taken on tens of thousands of Army families nationwide.
Suicide rates are up, with the Pentagon reporting that some 20 percent more troops committed suicide in 2007 than in 2006. Divorce rates, which have been escalating since 2003, remain at about 3.3 percent, up from 2.9 percent before the start of the war. Incidences of combat stress are soaring, with a new independent study finding that as many as 1 in 5 service members are returning from Iraq and Afghanistan with symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder or major depression, a reality that deeply affects their families. And numerous posts, including Ft. Riley, are beginning to study whether there are correlations between deployments and domestic assaults, sexual assaults and alcohol offenses.
go here for more
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-military-families_frimay05,0,7557849.story
Longer deployments taking toll on soldiers as combat stress, suicides, depression and family pressures soar
By Kirsten Scharnberg Tribune correspondent
May 5, 2008
FT. RILEY, Kan.—On this historic Army post where more than 7,000 soldiers have been deployed to Iraq on extended tours of duty, virtually everyone has a story about how the long absences have affected those back home.
The young wives who decide the lifestyle is too hard and pen "Dear John" letters before packing up.
The families that begin to unravel when a soldier comes home mentally or physically damaged from more than a year in combat.
The chaplains who work round-the-clock to staff new family intervention programs: for war-strained marriages, for suicide prevention, for kids missing their parents.
"The human psyche can only take so much," said Capt. Jeff Van Ness, a chaplain who returned from duty in Iraq just two weeks ago. "And a 15-month deployment seems to be where we really began to see some breaking points."
Just over a year ago, the Defense Department announced that the Army would shift from 12-month tours to 15-month tours to support a surge of forces into Iraq. Since then, there has been constant debate about how well that gambit worked militarily and politically.
But it is on Army installations like Ft. Riley, a sprawling base in the heart of Kansas, where officials are taking stock of the human toll these extended tours have taken on tens of thousands of Army families nationwide.
Suicide rates are up, with the Pentagon reporting that some 20 percent more troops committed suicide in 2007 than in 2006. Divorce rates, which have been escalating since 2003, remain at about 3.3 percent, up from 2.9 percent before the start of the war. Incidences of combat stress are soaring, with a new independent study finding that as many as 1 in 5 service members are returning from Iraq and Afghanistan with symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder or major depression, a reality that deeply affects their families. And numerous posts, including Ft. Riley, are beginning to study whether there are correlations between deployments and domestic assaults, sexual assaults and alcohol offenses.
go here for more
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-military-families_frimay05,0,7557849.story
Saturday, March 8, 2008
Kansas National Guardsmen serving the wounded
Guardsmen volunteer to help wounded soldiers
By John Milburn - The Associated Press
Posted : Saturday Mar 8, 2008 7:17:35 EST
FORT RILEY, Kan. — They’ve gone to war recently themselves, but a cadre of Kansas National Guard soldiers has volunteered for a year — maybe longer — to help wounded soldiers get back on their feet.
Located in a cluster of tan modular structures adjacent to Irwin Army Community Hospital, the Warrior Transition Battalion is designed to give wounded soldiers a place to get well, while getting services they need to continue their Army career or life as a civilian.
Command Sgt. Maj. Terence Hankerson, a Guard soldier from Topeka, is the senior enlisted soldier at the battalion. He was wounded in Iraq last year and volunteered to serve at Fort Riley.
“Obviously, you want somebody who’s been through the process,” he said. “You’ve got to be able to identify with these guys. I can look them in the eye and go, ‘I know what you’re talking about. Believe me, I had an E-6 dogging me the whole time, too.’
“It doesn’t matter if you are a sergeant or a colonel, you’re still expected to make your appointments and heal, first and foremost.”
The battalion results from last year’s controversy over the quality of care wounded soldiers were receiving at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Over the past year, Congress and the Department of Defense have worked to improve care and put more personnel in contact with the wounded as they move from combat back to their home posts or civilian lives.
Most the 300 soldiers in Fort Riley’s battalion are active-duty Army from units deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan, though some are Guard soldiers and Army Reservists.
Sgt. Bonnie Capp previously deployed with a medical detachment out of Lenexa but volunteered to work at Fort Riley. She’s a squad leader, making sure 12 wounded soldiers get to medical appointments on time and their needs addressed at all hours of the day.
It’s a new challenge, she said, calling for skills that aren’t standard for the military.
“You have to be a mother, you have to be a sister, you have to be a friend. You’re everything that these soldiers rely on,” Capp said.
That includes advocating that soldiers get the services they need, even when someone tells them no.
“As for us being National Guard, we have a little more understanding, but military — the uniform — is not all that we know about,” said fellow squad leader Sgt. Voneen Hale. “We have our education; we have our civilian jobs.”
Col. Lee Merritt, the battalion commander, said a new Soldier and Family Assistance Center specifically for the wounded centralizes key services, such as medical, educational, child support or financial.
go here for the rest
http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/03/ap_wounded_volunteers_030608/
By John Milburn - The Associated Press
Posted : Saturday Mar 8, 2008 7:17:35 EST
FORT RILEY, Kan. — They’ve gone to war recently themselves, but a cadre of Kansas National Guard soldiers has volunteered for a year — maybe longer — to help wounded soldiers get back on their feet.
Located in a cluster of tan modular structures adjacent to Irwin Army Community Hospital, the Warrior Transition Battalion is designed to give wounded soldiers a place to get well, while getting services they need to continue their Army career or life as a civilian.
Command Sgt. Maj. Terence Hankerson, a Guard soldier from Topeka, is the senior enlisted soldier at the battalion. He was wounded in Iraq last year and volunteered to serve at Fort Riley.
“Obviously, you want somebody who’s been through the process,” he said. “You’ve got to be able to identify with these guys. I can look them in the eye and go, ‘I know what you’re talking about. Believe me, I had an E-6 dogging me the whole time, too.’
“It doesn’t matter if you are a sergeant or a colonel, you’re still expected to make your appointments and heal, first and foremost.”
The battalion results from last year’s controversy over the quality of care wounded soldiers were receiving at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Over the past year, Congress and the Department of Defense have worked to improve care and put more personnel in contact with the wounded as they move from combat back to their home posts or civilian lives.
Most the 300 soldiers in Fort Riley’s battalion are active-duty Army from units deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan, though some are Guard soldiers and Army Reservists.
Sgt. Bonnie Capp previously deployed with a medical detachment out of Lenexa but volunteered to work at Fort Riley. She’s a squad leader, making sure 12 wounded soldiers get to medical appointments on time and their needs addressed at all hours of the day.
It’s a new challenge, she said, calling for skills that aren’t standard for the military.
“You have to be a mother, you have to be a sister, you have to be a friend. You’re everything that these soldiers rely on,” Capp said.
That includes advocating that soldiers get the services they need, even when someone tells them no.
“As for us being National Guard, we have a little more understanding, but military — the uniform — is not all that we know about,” said fellow squad leader Sgt. Voneen Hale. “We have our education; we have our civilian jobs.”
Col. Lee Merritt, the battalion commander, said a new Soldier and Family Assistance Center specifically for the wounded centralizes key services, such as medical, educational, child support or financial.
go here for the rest
http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/03/ap_wounded_volunteers_030608/
Saturday, February 9, 2008
Basic training Snakes On A Desk
Canebrake rattlesnake
Garboon Viper
Basic training includes lessons on snakes
By Joey Holleman - The (Columbia, S.C.) State
Posted : Saturday Feb 9, 2008 12:49:05 EST
COLUMBIA, S.C. — The 5-foot canebrake rattlesnake wasn’t all the way out of the plastic container before Spc. Christina Perez jumped up on the seat of her classroom desk at Fort Jackson.
She was 20 feet away from the plump reptile. She had been told the snake was lethargic from being transported on a cool morning. Several of her fellow trainees sat between Perez and the snake.
Asked later if she stood on the seat to get a better look at the snake, she gave a wide-eyed shake of the head.
“I don’t like snakes,” Perez said. “I’m terrified of snakes.”
Scott Pfaff, curator of herpetology at Riverbanks Zoo, brought several venomous snakes from the zoo to Fort Jackson, in part to alleviate some of those fears among safety troops who travel ahead of their units. It was the second time he had ventured out with the snakes. The other was for similar training for Special Forces troops.
Lt. William Amerson asked Pfaff to make the presentation because he had been impressed by a similar effort while training at Fort Riley in Kansas. The students are field sanitation soldiers, who get to an area early as a liaison to check on potential hazards. They report back to supervisors about bad water, dangerous food or biting insects. Snakes sometimes make the danger list.
Pfaff aimed to give the soldiers a handle on the level of danger. Before he brought out any snakes, he offered a few facts:
go here for the rest
http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/02/ap_snakes_080209/
Python like the ones in Vietnam. It isn't just bullets and bombs they have to worry about.
Monday, October 22, 2007
War can be hard on relationships of military couples
Her findings about deployment run counter to a 2003 military study taken to assess the mental health of soldiers returning from Iraq or Afghanistan. “That study found soldiers were reporting very low stress related to their deployment,” she said.
War can be hard on relationships of military couples
Posted by admin as Psychology / Psychiatry
October 22, 2007
Serving in combat can affect the relationship satisfaction of military couples, according to preliminary results of a study by a Kansas State University professor.
Briana Nelson Goff, associate professor of marriage and family therapy in K-State’s School of Family Studies and Human Services, has conducted surveys and interviews during the last year with 47 military couples from Fort Riley and Fort Leavenworth. The majority of the participating couples are married, while the others have been dating for at least a year. In each case, the male member of the couple has served in the war in Iraq or in Afghanistan.
Nelson Goff said her research is the first comprehensive study to compare the similarities between couples who are dealing with the aftereffects of war and those who deal with other similar types of traumatic experiences. Her survey was designed to find and gauge the level of individual trauma symptoms related to the war experience and if they are affecting the couples’ relationship.
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