Did Budget Cuts Cause Military Helicopter Crashes?

Slew of military helicopter deaths raises question of whether budget cuts endanger troops 
Stars and Stripes
By Tara Copp
Published: January 25, 2016

Retired Cmdr. Chris Harmer, who flew SH-60F Sea Hawk helicopters for the Navy, and who now is a defense analyst at the Institute for the Study of War, said there is a direct tie.

WASHINGTON — A threefold increase in helicopter crash deaths last year is raising questions about whether budget cuts are endangering troops by forcing deep cuts in maintenance and training.

Twelve helicopter crashes in 2015 killed 30 servicemembers — three times as many deaths as in 2014. Twelve more died Jan. 14 when two U.S. Marine CH-53 Super Stallions collided off the coast of Oahu in Hawaii during a night training flight.

Marine commanders including Lt. Gen. Jon Davis, deputy Marine commandant for aviation, and Gen. Robert Neller, commandant of the Marine Corps, are looking at why so many helicopters are crashing, according to a senior defense official familiar with the discussions.

Almost all the deaths, including those on Jan. 14, occurred during home-station training missions.

Nondeployed units at their homes stations have dealt with reduced flight training opportunities for years. The continued high pace of wartime operations meant units deploying to conflict areas got priority for training.
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Search For Marines Continues After Helicopters Crash

12 missing after 2 Marine Corps helicopters crash off Oahu's North Shore
Hawaii News Now
By HNN Staff
Jan 15, 2016 4:33 PM EST

HALEIWA, OAHU (HawaiiNewsNow)
Rescue crews are searching for 12 service members who were on board two U.S. Marine Corps helicopters that crashed off Oahu’s North Shore late Thursday night.

The Marine Corps said the active search and rescue mission is for two Sikorsky CH-53E Super Stallion helicopters, each with six personnel aboard. Officials said the helicopters collided near Haleiwa and landed in the water.

U.S. Coast Guard Petty Officer Fara Mooers said the Marine Corps Air Station in Kaneohe requested assistance following reports of a collision at around 10:40 p.m. She said a Waialua resident reported hearing aircraft and then saw a fireball. Another individual reported seeing a flare.
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Over 1,000 Awards Under Review by DOD for Iraq and Afghanistan

DOD to review 1,100 Iraq, Afghanistan medals to determine if they were awarded appropriately
Stars and Stripes
Tara Copp
January 6, 2016

WASHINGTON — The Department of Defense will review more than 1,100 Distinguished Service Cross, Navy Cross, Air Force Cross and Silver Star recommendations to determine whether the medals were awarded appropriately or should be upgraded to a Medal of Honor, the Pentagon said Wednesday.

“Although there is no indication that members were inappropriately recognized, the secretary determined that unusual Medal of Honor awards trends reported by the recent Military Decorations and Awards Review justified a review,” the Pentagon said in a prepared statement. “The secretary directed the review as a cautionary measure on behalf of the servicemembers who have performed heroically in combat.”

A defense official who briefed reporters on the review said only awards given after Sept. 11, 2001, were under review. The official also said there are approximately 1,000 Silver Stars and approximately 100 service crosses under review.

Of those 1,100, the official said no medals were at risk of being downgraded. Instead, the review will look at two things: recommendations that did not result in a medal to determine whether one was merited and medals awarded to determine whether the honors should be upgraded.
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Just to give you an idea, this is from Vietnam

Vietnam War Medal of Honor
• There are 54 Living Recipients who performed actions in the Vietnam War.
• There are 205 Deceased Recipients who performed actions in the Vietnam War.

Marine diagnosed with cancer posts video

Marine diagnosed with cancer posts video sharing his story 
The Washington Post
By Dan Lamothe
Published: December 30, 2015

WASHINGTON — After a weight-lifting session left him struggling to catch his breath, Marine Staff Sgt. Mark Fayloga made a decision: It was time to visit a doctor and find out what was wrong with him. He'd been struggling with fatigue for months, but chalked it up in part to his long commute from Columbia, Md., to the Pentagon.

The diagnosis wasn't good: Fayloga, 30, has cancer. He announced it in a video posted online Monday, saying that while it has been difficult each time he has told someone he cares about, sharing updates about his illness in a video series will provide a distraction for him and keep his friends and family informed.

In a phone interview, Fayloga said that he is still waiting to learn what kind of lymphoma he has. Already, though, doctors have drained 3 1/2 liters of fluid from around his lungs and completed a biopsy. At least one possible diagnosis – Hodgkin's disease – is considered highly curable.

Fayloga's initial six-minute video isn't just somber. It's filled with off-color humor, wisecracks and Fayloga having fun by depicting himself using his diagnosis as leverage to get a variety of things, including an extension on a work project, an unfair advantage while playing Scrabble and the last cupcake at home.
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Vietnam Veterans Receive Silver Stars for Actions in Vietnam

Chelsea man receives Silver Star for valor under fire
Ron Brodeur served as a gunner/crew chief in the Green Hornets in Vietnam, but was just recently honored for his bravery.
Central Maine.com
BY BETTY ADAMS STAFF WRITER
December 28, 2015

CHELSEA — The helicopter mission to extract or “exfil” an Army Green Beret Special Forces unit on a clandestine mission in Cambodia took place on Feb. 20, 1969.

Vietnam veteran Ron Brodeur, 70, of Chelsea was recently awarded the Silver Star during a ceremony at the Pentagon for his actions on Feb. 20, 1969 as a member the Air Force’s 20th Special Operations Squadron, known as the Green Hornets. Photo by Jeff Pouland

But Ron Brodeur, now 70, recites every detail as if it were yesterday.

Less than two weeks ago, Brodeur and his fellow gunner/crew chief aboard that mission received long delayed Silver Stars for their valor under fire on that day 46 years ago.

Brodeur and Eric Roberts II, who lives near Houston, Texas, were at the Pentagon to receive the military award Dec. 17. There the two Green Hornets, members of the 20th Special Operations Squadron, reminisced about that particular mission and hundreds of others during their time in the Air Force in Vietnam.

“Our job was reconnaissance,” Brodeur said on Saturday as he sat in the sun room of his Chelsea home. “We put Army Green Berets into the jungle in Cambodia, and when they got into trouble, they were exfilled or taken out.”

The Air Force crews flew UH-1 F/P helicopters, which Brodeur frequently referred to as airplanes. Eight helicopters were kept at the forward operations base.

“We lost quite a few airplanes and crew members while we were there,” Brodeur said.
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Troops: "tens of thousands of undiagnosed and untreated brain injuries"

Study: Combat vets wait for 'wake-up call' before seeking help for brain injuries
The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review (Tribune News Service)
By Carl Prine
Published: December 28, 2015

Veterans too often played down their wounds but became detached from friends and family. Many denied their downward spiral until a "wake-up call" forced them to seek help from Pentagon and Department of Veterans Affairs programs.

Johns Hopkins researchers conducted 38 in-depth interviews with Army combat veterans and their family members, and a model emerged: Veterans too often played down their wounds. Many denied their downward spiral until a "wake-up call" forced them to seek help from Pentagon and Department of Veterans Affairs programs. DOD

Tens of thousands of American combat veterans returning home from Iraq and Afghanistan with undiagnosed brain injuries often were "thrown into a canyon" — falling deeper into despair and sometimes flirting with suicide or addiction — before trying to get help, according to a Johns Hopkins University study.

Written by Rachel P. Chase, Shannon A. McMahon and Peter J. Winch, researchers at the Baltimore university's Department of International Health, the study published in the December issue of Social Science and Medicine builds on previous work at Johns Hopkins. That work uncovered tens of thousands of undiagnosed and untreated brain injuries stemming from improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, the signature wound of America's 21st-century wars.

Innovations in body and vehicular armor saved the lives of troops who likely would have died of blast injuries in past wars, but survivors often had higher risk of memory loss, cognitive struggles, mood disorders, migraine headaches, addiction, insomnia and suicide.
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How the US blew $17 billion in Afghanistan

Behold: How the US blew $17 billion in Afghanistan
ProPublica
By Megan McCloskey
Tobin Asher
Lena Groeger
and Sisi Wei
December 18, 2015

In 2008, the Pentagon bought 20 refurbished cargo planes for the Afghan Air Force, but as one top US officer put it, “just about everything you can think of was wrong.” No spare parts, for example. The planes were also “a death trap,” according to the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction. So $486 million was spent on worthless planes that no one could fly. We did recoup some of the investment. Sixteen of the planes were sold as scrap for the grand sum of $32,000. That’s 6 cents a pound.

Chairs at a school built, but never occupied, were stripped for firewood. Credit: SIGAR/Flickr

You’d think someone would have been in trouble.

Wrong.

Nothing happened to anybody in charge of that spectacular screw up. No general even had to make an embarrassing appearance on Capitol Hill. Congress made not a peep.

Even worse, such jaw-dropping waste without a shred of accountability is not an anomaly. It has happened in Afghanistan again and again, and, you guessed it, again. Some of the more outlandish examples have briefly seized the attention of the news media, but really, the running tab for the waste has mounted out of sight of the taxpayers footing the bill.

And what a bill it is. There’s a widely held idea of “just” as in “just a few million.” Like the military officer who wrote that the $25 million blown on a fancy headquarters nobody used was “probably not bad in the grand scheme of things.” But those millions add up. To billions.

The problem, contrary to popular assumptions, is not unscrupulous contractors. Follow the long trail of waste and you’ll be standing at the doors of the military, the State Department and the US. Agency for International Development. It’s their bad decisions, bad purchases and bad programs that are consistently to blame.

ProPublica pored over more than 200 audits, special projects and inspections done by SIGAR since 2009 and built a database to add up the total cost of failed reconstruction projects. Looking at the botched projects collectively — rather than as one-off headlines — reveals a grim picture of the overall reconstruction effort and a repeated cycle of mistakes.
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Female Iraq Veteran Says "It’s About Time" For Combat Jobs

‘It’s About Time,’ Says San Diego Female Combat Veteran On Pentagon Decision 
Historic decision opens approximately 220,000 military combat jobs to women
KPBS News
By Susan Murphy
December 4, 2015

“Most people didn’t know I was a female because you’re completely covered in flak jackets and Kevlar."

Women can now serve in all military combat roles, Defense Secretary Ash Carter announced Thursday.

By Susan Murphy Natalie Slattery, a Navy veteran who served in ground combat in Iraq in 2008 as a convoy gunner, talks about her experience outside the San Diego Veterans Museum in Balboa Park, Dec. 3, 2015.

The historic decision will open approximately 220,000 jobs to women and clear the way for them to serve in battle-hardened roles, including the Navy SEALs, as long as they can meet the rigorous requirements.

Carter also acknowledged that women have been serving for years on the front lines in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“I’m very happy that they’ve made it public now for people to know. It’s about time," said San Diego Navy veteran Natalie Slattery, 28, who served in ground combat in Iraq in 2008.

Female pilots flew through combat zones, female medics treated the wounded on the front lines and all-female teams known as “lionesses” accompanied troops in house-to-house searches.

Slattery was a convoy gunner — a position that wasn’t typically open to women.

“I was that person you see on top of all the trucks and in all the gear,” Slattery said.
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Strength For Service To God and Country Best Seller

Eagle Scout brings back WWII devotional, making forgotten book a Pentagon best seller 
FOX News
By Perry Chiaramonte
Published November 15, 2015

“The Joint Chiefs of Staff sent letters to us asking if we could get this book published, people started sending checks, the Pentagon asked for a million copies to be sent over and everything started to fall together,” Hunsberger said. “There are so many signs that God was playing a role in this project, because there is now way it could have happened without his help.”

Evan Hunsberger was just 13 when his grandfather suffered a stroked that meant he would never be the same again. But the boy made an unexpected discovery among the two-war veteran's belongings that changed his life and gave inspiration to a new generation of American soldiers and sailors.

It was 1999, and Hunsberger, a Boy Scout, was somberly helping his grandmother sort through former Navy Corpsman Gene Hunsberger's possessions as he prepared to move into a Southern California nursing home. A book his grandmother was about to throw away caught the boy's eye.

It was called “Strength for Service to God and Country,” and the veteran had carried during his service in both World War II and the Korean War.

Knowing that the book he now held in his hands had helped his grandfather through difficult times, the boy got a little idea that would soon become a big one. “I wanted to republish book that brought him so much comfort when he was in harm’s way,” Hunsberger recalled to FoxNews.com. “I asked him, ‘Papa I am going to publish this book, and do I have your blessing?’ read more here

Restore Your Honorable Service Get Your Discharge Reclassified

If you have PTSD or TBI and didn't get a discharge worthy of your service, then fight! Fight back to get the justice you were denied.

Veterans Are Not Applying For Discharge Status Upgrades, Pentagon Blamed 
Hartford Courant
Peggy McCarthy
Conn. Health I-Team Writer
November 2, 2015

"Without significant reform within these boards, veterans with TBIs and psychological disorders will be unsuccessful in acquiring discharge upgrades and the attending benefits they deserve,"

Very few veterans take advantage of a Pentagon policy designed to make it easier for veterans with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) to upgrade their discharge status and become eligible to apply for veterans' benefits, according to a Yale Law Clinic report.

At a news conference Monday, U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., veterans, and Yale law students, blamed the Department of Defense for not adequately publicizing the policy to veterans with less than honorable discharges. Since new guidelines were announced last year, just 201 of tens of thousands of eligible veterans applied for a PTSD-related service upgrade, according to the report. Blumenthal called the statistic "a staggering, outrageous fact."

"Veterans on the streets of New Haven or Connecticut or the rest of the country have no idea about this," Blumenthal said.

"It takes a vigorous and rigorous effort, which the DOD committed to and they have failed," he added.

Sundiata Sidibe, a student in the law school's Veterans Legal Services Clinic, called the number of applicants "miniscule." In previous years, an average of 39 veterans applied annually for status upgrades in connection with PTSD, the report states.

Blumenthal, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, had asked the Pentagon to give the committee a progress report by August 2015 on its efforts to inform veterans about the policy. A report was never submitted, he said.
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They Finally Figured Out Pentagon Suicide Prevention Office in Disarray

Report: Pentagon suicide prevention office in disarray
Military Times
By Patricia Kime, Staff writer
October 2, 2015

The Pentagon’s suicide prevention office lacks clear guidance and authority to develop and execute effective programs, leaving a vacuum that the military services filled with their own, often inconsistent programs, a new Defense Department Inspector General report says.

Defense Suicide Prevention Office logo

(Photo: Defense Department)

The Defense Suicide Prevention Office, or DSPO, was established in 2011 to develop and implement suicide prevention policies, programs and surveillance across the force, with any eye toward promoting resilience, mental fitness and suicide awareness and prevention.

But from its inception, the office had a confusing governing structure and alignment of responsibilities under different committees within the office of the undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness, resulting in “less than effective DoD strategic oversight" that hampered implementation of suicide prevention programs, according to the report released Wednesday.

According to Pentagon data, 130 active-duty troops died by suicide from January through June this year, along with 89 reserve members and 56 National Guard members.

Last year, 273 active-duty personnel, 170 reservists and 91 Guardsmen took their own lives.

Military suicides rose steadily from 2006 to 2009 before leveling off for two years. They then increased sharply in 2012, peaking at a high of 321 active-duty, 192 reserve and 130 Guard deaths.
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Military suicides remain constant despite Pentagon efforts
Stars and Stripes
By Heath Druzin
Published: October 2, 2015

WASHINGTON — Despite an ongoing Pentagon campaign to combat suicide, the numbers of troops who killed themselves held steady in the first half of 2015, with active duty numbers down and reserve numbers up over the same period last year, according to the most recent Department of Defense statistics.

The Defense Department quarterly statistics, released Wednesday, show 219 troops took their lives in the first half of this year, as compared to 223 in the first half of 2014. Military suicides are down 8 percent from the first half of 2013, when there were 238.

For this year, the number of suicides breaks down to 130 among active duty troops and 89 among the Reserves and National Guard. That represents a 9 percent drop for active duty troops and a 10 percent rise for reserve troops over the same period last year.
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I left this comment

Why? How about you start with Comprehensive Soldier Fitness? Suicides went up after this started. How did they expect telling soldiers they could train their brains to be mentally tough would work when that meant they were weak if they suffered? It fed the stigma. Plus add in another fact that there are less serving since 2012 and you'll begin to understand how huge this issue is. Veteran suicides went up for OEF and OIF generation as well. They are triple their civilian peer rate. They were trained to suffer in silence too!

Combat Medic Florida National Guardsman Paying Price for 9-11

If you forgot about 9-11-2001, there were a lot of folks rushing to do whatever they could to help the survivors and find whatever remains they could. One of them was an Army National Guardsman from right here in Florida. Reading his story and what happened to him, it only seemed right to put into context what he did back then. This is from Tampa Tribune great report by Howard Altman.

Garrett Goodwin was a medic, working in the emergency room at Bayfront Medical Center in St. Petersburg, in September 2001.

On Tuesday morning, Sept. 11, he was in bed, watching TV before an afternoon shift, when he saw what turned out to be United Flight 175 hit the South Tower of the World Trade Center.

Goodwin, a combat medic with the Army National Guard who had experience in disaster recover efforts, says he packed his bag, hopped in his truck and drove down to MacDill Air Force Base, hoping to catch a flight north to help during the unfolding catastrophe.

But nothing was flying anywhere. So he and a friend drove north, toward the Pentagon.

“We did rescue work for three or four hours, but there was no one to save, so we went to New York,” Goodwin says.

They arrived about 6:30 a.m., Sept. 12. Goodwin says he checked in with the military authorities on scene, they told him what he could do, and he was given a “red card” allowing him access.

For the next 24 days, he worked between 18 and 20 hours in what used to be the tallest building in America. It had become a mass grave.

So how did he end up this way?

Tampa man ill just now from help he gave at Ground Zero
Tampa Tribune
By Howard Altman
Tribune Staff
Published: September 27, 2015

Garrett Goodwin is a casualty of al-Qaida’s war against the U.S.

Shortly after the jihadi organization turned aircraft into weapons, obliterating the World Trade Center in New York, hitting the Pentagon and crashing into a Pennsylvania field, Goodwin made the trip from Florida to Manhattan to help recovery efforts. He spent more than three weeks in the smouldering pile of twisted beams that was once the World Trade Center — the place where Pope Francis on Friday summoned the world to “unity over hatred.”

Now, Goodwin is paying the price.

It includes a stay, since last Tuesday, at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, where he is desperately seeking help for the maladies he believes are a result of his time at Ground Zero.

Finally, after a health scare that started on the 14th anniversary of the attacks, Goodwin realized he needed greater medical attention.

There are many others like him — first responders who have became casualties of war by dint of their time searching the wreckage, first for survivors, then for remains.

Every day, there are more Garrett Goodwins, coming forward seeking help.
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Pentagon Child Abuse and Neglect Incidents Over 7,000 Last Year

Pentagon Stats Show Rising Rates of US Military Child Abuse, Neglect
Military.com
by Amy Bushatz
Sep 03, 2015

"The alarm bell should be going off at DoD and we need to be looking at how are we working with our families"

The issue should raise a red flag at the Pentagon, according to Karen Golden, a military family lobbyist at the Military Officers Association of America.

Child abuse and neglect cases confirmed by the U.S. military rose almost 10 percent in 2014, according to the Defense Department.

The number of incidents of child abuse and neglect increased 687 to 7,676 last year, according to Pentagon data released on Thursday. Because some cases involve more than one abuser, the actual number of victims totaled 5,838, or about a half-percent of the military's 1 million children.

Of the victims, 63 percent were neglected and 25 percent were physically abused, the figures show.

About half of the adults accused in the cases were civilian parents, family members or friends while the other half were military personnel, they show.

Experts in child abuse intervention said they believe the increase represents only a fraction of the abuse occurring within the military community. Abuse and neglect often go unreported because military families don't seek mental health help or family support out of fear of harming the service member's career, they said.

"It's really the strangest thing you've ever seen," said Ambra Roberts, a crises intervention specialist who works with child protective services near Fort Benning, Georgia. "When I'm dealing with these things first hand, I'm like, 'So you didn't call the police when your husband did this?' And every time not hurting his career is their reasoning for not doing the right thing for these kids."

She said she expects both the number of reported abuse and neglect cases and the actual amount of abuse and neglect will continue to climb as service members and their families attempt to protect their chances of staying in the military.
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2 US troops killed by gunmen wearing Afghan military uniforms

UPDATE

A Pensacola staff sergeant was one of two U.S airmen killed Wednesday in Afghanistan.
The Pentagon announced Staff Sgt. Forrest B. Sibley, 31, of Pensacola, Florida and Capt. Matthew D. Roland, 27, of Lexington, Kentucky died after the vehicle they were traveling in was attacked near Camp Antonik, Afghanistan.

2 US troops killed by gunmen wearing Afghan military uniforms
Stars and Stripes
By Carlo Munoz and Zubair Babakarkhail
Published: August 26, 2015

KABUL, Afghanistan — Two U.S. servicemembers were shot and killed by two gunmen wearing Afghan security forces uniforms who opened fire on their vehicle in southern Afghanistan early Wednesday, U.S. and coalition officials said.

The attack occurred on an Afghan military compound in Helmand province. It coincided with reports that Taliban insurgents had overrun the center of Musa Qala, a strategically important district center in Helmand.

“Resolute Support servicemembers returned fire and killed the shooters,” a coalition statement said.

“We are deeply saddened by the reports out of Afghanistan overnight,” said Navy Capt. Jeff Davis, Pentagon spokesman. “Two U.S. servicemembers operating in support of the Resolute Support Mission were killed yesterday when two individuals wearing Afghan National Defense and Security Force uniforms opened fire on their vehicle.”

DOD is withholding their identifications 24 hours, as families are notified. Their service branches were not identified.
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US Paid $14.7 For Empty Warehouse While Troops Got Empty Words?

Why say it was wasted money? After all, the contractors got paid while troops ended up with pink slips under sequestration. Contractors got to take care of their families very well while troops and their families back home lived off food stamps. The contractors built this empty building while many servicemembers returned to the US and ended up living on the streets and in shelters. This money was only wasted if you consider our troops worthy of the money that could have been used on them.

Pentagon wasted $15mn on Afghan warehouse it never used
RT News
Published time: 22 Jul, 2015

“Although the $14.7 million DLA warehouse facility was well built, lengthy construction delays led to the facility never being used for its intended purpose,” SIGAR said. “Had the facility been completed on schedule, DLA would have been able to use the warehouse facility for more than 2 years before its mission ended in Kandahar.”

The US has invested $14.7mn in a warehouse facility in Afghanistan that now lies deserted since the Pentagon decided to wrap-up its mission but continued wasting US taxpayers money until the overdue construction was completed, a new audit report reveals.

According to the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) report, the Pentagon’s Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) finally accepted the multi-million warehouse facility into service, six months after the decision was made to end DLA’s mission in Kandahar. The 173,428 square foot climate-controlled distribution center was finished so late that it never fulfilled its intended use.

Now SIGAR is urging the Pentagon to figure out “who made the decision” to allow more spending on the warehouses after it became obvious the mission was wrapping-up.
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Streamed live on Jul 21, 2015
As the longest running and one of the most expensive wars in U.S. history winds down, PS21 asks: just where did the money go? We are delighted to present a discussion with the man looking into that very question, Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction John F. Sopko, and Just Security.
Moderator to be confirmed.
John F. Sopko: Special Inspector General for Afghan Reconstruction
Andy Wright: Founding Editor, Just Security

Pentagon Not Changing Names of Bases

Pentagon: No Plans to Rename Bases Honoring Confederate Generals 
Military.com
by Richard Sisk
Jun 24, 2015

"All new posts which may be hereafter established, will receive their names from the War Department, and be announced in General Orders from the Headquarters of the Army," the order read.

The U.S. Defense Department has no immediate plans to change the names of military bases honoring Confederate generals -- including some Ku Klux Klan supporters -- in response to the South Carolina church massacre, Pentagon officials said Wednesday.

"As of now, there's no discussion of adjusting our current naming policy," which now gives the naming responsibility to the service branches, said Army Col. Steve Warren, a Pentagon spokesman.

"The Department's position is that the services are ultimately responsible for naming their installations," he said. We have confidence in each of the services to appropriately name their facilities," he said. The services have not indicated any intention to change names, he said.

There was no immediate list available of military facilities with place names or other symbols honoring the South's role in the Civil War, but at least 10 Army bases are named for Confederate leaders, including Robert E. Lee, revered in the South as leader of the Army of Northern Virginia. Besides bases, there is the Lee Barracks at the U.S. Military Academy.

The issue of Confederate symbols and the names of Confederate leaders on public grounds came to a head on Monday when the Republican governor of South Carolina, Nikki Haley, called for the removal of the Confederate battle flag from the grounds of the state capitol in Columbia.
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Here is the list from the article of bases

The 10 Army bases named for Southern officers are:
-- Fort Bragg, North Carolina, named for Gen. Braxton Bragg.
-- Fort Hood, Texas, named for Gen. John Bell Hood.
-- Fort Gordon, Georgia, named for Lt. Gen. John B. Gordon, who was reputed to be the leader of the Ku Klux Klan in Georgia after the war.
-- Fort Lee, Virginia, home of the Army's Quartermaster School and named for Gen. Robert E. Lee.
-- Fort Polk, Louisiana, named for the slave owner and ardent secessionist Gen. Leonidas Polk.
-- Fort Rucker, Alabama, named for Col. Edmund Rucker, who became a leading industrialist in Birmingham after the war.
-- Fort A.P. Hill, Virginia, named for Lt. Gen. A.P. Hill who was killed at the battle of Petersburg a week before the war ended.
-- Fort Picket, Virginia, named for Maj. Gen. George Pickett who was in command for "Pickett's charge" at Gettysburg. Pickett went to Canada for a year after the war, fearing he would be tried as a traitor.
-- Fort Benning, Georgia, named for Brig. Gen. Henry Benning, a slavery supporter and politician.
-- Camp Beauregard, Louisiana, named for Gen. Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard, whose troops fired the shots at Fort Sumter, S.C., that started the Civil War.

Some folks think that Fort Jackson in South Carolina was named after Thomas Jonathan "Stonewall" Jackson but it was named after Andrew Jackson,

Fort Jackson is a United States Army installation, which TRADOC operates on for Basic Combat Training (BCT), and is located in Columbia, South Carolina. This installation is named for Andrew Jackson, a United States Army General and seventh President of the United States of America (1829–1837) who was born in the border region of North and South Carolina.

Yale Law School Wins Case For Vietnam Veterans Honor

Vets Clinic Wins Case over Bad Discharges for Vietnam Veterans with PTSD
Yale Law School
June 22, 2015

“I can hold my head up now,” said Kevin Marret, another veteran whose discharge status was recently upgraded. “Before, I felt ashamed. This is long overdue for myself and for the other veterans who need it.”

Vietnam combat veterans who brought a class action lawsuit in federal court have won: the Pentagon has agreed to upgrade each man’s “other-than-honorable” discharge status. These men are among the estimated 80,000 Vietnam veterans who developed Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) during their military service and subsequently received an “other-than-honorable” discharge.

“This is a tremendous victory,” said Virginia McCalmont ’15, an intern in the Veterans Legal Services Clinic at Yale Law School, which represents the veterans along with Jenner and Block LLP. “However, tens of thousands of other veterans are in the same situation and still need help. The Department of Defense should inform all former servicemembers who received bad discharges that it is now taking applications that raise PTSD seriously.”
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Vietnam 74 Lost Lives USS Frank E. Evans Not On Wall

Finding a place on the Vietnam wall for a local veteran and his shipmates
Buffalo News
By Michelle Kearns
News Staff Reporter
June 4, 2015

Randy Henderson vividly remembers the warm June night 46 years ago when his family got the news that his brother, Terry Lee, had died on a Navy ship during the Vietnam War.

It was 1969. He was 13 and in his older brother’s bedroom when the phone rang at their Westfield home. His father screamed and started to cry. When his dad told his mother as she arrived home from her night job at a drug store, she ran off up the street.

“It’s the type of thing that never leaves you,” said Henderson, who now lives in Mayville.

Worse, the June 3 collision of the USS Frank E. Evans that killed his soft-spoken, guitar-playing brother and 73 others didn’t lead to the kind of honor that most who died in the war received: Their names were not engraved on the black granite Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C.

Now after decades of lobbying by families of the seamen, an effort to right that wrong has been making progress. Sen. Charles E. Schumer officially launched his push to add the names this week with a letter to Navy Secretary Ray Mabus.
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USS Frank E. Evans (DD 754) Association, Inc.

Sep 11, 2009
A Short Documentary made in memory of the 74 US Sailors who died in a collision at sea, involving the USS Frank E. Evans and the HMAS Melbourne. The maritime accident happened on June 3rd 1969 off the coast of wartime Vietnam. The 74 dead were never recognized by the US government as dieing in "the warzone", and subsequently were never added to the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington DC.

Sgt. Rafael Peralta To Receive Navy Cross Posthumously

UPDATE
Peralta family will donate fallen Marine's Navy Cross to ship

The family plans to treasure the Navy Cross over the summer and donate it to the ship for its Oct. 31 christening, Peralta-Donald said.

A photo of the newly named Navy destroyer Rafael Peralta is displayed during a ceremony in San Diego. (Photo: Lance Cpl. Anna Albrecht/Marine Corps)

Family of Rafael Peralta, fallen Iraq war hero, to accept Navy Cross award after long refusal
Washington Post
Dan Lamothe
May 28, 2015

The family of one of the most celebrated Marine Corps heroes of the Iraq war will soon accept the nation’s second-highest award for valor on his behalf, nearly 11 years after he was killed in combat and almost seven years after the Pentagon made the controversial decision to deny him the Medal of Honor.

Sgt. Rafael Peralta will soon receive the Navy Cross posthumously during a ceremony at Camp Pendleton, Calif., said his younger brother, Ricardo. Peralta’s mother, Rosa, still believes the sergeant deserves the nation’s highest award for heroism in combat, but is tired after years of appeals. She had refused to accept the Navy Cross, citing her belief he deserved the higher award.

“That decision does not mean that she was willing to settle,” Ricardo, 24, told The Washington Post in a phone interview. “It just means that she grew tired of it.”
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Will Sgt. Rafael Peralta's life finally be honored?

Denial of Medal of Honor for Sgt. Rafael Peralta causes anger to survivors

The decision is "almost like somebody called me a liar," said Marine Sgt. Nicholas Jones, 25, who was with Peralta that day. Jones, a recruiter, said Peralta's actions have become part of Marine Corps lore, as drill sergeants and officer-candidate instructors repeat it to new Marines. "His name is definitely synonymous with valor," said Jones, who was wounded by the grenade blast.

"I know for a fact that I would have been killed … and that my daughter, Sophia, our new baby, Sienna, would not be here or coming into the world. And that my son, Noah, would have grown up without knowing his dad," said Robert Reynolds, 31, a corrections officer and former Marine who was with Peralta that day.

Gen. David Petraeus Gets Probation Plus Fine

Petraeus sentenced: 2 years probation; $100K fine 
CNN
By Theodore Schleifer
 April 23, 2015

That rebranding is made easier thanks to a plea deal that allowed Petraeus to escape jail time by paying $40,000 and serving two years on probation. But a federal judge on Thursday in Charlotte, North Carolina instead ordered him to pay $100,000.

Washington (CNN)
Gen. David Petraeus, once a widely celebrated military leader who oversaw operations in Afghanistan and Iraq and was touted as a potential presidential candidate, was sentenced to serve two years on probation and to pay an $100,000 fine on Thursday for sharing classified information with his biographer and lover, Paula Broadwell.

Petraeus, who resigned as director of the Central Intelligence Agency in November 2012 after the relationship became public, avoided jail time as part of a plea deal. Some of his supporters believe that he can recover his reputation -- and argue in some ways, he already has. "I don't want to wallow in 2012, and luckily neither has he," said Michael O'Hanlon, a close friend of Petraeus and a scholar at the Brookings Institution. read more here