Archive for the ‘Opinions’ Category

Transparency and ignorance

Given the response to my last entry about the journalistic failures of WikiLeaks, I did my best to ignore this topic. With the level of insanity around the topic today, I can no longer ignore it. If the striking through of my first statements in response to “Collateral Murder” confuses you, allow me to be clear. In no way do I support WikiLeaks. On the surface they appear as a beacon of transparency in a sea of opacity that is the flow of information. If one even chips that surface something far less noble is found. Their continuous claim that as an organization they have attained true objectivity and responsibility in reporting is utterly ridiculous. Cherry picking raw data and packaging it for release as a sensationalized editorial piece is neither objective nor responsible.

In this latest leak, tens of thousands of classified documents from Afghanistan were leaked. From what I have read, and I did admittedly get quite bored somewhere around the 10,000th report, these are almost entirely SIGACT reports. A SIGACT is any report of “significant activity” in an area of operations (AO). What exactly constitutes a SIGACT varies from commander to commander. If Private Joe Snuffy is in an outpost and a traffic officer fires 3 rounds from his AK47 into the sky instead of using a whistle (a practice common in Baqubah during my first tour in Iraq) chances are that action constitutes a SIGACT to his commander. It means absolutely nothing but it will be reported anyway.

The above example is exactly the sort of SIGACT found in the vast majority of the Afghanistan leaks. Several of the reports are of such little relevance that I can assure you, having recorded tens of thousands of SIGACTS myself, the next higher echelon wondered why anyone even wasted the breath to relay the message. This is not to say the entirety of the leaked information is irrelevant but that the majority of it is completely useless drivel. That is, if you understand it. A key problem surrounding the discussion of this leak is that very few people outside the military actually understand these reports. Unfortunately, that does not stop the ignorant masses from opining loudly about the content they’ve read and failed to comprehend.

One of the largest areas to have been discussed in the wake of these leaks is that of civilian casualty reports. Again, without knowing what generates such a report the discussion is rooted in ignorance. Any dead civilian seen by any friendly forces generates such a report. Reading that some unit’s callsign reports four dead and seven wounded civilians near some location in no way indicates by itself that the reporting unit had anything to do with the death or injury of those civilians. Nobody is denying that US-led forces have in fact killed civilians, whether justifiable by ROE or not, but few pay any attention to the very significant number of civilians killed intentionally by other Afghans. Regardless of who does the killing, dead civilians result in CIVCAS (Civilian Casualty) reports.

Perhaps the single most ridiculous claim to come from Julian Assange is “this material was available to every soldier and contractor.” While it is certainly true that each soldier is quite likely granted a provisional secret clearance while deployed in support of combat operations it is patently false to state that each of them is given access to the SIPRnet (Secret Internet Protocol Router Network). In a given infantry company the number of soldiers with digital access to classified information past the moment they report it is very small. Not all contractors have unfettered SIPRnet access either. You get SIPRnet access only if you need it. That need is not determined by you, but by strict policy enforced by the unit’s intelligence and network sections. It follows quite logically then that those in the best position to exploit the SIPRnet have access to such by means of their position inside the intelligence section.

Furthermore, everyone with a real secret (or higher) clearance and access to the SIPRnet is briefed on what is and what is not authorized. There is nobody with a clearance who is unaware of the nature of their access and the consequences of violating the laws under which that access is covered. This gives rise to the baseless nature of another Assange claim wherein he asserts that because everyone can access the information (which is either a gross misunderstanding on his part, or a bold-faced lie) the US military failed to give due diligence to its informers. Assange, as the face of a secretive organization, ought to know full well that security is an illusion. Many of the people with whom he is associated know this all too well, and work actively to break security mechanisms so that they might be made more secure as a result. The US military did not release the names of Afghans with whom they had worked to the public. Those names were classified, and their secrecy bound by rules and regulations the violations of which carry strict punishment. Someone broke those rules and regulations and provided the information to WikiLeaks who in turn released the names to the public. WikiLeaks released those names. The US military did not. There is no way to mistake who is explicitly at fault for releasing those names to the public: the individual leaker (possibly Bradley Manning), and the publishing organization (WikiLeaks). These leaks quite literally endangered the lives of Afghans trying to do what they believed to be right. Is it hypocrisy for Secretary Gates to say Assange has blood on his hands? Probably. I know I have blood on my hands, and have dealt with that. Assange needs to come to terms with it himself now. A HUMINT (Human Intelligence) source has a very limited lifespan once exposed, and he as exposed many.

Transparency is important. Make no mistake about my feelings in that regard. The public, to whom our government is legally accountable, deserves to know what is going on in the name of their protection (and at the great expense of their tax dollars). This means both our government, its agencies, and the public have a lot of work to do. Uncle Sam needs to own up to its mistakes and release information in a clear and direct method the public can understand. The public needs to educate themselves on how to go about understanding, as best they can without the frame of reference gained by experience, that information.

Save Private Manning!

I’ll cut right to the chase with this one. From what? If Manning is guilty as charged, he deserves the full punishment he gets. It’s simply impossible to believe Manning did not know his actions violated at least one punitive article of the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

There’s a fairly decent chance if you’re reading this you’ve also read my analysis of the sensationalized editorial Wikileaks ran as news. The video that caused most of the stir captures an engagement between an Apache and a group of armed and unarmed men in a posture perceived as hostile to nearby troops. The subsequent 15-6 investigation, which is not just a dog-and-pony show, found no intentional violation of the ROE.

What could Manning possibly have hoped to change by leaking that video? Was he trying to send a message to journalists and photographers that being embedded with men carrying RPGs near a patrol of coalition forces is probably going to get you killed? Perhaps his goal was to urge persons of all professions to exercise personal responsibility and fully realize the dangers of their actions. Somehow I doubt that is the case. Manning has been compared to Ellsberg, but that’s a faulty comparison at best. Ellsberg had a point to make; it would seem Manning does not.

It seems Wikileaks is upset that the Crazyhorse crew hasn’t been charged with the deaths of the Reuters personnel they killed in the leaked video. The argument seems to be that because the identification of the photographer as a man armed with an RPG was made in error that the engagement amounted to cold-blooded murder – something clearly against both military and civilian law. If that is the metric being used – that the clear violation of a well-known law ought to result in the filing of criminal charges – Wikileaks ought to then fully support the charges brought against Manning. It’s very clear that one is only authorized to operate within his or her official capacity on the SIPRnet, and that failing to do so is a violation of the law. It is equally clear that the possession, and/or release, of materials inconsistent with their official markings is a violation of the law.

So, again, from what exactly is it Wikileaks wants to save Manning?

Deepwater Horizon

There’s so much to say about the whole ordeal, but sadly much of what has been said has come from a position of sheer ignorance. The ability, and seemingly the desire, of the media to use catastrophe as a means for increased revenue (which is generally understandable given their sinking-ship status) is astounding. If anything, this event (which certainly is a catastrophe) has produced the single largest surge the planet has ever seen in ocean/petroleum engineers. Who knew there were so many subject-matter experts!

Since there’s already been a good amount of discussion I’ll only rehash a few points that irk me to no end:

#1 – The conspiracy theory I keep hearing that BP is intentionally keeping the well gushing into the ocean, as a means of remaining relevant and not having to pay fines or face lawsuits yet, is absolutely the single most ridiculous thing I have ever heard in my entire life. Consider, for a moment, that I spent five years in a brigade level Tactical Operations Center. You’d be correct to assume that I’ve heard quite a lot of very ridiculous things. This theory takes the cake. The operation costs for the equipment involved in drilling an offshore well that hasn’t exploded are astronomical, and are a daily expense. I can’t fathom it being any cheaper to run the equipment needed in response to a blown well. Couple that expense with the lost revenue from the source of profits being largely lost as it spews out of the well, and it become even more impossible to think any organization remotely concerned with profit (we call those businesses – the primary motivation of which is generally profit) would do anything to prolong the agony.

#2 – GO GREEN! Green is completely dependent on oil. No matter how you slice it. Wind? What do you think lubricates the turbines? How much petroleum is used in the manufacturing process of not only the major components but the tooling required to make those components? Solar? Same story. Riding a bicycle takes oil too. When people tout that they’ve “gone green”, stopped eating meat, etc., in an effort to “stick it to Big Oil” they do little more than prove how little they understand about the reality of life and the way the world works. Chances are the tax revenue from Big Oil and its employees happen to fund the subsidies used to start these green movements anyway. I’m all for eliminating the use of petrochemical fuels as go-juice for transportation, and even energy, but in order to make the components I suspect will be required to do that we will still need oil.

#3 – The government should have done something, and the MMS should not employ “the friends of Big Oil!” Is there a magical reason that the government knows how to drill oil better than oil companies? Would a mistake made by a government employee have been less catastrophic than the mistake of an employ of an oil company? Is it somehow believed that government employees have a record of failing to properly do their jobs less often than those of an oil company? People are not perfect. That fact does not change based on their place of employment.

#4 – We don’t plan for the worst! That’s a bit deceptive. It’s entirely possible that we recognize that in many cases the worst is something the likes of which we cannot possibly contain. There are safety features on an airliner but if the worst happens nobody will survive. It’s a known risk but we all board planes anyway. I won’t pretend to know all the variables present in several thousand feet of water, but I suspect someone associated with that particular project has a fair idea. It may well be that the answer to “what do we do if it blows up”, in face of those variables, is “I have no idea.”

Don’t take this as a lack of compassion or care. The loss of life on the rig, in the ocean, and on the shores is beyond tragic. I was born on the Gulf of Mexico. I love seafood. I want to see this well capped and cleaned as quickly as possible. BP, Transocean, et al certainly need to be held fully accountable for any negligence on their parts. That said, running around throwing stones does not help engineer a solution in any way.

WikiLeaks – “Collateral Murder”

Critical note: I am not, nor have I ever claimed to be, a helicopter pilot. Thousands of you viewers have come here via click-through on a widely disseminated, and poorly researched, article found here.

Warning: The video content contained within this post is likely to greatly disturb those who have not seen these things many times before. People die. It is real. War, as they say, is hell. Updates below.

To start things off, I will come right out and say I support WikiLeaks in their endeavors to bring about transparency in government. The government promises to do such things and fails time and time again. That said, I have several problems with their presentation of “Collateral Murder,” the video immediately below this paragraph. These errors do nothing to lend to the credibility of this organization, and if there is any desire to promote anything but transparency and truth I will cease any inkling of support immediately.

Critical Update: In the time since I wrote this post, it has become abundantly clear that WikiLeaks is undeserving of my support. They continue, time and time again, to editorialize information and then present it as hard fact. My analysis remains, but my support for the organization does not. Their stated charter is noble; the methods they use are not.

For those unaware of my background, I have spent quite a lot of time (a conservative estimate would be around 4500 hours) viewing aerial footage of Iraq (note: this time was not in viewing TADS video, but footage from Raven, Shadow, and Predator feeds). I am certain my voice can be heard on several transmissions with several different Crazyhorse aircraft, as I have called them to assist troops on the ground more times in my 26-months in Iraq than I could even attempt to guess. I need no reassurances to determine the presence of an RPG7 or an AK-variant rifle, especially not from a craft flying as low as Apache (even after the video has been reduced in dimensions to a point at which it is nearly useless).

Several commenters on Twitter and YouTube have expressed a great deal of anger towards the United States and members of its military. Many of them, unsurprisingly, have wished death on us all. Part of the problem, which is far more complex than I have the time or desire to fully discuss, lies in the presentation of above video.

What could have been the case is identified for the viewer quite readily. What certainly is true, in several key moments, is not. When presenting source media as the core of your argument, it is grossly irresponsible to fail to make known variables not shown within that media. If you are going to take the time to highlight certain things in said media, you should make certain all key elements are brought to the attention of your viewer.

WikiLeaks failed to do these things in this video, happily highlighting the positions and movements of the slain reporter and photographer while ignoring those of their company. It is also, until their arrival on scene, never clear where exactly the ground forces are in reference to Crazyhorse 18 and flight. I can make a pretty good guess, given my background. I would guess the same cannot be said by the vast majority of WikiLeaks’ target audience.

Between 3:13 and 3:30 it is quite clear to me, as both a former infantry sergeant and a photographer, that the two men central to the gun-camera’s frame are carrying photographic equipment. This much is noted by WikiLeaks, and misidentified by the crew of Crazyhorse 18. At 3:39, the men central to the frame are armed, the one on the far left with some AK variant, and the one in the center with an RPG. The RPG is crystal clear even in the downsized, very low-resolution, video between 3:40 and 3:45 when the man carrying it turns counter-clockwise and then back to the direction of the Apache. This all goes by without any mention whatsoever from WikiLeaks, and that is unacceptable.

At 4:08 to 4:18 another misidentification is made by Crazyhorse 18, where what appears to clearly be a man with a telephoto lens (edit to add: one of the Canon EF 70-200mm offerings) on an SLR is identified as wielding an RPG. The actual case is not threatening at all, though the misidentified case presents a major perceived threat to the aircraft and any coalition forces in the direction of its orientation. This moment is when the decision to engage is made, in error.

(note: It has to be taken into consideration that there is no way that the Crazyhorse crew had the knowledge, as everyone who has viewed this had, that the man on the corner of that wall was a photographer. The actions of shouldering an RPG (bringing a long cylindrical object in line with one’s face) and framing a photo with a long telephoto lens quite probably look identical to an aircrew in those conditions.)

I have made the call to engage targets from the sky several times, and know (especially during the surge) that such calls are not taken lightly. Had I been personally involved with this mission, and had access to real-time footage, I would have recommended against granting permission. Any of the officers with whom I served are well aware that I would continue voicing that recommendation until ordered to do otherwise. A few of them threatened me with action under Article 15 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice for doing so. Better officers than they, fortunately, were always ready to go to bat for me and keep that from happening. That said, if either of the clearly visible weapons been oriented towards aircraft, vehicles, troops, or civilians I would have cleared Crazyhorse 18 hot in a heartbeat and defended my actions to the battle staff if needed.

(note: The above is based on the number of times footage from a UAV under my unit’s control produced visual evidence that showed a lesser threat level than that reported as possible by either attack aviation or troops on the ground. Such footage may not have been available during this incident, and as such if the camera was thought to be an RPG the engagement of the personnel was well within any ROE I have ever seen. By making the call, I mean that I have quite literally been the voice heard over the radio clearing an engagement. It is important to note that while I was a position to influence the decision, the actual decision was not mine to make – that falls to the officer-in-charge, not the non-commissioned officer-in-charge.)

The point at which I cannot support the actions of Crazyhorse 18, at all, comes when the van arrives somewhere around 9:45 and is engaged. Unless someone had jumped out with an RPG ready to fire on the aircraft, there was no threat warranting a hail of 30mm from above. Might it have been prudent to follow the vehicle (perhaps with a UAV), or at least put out a BOLO (Be On the Look Out) for the vehicle? Absolutely without question. Was this portion of the engagement even remotely understandable, to me? No, it was not.

All in all, the engagement clearly went bad. I would have objected when I was a private first-class pulling triple duty as an RTO, driver, and vehicle gunner. I would have objected when I was a sergeant working well above my pay-grade as the Brigade Battle NCO. My assessment is based on my experiences in that very theater of operations. I did not see a threat that warranted an engagement at any point. I did, however, see the elements indicating such a threat could develop at any moment. (note: As I did, in fact, already know several things about the situation when I viewed this footage I cannot say with any certainty that had I viewed the exact same footage at the time of the incident that I would not have concluded the camera was an RPG as well.) People can make their judgements however they wish, but what is clearly visible is not the entire picture. I’ll also say that I’ve seen Crazyhorse elements do some pretty drastic maneuvers to protect troops and civilians alike. Those pilots have saved the lives of my friends many times, and a bad shoot is not going to ruin them as far as I’m concerned.

Update: I have seen several mentions of a Bradley Fighting Vehicle running over a body off in the rubble. This is highlighted at some point in the video. Crazyhorse 18 misidentifies a Canon zoom lens as an RPG7, but WikiLeaks has managed to identify a HMMWV as a BFV. I’m not even sure how that’s possible. The transcript also has the ground commander calling on the BFV crew to “drop rap” – there should be an ‘m’ between the ‘a’ and the ‘p’ – ramp is what it should read.

WikiLeaks claims to seek to shed the light on the truth, yet continues to allow such gross errors in reporting stand unchanged. There are many veterans with thousands of hours experience in both analyzing aerial video and understanding the often-garbled radio transmissions between units. It is not unreasonable to think any number of us would be willing to make sure everything is identified correctly, and all jargon is translated appropriately, before things go to the presses. Promoting truth with gross errors is just as shameful as an unnecessary engagement.

Technical issues have prompted the temporary disabling of comments on this post. As soon as I fix the problem, I will turn them back on. The exchange of dialogue is important, and will be restored as soon as possible.

Comments are back up, seems my theme did not know what to do with that many comments.

Comments are down again. If anything is unclear, I’m sure there’s an explanation somewhere in my responses to various comments.

Patience and persistence required

The title of this post sums up two of the most important tools one must have when dealing with the Department of Veteran Affairs. Filing a claim, to any of the VA’s many departments, is a daunting task. Translating the form-letter responses the VA sends once your claim is received requires mastery of the foreign language spoken by the department. For many veterans, this is too much to handle on their own.

After reading several of the comments on my Post-9/11 GI Bill saga post, I decided a post was necessary to provide some sort of advice to my brothers and sisters at arms. The sort of advice that might give veterans a glimmer of hope in the dark cave that is waiting for the VA to process a claim. The sort of advice nobody gives you when you separate from the service, or decide to file your first claim with the VA.

Rule #1 – Be patient.

We all want our benefits, and we all want them now. That simply is not going to happen, and pacing back and forth hoping tomorrow is the day you get your money is only going to stress you out. If you are like me, you already carry too much stress from your time in the service. Do yourself a favor, and roll with the punches. Remember, the squeaky wheel gets the grease – so squeak on, but do not expect same-day action from the VA.

Rule #2 – Be persistent, and proactive.

You will get mountains of mail from the VA. Most of it has nothing to do with anything. Some of it is crucial to your claim. That means you’re going to have to read it all. Buy a shredder, as most of it belongs there. When the VA makes contact with you, make contact back with them immediately if there are any discrepancies whatsoever. If there is something that does not add up, tell the VA it does not add up. Keep telling them until you receive official notice, that would be more mail if you’re wondering, from the VA that there was a problem on their end and they are correcting it. Never take a “we will take care of this right away” over the phone as resolution. Just like in the service, if it is not on paper it never happened.

Rule #3 – Get assistance.

Whether this is your first claim, or your fifteenth claim, an extra set of eyes is invaluable. Any mistake, no matter how small, will likely result in your claim being delayed even longer and ultimately denied. Many veteran service organizations exist, and most of them have workers dedicated to helping veterans file claims. I am a Life Member of Veterans of Foreign Wars and a member of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America. Both of these organizations can provide important information on filing your claim, and drum up support for you while you fight for approval of your claim. Though you may feel alone, know that you are not.

Rule #4 – Be prepared.

As I said earlier, if it is not on paper it never happened. Hopefully, you kept copies of everything your branch of service ever gave you. That is, if you were lucky enough to get a copy for yourself in the first place. Your official records will be the first thing that is checked. The probability your file is incomplete is about the same as the probability that the sun rises in the east tomorrow.

As an example, my medical records cease to exist past October, 2006. I was not released from active duty until July, 2008. The only award in my OMPF? Parachutist badge. Nothing else made it into my file. Fortunately, I have copies of all but my medical records (since the Army refused to release them to me while I was active, and then refused to release them to me upon separation).

If you do not have your records, do whatever you can to get them. Assuming that fails, as it did with the second half of my medical records, find someone who was there with you. Have them write you "buddy letters" for incidents they witnessed or of which they had direct knowledge. Remember, unless your buddy happened to be the diagnosing physician they need to stick to comments that are strictly within their area of expertise. An infantry friend cannot write that an IED detonation gave you TBI. He is not a medical professional. What he can say, is that an IED detonated on your patrol, he saw you get hit in the head and experience a loss of consciousness for however many minutes. Buddy letters are to establish that an event did in fact occur, and was related to your service. Nothing more.

Rule #5 – Make Congress work for you.

Know who your district representative is, know who your senators are. Have their contact information easily accessible, for both local and Washington D.C. offices. When you file a claim, go ahead and start writing a congressional inquiry. I keep an open file on my computer with the details of any claim I have going. If it becomes clear that the VA simply is not working on my claim, which happens, I print that file, scan it, and email it to the local office of my representative for congressional action. As I said above, if it is not on paper it never happened. This includes your VA claims. You need to keep copies of them, and when you’re filing a congressional you should send everything to them.

Once Congress is involved, you will get some sort of response. Refer again to rule number one, be patient. The response you get may not tell you a single thing you did not already know, but it forces someone at the VA to actually touch your file. Usually, this means it gets worked on shortly thereafter and you get some sort of resolution to your problems. This also establishes a paper trail, and takes away anyone’s ability to claim you never asked for information.

Rule #6 – Use the Internet.

This last one should be a no-brainer, considering it is 2010. When I say to use the internet, I do not mean head to Google and search for forms you need to fill out. While that is one good use of the internet, you have bigger fish to fry.

Consider the following, the VA has shifted some attention to “new media” and now has it’s ear to the ground listening to the buzz on Twitter and blogs. My Post-9/11 GI Bill saga post is ultimately what got my Ch33 claim finalized for Fall 2009. I shared it on my Twitter account, it was retweeted (echoed) by several other veterans online (to include IAVA’s Paul Rieckhoff) and ultimately the VA responded from their accounts.

Twitter is free. Blogs are free. You probably already have a Facebook account. All of these can serve to get your case noticed, and resolved. You just have to use them together, and keep at it. Remember what I said about the squeaky wheel getting the grease? Get your squeaks amplified by the internet and you might get a shiny new set of wheel bearings.

If anyone else has suggestions I left out, feel free to leave them as comments. I’ll add them to the body of the post. Never give up, and never accept defeat. If you earned an honorable discharge, you held up your end of the deal. Do not let the government back out of their end.

Unresolved, the Post-9/11 GI Bill saga (Updated, x3. Scroll down – issue resolved!)

Somewhere on the fringe of your memory, you may recall a post I made about the utter failure of the Department of Veteran Affairs to competently roll out the Post-9/11 GI BIll. My story is not unique in any way. My story is shared by, literally, hundreds of thousands of veterans of our ongoing armed conflicts. Veterans who promised something to their country, and upheld that promise. A promise, in the form of the Post-9/11 GI Bill (Ch33 hereafter), was made to us and has not been honored to a degree anyone could consider acceptable.

Four months. That is how long it took the VA to figure out I was eligible for Ch33. Keep in mind I had already been in the VA’s system for education benefits for a year under the Montgomery GI Bill, and am also in the VA’s system for disability and compensation. The requirements for Ch33 eligibility are simply not that hard to vet, especially not for veterans of an active-duty component. Did the veteran have 36 or more months of continuous active-duty service after September 11, 2001, and receive an honorable discharge? One sheet of paper contains all of this information, and the VA has this sheet of paper with my name on it in at least triplicate. Even the laziest of unskilled work could make it through literally thousands of these claims in a single day if motivated by a bacon double-cheeseburger. I will stop trying to understand how the VA failed to do this, because it defies all logic and I’m not sure even Socrates could come up with an explanation.

Roughly two more months have passed, and my Fall 2009 claim is still incomplete. When the VA found someone able to muster the will to read my DD214 and determine that my honorable discharge after 4 years, 11 months, and 26 days of continuous active-duty service did in fact mean I was eligible for Ch33, they fumbled the ball again. The University of Houston submitted my tuition and fees to the VA correctly, the VA turned around and certified me for a full $1000 less than I was owed. Immediately, I contacted the VA and informed them of their mistake. As far as they were concerned, it must have been my mistake. I got the school to call, and explain exactly what the mistake was and the VA agreed with them. “We will get this fixed,” they said. My account summary at UH still shows a $1000 debt owed. I have already taken half of my finals, and registered for Spring 2010 courses.

If you think that is pitiful, hold on to your chair, it gets worse. Remember the $3000 emergency advance payment the VA so graciously offered when they had veterans dropping out of college, because of the mountains of debt they built up, because the VA failed to deliver BAH payments as promised? I took one of these checks and was informed shortly thereafter the debt would be settled by withholding BAH payments when my claim was finally processed. When I finally got my money in early November, there was $3000 too much money. In early December, I got a full BAH payment for the month of November. The VA still isn’t withholding the money. That’s great, right? Free money! All my problems are, surely, gone! Wrong. Even if the overpayment is entirely the fault of the VA, you will pay it back. This has happened to me before. I have no desire to deal with the same sort of insanity again; I put away $3000 somewhere I wouldn’t touch it until either the VA withholds from my future BAH payments, or sends me a another debt-collection notice. Fool me once…

A contact within the Department of Veteran Affairs got me this response to an inquiry about settling the debt from the GI Bill head-honcho Keith Wilson:

“VA is currently developing the process to collect the amount of advance payments received. When the process is developed, VA will provide notification to all students that received an advance payment to ensure they understand the process and their questions are answered.”

If anyone else feels like that is the non-answer of the century, I am glad I have company. Why call veterans, and explain to them that the debt would be settled by withholding from BAH payments if that was not actually the plan?

As the semester draws to an end, I cannot say I look forward to Spring 2010. Allegedly, claims have yet to begin processing for the new semester and that is just another disaster waiting to happen. Ch33 was meant to afford veterans of our most recent wars the ability to go to school and focus only on school. We would not need to work, because we would get a housing allowance. We would not need to worry about how many hours we were taking, because our tuition and fees would be covered. Instead, we were not paid either on time. Instead, fighting to get what we were owed before we had to drop out, or risk drowning in a pool of debt, became a full-time job that robbed us of many hours that could have been spent studying.

This has been said many times, but is worth repeating again. Failing to plan, is planning to fail. The VA failed to plan, and failed us all.

For more information on the Post-9/11 GI Bill, and some of the ways you can fight back against the VA when they fail to do their jobs, go visit newgibill.org.

Update:
Finals are over, my grades have been posted, and the VA has still not paid for their $1000 mistake in my fees. I have tried to call, every single day, for several days and still cannot get anyone on the phone at the VA. This is absolutely maddening. I shudder to think of how the veterans even less fortunate than myself are taking things, especially this close to Christmas.

People ask me what I want for Christmas. Now I know. Give me a competently run GI Bill, and an effective Department of Veteran Affairs. That is all I want, and it will last me a lifetime.

Update #2:
Christmas has come and gone, and I had a good one. What I did not have, however, was resolution of my ongoing issues with the VA. In fact, things have become even more interesting.

The VA apparently uses Twitter now. Personally, I think they might want to master the technology they already use before they branch out too far into social media. Below is what the VA sent me regarding one of my tweets about underpayment of fees.

From @VAVetBenefits: @anthonymartinez Check w/ your certifying official to see what amounts your school submitted to VA for payment as that is what we pay.

Is that so? I have two documents, which I have scanned (with my personal information redacted) and uploaded here, proving otherwise. In addition to those documents, the VA’s own question system has an open and unresolved entry under my account about the underpayment of my fees started by a VA employee. Since a picture is worth 1000 words, and I have already exceeded 1000 words in this post, look below (click the photo for a larger view). I got lazy with my redaction of personal information, but note the areas highlighted by neon-green arrows.

VA fail

VA Fail

Update #3 – Resolved

From @VAVetBenefits: @anthonymartinez Resolved. Thanks for the info and good luck!

This tweet appeared on my TweetDeck on December 30, 2009. Last night, on my way to my younger brother’s wedding, I got mail from the VA office in Muskogee dated December 29, 2009, that acknowledged the underpayment and informed me they had sent the appropriate $1000 payment to my university.

Big thanks to @DeptVetAffairs and @VAVetBenefits on Twitter for working hard to get my issue resolved. Without them, I’m not sure I’d have ever been paid. Another thanks goes out to Paul Rieckhoff of Iraq and Afganistan Veterans of America for his retweets of my updates here on the blog and the work his organization does to help other veterans in positions even worse than my own.

38-32, ECU.

Worst passing decision ever. That sums up Keenum’s play on 1st and 10 at the ECU 39 with 47 seconds left in the game.

Prior to that pass, this was probably the best game UH had played all season. There were some hard breaks – including letting an interception stand when ECU had 12 men on the field – but all in all that was one hard fought conference championship game. UH had come from behind several times this season, against tougher teams, and was poised to do it again to bring home the trophy. In the final set of plays at the usual UH pace, Keenum decided to go long to a receiver that was not open. This would be his final interception of the season, and the play that lost the game.

The Cougars are a young team, and hopefully learned from their (many) mistakes this year. Next year, if they put what they’ve learned to proper use, they’ll be unstoppable.

Choosing the right words

This post is a few weeks late. I was not sure I even wanted to post the photo as some will certainly find it offensive. The choice of imagery used by those organizing the protest was chosen exactly to offend those with whom they disagree, and thus extract an argument. The chord the display struck with me, however, was not one the organizers likely intended. Take a look and see what your initial reaction is, and then scroll past the photo to read my reaction.

Words are important, use the right ones.

Words are important, use the right ones.

When I came across the “Warning Genocide Photos Ahead” signs early in the morning, the main display had yet to be erected. I figured perhaps there was some Holocaust memorial display going up for whatever reason, or perhaps a radical anti-war protest was setting up a display. Either way, the probability anything that would phase me would be shown was very low. You do not spend 26 months in a combat zone without seeing things most people should never have to see.

A few hours passed, and the display was put up for all to see. I was wrong in my assumptions, and was greeted by an anti-abortion display. That’s all good and well. Personally, I do not believe it is the government’s business at all to legislate the medical decisions between a physician and a woman. I also strongly believe in personal responsibility. Either way, you live with the choices you make.

My reaction was not really even related to the imagery, which certainly distressed several students that passed by the very central location in front of the library. No, my reaction had much more to do with the application of language. Hyperbole is often used when a group seeks to garner attention, and this is certainly no exception.

The first, and most obvious, use of sheer hyperbole is in their most brightly colored sign which reads WARNING GENOCIDE PHOTOS AHEAD. On one hand, there actually are a few images from the Holocaust and that certainly amounts to the deliberate and systemic killing of all people of a specific demographic. On the other hand, it would be foolish to assume the warnings were directed at the inclusion of the Holocaust photos instead of the photos of aborted fetuses. As the warning clearly applied to the abortion photos, someone failed to grasp or apply the word genocide very well. For abortion to amount to genocide, there would need to be a concerted effort to eliminate all Homo sapiens sapiens fetuses. Logically, such a concerted effort would be a genocide of the highest degree as far as our species ought to be concerned. An effort on that scale would absolutely threaten us with extinction. Fortunately for our species, no such effort exists. For nearly two decades the slope of the graph representing the abortion rate in the United States has been a negative average value. Genocide was a poorly chosen and improperly used word.

My other issues are not quite as clear cut, linguistically. One of the large signs brings up the concept of Constitutional Rights, something rather dear to me considering the oath I took (twice). Generally, anytime I read those two words together I assume the user has not once actually read the Constitution. Experience has proven this to be a wise assumption, and I will continue to operate under that assumption here. I asked one of the protesters what exactly that sign meant, and was greeted with a poorly educated answer. In short, the inclusion of any potential for the pending health-care reform measures to direct any funds to the procedure of an abortion has been equated with a constitutional right. If ever there was a stretch, this is it. While a law may certainly pass making abortion a procedure paid for by the government, such a law would in no way make abortion a constitutional right. Some might even argue such a law would be entirely unconstitutional. At any rate, unless Congress proposes an amendment explicitly proclaiming a right to abortion, a constitutional right it is not.

From there I cannot help but dive into a little scientific argument. The abortion-by-choice rate, globally, is far lower than the rate by which embryonic growth is rejected by nature itself. Full, or even partial, term birth is not the normal outcome of fertilization in our species. If pregnancy is detected early, and the conscious decision is made to act against that pregnancy it cannot really be said with any certainty that the result would have been live birth had such a conscious decision not been made. Of course you cannot say for sure that nature would reject the pregnancy either, but rejection does in fact happen quite often. If you want to draw up some more hyperbole, these protesters ought to actually protest fertilization, as the body is more likely to abort than it is to carry to term. If you want to apply a little Washington-style circular logic, these very protesters should support an action that would actually be genocide.

The moral of the story? Words matter. Pick the right ones when making an argument, and make sure you actually understand the subject matter before you put yourself in a position from which you may have to answer difficult (or even easy) questions.

Austin City Limits 2009

Yeah, I know I’m late. Better late than never though. Slideshow below. I only took my camera to the final day of ACL. The weather was less than optimal for enjoying the weekend, and I probably will not be paying for ACL tickets again in the future. Lackluster lineups combine with the inability of Austin to really support the kind of crowd the festival draws to leave me rather disinterested in going again.

That said, Dave Matthews put on a hell of a show, as did Pearl Jam. It is well known that I will do stupid things to see either of those groups live. The end.

My experience with the VA’s exercise in failure.

During my second tour in Iraq, with the 3rd Brigade 3rd Infantry Division, several of my friends and I closely followed the development of a new and improved GI Bill for veterans of the Global War on Terrorism. Even early on in the drafting of the bill to overhaul the GI Bill, into something more like the benefits package enjoyed by veterans of WW2, details looked very promising. Promising enough to make leaving active duty as a non-commissioned officer, even when faced with enlistment bonuses in excess of $50,000, to finish a college education a very appealing prospect.

When the bill was signed into law, in July 2008, I was camping with my parents in Zion National Park and enjoying my terminal leave. My phone, which had not seen even a single bar of signal in many hours, rang loudly as one of my old Army buddies called to give me the news and details of the GI Bill that would supposedly make our goals in higher education much easier to achieve. Both of us were skeptical of how well things would work once actually implemented, as we were both stop-lossed and well understood the unparalleled ability of our government to drop the ball on its end of a deal.

Dropping the ball is about the most polite way to phrase the epic failure that is the Department of Veteran Affairs’ handling of the entire Post-9/11 GI Bill (Ch. 33) system. There were 10 months between the signing of the bill into law, and the opening of the application process for Ch. 33 benefits, and more than a full year before the first payments would roll out. Somehow, even with that much time, the VA was unable to coordinate with the states and institutes of higher learning to have things ready for Fall 2009.

As soon as the application process opened I submitted the appropriate paperwork to both change schools and programs. Four short days passed before I received one of the coveted certificates of eligibility for my new school, and new major. I was informed that the election of Ch. 33 would be processed at a later date. That date was roughly four and a half months later. Nearly a solid three months into the semester. A solid three months during which I had to dig quite the debt-filled hole because I did not have the housing allowance I was promised, nor did I have the book and supplies stipend I was promised, nor were my tuition and fees paid.

My case is far from the only of its kind. More than 100,000 veterans are in the same, rapidly sinking, boat. To address this, the VA issued emergency $3,000 “advance payment” checks at Regional VA Offices around the nation to veterans that could produce a few simple pieces of documentation. I went and took advantage of the $3,000 check, even though it fails to cover even the housing money they owe me. What can I say, I was very close to being unable to pay any of my bills. Electing to beat back the possibility of ruining my otherwise excellent credit score, I used that money to pay off some of the ~$6,000 in personal debt I was forced to take on by the VA dropping the ball. That decision was hedged on a bet that the VA could not possibly take another full month to pay my tuition.

Now, with full disclosure in mind, there were circumstances surrounding my specific claim that quite likely threw an extra kink in the pipes. I was overpaid for the Spring 2009 semester, and filed for a waiver (which was promptly denied). This, as it well should, definitely caused a backup on the payment end of the deal. However, I paid what the VA claimed I owed them immediately upon receiving my denial letter. Ironically, when I called to make that payment the VA was unaware they had denied my claim. Apparently postal mail moves faster then their computer system. We will ignore the fact that the ~$900 I owed the VA for their overpayment amounts to roughly one third of the amount they owed me for tuition alone, and will certainly not imply that it would have been incredibly simple to deduct the overpayment from what the VA owes me in housing allowance money.

What the above circumstances do not explain is how on Earth it took the VA four and a half months to determine that a veteran with 4 years, 11 months, and 26 days of continuous active duty military service beginning in March of 2003 was eligible for Ch. 33 benefits. Glancing at my DD214, a document the VA certainly has available, in at least triplicate, would quickly reveal to anyone able to read that I do in fact have more than the required 36 months of post-9/11 service to qualify for Ch. 33.

Fast forward to this very day. In the mail was a wonderful letter, dated 21-Oct-2009, from the VA informing me that I was 100% eligible for Ch. 33! Thing were looking up, until I read how much the VA sent (none of which has made it to The University of Houston, or my bank account). People that know me are well aware that I take a hands-on approach to pretty much everything, and will know I am serious when I say I was literally standing next to the kind VA lady at UofH when she typed in and submitted the balance the VA owed for my account. Here is an image to illustrate the breakdown:

Breakdown of my tuition and fees at the University of Houston for the Fall 2009 semester

Breakdown of my tuition and fees at the University of Houston for the Fall 2009 semester

Those numbers add up to $2,599.15. This is the balance my account summary shows due at UofH, and the amount the VA owes for this semester. The amount for which they claim to have sent in payment? $1,599.15. Interesting, right? My best guess is that someone cannot type, and instead of entering $1,153.55 for my fees typed in $153.55. No big deal, just a grand right? Wrong. Like many people in today’s economy I cannot simply will an extra $1,000 into my wallet. Taking the above mess into consideration, I would be insane not to worry that the emergency loan I took to pay my tuition will not be paid on time. After all, it took four and a half months for the VA to figure out I was eligible. Since it only took me about 32 seconds to figure out how the VA miscalculated what they owed me, my guess is that it takes them roughly 4 months to come to the same conclusion. By then I’ll be asking “Would you like fries with that?”

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