Garrison Commander of Fort Bliss Relieved of Duty

Fort Bliss garrison commander relieved of duty
El Paso Times
By Daniel Borunda
El Paso Times, Texas (MCT)
November 1, 2014

(MCT) — The Fort Bliss Garrison Commander has been relieved of duty following an investigation into misconduct allegations, post officials said Friday evening.

Col. Thomas Munsey had been suspended earlier this month when an investigation began.

"Maj. Gen. Stephen Twitty, 1st Armored Division and Fort Bliss Commander, officially relieved Col. Thomas Munsey of command on Friday for a lack of trust and confidence in Munsey's ability to command based on the results of the investigation," stated a Fort Bliss news release.

Fort Bliss officials did not disclose what the allegations were against Munsey.

"Due to the Privacy Act and Army policy, the exact allegations of misconduct and details of the investigation will not be released," the news release said.

Officials said that Joseph Moscone, Fort Bliss deputy to the garrison commander, will be the interim manager until the Army names a replacement.
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Wounded: The Legacy of War, UK Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans

Bryan Adams' heart-stopping images of wounded British soldiers to go on show at Somerset House
Taken over the course of four years, Adams' portraits are an astonishing document of the aftermath of war
The Independent
OSCAR QUINE
Friday 31 October 2014

Wounded: The Legacy of War

Marine Mark Ormrod, injured in Afghanistan, aged 24

Bryan Adams

'Silence, a sense of reflection," is the response that Bryan Adams hopes his portraits of wounded British Armed Forces personnel will inspire in those visiting his exhibition at Somerset House over the coming months. But, as tends to be the case with simple ideas expertly executed, one is equally left thinking 'Why has this not been done before?'

In Wounded: The Legacy of War, he presents servicemen and women from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and the injuries they have sustained, matter-of-factly. Their missing limbs, prosthetics and scar tissue are seen by the viewer as part of the subjects as they are now.

It may come as a surprise for some that, as well as building a career as one of the biggest-selling musicians of all time, Adams is also a respected portrait photographer. His first commission in the UK came from Marie Claire magazine in the early 2000s. Wounded came about when he was approached by Caroline Froggatt, an ITN journalist, in 2008. After four years of shooting, the portraits came together as a book.
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PBS Craft In America Features Combat Wounded Veterans

Stafford Iraq veteran gains strength from his craft
FREE LANCE-STAR
BY LINDLEY ESTES
November 2nd, 2014

Judas Recendez, 35, of Stafford County will be featured in
Sunday’s episode of the PBS series ‘Craft in America.’

In 2008, not long after he learned how to walk again, Judas Recendez threw a blue and brown glazed Japanese tea bowl on a potting wheel in California.

The 35-year-old Stafford County resident and U.S. Army veteran took a traditionally symmetrical design and gave it a new shape, carving deep scars into the façade of the bowl.

“It represents who I am,” he said. “It has a purpose, it’s useful, but it’s scarred.”

Recendez learned how to create pottery and ceramics in a studio at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center while in rehabilitation for wounds sustained in Iraq.

“Learning how to walk, you take it for granted so much,” he said. “It’s like breathing. You have to push through this amount of pain. It’s just really weird.”

It was in that studio at Walter Reed that Recendez first met Carol Sauvion, creator and director of the Peabody Award-winning PBS series “Craft in America.” His story inspired her to make an episode titled “Service,” which looks at the link between craft and the military.
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Air National Guard Chaplain Talks About Compassion Fatigue

Veterans and 'The Things They Carry'
Post Courier
Norris Burkes
Air National Guard Chaplain
Nov 2 2014

"From all of that, the VA doctor told me I was likely carrying secondary traumatic stress (STS), more commonly called "compassion fatigue." STS is a condition characterized by the gradual decrease of one's ability to show compassion. It's a common side effect for those who care for the injured and dying; STS takes a lot out of one's psyche and soul, so now there's a name for it."

Note to readers: In writing this column, I'm grateful for the inspiration I received from reading Tim O'Brien's Vietnam memoir, "The Things They Carried."

In May 2009, after serving four months as the chaplain for the Air Force field hospital in Balad, Iraq, I checked five pieces of luggage onto the military charter flight that would carry me home.

The five bags were heavy with my uniforms, mementos and military gear. As we approach another Veteran's Day, however, I'm becoming more aware that I carried some unseen baggage, too.

For instance, I was carrying the weight of a job undone. It felt undone because my four-month chaplain rotation was out of sync with the six-month deployment of the hospital staff. I was returning alone while many remained. There were moments where I felt more like a deserter than a returning vet.

Like most vets, I was worried about friends I left behind. I felt much like the only Marine I saw cry during my deployment; she was sent home with a broken ankle and her tears weren't from physical pain, but from the spiritual pain of leaving her squad.
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Starbucks CEO Schultz PTSD Advocate

A Cup of G.I. Joe
New York Times
Maureen Dowd
NOV. 1, 2014

Howard Schultz, the chief executive of Starbucks, center, in May with leaders from the Third Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment, at Fort Benning in Georgia. Credit Courtesy of 75th Ranger Regiment, U.S. Army

WHEN I close my eyes, I can easily flash back to a time when it was cool to call people in uniform “pigs” and “baby killers.”

If you had any family members in the police or military in the Vietnam era, you know how searing that was.

Now we give our veterans respect, early boarding at airports and standing ovations at ballgames. Yet it’s becoming clear that it’s not enough.

With no draft and fewer than 1 percent volunteering to serve, most Americans have no personal connection to anyone who went to Iraq or Afghanistan. There’s a schism between the warriors and the people they were fighting for.

Instead of ticker-tape parades, the veterans returned to find Americans in a crouch, wishing they could forget the military adventures of the last decade. Hollywood was turning out movies showcasing heroic veterans, but they were from World War II. And scandals scarred Walter Reed and an ill-prepared Department of Veterans Affairs.

“The government does a very good job of sending people to war,” Howard Schultz, the C.E.O. of Starbucks, told me in New York this past week, “and a very poor job of bringing them home.”

He has organized a Concert for Valor on the Mall on Veterans Day, featuring stars from Bruce Springsteen to Eminem to Rihanna, a way to celebrate soldiers and urge the public to get involved with veterans’ groups vetted by Gates and Mike Mullen, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The free concert, put on by Starbucks, HBO and JPMorgan Chase, will be shown live on HBO, even for those without subscriptions.
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“Dreams of the Fallen” concert salutes veterans

Lincoln-themed concert in Voorhees a salute to vets
Courier-Post
William Sokolic
November 1, 2014

“Dreams of the Fallen” represents the voice inside the head of a soldier, with the orchestra as the sonic landscape of what the soldier might be experiencing at the time, the composer explained.

The Philharmonic of Southern New Jersey will put on a concert honoring veterans
Sunday at the Eastern Center for the Performing Arts in Voorhees

(Photo: Courtesy of Philharmonic of Southern New Jersey )

Jake Runestad is a young composer who was commissioned to write a large ensemble piece to honor veterans.

That piece, “Dreams of the Fallen,” will be performed for only the second time Sunday, Nov. 2, as part of a salute to veterans at the Eastern Center for the Performing Arts in Voorhees.

“The piece was written to honor veterans and is the backbone of the program,” said Matthew Oberstein, music director of the Philharmonic of Southern New Jersey.

The orchestra also will play a musical tribute to each branch of the military as well as Aaron Copeland’s “Lincoln Portrait,” with a reading by actor Dan Lauria.

The day includes a VIP reception with veterans prior to the concert and a pre-concert talk by Runestad and his collaborator, veteran Brian Turner.
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Veterans Take Giant Steps to Healing PTSD Through Art

Veterans with PTSD release their demons through art
New Haven Register
By Kristin Stoller
POSTED: 11/01/14

Vietnam War veteran John Jones displays his collage, featuring his possession from the 1950s. Jones, who struggles with PTSD, said the collage makes him feel good. (Kristin Stoller — New Haven Register)

GUILFORD
Vietnam War veteran John Jones was the only sailor who survived a fire on his ship, and since then he has been plagued by the “what ifs” and demons of post-traumatic stress disorder.

But at the VA Connecticut Healthcare System’s West Haven campus, Jones feels like he can let some of these demons out — through art.

“I saw things that people shouldn’t see,” said Jones, who was only 19 when he served in Vietnam. “You can’t unsee things. They play on your mind, you know?”

The Guilford Free Library is hosting an art exhibit throughout November of pieces by Jones and other Connecticut veterans. The veterans’ service ranges from the World War II era to Afghanistan.

The show includes work from artists representing the Giant Steps Program at the West Haven VA and the Rocky Hill Veterans Center programs, among others, organizer John Henningson said.

“The Giant Steps program is designed for those with a disability who are somewhat reluctant to expose themselves to the public for whatever reason,” he said. “Art, however, gives them a way to express themselves and show another side of their personality.”

In the ’70s, Jones said he turned to the VA when he couldn’t stop crying and screaming weeks after returning from Vietnam, but no one knew what PTSD was back then and he was sent away, he said.

“It was either jump off a building or go to downtown New Haven,” Jones, a Milford resident, said, recounting his turn to drugs and alcohol.

In 2004, he came back to the West Haven VA after the “drugs had taken their toll” and was able to be helped through medication, therapy and art. He displayed a collage he made of pieces from the ’50s that make him feel good, such as his old skateboard and a decal off his old Volkswagen.
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Amputee Afghanistan Veteran Went From Crutches to Running NY Marathon

Defying the odds: US Army veteran with above-the-knee amputation to run NYC Marathon
FoxNews.com
By Melinda Carstensen
Published November 01, 2014

Today, Lychik has proved his doctors— and even himself in the early hours after his injury— wrong. Today, Lychik doesn’t just walk. He runs.

United States Army veteran Edward Lychik joined the military because he wanted to be part of something bigger than himself. But on his 21st birthday, while serving in Afghanistan as a combat engineer, he faced a horrific reality of war that prompted him to rethink his life mission entirely.

On Sept. 30, 2011, about a year into his deployment, Lychik was sitting in the gunner’s hatch of a tank when a rocket struck his vehicle. Lychik remembers feeling a dry thirst in his throat as black smoke engulfed the unit, seeing fire in the background, and reaching down to his left leg, which felt mushy on his fingertips.

“My friend immediately pulled it away and said, ‘You don’t want to do that,’” Lychik, now 24, told FoxNews.com. “They put me on a stretcher and in a vehicle, and that’s when I knew something was wrong.”

Lychik lost most of his left leg in the attack, which doctors later amputated above the knee. Gone were his knee joint, ankle joint and hip joint on that side of his body after undergoing a procedure called hip disarticulation. His medical team said the only way he would be able to walk again was with crutches and assistance.
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New York to pay homeless Marine veteran's family $2.25 million

New York City to pay $2.25M to the family of mentally ill homeless veteran who 'baked to death' in his Rikers Island jail cell
By ASSOCIATED PRESS and MAIL ONLINE REPORTER
31 October 2014

Loss: Former marine Jerome Murdough, 56, died in a mental observation unit on Rikers Island jail on February 15, eight days after he was sent to the facility charged with trespassing

Jerome Murdough, 56, had internal body temperature of at least 100 degrees when he was found dead in a cell in Rikers Island on February 15
Murdough was arrested a week earlier for trespassing after being found sleeping in an internal stairwell on the roof of a Harlem apartment complex
City officials said inmate's anti-psychotic medications made him more sensitive to heat and he also failed to open a vent in his cell

New York City has reached a $2.25 million settlement with the family of a mentally ill, homeless former U.S. Marine who died earlier this year in a 101-degree jail cell, the comptroller said Friday.

Jerome Murdough, 56, died in a mental observation unit on Rikers Island jail on February 15, eight days after he was sent to the facility because he couldn't afford to pay $2,500 bail on a trespassing arrest.

He was found slumped at the foot of his bed with a pool of vomit and blood on the floor and an internal body temperature of 103 degrees. Officials said he wasn't checked on for at least four hours and 'basically baked to death.'

His mother, Alma, filed initial papers to sue the city for $25 million over her son's death. But Comptroller Scott Stringer said Friday his office took the unusual step of settling the case before a lawsuit was filed after a review of the facts of the case.
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Homeless Veteran Baked To Death in New York Jail Cell

Shocked and offended by explicit questions on military sexual assault survey

Military sex-assault survey asking explicit questions draws complaints
The Associated Press
By LOLITA C. BALDOR
Published: October 31, 2014

WASHINGTON — Shocked and offended by explicit questions, some U.S. servicemen and women are complaining about a new sexual-assault survey that hundreds of thousands have been asked to complete.

The survey is conducted every two years. But this year's version, developed by the Rand Corp., is unusually detailed, including graphically personal questions on sexual acts.

Some military members told The Associated Press that they were surprised and upset by the questions, and some even said they felt re-victimized by the blunt language. None of them would speak publicly by name, but Pentagon officials confirmed they had received complaints that the questions were "intrusive" and "invasive."

The Defense Department said it made the survey much more explicit and detailed this year in order to get more accurate results as the military struggles to reduce its sexual assaults while also encouraging victims to come forward to get help.

The survey questions, which were obtained by The Associated Press, ask about any unwanted sexual experiences or contact, and include very specific wording about men's and women's body parts or other objects, and kinds of contact or penetration.
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OEF-OIF Marine Veteran Fights to Save Lives

Service and Sacrifice: Marine fights suicide spike
WBIR News
John Becker
October 30, 2014

Retired Marine Stephen Cochran with the service dog he credits to saving his life, Semper.

(Photo: WBIR)

(WBIR) An increasing number of military veterans in Tennessee find they share this fact: they have seen more of their fellow troops die by suicide than in combat.

The Tennessee Department of Veterans Affairs notes the number of suicides among veterans in Tennessee spiked from 197 in 2012, to 214 in 2013. Nationally, the Department of Veterans in its last comprehensive survey in 2013 put the number of suicides among veterans at 22 a day.

"I've been as far as you can go down the suicide line without being able to come back," said former enlisted Marine Stephen Cochran and veteran of tours in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

"I've literally lost more friends to suicide than to combat," he recalled after recounting the day after he spent months at war when he had a gun in his own mouth. He credits his service dog "Semper" for scratching at the door and saving his life that day.
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Military Suicide Leading Cause of Death

Suicide surpassed war as the military's leading cause of death
USA TODAY
MILITARY INTELLIGENCE
Gregg Zoroya
October 31, 2014

War was the leading cause of death in the military nearly every year between 2004 and 2011 until suicides became the top means of dying for troops in 2012 and 2013, according to a bar chart published this week in a monthly Pentagon medical statistical analysis journal.

For those last two years, suicide outranked war, cancer, heart disease, homicide, transportation accidents and other causes as the leading killer, accounting for about three in 10 military deaths each of those two years.
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Enough said on how the military and congress failed to live up to the "one too many suicides" for them.

PTSD on Trial: Prosecutors won't seek death penalty in Chris Kyle murder trial

Erath prosecutors won’t seek death penalty in SEAL sniper slaying
Star Telegram
BY DOMINGO RAMIREZ JR.
October 31, 2014

Erath County prosecutors will not ask for the death penalty for an Iraq war veteran accused of fatally shooting retired Navy SEAL Chris Kyle and a friend at a gun range in February 2013.

Erath County District Attorney Alan Nash filed paperwork Thursday saying that his office will seek a sentence of life without parole for Eddie Routh of Lancaster.

Routh’s capital murder trial has been set for Feb. 9 in 266th state District Court in Stephenville.

Defense attorneys have said that they will use an insanity defense for Routh, 27.

State District Judge Jason Cashon imposed a gag order in the case that prohibits prosecutors and defense attorneys from commenting.

Routh is accused of shooting Chris Kyle, 38, and Chad Littlefield, 35, both of Midlothian, on Feb. 2, 2013, at the shooting range at Rough Creek Lodge, an upscale resort outside Glen Rose in Erath County. The lodge is about 77 miles southwest of Fort Worth.

Area police reports documented Routh’s mental problems well before the killings at the gun range.
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Case 1 of Shell Shock 100 Years Ago

100 years since the first case of shell shock, it’s time to prioritise mental health
It’s 100 years since the first documented case of shell shock today. What progress should we be making a century on?
New Statesman
BY DAN JARVIS PUBLISHED
31 OCTOBER, 2014

Since "Case 1" of shell shock, we still need to make far more progress.

Photo: Getty

One hundred years ago today, on the morning of the 31 October 1914, a 20-year-old private ventured out into firing line of the First World War for the first time.

We know from frontline reports that he and his platoon had just left their trench when they were "found" by the German artillery.

The explosions sparked chaos and confusion as everyone dived for cover. The young soldier was separated from his comrades and became tangled in barbed wire.

As he struggled to free himself, three shells rained down on him, missing him by only a few feet. Witnesses said it was sheer miracle that he survived.

But when the young man was admitted to hospital a few days later, it was clear to the medics that his close brush with death had left a mark on him the like of which they had not seen before.

History hasn’t remembered the young private’s name. Today we know him only as "Case 1" from a seminal report published early in 1915 by a Cambridge professor and army doctor called Dr Charles Myers.

It detailed the first documented cases of what Myers came to describe as "shell shock".

More than 80,000 members of the British Army had been diagnosed with the disorder by the time the First World War came to an end, including the famous war poets Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen.
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VA Contract for IT Firm Worth $31 Million

Engility Wins $31 Million Contract to Provide IT Management Services to U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs
Business Wire
Published on October 31, 2014

That mission includes providing policy, analysis, strategy, technical guidance and products that ensure IT capabilities are defined and managed for the VA in a manner that improves the lives of our nation’s Veterans.”

Engility Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:EGL) , today announced it has been awarded a $31 million contract to provide information technology (IT) management services, application services and subject matter expertise to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Office of Information and Technology, Product Development Group (OI and T PD).

Under this VA contract, which represents new work, Engility will provide management, analysis, technical and support services for nearly 100 technology systems throughout VA. The award further establishes the company’s role in providing end-to-end program management, technical and analytical services in support of the VA’s critical IT investments that support its three pillars of health, benefits and corporate IT systems. The contract is a three-year (base plus two, one year options) time and materials award.
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VA to begin compensating family members of Camp Lejeune

VA vows to pay families sickened after exposure to Lejeune water
News Observer
BY MARTHA QUILLIN
October 31, 2014

Despite promises by the Department of Veterans Affairs, critics of the agency say they don’t trust it to help Marine Corps family members exposed to contaminated water at Camp Lejeune because the VA is still fumbling the cases of sickened veterans two years after Congress ordered they be treated for free or at low cost.

The VA announced last week that it’s ready to begin compensating family members for the out-of-pocket costs they have incurred since March 2013 for 15 medical conditions associated with exposure to chemicals that entered the drinking water at the Eastern North Carolina military base. The Marine Corps has said the water was contaminated with more than a dozen chemicals, including known carcinogens, between 1957 and 1987.

The military has said that between 750,000 and 1 million people – veterans, family members and civilian workers – may have been exposed to contaminated water before the tainted sources were shut down.
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UFO surrounded by helicopters on rural road

UFO surrounded by helicopters on rural road: National Geographic hunts answers
Examiner
Roz Zurko
October 31, 2014

They were in the Piney Woods just outside of Huffman, Texas in 1981 when they saw a UFO hovering over the road ahead of them, describes the website Blue Blurry Lines.

Some UFO sightings are much more intriguing than others, like the UFO that was surrounded by 23 helicopters seemingly trying to corral the spacecraft. This is a case still talked about today. Then there's the case of an unknown spacecraft that plays cat and mouse with jet fighters, this is another UFO sighting that can’t be ignored. These sightings are too detailed and seen by too many reputable people to dismiss them as being mistaken for a weather balloon.

How about the case of the Australian pilot disappearing mid-flight just after he radios in that a “strange craft” appears to be “dancing” around his aircraft? This is another encounter not to be taken lightly, according to Open Minds TV on Oct. 30.
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Watchfire Back From Far Part Two

Watchfire to show you the way back from far
Part 2
Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
November 1, 2014

Josh told the Watcher the stories he wanted to share
of Afghanistan and Iraq and the nine times he was sent there.
A Green Beret, fearless and tough
he never thought being home would be so rough
but the talk slowed down enough to know.
Josh's loss of hope was beginning to show.
The Watcher said I know where you are
been there myself with a fresh scar.
See, I had three sons from three different wives
sooner or later they stopped wanting me in their lives.
I traveled all across this country looking for a place to stay
but ended up with too many memories getting in the way.
So I'd pack my stuff and head down the road as far as I could get
never really trusting anyone I met.
But there is something more you need to know about the life I had
about the times when I hurt my family just because I was mad.
My kid brother named his son after me.
Your buddy Bob was actually a nephew to me
but I left soon after he was born
because they just didn't understand how I was torn.
I looked fine to them but inside I was beaten up bad
regretting living so much nothing made me glad.
After Bob was killed, I knew it was time to come back home
knowing you'd be here feeling lost and alone.
Josh started to cry with shaking hands to light his cigarette
he knew Bob understood his life of regret after regret
but wondered how he got so far into his head
to know he was thinking everyone would be better off with him dead.
So Bob pulled out a tiny book from his vest
thinking it was time for Josh to learn how to rest.
The book said "Point Man In Your Pocket"
40 days to healing what is inside your jacket
But Josh said he no longer believed in God after what he'd seen
he couldn't understand if God loved how He allowed it all
Then Bob started to question him
When you were in that hell of a mess
did you see any tenderness?
Josh thought about it for a while
then he had a broad smile
There was a time after a firefight.
All hell came down that night.
We were getting the wounded to the medivac flight
when we heard the sound of a mortar before it was in our sight
we just dropped to our knees and covered them with our bodies
not knowing if any of us would lose more buddies
but it turned out to be a dud landing nearby
had it exploded, all of us knew it wasn't our time to die.
Well one young one was shaken up and fell apart
LT grabbed his shoulders, looked him in the eye and saw his heart
First time I ever saw LT cry, he put his arms around the kid
and told him it was because he loved it hurt as much as it did.
So ya, there are lots of times like that but what is your point?
Bob put his arm around Josh's shoulder with a soft voice
telling him if love lived through all of that it was a choice
between what was bad inside of all of us and what is right within us.
That right came from God walking with them letting love live
even in the hellish place war soldiers can still givev share, pray care about someone else in pain
and be willing to die for each other all over again.
Josh started thinking of all the other times when he did see acts of kindness
The arm reached out, the head laid on a shoulder of a brother, words spoken with softness
all happened but he didn't really notice before when they were done
he hadn't stopped long enough to think of a single one.
Bob and Josh spent every night talking about God's love strong enough to live through war
and what they really did it all for.
When all was said and done they did it all for the buddy on their left and buddy on their right
fighting to save lives with all their might.
There was nothing really wrong with them after all they'd been asked to do
but something in them that was right and true.
A couple of years later, Bob passed away
but Josh took over his watch that very same day
knowing there would come someone like him needing to be shown
the way back from far from God they used to believe in feeling alone.
Just needing someone to care
knowing what it was like because he was there.

If you need to know where God was, be shown the way back from far, contact Point Man International Ministries and find an OutPost in your area.

Watchfire to show you the way back from far

Mexico Released Marine Sgt. Andrew Tahmooressi

UPDATE
U.S. Marine Tahmooressi Released From Mexican Jail

Mexico orders immediate release of Marine veteran
Associated Press
By JULIE WATSON
November 1, 2014

SAN DIEGO (AP) — A Mexican judge ordered the immediate release of a jailed U.S. Marine veteran who spent eight months behind bars for crossing the border with loaded guns.

The judge on Friday called for retired Marine Sgt. Andrew Tahmooressi (Tah-mor-EE-si) to be freed because of his mental state and did not make a determination on the illegal arms charges against the Afghanistan veteran diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, according to a Mexican official who had knowledge of the ruling but was not authorized to give his name.

Tahmooressi has said he took a wrong turn on a California freeway that funneled him into a Tijuana port of entry with no way to turn back. His detention brought calls for his freedom from U.S. politicians, veterans groups and social media campaigns.

"It is with an overwhelming and humbling feeling of relief that we confirm that Andrew was released today after spending 214 days in Mexican Jail," the family said in a statement.

U.S. Republican and Democratic politicians had held talks with Mexican authorities to urge his release. A U.S. congressional committee also held a public hearing to pressure Mexico to free him.
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Victoria Cross For Bravery in WWI 1st Muslim Soldier

Story of the first Muslim soldier to be awarded the Victoria Cross
As two former heads of the Army call for greater recognition of Khudadad Khan, the first Muslim soldier to be awarded the Victoria Cross, we outline who he was and the actions that led to his medal
Telegraph UK
By Edward Malnick
31 Oct 2014

Sepoy Khudadad Khan was awarded the Victoria Cross during World War One

Photo: GETTY

It was an extraordinary act of bravery. Finding himself among the few surviving members of a force sent to repel a German advance at Ypres, a soldier manned a single machine gun to prevent the enemy making the breakthrough it needed.

Continuing to fire until he was the last man remaining, his actions helped to ensure that two vital ports used to supply British troops with food and ammunition from England, remained in Allied hands.

Now, 100 years on from being awarded the Victoria Cross for his bravery, a series of military leaders, MPs, peers and Muslim leaders are calling for wider recognition of Khudadad Khan's role in the First World War. The call forms part of a plea for greater appreciation of the contribution of the hundreds of thousands of Muslim soldiers who fought for Britain in the war.

On Friday, unveiling a commemorative stone which will be laid at the National Memorial Arboretum in Khan’s honour, Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon, the communities minister, will hail his “exceptional loyalty, courage and determination in Britain’s fight for freedom”.

Khan, who was born in the village of Dab in the Punjab province of present day Pakistan, was a 26-year-old machine gunner in the 129th Duke of Counaught’s Own Baluchis when the regiment was sent to France to aid the exhausted troops of the British Expeditionary Force.
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