Blog post

IAVA Daily Brief 11.13.09
Posted by Terrell Frazier on November 10

 Here are some of today's top stories and happenings at IAVA.  Prefer to receive real-time updates about major stories and legislation that IAVA is tracking?  Follow us on Twitter @IAVAPressRoom.

MUST READS

1) Obama’s Afghan Plan Will Include Exit Strategy

President Barack Obama’s strategy for Afghanistan will include a plan for “how we’re going to get folks out” after a secure environment can be passed to the Afghan government, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters aboard Air Force One on Thursday. “We have been there for eight years. And we’re not going to be there forever,” Gibbs said. “It’s important to fully examine not just how we’re going to get folks in, but how we’re going to get folks out.” Gibbs said no announcement about an Afghanistan strategy is planned before the president returns at the end of next week.

2) Number of Wounded Troops in Afghanistan Increasing

The Associated Press reports that the numbers of U.S. soldiers coming home wounded have continued to swell. The problem is especially acute among those fighting in Afghanistan, where nearly four times as many troops were injured in October as a year ago. Amputations, burns, brain injuries and shrapnel wounds proliferate in Afghanistan, due mostly to increasingly potent improvised bombs targeting U.S. forces. Snipers' bullets and mortar rounds also are to blame. Of particular concern are the so-called hidden wounds, traumatic brain injuries and post-traumatic stress disorder that can have long-term side effects such as depression. Stars and Stripes also reported that the number of combat-wounded troops from Afghanistan treated at the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center has spiked during the past three months. Landstuhl — the first stop for the wounded from the war zone — saw 163 injuries in August, the most since the war began.

3) Obama orders review of intel prior to attack at Fort Hood

 President Barack Obama released a memo to key agency heads, ordering an immediate review of files the U.S. government had on the alleged Ft. Hood shooter, who was charged Thursday with 13 counts of murder. Meanwhile, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) Wednesday called the Fort Hood killings an “act of terror” and joined some critics in suggesting that “political correctness” might have been a factor in not preventing the shootings. “We ought to make sure ‘political correctness’ never impedes national security,” McCain said in a speech at the University of Louisville.  The New York Times documented the aftereffects, both mental and physical, for those who witnessed the shootings unfold in Fort Hood.

AFGHANISTAN

Fifty-one percent of Americans oppose sending new troops to Afghanistan, including 44 percent who say it is time to start drawing down the U.S. commitment there, according to a new Gallup Poll. Thirty-five percent of Americans say Obama should follow the recommendation of the commanding U.S. general in Afghanistan and increase troop levels by about 40,000. Another 7 percent support a smaller troop increase, meaning a total of 42 percent of Americans support a troop increase of some size.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai's inauguration to a second five-year term will be held Nov. 19 at the heavily guarded palace compound in the capital Kabul. Defense ministry spokesman Mohammad Zahir Azimi said Thursday that arrangements were under way for the inauguration. But it's unclear when the president plans to announce members of his new Cabinet.

IRAQ

American companies are not seeing much lasting benefit from their country’s investment in Iraq. Some American businesses have calculated that the high security costs and fear of violence make Iraq a business no-go area. Even those who are interested and want to come are hampered by American companies’ reputation here for overcharging and shoddy workmanship, an outgrowth of the first years of the occupation, and a lasting and widespread anti-Americanism.

 
MILITARY AFFAIRS

The Pentagon has provided $3.7 million for an independent production company, Theater of War, to visit 50 military sites through at least next summer and stage readings from two plays by Sophocles, “Ajax” and “Philoctetes,” for service members. So far the group has performed at Fort Riley in Kansas; at the Uniformed Services University in Bethesda, Md.; and at last week’s Warrior Resilience Conference in Norfolk, Va.

Care packages are beneficial for deployed troops any time of year, but during the holidays they can be “critical for morale,” said Adrien Starks, chief of civic outreach for the Department of Defense. Troops stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan routinely contact home-front charities with requests for items from home. Depending on the organization, supporters can send products to the charity, which will package and mail them overseas, or obtain instructions on how to send a package directly. IAVA held its own care package event on Veterans Day. Click here to see the video. 

Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Thursday he will lead an intensive push for new ways to defuse the threat from homemade bombs, the crude ambush weapons that account for eight in 10 casualties in Afghanistan.

The number of US veterans who died in 2008 because they lacked health insurance was 14 times higher than the US military death toll in Afghanistan that year, according to a new study. The analysis produced by two Harvard medical researchers estimates that 2,266 US military veterans under the age of 65 died in 2008 because they lacked health coverage and had reduced access to medical care. That figure is more than 14 times higher than the 155 US troop deaths in Afghanistan in 2008, the study says. Click here to see IAVA Executive Director Paul Rieckhoff’s interview on “Countdown with Keith Olbermann,” where he discussed health coverage for veterans.

Kyle Windorski, a 21-year-old college student in the Army Reserve, was walking home Tuesday morning on the east side of Milwaukee when four men with stocking caps over their faces forced him into an alley at gunpoint and demanded cash. After digging through his wallet and finding a military ID, the thieves returned Windorski to his feet, thanked him for his service, returned the wallet and gave him a fist-bump.

INSIDE WASHINGTON

At a Veterans Day event Wednesday, First Lady Michelle Obama announced a new military-oriented community service organization called Mission Serve, an offshoot of the public-service group ServiceNation.

Secretary Shinseki's veteran homelessness initiative is noted in an op-ed on CNN. The op-ed was written by L. Tammy Duckworth, the VA's assistant secretary for public and intergovernmental affairs, who said Obama "has charged...Shinseki and all of VA's leadership with a new mission: to transform" the agency "into a 21st-century organization." The Secretary, Duckworth added, "has begun to do just that by making VA a more veteran-centered, results-oriented and forward-looking department."

CONGRESSIONAL SCHEDULE

 THE SENATE

 Not in session. Reconvenes on Monday, November 16^th at 2:00 p.m.



THE HOUSE of REPRESENTIVES INTEREST



Not in session. Reconvenes on Monday, November 16^th at 2:00 p.m.

A wide-range of views, positions, and publications are represented in these articles. These views, positions and publications are not endorsed by nor do they necessarily represent the views of IAVA.

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