News Cut Category Archive: War

Holder's testimony

Posted at 9:47 AM on November 18, 2009 by Bob Collins (2 Comments)
Filed under: Crime and Justice, War

Attorney General Eric Holder went before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee today to explain why the government will try the alleged mastermind of 9/11 in civilian court.

Opponents of the idea are worried the trial will provide a platform for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. Based on the lack of coverage by news organizations of the hearing today, that doesn't seem likely. CNN dropped its coverage after Holder's initial statement. CSPAN was more interested in a ceremony honoring Sen. Robert Byrd. Even Public Radio didn't carry the hearing.

Besides, in TV, video is king and federal courts don't allow cameras in the courtroom. Is that a big deal? Go back to South Africa at the height of protests over apartheid. South Africa's president banished the TV cameras, and the story disappeared from America's living rooms.

But back to Holder. Here are his "money quotes."

"I have every confidence that the nation and the world will see him for the coward that he is. ,I'm not scared of what Khalid Sheik Mohammed has to say at trial -- and no one else needs to be either."

"We need not cower in the face of this enemy. Our institutions are strong, our infrastructure is sturdy, our resolve is firm, and our people are ready."

Here's a transcript of his entire statement.

Sen. Jeff Sessions disagreed:

Separately, it probably says something -- though I'm not sure exactly what -- that the best place to get coverage of a significant issue before the country, is YouTube.

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War and the single mother

Posted at 2:23 PM on November 17, 2009 by Bob Collins (0 Comments)
Filed under: War

Should single mothers of young children be allowed to serve in the military and be deployed to war?

It's the case of Spc. Alexis Hutchinson, an Army cook and the mother of a 10-month old son in Georgia. She's refusing to deploy to Afghanistan because, she says, there's nobody to care for her child. She's afraid the Army will force her to put her son in foster care.

A spokesman for Hunter Army Airfield said the Army would not deploy a single parent who had nobody to care for his or her child.

According to the group, Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, more than 40-percent of enlisted women have children, and more than 30,000 single mothers have deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan.

The current operational tempo has created considerable pressure to change the Defense Department's maternity policy. According to the GAO, "about 10 percent of women in the military become pregnant each year, and 75,000 military offspring are younger than one," as of 2002. The military gives new mothers six weeks of maternity leave before they have to return to work or training. However, each service branch has its own post-birth deferment-from-deployment policy. The Army, which has the longest tours of duty at 12 months, gives women just 4 months to stay stateside with their newborns before deploying to the war zone, leaving little time to bond with or nurse
their infants. Other military branches grant longer stays and have shorter deployment lengths. For example, the Marines offer 6 month deferments and their tours average
7 months.

According to Maj. Gen. Gayle Pollock, former acting Army surgeon general, the Army should increase its maternity deferments to at least 8 months, with 12 months
being the most ideal: "We need to look at the fact that many women want to serve but they also want to be mothers.

It's a medical issue, it's a mental health issue. Your ability to bond with your children is...very important." Congress has also asked the Pentagon to fix the disparity that exists between the service branches, but no official action has been taken to date."

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The story Wally couldn't tell

Posted at 4:30 PM on November 12, 2009 by Bob Collins (9 Comments)
Filed under: Health, War

If you've ever attended a Twins game and sat upstairs behind home plate at the Metrodome, the chances are pretty good that you know Wally Englund, 85, of Richfield. For 14 years he was an usher at the Dome and other sports facilities in the Twin Cities.

But only his wife, a few family members and some season ticket holders who've become his close friends over the years know the secret that, until recently, he couldn't talk about: He is still suffering from an incident in the South Pacific during World War II.

Eileen Smith (center below), one of the Twins' season ticket holders, contacted me about Wally. She only found out about his struggle during an enlistment ceremony at the Metrodome in the aftermath of September 11, 2001. "You walked back in the well and said 'they have no idea what they're getting into,'" she said today as we sat in his living room.

Wally told me his story because he doesn't want returning soldiers from Afghanistan and Iraq to live with the post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) that began in August 1943, about a year after he graduated from high school in Alexandria and convinced his parents to allow him to enlist and go to war.

"Things were hot and heavy in the South Pacific, so they were sending everybody. I took a bus over the San Francisco bridge, and sailed under the San Francisco bridge in August 1943. About the beginning of August, I was down in the engine room with some motor machinist mates and some electricians, and a guy all of a sudden appeared -- I didn't know who he was -- I knew everybody by their faces but not everybody by their name. And he says, 'You don't belong here. Go upstairs.' So I obeyed his command and then just seconds later the ship went down real fast and heavy. A few of us jumped into the water and then the ship went down real fast and most of the guys were sucked down with the ship. I saw a piece of board or something and I swam to that and hung on for several hours until I was rescued." (Listen)

Englund knew everybody on the ship. But he'd never seen the person who saved his life. There were about 100 men on board the ship -- a floating dry-dock -- but only he and one other man survived.

"Everything happened so fast. It was early in the morning; I don't know if we hit a mine or what. It happened fast and all hell broke loose," he said.

When the war ended and he returned to Minnesota, he tried to tell his mother and father about the morning that was now haunting him at night. Every time he'd try, he'd start to cry. And men don't cry. Today, he fought tears each time he remembered. (Listen)

"I was having these nightmares and flashbacks in the middle of the night and when I first came back, I'd try to tell people my story and I'd start crying. So I thought, 'I'm a man now, I'm not supposed to cry,' so I quit sharing. And the longer I did that, the worse it got. I kept shoving it down and down, and I went through all these years with flashbacks and anger came in, and guilt and all kinds of things. I had a rough time for many, many years," he said.

"I lived and I was one of two survivors. All the rest of the guys that I talked to 'em the night before and the next morning they were gone. We were like family. We worked together; we slept together. Ate together. We were a pretty close outfit."

It wasn't until 1950, the year he and his wife, Katie, were married, that he was able to tell his story to someone. (Listen)

"One of the nights in bed , the next morning Katie says, 'Wally what's going on, the bed was just shaking all night. Are you holding something inside you're not sharing?' I told her the whole story and cried like a baby. What a release it was. I didn't care whether I cried or what happened."

And that was the last he spoke of it for more than 40 years. About 20 years ago he got a letter from the other survivor, who described a similar suffering to what he was going through. But he lost the letter and couldn't write back.

About 10 years ago, he tried to talk to his older brother, Bob, about it.

"His ship was sunk in the South Pacific, not too far from where I was about the same time," he said. "He was a few days in a life raft and he was rescued, and they took him to Hawaii and he spent one month in the hospital and all he did was cry every day.

"I asked Bob a few years ago about our experiences. I says, 'Bob, how are you doing with your experiences when that ship was sunk?' And he said, 'I'm fine.'

"I said, 'How do you do that, I'm still having problems?' and he says, 'I don't think about it.' I said, 'Well, I don't either but it's still there.'"

Sadness, depression, anger, guilt. Wally felt them all. But since he had no obvious wounds, he didn't know the Veterans Administration could've helped him. A few years ago, however, another stranger -- he thinks it was someone at a Twins game -- showed him the path out, telling him the VA could help him.

And it did.

"I love the VA; they helped me so much. I want to say to these guys coming home from Iraq or Afghanistan, I want to say if they've gone through an experience like I have, get help right away. Don't wait as long as I did," he said.

He now sees a psychologist every other month. He also found out he's not the only World War II veteran still suffering from the wounds of war.

"After 60 years I thought time would heal and it still hasn't," he said. "But it's much better."

His grandson is in the Marines. Wally says he's told him his story, but never tried to change his mind.

"I still don't tell many people," he said

(Click for larger image)

You probably know someone with an interesting life's journey. News Cut loves to tell their stories. Contact me.

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The road back

Posted at 4:55 PM on November 11, 2009 by Bob Collins (2 Comments)
Filed under: War

"This generation of soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines and Coast Guardsmen have volunteered in the time of certain danger. They are part of the finest fighting force that the world has ever known," President Barack Obama said this week at the memorial service in Fort Hood. "They have served tour after tour of duty in distant, different and difficult places. They have stood watch in blinding deserts and on snowy mountains. They have extended the opportunity of self-government to peoples that have suffered tyranny and war."

While Obama was speaking before a nation at attention, Michele and Robert Jersak stood before a nearly-empty classroom at Century College in White Bear Lake on Tuesday to finish his sentence.

"When they come back, they are not the same," Robert Jersak, a communications professor at the college said.

"I come from a military family," his wife, Michele, a counselor at the college, added, "and I naively believed that once you're home, you're safe."

Their talk, "Returning Home After Combat: Challenges and Contributions," was part of a week-long celebration at the school, where about 200 former soldiers are enrolled. A handful of faculty attended along with a man whose son is due home soon. "I want to know what to expect," he said.

A single student said he was there because his best friend is ex-military and lost. "I need to figure out how to help him," he said.

The apparent lack of interest by the student body in the topic, however, was matched by the absence of any recently deactivated veterans. There's more to supporting soldiers than waving a flag or putting a yellow ribbon magnet on the car. You have to actually talk to them.

"This war is so different," Michele Jersak said. "People forget about it. We can switch it off." She trains Minnesota state college counselors to understand returning soldiers, and is, herself, at the front lines of the war. As a counselor, she handles the "re-entry" shock of veterans. And every one has it, she suggested. Most don't like to talk and non-veterans aren't anxious to inquire and -- when they do -- they often ask the question Ms. Jersak says they should never ask: "Did you kill anyone?"

"We'll take a citizen and turn them into a warrior," her husband said. "They go from security to chaos. From trust to mistrust." It can take six months to train them but they can go from a war zone to civilian life in a matter of hours, not always successfully. She laments one student in her class who was only days removed from fighting in Falujah, Iraq. "He didn't stay in class because I didn't catch him early enough," she says.

She made it clear to me and the few others attending that she wasn't referring to post traumatic stress disorder. Instead, she was talking about, "normal reactions to abnormal events."

I thought about that this afternoon when a Facebook e-mail from an old high school classmate arrived, telling me about the priest who married her and her husband and who was a Marine chaplain with service in Vietnam and Iraq. He also suffered from depression, the outgrowth of post traumatic stress syndrome.

A month or so ago, he jumped off a bridge in Rhode Island.

Nobody comes back the same.

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Coming home

Posted at 8:48 AM on November 11, 2009 by Bob Collins (0 Comments)
Filed under: War

Here. Here's a Kleenex.

And this blog has a great collection of family reunions. If by "family" you mean a dog.

(h/t: Jonah Keri)

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Veterans: Your 'coming home' stories

Posted at 7:00 PM on November 10, 2009 by Bob Collins (0 Comments)
Filed under: War

I'm working on a short piece on veterans returning from active duty. Few come back to civilian life unchanged.

It becomes a clash of cultures.

For you veterans -- or families of veterans -- what was it like readjusting to civilian life? What were the challenges and surprises? Who was closer to you upon your return - families or fellow vets? What do non-vets not know about returning vets that they should know?

Please use this form to share your thoughts, or e-mail me at bcollins@mpr.org.

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The 'simplicity' of Afghanistan

Posted at 11:23 AM on November 10, 2009 by Bob Collins (7 Comments)
Filed under: War

The White House is disputing reports today that President Obama has agreed to send more troops to Afghanistan.

His top commander in the field, General Stanley McChrystal, wants to send 40,000 more troops. Unlike the buildup in Iraq, however, the "surge" in Afghanistan would take almost a full year, rather than five months.

"I have gained confidence that there's not an important question out there that has not been asked, and that we haven't asked -- that we haven't answered to the best of our abilities," President Obama said.

Presumably, that includes "why not just bring everybody home?"

But the answer has yet to reach Clifford Taylor of Two Harbors, Minn., whose son, Aaron, was killed in Afghanistan last month. He wrote to MPR's Tim Nelson today:

"It's been 4 weeks now since our son, Marine Ssgt Aaron Taylor died in Afghanistan. The nightmare begins again every morning when we wake up and realize it's not a dream.

We went to Camp Pendleton for a memorial service for Aaron on Oct. 28th.
After the service, they took us out to lunch. The C.O. invited us to his house for dinner the following evening. Nice guy, nice family. He has a wife, 2 young daughters and a dog. I told stories about Aaron and all the good times we shared. The whole thing lasted precisely 2 hours and then we were outta there. 'Thanks for coming. We're so glad to have met you. Here's some cookies and a bottle of water.' All very precise. Of course, that's how the Marine Corps is. Very rigid and precise. It was a nice 2 hours. I bragged about my son and they all listened intently.

But it seemed like it was something they'd done many times before. A young man's life. Gone in the blink of an eye. A promising future of prosperity, a wife, children and lots of good times ahead. Gone. Poof. I can imagine them saying after we left, 'Geez, nice family. What a shame. Ah well...'

Shortly after, we heard about the 16 more lives lost in Afghanistan because of the helicopters that went down and I thought of the ripple effect it would have on all the families involved. I never realized how many lives are effected by the loss of one single individual until my son was gone.

The other day, Senator Amy Klobuchar called to convey her condolences, and after a short chat about Aaron, she gave me the phone number of her "go to guy" in case we have any issues. I told her I have an issue right now.

She asked what it was and I said, 'Get our guys out of there! Now! Please!
Before more families have to go through this Hell.' She said, 'I wish it were that simple.'

One young man's life touched so many people. Every day we hear about dozens of civilians being killed by suicide bombers and our military personnel being killed by roadside bombs. Each victim touched so many lives.

Such a huge ripple effect. The solution seems pretty simple to me."

(h/t: Tim Nelson)

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On the hostage-taking anniversary

Posted at 1:19 PM on November 4, 2009 by Bob Collins (1 Comments)
Filed under: War

The Wednesday lunch at St. Paul's Central Presbyterian Church is a staple of the MPR News Department. It's one of the best lunch bargains in the Twin Cities. Sometimes you run into newsmakers there.

Today we stumbled on Kathryn Koob. She was one of only two women among the 52 Americans who spent 444 days as hostages in Iran.

Ironically, she was just profiled in a segment on Iowa Public Television. And today is the 30th anniversary of the day "students" took over the American embassy in Tehran.

All Things Considered is interviewing her and you can hear it tonight on the program.

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Saving Pvt. Hafterson: The Marines respond

Posted at 1:15 PM on October 8, 2009 by Than Tibbetts (6 Comments)
Filed under: War

I'm sure Bob wishes he could have written this post, as it follows up on a story which, for quite a while, it seemed as though he was the only one following.

Briefly: Marine Pvt. Travis Hafterson has been diagnosed with PTSD — post traumatic stress disorder. He left the Marines to seek treatment in Minnesota, and was set to be voluntarily committed to a mental health facility. The Marines got to him first and he's currently in the brig in Camp Lejeune, N.C.

The Marines had not commented on the Hafterson matter beyond confirmed that he was in their custody, until today. Here is the full text of a statement from Marine spokesman Maj. Kelly Frushour.

Good Morning,

In late September and early October there was a spate of reporting by news agencies in Minnesota regarding the case of Marine Pvt. Travis Hafterson.
Much of this reporting centered on Hafterson's claims of suffering as a result of his deployments to Iraq.

Marines are trained in and abide by the Law of Armed Conflict and take any violations of these laws seriously. After reading statements in these news stories which alleged law of war violations (the alleged killing of a wounded Iraqi), the Marine Corps investigated the claims.

The result of that investigation concluded the following:
Hafterson was not present when a lieutenant in his command was wounded.
Hafterson did not engage in any combat while deployed.
Hafterson did not kill anyone while deployed.
Hafterson never fired his weapon while deployed.
Hafterson does not have a Combat Action Ribbon.

When returning from a deployment, Marines undergo a post-deployment health assessment. This assessment is an inclusive review of a Marines' combat experiences, living conditions and environmental exposures while deployed.

This assessment becomes a part of the Marines' medical record. Due to privacy concerns I cannot state the particulars of Haftersons' medical information but please know the Marine Corps is committed to the health and welfare of its service members and has myriad support resources available to
help Marines, Sailors and their family members.

MPR's Elizabeth Dunbar has the full story of today's response from the Marines, including reaction from Hafterson's side.

Pvt. Hafterson's attorney, Ron Bradley, said Thursday that he was "surprised and skeptical" of the Marines investigation, noting that a psychologist and psychiatrist in Minnesota had both found that Hafterson suffers from PTSD. Bradley also said Hafterson was part of an infantry unit, which he said makes it likely that he engaged in combat.

"Can I prove anything? No. I have no firsthand knowledge. Do I believe the military? No," Bradley said. "I believe my client."

You can read Bob's previous coverage here:
Sept. 30: Saving Pvt. Hafterson
Sept. 30: A mother's story
Oct. 1: 'We were so close.'
Oct. 2: One of thousands
Oct. 3: Our dereliction of duty

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Our dereliction of duty

Posted at 9:57 AM on October 3, 2009 by Bob Collins (11 Comments)
Filed under: Media, News, War

Every now and again -- when I'm speaking to some group -- someone will ask, "how do you determine what news is?" They're looking for a definition I can't give them. It's not an algorithm (sorry, Google); it's a feeling from your heart to your head. You know it when you see it or when you feel it.

You have to be some sort of heart-dead or brain-dead person not to see the stories within the story of Pvt. Travis Hafterson, whom I've been writing about this week (here, here, here, and here). The 21-year-old Marine from Circle Pines left Camp LeJeune in North Carolina on leave last month only to find out his orders had been rescinded. He was looking for help for post traumatic stress disorder and his mother suggested he come home to get it.

We can argue -- and we have, respectfully, in the posts I've made on News Cut this week -- about whether he should have done that, but one thing cannot be denied: Travis Hafterson is a broken human in need of help and we did this to him.

We sent a kid off to war -- twice -- with all the bravado we could muster on lawn signs, bumper stickers and radio talk shows, and while we lived a comfortable life supporting our troops here with our yellow-ribbon magnets, Hafterson and thousands of other combat soldiers were accumulating memories that turn into nightmares.

Here's just one of several I lifted from a psychological report he underwent last Saturday:

"He watched as an Iraqi police member opened the door of the house, only to have the back of his head explode from enemy fire. He tossed a grenade into the home. ... Though (the enemy) had lost limbs, he was still alive. So Hafterson had no choice but to kill him with a knife through the throat."

Hafterson's primary story isn't the only one that went largely unreported this week. So was the amazing story of how Minnesota's system worked. Psychologists and psychiatrists gave up their days off last weekend, social workers stepped in, attorneys donated their time, court-appointed experts reacted with diligence, a Ramsey County judge and the staff of the Civil Commitment Court acted swiftly, sensitively, and urgently, purely because they recognized the need to help a kid -- "one of our own," you might say -- who came home for help.

On Thursday, the Marines swept in, grabbed Hafterson before he could get it, and sent him to a military prison. He's disappeared into the closed society of the military again, and the public symptoms of a wider mental-health scandal disappeared with him.

The Marines couldn't have done it without the indifference of the news media in the Twin Cities.

Almost a year ago to the day, another Minnesota soldier also had a problem. Gwen Beberg befriended a dog in Iraq but had to leave "Ratchet" behind when she returned to the states. The local media sprang into action. The local newspapers carried the story on page one. Local TV news personalities wouldn't let the story die, and finally the military relented. When the dog came home for a happy reunion, the TV stations were there live.

No such luck for Pvt. Hafterson or, for that matter, the hundreds or maybe thousands of soldiers like him who may exist if only we in the news media were interested enough to find out. No TV station picked up the Hafterson story this week. The Pioneer Press was the only newspaper to do so. The Star Tribune, which announced a "military affairs" beat just a week ago, ignored Hafterson's plight. The Associated Press took a pass. The Huffington Post rejected the story as did National Public Radio. The alternative online news sources around here who fancy themselves the future of journalism -- MinnPost, The Uptake, and City Pages, for example -- proved that they can shrug their shoulders as well as the big boys. Of all alternative online sources of news, only Rick Kupchella's new Bring Me the News "covered" the story.

If the news media here had treated Pvt. Travis Hafterson like a dog, it would've been an improvement.

While the Hafterson story was playing out in the Twin Cities this week, a summit on the future of journalism was being held in San Francisco, where the San Francisco Chronicle noted the theme:

Key to survival in the digital media age is rapidly responding to the preferences that consumers reveal every time they click a link, view an ad, read a story or post a comment, said Michael Franklin, professor of computer science at UC Berkeley. He is also the founder of Truviso, a San Mateo company that creates tools for analyzing consumer data.

Each online action represents clues that media companies can use to customize content, products and ads to particular consumers. That, in turn, can increase customers' engagement with the site and the likelihood of responding to marketing, he said.

Fancy talk, indeed, but it leaves out the two most important elements of journalism. It needs to employ people who give a damn and it needs to make you look, when your instinct is to turn away.

At some future point, the PTSD story will resurface in the form of some tragedy, and the media wags will ask "how could this happen?" When it comes time to ask the question, we should be looking in the mirror.

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Saving Pvt. Hafterson: One of thousands

Posted at 12:45 PM on October 2, 2009 by Bob Collins (5 Comments)
Filed under: War

We have a little more information now on the fate of Marine Pvt. Travis Hafterson, 21, of Circle Pines, who was whisked away by the Marines on Thursday before he could be voluntarily committed to a Minnesota facility for treatment of his post traumatic stress disorder. Today he's being held in a military prison in North Carolina on "suicide watch."

Hafterson called his mother this morning to say he was held by Marines in Minnesota until 3:30 p.m. yesterday. That's two hours after Judge Steven D. Wheeler, saying he met all the definitions of a man with mental illness, ordered Hafterson committed to Regions Hospital in St. Paul (See my post on this from yesterday).

Hafterson suffers from PTSD as a result of two tours of duty in Iraq. He returned to Minnesota on leave last month to seek treatment, but he was arrested at Fort Snelling on Monday on a warrant charging him with desertion (See my Wednesday post on this). Since then, his family has been trying to get him mental health treatment, convinced the Marines are interested in punishing him rather than treating him.

Marine officials and an expert on PTSD at Fort Snelling, to whom Haftersen intended to turn himself in on Monday, have not returned phone calls seeking comment.

"He said, 'I'm on survival mode. I will make it through this, I promise,'" Jamie Hafterson told me this afternoon about the phone call from her son. "He said he's 'going to the brig. I need to get in general population. My thoughts are killing me, they're tearing me apart. I can't take it no more; all I have is my thoughts.'"

"It's too late to help Travis now, but there are thousands of guys just like him and maybe we can help them," Hafterson's fiancee, Lindsey Moore, said this afternoon after talking with Hafterson. "Travis asked for help after his first deployment and he didn't get it. He asked for help after his second deployment and he didn't get it. He left to try to get some help; it's not like he went on vacation. If the Marine Corps had given him some help when he asked for it, he wouldn't be in trouble."

Moore says she's concerned that once the "story dies down," people will stop caring about returning combat infantry soldiers. "It's devastating for people who fought for this country," she said, "and the Marines just don't care. They should be getting help while they're still in (the service) and not just when they get out. It's not fair to the soldiers, it's not fair to society when these guys return to the world.

Moore says she thinks returning combat soldiers -- the front-line troops -- should be "required to talk to somebody" when they get home.

(Photo courtesy of Jamie Hafterson)

From the MPR archive:
Midmorning: PTSD is on the rise
Morning Edition: Catching combat stress: Physicians learn the signs
News Cut: Why Journalism Matters

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Saving Pvt. Hafterson: 'We were so close.'

Posted at 2:28 PM on October 1, 2009 by Bob Collins (30 Comments)
Filed under: War

Pvt. Travis Hafterson, a Marine from Circle Pines, was within hours today of getting the help for post traumatic stress syndrome that he's been trying to get since the first of two tours of duty in Iraq (See my earlier posts here and here). Then the Marines stepped in.

Hafterson, 21, has been held at the Ramsey County jail since he was arrested at Fort Snelling, where he arrived on Monday with assurances he'd get help for PTSD. He's wanted on charges of desertion.

Armed with an evaluation from social workers and experts, who said he is suicidal and desperately in need of mental health treatment for PTSD, Ramsey County officials moved up a Monday hearing to this afternoon to civilly commit him to Regions Hospital.

The Marines were notified of the hearing, and about two hours before it was scheduled, a Marine "chaser unit" showed up at the jail, took custody of Hafterson and are carrying him back to Camp LeJeune in North Carolina to face charges, instead.

"We almost got him back," his mother, Jamie, told me before the scheduled hearing. "I just hope they treat him."

Few of the attorneys and experts involved in the case seem to think they will. The hearing went on as scheduled, and after Atty. Patrick Cotter, a court-appointed attorney for Hafterson, described his meeting with the Marine at the jail yesterday, Judge Steven Wheeler quickly ordered him committed in absentia. "There's more than an adequate basis to find this young man meets all the (symptoms) of mental illness and should be committed," Judge Wheeler said.

Travis Hafterson is now a pawn in a very high-stakes game. The Marines want to punish him. Minnesota wants to treat his mental illness.

"This is not just a Travis thing anymore," his mother said. "There are lots of boys just like him. He told me 'if you can't save me, maybe you can save them.'"

"I'm not trying to lash out at no one," she said. "I'm mad. But I'm not mad at no one. The Marines have their thing, tool. He's going back as a deserter, not as a person with PTSD."

Jamie Hafterson met with Patrick Cotter after the hearing.

"He's a heck of a good kid," he told her.

"He's a heck of a good Marine," she said.

Hafterson's family has tried to get area politicians to help, but have had little luck. Jamie Hafterson left two voicemail messages with Sen. Amy Klobuchar that haven't been returned. A relative, Atty. Ron Bradley, contacted Rep. Michele Bachmann's office, filled out some paperwork and then was told there wasn't anything she could do. "He's kind of Marine property," Bradley said Bachmann's aide told him.

This afternoon, Rep. Paul Gardner, DFL-Shoreview, had picked up Hafterson's cause in an effort to get Sen. Al Franken's office involved.

As for Hafterson, his whereabouts are unknown. The Marines have confirmed, however, that he'll spend tonight in the brig at Camp LeJeune.

"I am ashamed of the USMC, as it appears they intentionally interfered with potentially life-saving treatment. I am ashamed of how the Corps has treated one of their own," Atty. Bradley said in an e-mail to a Marine liaison in Hafterson's Wounded Warrior Battalion this afternoon.

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Saving Pvt. Hafterson: Hearing scheduled

Posted at 10:11 AM on October 1, 2009 by Bob Collins (0 Comments)
Filed under: War

I just got word that a Ramsey County judge has agreed to hear the case today of Pvt. Travis Hafterson, the Circle Pines Marine who suffers from post traumatic stress disorder whom I've written about here and here.

His family is trying to get him civilly committed in Minnesota, rather than taken by Marines back to North Carolina where he is facing charges of desertion.

I'll try to update the story this afternoon.

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Saving Pvt. Hafterson: A mother's story

Posted at 3:22 PM on September 30, 2009 by Bob Collins (8 Comments)
Filed under: War

After Lance Cpl. Travis Hafterson returned from his first tour of duty in Iraq in April 2008, he wore his dress blue Marine uniform to church in Circle Pines with pride. Then he went to a brunch where someone, apparently an opponent of the war, called him "a piece of shit," his mother, Jamie, recalled today. "I found him curled up in the fetal position in his bedroom just bawling," she said. His dress blues were in a pile on a corner. She knew he needed help. He knew he needed help. Instead, the Marines sent him back to Iraq for a second tour of duty last March.

Jamie Hafterson's son is a killer. She doesn't want him to be his next target.

Hafterson's son, who has post traumatic stress syndrome, is sitting in a Ramsey County jail on charges of desertion (See my earlier post) from the U.S. Marine Corps. His mother says a jail guard asked him this week, "Are you the deserter?" Then he called him "a chickenshit," she says.

His mother and the rest of now-Pvt. Hafterson's family are trying to get him treatment for PTSD. The military apparently has other ideas.

After her son returned from Iraq a year and a half ago, Mrs. Hafterson moved to Virginia to try to get help for her son. "I had to. In my heart, I knew he was going to die," she told me this afternoon. She says every morning, dozens of Marines like him missed reveille to line up for access to psychiatric help. Each day, only five or six would get help. The rest, she says, went on report for missing reveille.

What happened in Iraq to push him over the edge? Here's the description from what he told a doctor during a psychiatric evaluation last Saturday:

"He watched as an Iraqi police member opened the door of the house, only to have the back of his head explode from enemy fire. He tossed a grenade into the home. ... Though (the enemy) had lost limbs, he was still alive. So Hafterson had no choice but to kill him with a knife through the throat."

For Hafterson, it was just another day in Iraq; another nightmare to have later.

After his second tour this year and a court martial on marijuana charges, Hafterson was put in an undeployable unit. "It's a battalion of people with PTSD and criminals," his mother said. "And everybody's forgotten about them."

Hafterson's odyssey to Minnesota in the last month began after the Marines, rather than treat him for his illness, asked him to re-enlist and be deployed -- again -- to Iraq or Afghanistan, his mother says. Hafterson said he would if he could be reunited with his former unit. The Marines said "no." Hafterson left for Minnesota, unaware, his mother says, that his leave had been canceled. The Marines had apparently reneged on promises to provide him with chemical dependency treatment.

"He's a trained killer," his mother says. "He didn't have to go into the infantry. He didn't have to 'run point.' And then to put him in a job cleaning offices. He came back to find Travis. He felt lost and betrayed. He was here to try to get treatment."

When he turned himself in at Fort Snelling on Monday, he was arrested and sent to Ramsey County's adult detention center. "The next time you see me, I'll be in 12 pieces," he yelled to his mother. He was referring to the fate of a friend in Iraq, who was killed by a roadside bomb.

She says her son has "been belittled" by the Marines since trying to get help. "He was told, 'You're just trying to milk the government by getting a disability check,'" she said.

She spent most of the day on Wednesday on the phone to anyone who might be able to get him treatment. Calls to politicians -- she lives in Rep. Michele Bachmann's district -- haven't been returned. She tried Rep. John Kline, a veteran, and was told he couldn't help because she didn't live in his district. She says she even ran around a golf course today because she'd heard there was someone there playing golf who knew an elected representative who might help.

"There are lots of services here for veterans," she says she's found out today, "but nothing for active duty personnel."

The family is worried the Marine Corps will take him back to Camp LeJeune and he'll be swallowed up in the military justice system, where he'll end up killing himself. Instead, they're asking a Ramsey County judge to provide a civil commitment to a psychiatric facility here, but a conference on the request won't be held until Monday.

His mother hasn't told him yet that his unit returned from Iraq this week.

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Political support softening for continued war in Afghanistan

Posted at 2:32 PM on September 22, 2009 by Bob Collins (0 Comments)
Filed under: War

A Pew Research survey shows the problem U.S. military leaders in Afghanistan have selling a escalation of the war there to the American people.

Republicans (84%) and Democrats (76%) mostly agree that a Taliban-controlled Afghanistan represents a threat to the United States, but they sharply differ over whether U.S. troops should stay there to prevent it, the survey said. Fifty-six percent of Democrats said the troops should be removed. Only 25% of Republicans said that.

Meanwhile, President Obama is in New York today, trying to hold together support for the war among America's allies.

Politically, Germany is in focus of those monitoring public sentiment. Earlier this month, an al Qaeda video surfaced that threatened "a rude awakening" for Germans if they do not force their leaders to pull troops from Afghanistan. Germany holds national elections on Sunday.

Today's Question here on MPR NewsQ is asking whether Afghanistan is worth the cost. So far the overwhelming answer seems to be "no."

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One Picture: 'I'd give it all up to have my son back.'

Posted at 4:10 PM on September 17, 2009 by Bob Collins (0 Comments)
Filed under: War

Remember the video of the father of Marine Sgt. Kendall Waters-Bey when interviewed about his son's death early in the Iraq war? Carrying a picture of his son, he wailed, "President Bush, take a look at this man, because you took my only son away from me."

It was uncomfortable and powerful and it ignited a backlash against the man.

Without the tears, the father of Jared Monti delivered the same message today

"Instead of putting the troops and equipment and money into Afghanistan, they went to Iraq. And that cost my son his life," Paul Monti of Massachusetts said today during an interview with a network TV host:

A few hours later, Monti and his wife received their son's Medal of Honor from President Obama (above).

There are many worse ways to spend the next 4:42 than watching this video about Monti's son. Particularly troubling in the story is that the soldier Monti gave his life to save -- along with a medic -- died when the cable that was hoisting them onto a helicopter snapped.

By the way, as of this afternoon, not one word about the Medal of Honor ceremony had been posted on the White House Web site. But click the extended entry to read the citation.

(Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Continue reading "One Picture: 'I'd give it all up to have my son back.'"

The call from Duluth

Posted at 11:22 AM on September 15, 2009 by Bob Collins (0 Comments)
Filed under: War

Of all the news stories out there today, none is as painfall as the one from Niagara Falls where a family was told their son was killed in Afghanistan. He wasn't. And the story has the elusive Minnesota connection.

Robin Jasper said her husband was responding to a message left on his phone by the civilian liaison with whom they had talked once before. That liaison is located in Duluth, Minn.

"She said, 'Call me as soon as you can,' " Robin Jasper said, explaining that the family heard the worst upon calling back. "She said, 'This is a red-line message. I have to read it to you exactly as it says.' "

Then, according to the Jaspers, the voice on the other end of the phone told Raymond that his son had died Saturday, along with a 23- year-old soldier from Kansas.

"I said to [my husband], 'Is he hurt -- how bad?,' " Mrs. Jasper said. "He said, 'He's dead,' and he dropped the phone."

Family and friends posted messages on Facebook. The soldier's girlfriend saw them and called the parents. "He's not dead. I just talked to him," she said.

The military isn't talking.

What might have happened here? A 2008 USA Today profile of the volunteers who make phone calls might have a clue.

After the Army officially notified next-of-kin about a soldier's death, Bana Miller had to inform other families in Bravo Troop about the loss of life -- calls known as red-line message.

"The first that I made I was breaking down," she says. Co-workers drove her home.

Back home in Bryn Mawr that Thanksgiving, her family saw her react to news reports of casualties. "I mean she was shaking, physically shaking immediately after the news segment," recalls her younger brother, Hume Najdawi.

It's quite possible the volunteer in Duluth got a name wrong and was in the process of telling other families about a death in their son's platoon, and the father heard the call incorrectly.

Sgt. Tyler A. Juden, of Winfield, Kan., who was in the soldier's unit, was killed on Saturday.

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2,996

Posted at 4:36 PM on September 10, 2009 by Bob Collins (3 Comments)
Filed under: Crime and Justice, Disasters, War

I stumbled upon this idea today. Project 2,996 encourages bloggers to sign up, get the name of a person who died on September 11, 2001, and write a blog post about that person each year on September 11. Unfortunately, the project probably isn't going to succeed this year; only 1,082 names have been assigned. Perhaps, we're moving on.

Coincidentally, I've had an item on my to-do list for a few years. See, at MPR, we're losing some of our digital (online) history. Some of our early multimedia work was in a now-dead format. And there isn't enough time or resources to preserve some of this history in a usable format.

I created this piece below in RealPlayer format -- by hand with flat html and xml files, that's how long ago it was -- during the 2004 Republican National Convention in New York. Nobody uses RealPlayer anymore. For quite awhile, I've intended to try to recreate it in a proper format. Today seemed like a good day to do it.

Here's the scene: Members of the Minnesota delegation toured the World Trade Center site. Relatives of some of the WTC dead picketed nearby, because the human remains were taken to a dump. The two groups never met, so I created this piece that contrasted the relatively "sanitary" tour they were given, with the gritty reality of the families. In the process, I was introduced to two families.

The original photos are long gone, so I had to recreate the slideshow using the former size standard -- a whopping 225 pixels. I've added a couple of new images.



Whatever happened to the issue? A federal judge tossed out the families' lawsuit last year. The landfill -- said to be the world's largest -- is being turned into a park.

Family and friends still write on a Web site dedicated to the memory of Wayne Russo. The most recent was just yesterday.

As for Matthew Horning, the 2,996 Project assigned his memory to a blogger who wrote her piece today.

Photo: Construction cranes work above the Freedom Tower at the World Trade Center, Tuesday, Sept. 8, 2009 in New York. Friday will mark the eighth anniversary of the attacks of September 11, 2001. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan)

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What's the story?

Posted at 9:49 AM on September 9, 2009 by Bob Collins (1 Comments)
Filed under: Media, War

The rescue of a New York Times reporter in Afghanistan is providing a glimpse into how several news organizations have different headline takes on the same story.

Sometimes, apparently, there are different views within the same organization.

The headline on the New York Times around 6:30 this morning said "New York Times Reporter Freed in Afghanistan." But only within the story itself was it noted that Stephen Farrell's translator was killed. That, Al Jazeera notes, is a huge part of the story.

At 9:50 a.m., the headline was changed.

NPR, using Associated Press copy, went with the "freed reporter" headline.

The translator's death was below the headline.

But even that only tells part of the story. A British soldier was killed, too. The Guardian, on the other hand, views the story differently... from its perspective:

But that's not the whole story, either. The BBC -- and apparently only the BBC -- played the story without injecting a perspective.

The number dead is not entirely clear. It's lost in a hail of other parts of the story. Whose bullets killed whom? And how did the women die?

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On heroes

Posted at 8:00 AM on September 6, 2009 by Bob Collins (1 Comments)
Filed under: War

Later this month, a 30-year old staff sergeant from Massachusetts will receive the Medal of Honor. Posthumously.

He's only the sixth recipient since the September 11th attacks. The Boston Globe has a gripping account of his heroism.

"'Don't tell anybody I am here.'" his mother said his son told her. He wasn't very proud of the war.

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Iraqi Bundles of Love

Posted at 2:03 PM on August 28, 2009 by Bob Collins (7 Comments)
Filed under: War

What does a country leaving a war look like? In Maj. Art LaFlamme's world at the moment, it looks like this: A pickup truck full of fabric that's been sent to northern Iraq by quilters around the globe.

LaFlamme, a California native, is on his third tour of duty in Iraq, but he says he's been "involved with Iraq" since 1990. A few weeks ago, he says, he and some others in his office were talking about the drawdown of American troops and what would happen to machinery and supplies the U.S. has sent to Iraq, "and wouldn't it make sense if we could convert some of the stuff into good over here for people who have needs."

"We started talking about Ramadan, which we're now in. Generosity is a key component, looking inwards and looking outwards to helping others and how that's a big part of this culture," he told me in a call from Iraq this afternoon. (Listen)

Surplus war equipment and fabric for quilting is quite a leap. But LaFlamme comes from a family of quilters (Listen) and his desire to leave something useful behind led him to start the Iraqi Bundles of Love project. "Sewing fanatics and quilters and knitters tend to have stashes that far exceed their actual needs, and sewing fanatics and quilters and knitters are passionate both about sewing / quilting / knitting, and about sharing with others," he wrote on his blog. So he asked them to send the excess to Iraq for Ramadan. They did.

These sorts of efforts tend to take on a life of their own and this one is no exception. LaFlamme figured if he got a few dozen boxes of fabric, that'd be fine. "I just handed over a good 80-85 of the first group that arrived," he said. "I thought this was going to be a relatively minor project -- in the tens. I don't think they were quite ready when I said (to his colleagues), 'I've got about 100 for you guys to pick up.'" (Listen)

"It'll go out in the area where I'm based. Some will go to individuals who have had grants and loans for things like fabric-related businesses or sewing co-ops, some will go to widows and orphans in the area, people in need. The sheer volume of bundles that are going to be involved in this have us relooking at our distribution plan," LaFlamme said.

The project will end when Ramadan does -- in the third week of September. A few weeks after that, Major LaFlamme will come home.

(h/t: Heather Heimbuch)

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Sanitizing war

Posted at 2:11 PM on July 20, 2009 by Bob Collins (15 Comments)
Filed under: War

Journalists in the U.S. complained for most of the Bush administration that they weren't allowed to photograph the returning caskets of U.S. soldiers. They alleged the ban sanitized war.

Now that the Obama administration is allowing -- with permission of families -- the photographing of the homecomings, journalists have taken to sanitizing war on their own.

The images are compelling, disturbing and, of course, sad. The captions below the photographs are not.

Take both of the Twin Cities Daily newspapers.

The Star Tribune documented the arrival of the body of Army Specialist James Wertish on over the weekend.

Said the caption: "An Army team carried a transfer case containing the remains of Army Specialist James Wertish on Saturday at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware. Wrtish, 20, of Olivia, Minn., was one of three Minnesotans who died Thursday in Basra, Iraq.

Transfer case? It sounds like something you'd put groceries in. Not a body. Not a human. Transfer cases are part of the transmission of four-wheel-drive vehicles.

Another Minnesotan, Daniel Drevnick of Woodbury, arrived home on Saturday.

Said the Pioneer Press: "An Air Force team removes transfer cases containing the remains of Minnesota National Guard members Spc. Carlos Wilcox, Spc. James Wertish and Spc. Daniel Drevnick on Saturday at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware."

Both papers used transfer cases. Both described the people carrying them as a team

Back before the Bush administration, we called them coffins or caskets; words which may be technically insufficient, but made clear that someone's son, brother, or husband was inside, and he is dead.

Instead of "teams," they were referred to as "honor guards," reinforcing that the dead deserved no less.

Other dead soldiers coming home got almost the same sanitized treatment:

An Army carry team carries a transfer case containing the remains of Pfc. Nicolas Hugh Joseph Gideon at Dover Air Force Base, Del., July 7, 2009. - Anchorage Daily News.

An Army carry team carries a transfer case containing the remains of Spc. Chester W. Hosford of Hastings, Minn. Wednesday July 8, 2009 at Dover Air Force Base, Del. - Minnesota Public Radio.

An Army Corps carry team carries the transfer case containing the body of U.S. Army Pfc. Justin A. Casillas, 19, of Dunnigan, during a transfer ceremony at Dover Air Force Base, Del., Monday, July 6. - Woodland (Calif.) Democrat

This is what George Carlin called "soft language."

"I don't like words that hide the truth. I don't like words that conceal reality. I don't like euphemisms, or euphemistic language. And American English is loaded with euphemisms. Cause Americans have a lot of trouble dealing with reality. Americans have trouble facing the truth, so they invent the kind of a soft language to protect themselves from it, and it gets worse with every generation. For some reason, it just keeps getting worse."

(Photos: Associated Press)

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Pawlenty in Iraq

Posted at 11:51 AM on July 20, 2009 by Bob Collins (0 Comments)
Filed under: Politics, War

Minnesota's commander-in-chief of the National Guard looked soldier-like in the U.S. Army images of Gov. Tim Pawlenty's meeting with the troops in a surprise visit to Iraq over the weekend. The governor wore an Army-olive t-shirt and blended in with the troops.

Pawlenty is traveling with Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon who went with khaki:

And Gov. Jim Gibbons of Nevada, who went with the golf shirt and jeans look:

(Above photo from Red Bulls south newsletter)

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The boys of Somalia

Posted at 5:08 PM on July 13, 2009 by Bob Collins (0 Comments)
Filed under: War

Federal officials are clamming up about the indictment of two men -- one from Brooklyn Park -- on terrorism charges, leading to questions about whether it may have something to do with the disappearance of Somali men in Minneapolis, several of whom have been killed back in their homeland's civil war.

The feds could answer that question with a "yes" or "no," but they didn't.

"He was indicted on one count of material support to terrorism, a count of conspiracy to kill, kidnap, maim or injure in a foreign country and two counts of making false statements," said FBI spokesman E.K. Wilson. He said he cannot confirm the indictment has something to do with the missing men.

Here's the indictment. It said two men conspired with each other and others to "kill, kidnap, maim, or injure persons outside the United States." It didn't say what persons or where, but noted the two took a Northwest Airlines flight to Amsterdam with a final destination of Somalia.

Who's responsible for recruiting the men to go fight a civil war? MPR's Laura Yuen has a partial answer to that question. It was Zakaria Maruf, one of two men reportedly killed over the weekend.

Stephen Smith, an attorney for an unnamed client, says Maruf tried to recruit his client to fight in Somalia. Smith is advising people who have been questioned about the disappearances by the FBI.

He says Maruf's "status" made it difficult to say "no."

"He was someone who people looked up to, in the sense that he was kind of cool. He sort exuded his own independence. And so, when [my client] is asked this question in such a direct fashion, it's like talking to an older sibling you might look up to. There's no question he wasn't going to participate in it, but how do you say it?"

From the looks of things, it's starting to appear as though no single person is responsible for the disappearances. Over the weekend, the New York Times said the missing men "appear to have been motivated by a complex mix of politics and faith, and their communications show how some are trying to recruit other young Americans to their cause."

Last week, Yuen reported on a November 2007 rally, in which one speaker -- Zakariah Abdi -- exhorts the audience:

"Enlist yourselves. Come to see us in Asmara," Abdi said to the crowd. "Let us get to know each other. We will offer training. Then whoever wants to fight for two months, like the Eritreans used to do, can then go back to school."

How much -- if any -- the speech contributed to the decision of the men to return to Somalia we don't know.

The Times said it analyzed records and Facebook pages and determined that the missing men "seem caught between inner-city America and the badlands of Africa, pining for Starbucks one day, extolling the virtues of camel's milk and Islamic fundamentalism the next."

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Who's in charge?

Posted at 7:04 PM on July 11, 2009 by Bob Collins (3 Comments)
Filed under: Politics, War

If there's one story that's yet to strike a significant nerve with folks outside of Washington, it's the revelation that the Central Intelligence Agency had a secret counterterrorism program that it didn't tell Congress about.

Oh, and it didn't tell Leon Panetta, who is director of the Central Intelligence Agency, according to Panetta, who says he ended the program when he heard about it on June 23 after he heard about.

As befits Washington, it's Republicans on one side; Democrats on the other, according to National Public Radio's All Things Considered on Saturday..

Details of the program have not been released. Some Republicans say the revelation is no big deal, and that Democrats are playing politics. A man at the center of the controversy -- Democrat Silvestre Reyes of Texas, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee -- tells NPR's Guy Raz that his committee has pinpointed numerous instances where it was not given "full and complete information" and in at least one case, "we were deliberately lied to."

But wait, there's more, according to the New York Times, which cites its sources claiming it was under orders from former VP Dick Cheney that withheld information about the program from Congress:

The disclosure about Mr. Cheney's role in the unidentified C.I.A. program comes a day after an inspector general's report underscored the central role of the former vice president's office in restricting to a small circle of officials knowledge of the National Security Agency's program of eavesdropping without warrants, a degree of secrecy that the report concluded had hurt the effectiveness of the counterterrorism surveillance effort.

Amid all the controversy over who knew what, we still don't know what the counterterrorism program was. The Times says it didn't involve domestic spying, or waterboarding and that it never became fully operational.

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The nature of terrorists

Posted at 8:04 PM on July 9, 2009 by Bob Collins (1 Comments)
Filed under: War

Two unrelated stories in the terrorism front:

1) On Thursday Mohamed Warsame, a Canadian citizen of Somali descent, was sentenced to about seven and a half years in prison. He's been awaiting trial for five years on terrorism-related charges. With credit for time served, he'll be deported to Canada next spring. He apparently attended what he contends were religious camps but the government says were terrorism camps. David Kris, a spokesman for the Justice Department, told MPR's Elizabeth Stawicki the Warsame case serves as "a reminder of the continuing threats the nation faces." Since the case never went to trial, we don't really know much about the threat the nation faces, at least as it pertains to Mr. Warsame.

2)Haji Sahib Rohullah Wakil is one of the Guantanamo detainees the Pentagon says has gone back to a life of terrorism. But he often has meetings with the U.S. backed government in Afghanistan. "For six years, I was ready to go to court and defend myself. They should show the world their proof against me," Wakil told McClatchy News. "I am ready to answer any question."

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One picture

Posted at 6:35 AM on June 12, 2009 by Bob Collins (2 Comments)
Filed under: War

It's been a long, long time since we've seen such a compelling picture. It was the homecoming for an Alabama soldier who was killed in northern Iraq. He was supposed to come home next month.

There are more pictures from photojournalist Bernard Troncale and the story from the Birmingham News at al.com.

There have been 4,227 soldiers killed in Iraq since 2003.

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Memorial Day: Dorothy and Quentin Lundquist

Posted at 9:12 PM on May 25, 2009 by Bob Collins (0 Comments)
Filed under: War

My paternal grandparents, Dorothy (nee Anderson, 1Lt) and Quentin Eric Lundquist (Tsgt) both served during WWII, and were married before returning to the U.S. My grandfather was an orderly and my grandmother was a nurse. There was one story in particular where a patient had shimmied up a drainpipe and my grandfather had gone up after him. After scuffling around my grandmother went up too (presumably to protect Grampa). The patient said "I will not fight a woman" and went down.

They were in the 217th General Hospital in England, then France. After getting permission to marry, they were married in France in 1945, then returned to Iowa after the war to farm and raise 5 children. They went and talked to my sisters' classes about their experiences and showed their albums and uniforms. We were able to find a newsreel showing a POW after coming back comparing his wrist to my grandmother's and the difference is staggering.

- Phillip Lundquist
South St. Paul, MN/

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Memorial Day: The story behind the picture

Posted at 10:01 PM on May 22, 2009 by Bob Collins (9 Comments)
Filed under: War

This is a two-part post. The first part below was written on Friday afternoon. I asked people on Twitter and Facebook to help me track down the family below. Within an hour, I found information I've been searching for for several years. That story is the second part of the post.

(© John Francis Ficara)

This picture of the family of one of the first soldiers killed in the first Gulf War is tattered because it's been folded up and put in and taken out of my wallet occasionally for the last 18 years.

I cut it out of a Newsweek magazine in 1991 for personal and professional reasons. At the time, the news media described the cost of the war as "light." Few soldiers were killed. I cut it out to remind me -- as a writer of news -- that there's no such thing as "light casualties" when it comes to reporting on war.

I also kept it in case my then-young children ever expressed a cavalier attitude toward war. They never did.

The problem is I don't know who these people are. I didn't cut out the accompanying caption. The photographer, John Ficara, didn't remember the name of the family when I contacted him a couple of years ago, and every now and then, he drops me an email to see if I've made any progress. I haven't.

Every few months, someone writing a paper for school stumbles across a post I made on my personal blog two years ago and also asks if I've been successful in locating the family, to find out whatever happened to them? I tell them I'm still looking.

One of these days, what with Twitter and Facebook and the viral nature of the Internet, I'm hoping someone will recognize them. It's impossible to look at their faces on this day, and not hope for the best.

Update - Thanks to the power of Twitter and Jodie Gustafson (via comment below) we've found the name -- Gayle Edwards and her sons, at the funeral for Marine Capt. Jonathan 'Jack' Edwards. Armed with that, I've been able to find that he was buried at Arlington National Cemetery on February 15, 1991. They were from Grand Rapids, Michigan. He was killed Feb. 2 when his AH-1 Cobra helicopter crashed in the desert near the Saudi border with Kuwait as it escorted another helicopter with injured. He was the first Marine killed in the war. His mother is Sally Marsh Edwards of Williamstown, KY.

THE STORY

When Sally Marsh Edwards said "freedom is not free" to me when I talked to her on the phone this evening, it didn't sound like a bumper sticker slogan. It sounded like the truth; it cost her her son, Captain Jonathan "Jack" Edwards, the first Marine killed in the Gulf War of 1991.

Once I found out the name of the family in the photo above, some minor investigating found the name of Capt. Edwards' mother, and some campaign contribution records revealed her address and city. The phone book did the rest.

"Jack is our hero," she told me when I called. He graduated from high school as a junior. He did so well on his ACTs that "the principal called and said 'please let me graduate Jack now.'" He did and not longer thereafter, Jack walked into her house with a uniform on. He'd enlisted.

He'd actually left active duty when the Gulf war known as "Desert Storm" -- more recently referred to by some as "the good war " -- broke out, but was recalled to fly helicopters.

On the day he was buried (above) at Arlington National Cemetery, the wind chill was 16 below zero. "Gayle has a flag on her lap (in the photo) and the general gave me one and I remember that his tears were frozen on his cheeks," she said.

"I got my miracle that day," she said. As befits the military, graves are dug in proper order. One area fills up, they move on to the next area. As she paused at her son's grave that day, however, she realized he had been buried -- apparently by chance -- head to toe to her own aunt, a secretary during World War II to Dwight Eisenhower, and Generals Bradley and Marshall. "There shouldn't have been an open space available" there, she said. But there was.

The picture above, she says, "was on the cover of every newspaper in the country" the next day. She and her husband, who was severely handicapped by Multiple Sclerosis, were driving home and stopped at a rest area restaurant on the way home to Cincinnati. "I screamed when I saw it," she said.

She's not in the picture. She was in a van nearby with her husband. But another grandchild -- a girl -- is being held on the lap of her sister in the second row.

The youngest son, Ben, is wearing his father's jacket. He spent some time in college after receiving a full scholarship to study art, and now owns a tattoo parlor in Virginia Beach. Older brother, Spencer, is in the sales business.

"Cincinnati was very good to us," she said. The community raised money for Captain Edwards' children.

He was the first killed in Kuwait. But someone had to be the last. "I wrote to the family of a soldier who died on the last day of the war," she told me. "And we became the best of friends."

Her husband died in 2000. He, too, was an historic figure in the battles of the Mideast. He was a pilot for Pan Am Airlines. In September 1970, he piloted Pan Am Flight 93, hijacked by members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Three other planes were hijacked that day, with intentions to fly them to an airstrip in Jordan. But the 747 was too big to land there, so it flew to Cairo, where it was emptied, and then blown up.

Mrs. Edwards is 75 now, and still working as a lawyer. She helps disabled people get the Social Security benefits to which they're entitled. Many are disabled veterans.

She visited her son's grave early this year. Out of the glare of the media that consumed her family's privacy in 1991, a ceremony each year remembers those who died in the Gulf War. It's mostly underwritten by the government of Kuwait.

News Cut will present stories about those who served in whatever capacity and have died. Please send me a few paragraphs about them and, if possible, a picture and I'll be sure to add it here.

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One war. One image.

Posted at 8:59 AM on May 16, 2009 by Bob Collins (4 Comments)
Filed under: Arts, War

Hugh Van Es has died. You may not recognize the name. Perhaps you recognize the picture he took:

The image -- the fall of Saigon at the end of the Vietnam War -- is also one of the most misunderstood. It's often described as the scene atop the U.S. embassy. But it actually was an apartment building that housed CIA operatives. No matter, really. It captured the drama perfectly.

A local newspaper rejiggered the wire-service-supplied obituary today to say the photo was the most famous photograph of the war. Was it?

Just off the top of my head, here are a couple of competitors in the category.

I can't pick just one.

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Chattel and cattle

Posted at 3:40 PM on May 12, 2009 by Bob Collins (3 Comments)
Filed under: War

The government in Kabul handed out piles of cash today to families of 140 people killed in a U.S. airstrike.

Grieving relatives got the equivalent of $2,000 for each person killed and $1,000 for each one injured.

In Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson's story on All Things Considered this afternoon, though, one paragraph -- intentionally or not -- hits like a cold bucket of water:

Many of those interviewed say they will use the money to rebuild their homes and buy new brides and livestock.

No other mention was made in the story of the life of the women of Afghanistan.

For that, we have the Peoria Journal Star which this week carried a blistering editorial that suggested one of the original -- if secondary -- goals of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan was no longer a concern.

Much has been written in the last few weeks about a law passed by the Afghan parliament governing how members of the Shiite minority may treat women. It explicitly spells out the limited circumstances under which a woman can leave her home, backsliding toward the draconian restrictions imposed by the Taliban. But that rule alone is mild compared with another element of the measure, which effectively legalizes marital rape by mandating that Afghan women must submit to their husbands' demands for sex. The law offers only a few exceptions for women, but no exception would make the odious measure more acceptable.

When Karzai gave it his approval it sparked an outcry, particularly given the reputation he's cultivated as a leader interested in improving human rights for women. There were street protests in Kabul and Western leaders widely condemned the change, with President Obama calling it "abhorrent." In the face of such pressure, Karzai froze its enforcement and put it through a judicial review, which is slated to wrap up next week.

Meanwhile, reports out of Afghanistan today said five young girls slipped into comas, and 100 have been taken to a hospital, after a gas attack on their school. It's the third such attack of late and an official said he doesn't think the Taliban are responsible.

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Vietnam memories

Posted at 4:37 PM on April 7, 2009 by Bob Collins (0 Comments)
Filed under: War

As a baby boomer, Vietnam still seems like only yesterday to me. Maybe that's why I'm one of the few people in this newsroom of mostly younger people who still finds the images of a former Navy pilot standing at Truc Bach Lake in Hanoi, where he was shot down in the war, so stunning, and something to contemplate.

The photo was distributed by Sen. Amy Klobuchar's office. Shown are Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-SC); Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN); and Sen. John McCain (R-AZ).

McCain is urging stronger economic and military ties with Vietnam.

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Scenes from a deployment

Posted at 3:13 PM on February 11, 2009 by Than Tibbetts (0 Comments)
Filed under: War

Members of the 34th Infantry Division — known as the Red Bulls — are preparing for a one-year deployment in Iraq. The division held a departure ceremony last night at Roy Wilkins Exhibition Hall.

Continue reading "Scenes from a deployment"

How did a terror suspect end up back with al-Qaida?

Posted at 4:09 PM on January 23, 2009 by Bob Collins (28 Comments)
Filed under: War

A developing story today highlights the difficulties that President Barack Obama faces with his order to close the Guantanamo Bay jail for suspected terrorists: What to do with the people who are there now?

The New York Times reports that a released "terror detainee" is now a commander of al-Qaida in Yemen. Said an Associated Press report:

Al-Shihri was released by the U.S. in 2007 to the Saudi government for rehabilitation. But this week a publication posted on a militant-leaning Web site said he is now the top deputy in "al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula," a Yemeni offshoot of the terror group headed by Osama bin Laden. The group has been implicated in several attacks on the U.S. Embassy in Yemen's capital Sana.

The story raises a couple of immediate questions:

Why was the suspect released?

How is it a suspect released to the Saudi government for "rehabilitation," ends up in Yemen as a commander of al-Qaida?

Unclassified Pentagon documents on his case listed plenty of reasons -- and evidence -- for keeping him in custody.... somewhere. But the reasons listed for his release presumed he wasn't lying. He was.

There's a little something for both sides of the Guantanamo Bay issue, a casual read of blogs and Web sites reveals this afternoon. On the one hand, some Republicans point to Al-Shihri's renewed terrorism career as a reason why Guantanamo Bay should stay open. Some Democrats point out that incompetence led to a terror leader "returning to the fight."

An aside: Do you suppose anyone in Republican circles clipped the front page of Friday's Star Tribune -- the one with the misleading headline -- to be used in an ad for the 2012 presidential campaign?

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Cyberbegging

Posted at 5:08 PM on January 22, 2009 by Bob Collins (3 Comments)
Filed under: War

I want to make sure the story of a Sleepy Eye family that aired on the national edition of Morning Edition on Thursday doesn't get lost.

It's the story of Robert Sprenger, whose Humvee was blown up in Iraq. He spent months in the hospital and when he made it back to Sleepy Eye, he and his mother made a surprising discovery, according to National Public Radio.

The government compensated him, but his mother says the money wasn't anywhere near enough to cover his family's expenses. So Sprenger and his family swallowed their pride, as a growing number of veterans have done, and went cyberbegging: They posted their story on a Web site and asked strangers to help.

"That was the most horrible-est thing," says Robert's mother, Vicky Sprenger. But she says they had no choice. "I wouldn't ever cut the Army down for any reason whatsoever," she says. "I just think ... it kind of stinks, you know, that we do have to struggle the way we do."

A Web site, USA Together, publicizes the needs of similar families.

The request from Specialist Sprenger goes far beyond any current definition of "touching."

I am Specialist Robert Sprenger and I was wounded in Iraq. I was a gunner in a humvee that was hit by an IED. I was burned on 40% of my body. One week before my injuries, my sister was diagnosed with Bipolar/Borderline personality disorder and put in placement. Since then my mom lost her job in Nov and had to take a job at the local grocery store making $8.50 an hour with no insurance. She had taken too much time off from her previous job taking care of me and my sister. She spent three months down in San Antonio (BAMC) taking care of me. Due to her job situation we have fallen behind on our monthly bills. My mom has sacrificed a lot to help me. I am still on Medhold waiting for a discharge from the Army. When I am better, I will be able to help our family.

He requested a washing machine. Mission accomplished. They've got one now.

Tara H needs help with her mortgage:

My squad was working out of Baghdad on Valentine's Day 2006, when an IED ripped through the passenger side door of my truck and the super heated shrapnel almost completely severed my right leg about six inches above my knee. My assistant squad leader saved my life and the rest of the injured soldiers in my vehicle. After resuscitation in the Blackhawk and again in the operating room, the doctors later determined that I suffered slight brain damage from lack of oxygen during these events. After countless surgeries in theater, and here in the USA I was fittted with a prosthesis. I am still unable to walk well due to balance and improper bone growth.

My husband was flown out of Iraq with me when I was injured, but is currently deployed back to the region. In the future, I plan on finishing my degree in business administration and owning a small business centered around pets.

Privately, a high ranking official in the American Legion calls the soldiers' need to go cyberbegging "pathetic," according to the story.

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Blogging a war

Posted at 11:31 AM on December 29, 2008 by Bob Collins (5 Comments)
Filed under: War

If there was ever a subject for which there's no upside for a news blogger, the Israeli-Palestinian issue is it. People have, naturally, strong beliefs on the issue and will detect sympathy for the other side's cause if things aren't written exactly as they expect.

Israel's attacks on Gaza over the weekend have again sparked the reactions on both sides of the issue that surprise no one and from the safety of the News Cut cubicle, I'm in no position to say what version of the truth is closest to the truth. (Programming note: Talk of the Nation to delve into the issue in today's first hour.)

Instead, I'm reading blogs, trying to get a better feel for what life is like for people in the region.

Mona El-Farra, a Red Crescent physician, for example, wrote a piece on Christmas Eve, on the blog From Gaza, With Love. El-Farra wrote from the UK, where El-Farra's daughter is marooned after leaving to visit the UK and was not allowed to return to Gaza. But even a hopeful Christmas Eve post became a forum for accusations of insults past and present.

Laila El-Haddad, a journalist who writes the blog Raising Yousuf and Noor: diary of a Palestinian mother, is trying to keep in touch with her family back home from her home in North Carolina.

A little later I called my mother, only to hear her crying on the phone. "The planes are overhead" she cried "the planes are overhead". I tried to calm her down- planes overhead mean the "target" is further away. But in such moments of intense fear, there is no room for rationality and logic.

Sameh A. Habeeb, who describes himself as a photojournalist & peace activist, writes the blog, Gaza Strip - The Untold Story. He wrote yesterday that his news updates have been sporadic because of limited access to the Internet. A commenter points out that in all of his writing, Habeeb did not mention rocket attacks on Israel.

David Bogner, author of treppenwitz picks up the theme:

Unlike Hamas, which has been perpetrating ongoing war crimes against Israel by deliberately targeting civilian population centers with kassams, ketyushas and mortars (even as recently as ten minutes ago!), Israel has made an Herculean effort to make sure that only military targets are hit. Heck, we're even taking their wounded over the border and treating them in Israeli hospitals! Try that in the other direction and see if anyone comes back alive!

Chayyei Sarah, described as "an Orthodox Jewish thirty-something is living,playing, writing, and dating in Jerusalem," said it had to be.

Yesterday I was at the home of my friends C and M, and we heard planes overhead. M went to the window and said "looks like we're about to attack somebody. Those were military planes, and they weren't doing training." There was a pause, and C pointed out "you know things are very bad when even Meretz [a far-left political party that is very into making peace with the Palestinians] say that we have to take military action."

The blog Israelicool is live-blogging the war, saying 60 rockets have been fired into Israel today.

All in all, a glance at the blogs reveals what most people already knew -- there's no hope of any solution to the conflict anytime soon.

(Photo: Getty Images)

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The face of the Mumbai attacks

Posted at 10:16 PM on November 28, 2008 by Bob Collins (0 Comments)
Filed under: News, War

This picture that I posted here on Wednesday is the poster for the attacks in Mumbai.

NPR commentator Sandip Roy says the image has haunted him since the violence started on Wednesday. "His message was loud and clear. He said to India, 'pay attention to me,'" Roy said.

What happened to this one? I don't know, of course, but I think I found another picture of him today in the Boston Globe's excellent slideshow.

And another one a few seconds later.

I'm pretty sure it's the same guy. The picture was taken by Mumbai Mirror photo editor Sebastian D'souza, and they're a good reminder that news photographers are either brave, foolish or a little of both

The Independent (UK) tracked him down:

But what angered Mr D'Souza almost as much were the masses of armed police hiding in the area who simply refused to shoot back. "There were armed policemen hiding all around the station but none of them did anything," he said. "At one point, I ran up to them and told them to use their weapons. I said, 'Shoot them, they're sitting ducks!' but they just didn't shoot back."

As the gunmen fired at policemen taking cover across the street, Mr D'Souza realised a train was pulling into the station unaware of the horror within. "I couldn't believe it. We rushed to the platform and told everyone to head towards the back of the station. Those who were older and couldn't run, we told them to stay put."

The militants returned inside the station and headed towards a rear exit towards Chowpatty Beach. Mr D'Souza added: "I told some policemen the gunmen had moved towards the rear of the station but they refused to follow them. What is the point if having policemen with guns if they refuse to use them? I only wish I had a gun rather than a camera."
.

Other notes from Mumbai: Sen. Satveer Chaudhary got plenty of coverage in India's Economic Times with a statement that the attacks will hurt the U.S. economy........ AFP quotes a Minnesota backpacker who was on the scene..... Delta/Northwest resuming flights to Mumbai on Saturday.

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They also serve...

Posted at 3:38 PM on September 17, 2008 by Bob Collins (0 Comments)
Filed under: War

I rarely do a blind callout via News Cut to potential subjects of a story, but this time I'll make an exception. I'm looking for people who (a) Are in the National Guard and have to juggle deployments with a fulltime job and (b) I'm looking for an employer who has to constantly juggle losing an employee to deployments. (Use this form)

For example, Minnesota's 148th fighter wing of the National Guard is deploying to Iraq this fall, it's the third time in four years the unit has been shipped out.

Not everyone in the unit is going. About 300 of the unit's 1,000 members will ship out for a tour of anywhere from a month to 90 days.

"It's a different construct than the Army," International Falls resident Brian Briggs, the state's Air National Guard command chief to the International Falls Daily Journal. "It is done in a way to minimize the impact that the individual has with their absence from employers and gives them a sense of predictability when they will go."

It's no picnic for the unit, of course, but I wonder if some of the unsung heroes of the last few years have been the employers and other workers who have also had to sacrifice?

Over in Milwaukee, for example, Aurora Health System has lost a dozen employees to deployments. "What we do is rely upon the staff that we have that many times are working additional shifts we may hire someone from the outside on a temporary basis," said Dwight Morgan, vice president of human resources services for Aurora told WISC TV.

Last year MPR's Tim Post profiled a similar problem faced by the St. Cloud Police Department and other employers in that area. In that story, the head of the Minnesota National Guard seemed to suggest employers are getting fairly tired of the situation.

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What happened to democracy?

Posted at 9:21 AM on September 14, 2008 by Bob Collins (3 Comments)
Filed under: Politics, War

The new world order -- born in the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union as a superpower -- was to be accompanied by an unprecedented wave of freedom and democracy across the planet.

So what happened?

The Boston Globe's Joshua Kurlantzick today uses Thailand as an example of a receding wave. The streets of Thailand have been crammed with protesters wearing the color of the former monarchy, demanding an end to the reign of the democratically elected prime minister. Last week, they got their wish.

The events unfolding in Thailand are part of a gathering global revolt against democracy. In 2007, the number of countries with declining freedoms exceeded those with advancing freedoms by nearly four to one, according to a recent report by Freedom House, an organization that monitors global democracy trends.

How could this be? Blame the middle class, Kurlantzick says.

As a country develops a true middle class, these urban, educated citizens insist on more rights in order to protect their economic and social interests. Eventually, as the size of the middle class grows, those demands become so overwhelming that democracy is inevitable. But now, it appears, the middle class in some nations has turned into an antidemocratic force. Young democracy, with weak institutions, often brings to power, at first, elected leaders who actually don't care that much about upholding democracy. As these demagogues tear down the very reforms the middle classes built, those same middle classes turn against the leaders, and then against the system itself, bringing democracy to collapse.

"Elected dictators" are not just a problem in Thailand, but Venezuela, Bolivia, Argentina, Indonesia, and -- the big one -- Russia, the poster child for tension between pro- and anti-democracy forces.

Which leads us to the obvious question: How does the U.S. respond to this?

Asked last week if the U.S. should go to war with Russia if it invades Georgia, vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin said, "Perhaps so. I mean, that is the agreement when you are a NATO ally, is if another country is attacked, you're going to be expected to be called upon and help."

How serious is the wane of democracy? Serious enough that even some of the most conservative Republicans are willing to ignore it... and the consequences of battling it. "If the Russians are ready to go to war on its borders -- and they are -- and the United States is not prepared to wage war on their borders -- and we're not -- we ought to just stay out of it," commentator Ben Stein said this morning on the CBS program, Sunday Morning.

With fewer than 50 days until the presidential election, how to respond to the end of the democratic wave might be worth talking about.

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Who's watching 'the kids?'

Posted at 7:25 AM on August 22, 2008 by Bob Collins (5 Comments)
Filed under: War

Pakistan is crumbling, or so it seems. The Taliban set off two suicide attacks on a weapons factory in the country. And Pervez Musharraf, viewed in Washington as a pal, has been forced from power.

Most of the articles in the paper this morning seem to be focusing on the effect of a every-man-for-himself Pakistan in the terror war. But isn't there another important question that few people seem to be asking?

Who's got the nukes?

The country reportedly has 24-48 nuclear warheads. A 2001 report from the Defense Department contained this chilling summary: "no one has been able to ascertain the validity of Pakistan's assurances about their nuclear weapons security."

Judging by the news coverage, there aren't a lot of people on this side of the Atlantic who seem terribly concerned. "Experts say a 10-member committee makes decisions on how to use them and only a complete meltdown in governance - still a distant prospect in Pakistan - could put the atomic bomb in the hands of extremists," the Associated Press reported last week.

Last fall, the New York Times reported that the U.S. is intimately involved in guarding Pakistan's nukes. But it's a "highly classified" program and who knows what a collapsed government's effect on the program is?

A more recent story in the Times -- last week -- indicated U.S. officials have been unable to scrutinize security procedures in Pakistan.

Perhaps the greatest concern is what one senior Bush administration official recently termed "steadfast efforts" by the extremist groups to infiltrate Pakistan's nuclear laboratories, the heart of a vast infrastructure that employs tens of thousands of people. Some of the efforts, officials said, are believed to have involved Pakistani scientists trained abroad.

With a Russian general suggesting a nuclear response to the U.S. - Poland deal on missiles, and a member of the nuclear club under assault by the surrogates for Osama bin Laden, shouldn't this subject have a higher profile in the presidential race than who the vice presidential picks are going to be?

Photo: Arif Ali/AFP/Getty Images

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Russia will be Obama's or McCain's problem, analysts say

Posted at 12:54 PM on August 14, 2008 by Bob Collins (0 Comments)
Filed under: Politics, War

The war between Russia and Georgia -- and more importantly, the effect on the relations between Russia and the United States -- didn't provide any more comforting moments today .

Defense Secretary Robert Gates warned that relations between the U.S. and Russia could be strained for years. But he did say there's no chance the U.S. is going to get involved militarily.

Still, it appears to be a situation that will be one of the first to end up in the lap of a new president.

John McCain, speaking in Michigan, called for a complete review of U.S. relations with its Cold War enemy, the International Herald Tribune reported.

McCain said there should be heightened security arrangements for Ukraine, the Baltic states and Poland. But he offered no specifics, and ruled out military action against Russia or a return to the cold war.

Barack Obama, on vacation in Hawaii, condemned the Russia invasion and called for a U.N. Security Council resolution.

Here are the statements of both candidates:

As for Minnesota politicians, I asked an official in Rep. Michele Bachman's office for an interview today. I got a statement from the congresswoman instead:

"Obviously, the Russia-Georgia conflict is very disturbing and I am monitoring it very closely. In fact, this afternoon, I expect to participate in a conference call with Republican leadership on this matter.

"I was pleased to see that the President is taking a firm stand with Moscow and that he's dispatched Condoleezza Rice to Tbilisi. This is a volatile region and I am hopeful that tough diplomacy and humanitarian aid are all that will be needed to keep the conflict from spreading."

So far, only Sen. Norm Coleman, Bachmann, and Rep. Jim Oberstar have provided reaction to the ongoing events.

Update 6:03 p.m. Rep. Betty McCollum has issued a statement:

"I strongly condemn Russia's coordinated assault and invasion of the sovereign, democratic Republic of Georgia. In an attempt to re-establish control over its neighbors through military force, Russia is sending a worrisome signal to the international community that its vision of the future looks like the troubled Soviet past.

"As a member of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on State Department and Foreign Operations, I support the Bush Administration's commitment to provide immediate humanitarian assistance to relieve the Georgian peoples' suffering. The United States and our European allies should now initiate high-level, persistent diplomatic talks with Georgia and Russia, focused on restoring and sustaining a cease-fire."

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The Georgia-Russia cyberwar

Posted at 10:31 AM on August 11, 2008 by Bob Collins (3 Comments)
Filed under: War

Bombs are dropping in Tblisi, in what we used to call Soviet Georgia. While everyone was focused on the Beijing Olympics, the Russians and Georgians (correction) have started a war.

This is an ongoing thread with some of the highlights:

It's not all bombs. It's also a battle on the Internet. The Russians have reportedly launched a massive cyberwar, hijacking the routing of communications and attacking government Web sites.

Russia -- or more specifically, Russia Today -- is using YouTube to get its message out. And it's one of peace, the latest video insists:

There is some information getting out from Georgia. The Georgia Ministry of Foreign Affairs set up a blog on Google's blogspot service. The images are quite disturbing. There's also a minute-by-minute account of the war being posted.

A similar blog -- Russia and George At War -- exists here, although its pedigree is unclear. Another blog -- The State Minister for Reintegration -- also has images and information from a Georgia perspective.

But back to the Russians. Siberian Light, which bills itself as "The Russia Blog," isn't carrying a word about the hostilities. Its top story is the Russian space shuttle floating toward a museum in Germany.

I've sent an e-mail to the writer to ask why he's not covering the war. I'll let you know what I hear back.

Update: The response is:

Yes. I'm on holiday in an isolated Cretan village with only expensive mobile phone Internet access. I'm watching events as closely as I can, but won't be able to blog again for at least two weeks.

Russia blog, on the other hand, is tackling the story head-on, and clearly writing to an American audience:

What would have United States done if a bordering country (let's say Mexico) slaughtered 1,400 U.S. citizens and 10 U.S. soldiers overnight, leaving U.S. citizens by the tens of thousands without food and water?

If you are following other blogs, feel free to post their links below.
However, if you don't know html, just send the URL it to me, please.

Update: Here's a really good list.

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Iraq: Rolling in dough and spending little of it

Posted at 3:17 PM on August 5, 2008 by Bob Collins (0 Comments)
Filed under: War

On her blog, Baghdad Observer, Leila Fadel writes today:

Every day I pass by the same buildings destroyed during the U.S. led invasion in my neighborhood in Baghdad. Every day they look exactly the same, a pile of rubble. The electricity problem seems to be getting worse; Iraqis have an average of about four hours of electricity a day. While there is talk of reconstruction, a bridge here, flowers planted there the people don't feel a change.

She then links the situation to a report today from the General Accounting Office on Iraq oil profits (pdf version here), suggesting that money is pouring into Iraq but not making it to whatever level it takes to provide basic essentials.

Here are some factoids I've pulled from the report:

Iraq can't spend its money. It has spent only 80 percent of its budget.

Of the $67 billion spent by the Iraqi government between '05 and '07, only 1 percent went to maintain "Iraq- and U.S.-funded investments such as buildings, water and electricity installations and weapons."

U.S. taxpayers spent about $23.2 billion on security, oil, electricity, and water sectors. Iraq spent only about $3.9 billion on these sectors, even though it had budgeted $28 billion.

Iraq has $29.4 billion in the Federal Reserve Bank in New York. It has a budget surplus of $38.2 billion to $50.3 billion.

A barrel of Iraqi oil fetches about $96.88, far below the average worldwide. But the oil is considered to be of lower quality.

With the price of oil rising, Iraq will earn twice the average annual amount it generated from 2005 though 2007.

Iraq could spend more but it lacks the expertise to budget.

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Scenes from a deployment

Posted at 1:41 PM on August 4, 2008 by Bob Collins (0 Comments)
Filed under: War

If something happens often enough, eventually we'll stop noticing it. National Guard deployments to Iraq have happened often enough that, for the most part, the deployment ceremonies go unnoticed.

But not today.

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The fog of war

Posted at 7:32 AM on July 5, 2008 by Bob Collins (3 Comments)
Filed under: War

Editor & Publisher Magazine reports that Joseph Patrick Dwyer died last week of a drug overdose. The North Carolina Army medic was "made famous by a photograph that showed him carrying an injured Iraqi boy during the first week of the war," the Web site said.

Now the test: Do you remember this picture?

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The secret war in Iraq

Posted at 11:03 AM on June 24, 2008 by Bob Collins (0 Comments)
Filed under: Media, War

It was an odd day in American journalism today. A story about the war in Iraq made the front page. "Report rips post-surge planning for Iraq," said the Pioneer Press. "Progress in Iraq, but it's tenuous, U.S. audits find," said the Star Tribune. Of course, both stories about Iraq did not come from Iraq.

What's going on in Iraq? Good luck finding out.

The Project for Excellence in Journalism found that "In the first three months of 2008, coverage of the campaign outstripped coverage of the war by a margin of nearly 11-to-one (43% of the newshole compared to 4%). In an environment in which newsroom cutbacks and decreasing resources may make it more difficult for news outlets to stay atop two ongoing mega-stories, the media, for now, have made their priorities clear."

On this morning's Midmorning, MPR's Kerri Miller tried -- mightily -- to find out why this is.

"The campaign has taken up the news hole," one guest said. But how's this for circular reasoning? According to the tens of thousands -- 669,916 as of this morning -- of people who have taken MPR's Select A Candidate, it is ranked as the most important issue of the campaign. So how can the most important issue of the campaign not be covered because journalists are too busy covering the campaign?

David Folkenflik, National Public Radio media correspondent, responded to Kerri asking why she's not hearing Anne Garrels on the air much anymore (side note: Has it really been five years since she did her media tour through the Twin Cities?) by saying it's too dangerous for reporters to go out, something that doesn't seem to be stopping Leila Fadel, the Baghdad bureau chief for McClatchy Newspapers.

The excuses continued to the frustration, I'm guessing, of most listeners. One suggested that because Americans haven't been asked to sacrifice, they're not interested in the war. But don't 99.4% (that's an actual statistic!) of the people who rated it on Select A Candidate as important or very important tell us that's not it, either?

Finally, Sean Aday, a professor of media and public affairs and international affairs at George Washington University, offered this: Once the surge started working (At least in terms of reduced violence, many of the goals of the surge have not been met), Democrats stopped talking about it.

And reporters stopped asking.

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