Stars and Stripes 9.11.15

Volume 7, No. 38 ©SS 2015

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 11, 2015

For information please contact Waverly Williams 803-774-1237 or waverly@theitem.com

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gt. Christopher Wilson’s mother had no reason to distrust the soldier and his vivid story of her son’s death in Afghanistan.

Spc. Brandon Garrison found her in the dark days afterward and provided the details — the details a mother fears but needs — of Wilson’s last moments after a March 2007 Taliban attack in Korengal Valley.

The futile attempt to save Wilson, the blood,

the coldness of imminent death.

It was all there in Garrison’s account, and he provided the memories she clung to for years.

“I just needed to know. It is a knife wound so deep you just have to know every aspect or you can’t breathe,” Wilson’s mother, Ilka Halliday, said.

Except none of it was true.

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Friday, September 11, 2015

COVER STORY

FROM FRONT PAGE

Garrison’s war lies are unraveling, eight years later, after soldiers who were with Wilson when he died came forward.

Garrison was not by Wilson’s side when he died, and had instead spent his Afghanistan deployment inside the wire as a vehicle parts clerk.

The false story of the infantry soldier’s death has exposed the pain such deceit can cause for survivors. For Wilson’s mother and his family, the sting of lies and loss has not been diminished by the passing of years.

But the lie has also unearthed questions about Garrison’s other war claims and cast a shadow over the well-meaning support he has received as a wounded veteran.

In Kansas, where he lives, 29-year-old Garrison is well-known as a combat vet who walks with a cane and has been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, traumatic brain injury and other health problems he says are related to burn-pit exposure. He recently received a donated home based on his status as an honorably discharged veteran and was given a service dog.

To some who served with him in Afghanistan, he was a lackluster soldier who lied about his Army war record and embellished his combat injuries.

His supervisor in Korengal Valley called him a “compulsive liar.”

‘I need to tell you this’ “I’m taken back to the time where I was holding a dressing on his stomach as he was bleeding out,” Garrison told an HBO documentary crew in 2007 as he stood at Wilson’s grave in Arlington National Cemetery.

Wilson had died just months earlier. Garrison had told the story before and would tell it again almost a year later.

Before HBO came knocking, Garrison sought out Wilson’s mother during a memorial ceremony in 2007 at Fort Drum, N.Y., for members of the 10th Mountain Division who were killed in Afghanistan. Halliday, an Army veteran, raised Wilson as a single mom, then through multiple marriages. The two had a close and often emo-

On the cover Army Spc. Brandon Garrison is seen while on security patrol while at Forward Operating Base Jalalabad, Afghanistan, in June 2006.

PHOTO COURTESY OF BRANDON G ARRISON ILLUSTRATION BY SEAN M OORES /Stars and Stripes

tionally intense relationship.

“At one point, [Garrison] had turned to me and said, ‘This is what happened and I need to tell you this,’ ” Halliday said. “He was saying Christopher had died in his arms.”

Garrison told her Wilson did not feel any pain and was cold just before he died. Halliday said she thinks of her son as a baby and remembers wanting to know every inch of his body after bringing him home from the hospital for the first time, even counting his fingers.

The details of his death felt like that. Hearing them made her loss more tangible, more real.

Garrison and Halliday began a friendship that lasted about two years, she said. He came to visit Halliday, who lives in Massachusetts, and they would spend hours talking on the phone. Sometimes, she said, she would talk him down from suicidal thoughts and console him when he felt survivor’s guilt for her son’s death.

“I was like, ‘Brandon, you need to get over this.

It is not your fault. Christopher would not blame you in any way,’ ” she said.

In 2008, Garrison was at Walter Reed Medical Center, where he received treatment and a diagnosis of PTSD and borderline personality disorder, according to documents he provided to Stars and Stripes.

A freelance reporter found him there, saying that he stood out as one of the very few patients without visible wounds.

Garrison gave the reporter a detailed account of the attack that led to Wilson’s death. He said he was watching soldiers patrol a valley when Afghan insurgents fired rocket-propelled grenades at the troops and that he held a pressure dressing tightly on Wilson’s stomach after the attack.

“He was a very good soldier … a good friend,” Garrison told the reporter for the story, which was later published in Stars and Stripes. “He was very brave through it all.”

Inside the wire The evening Wilson was killed, Garrison was in the main sleeping tent at the Korengal Outpost, a spartan Army base near the Pech River, according to interviews with the soldiers who supervised him and served during his Afghanistan deployment.

Before being sent to the valley, he worked on a maintenance support detail in the Army motor pool in Jalalabad, a key U.S. coalition base. The unit there spent its time inside the wire working on vehicles and driving the base airfield with its 6-mile perimeter. Garrison spent about five months in Korengal before returning to Jalalabad.

Korengal, dubbed “the Valley of Death,” was among the most dangerous territory anywhere

Courtesy of Katrina Evans

Sgt. Christopher Wilson

for the U.S. military. Garrison’s duties kept him inside the wire and mostly in the base’s only airconditioned unit, a metal container with a satellite connection for ordering parts for military vehicles chewed up by the tough terrain.

“Essentially, he was like a supply clerk but primary only for car parts,” said Robbie Myers, Garrison’s staff sergeant at the time. Myers later left the Army as a sergeant first class.

The outpost had what loosely passed as a “wire.” Still, it was rarely hit as hard as the infantry patrols and firebases that faced deadly Taliban attacks daily, Myers said.

Garrison had a relatively comfortable assignment at KOP, but it was not going well with his new unit. Myers, his sergeant in the valley, said he was beginning to see him as the unit’s only problem child, a soldier who balked at assigned duties.

Garrison was in the tent March 29, 2007, when Wilson and his new squad and fire team leader Sgt. Shane Wilkinson were setting up security at the newly built Firebase Phoenix. It was barely a base — more just a point of operations and dug-in firing positions for about 20 soldiers in the badlands of Korengal.

Wilson was a machine gunner and a joker. He was goofy — his family thought he resembled over-the-top actor Jim Carrey. He could not help but mug for any mirror he passed, pretending he was too good-looking not to admire.

But Wilson was scared. He often put on a brave face for his family. The reality was the valley scared him, and he desperately wanted to get home to his infant daughter.

There was reason to worry. He had been moved to Wilkinson’s platoon because it had taken so many casualties.

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COVER STORY FROM PAGE 2

By the end of the tour in 2007, 10 of the 20 deaths from the 10th Mountain Division happened in Korengal.

For Wilson, it came with little warning that evening.

Out of the dusk came two shells from recoilless rifles. One penetrated a hesco barrier, hit Wilson and killed him. Another hit Wilkinson’s position about 100 feet away, wounding three soldiers.

As the sun set, the battle continued to grow and the sky was filled with tracer fire.

“They were everywhere. … It looked like a scene out of ‘Star Trek,’ ” Wilkinson said.

Back at KOP, soldiers were prepping for a medevac. But a medic at the firebase pronounced Wilson dead, loading his body into a separate vehicle for the trip back to the base. Along the way, the lead vehicle broke an axle and blocked the road.

Myers — Garrison’s supervisor who was listening on the radio at KOP — jumped on an all-terrain vehicle and drove out to meet the convoy. He helped move the wounded soldiers to the helicopter, then met the medic at the vehicle carrying Wilson.

Alone, the two men checked his body to remove any sensitive items and closed the body bag. They carefully loaded him onto the ATV and drove straight back to the waiting helicopter.

Soldiers from the main outpost had gathered at the landing zone hoping to help. Myers saw that Garrison had come out of the sleeping tent and was standing too close to the medevac team.

“Stay the [expletive] away from the medics,” Myers remembered yelling.

New house, new dog The TV news camera panned up the length of Garrison as he stood leaning on a cane in February 2015 near his home in the Kansas City area. A local nonprofit had rushed an Austrian Shepherd service dog named Taz to the disabled veteran’s side for emergency support to help him cope with his war injuries and the recent death of his father, who was also his caretaker.

The donation was part of the local outpouring for the young veteran. In 2014, Garrison stood in front of a crowd of 50,000 gathered for a Memorial Day celebration at Kansas City’s Union Station to accept the keys to a donated home. It was given through a program to house veterans called Roofs for Troops run by the nonprofit Nehemiah Community Reinvestment Fund, which did not return requests for comment.

He was handed a big paper key as a symbol of the community’s support for his military service.

“Remembering all the people who have lost their lives,” Garrison said at the time when asked by a local news crew what the day meant to him.

The dog, house and attention came as Garrison began speaking publicly about his PTSD and the raft of ailments he suffered following his return from Afghanistan, including TBI that caused bouts of vertigo.

“Traumatic brain injury. Honestly, I believe it is due to my ear damage,” he told the local Fox News affiliate in a video released in July. “I had both of my eardrums ruptured.”

Garrison never reported ruptured eardrums or head trauma to his supervisors, an injury that would have likely been extensively documented and debilitating, Myers said.

In December, he told the Kansas Health Institute News Service that the fumes from burning trash during his deployment could be causing nerve twitches, muscle weakness, fibromyalgia, chronic prostatitis and low testosterone.

“I was making multiple trips to these burn pits

Courtesy of Ilka Haliday

Christopher Wilson is seen with his mom, Ilka Halliday.

Courtesy of Shane Wilkinson

Wilson’s grave marker is adorned with flags at flowers at Arlington National Cemetery.

a day,” Garrison said in an article published by the institute.

Confrontation The Facebook message from Wilkinson landed in Garrison’s inbox late in the evening on May 13, 2015. It included the Stars and Stripes story published in 2008.

“Really, bro? I hope the lie was worth it … I know for a fact that you were not there when Wilson died, I know that you didn’t hold him, and I know that he did not even have a [expletive] stomach wound!”

A fellow 10th Mountain Division soldier had sent Wilkinson a link to one of the many stories published about Garrison over the past eight years. Wilkinson read through them.

“The more I found, the more pissed I got,” he told Stars and Stripes in August.

Word spread quickly across social media.

Soon, other soldiers in the unit knew about Garrison’s post-war claims, including Robbie Myers.

It was not the first time Myers said he had a run-in with Garrison over the truth.

Back when they were still serving and Myers was his sergeant, he said he found Garrison at the airport ready to deploy wearing decorations on his uniform that he had not earned. Then there was the first time Myers said he warned Garrison about the Wilson story.

After HBO aired its documentary in 2008, Myers and another senior noncommissioned officer confronted Garrison about lying and warned him to stop. Myers had kept the incident quiet, worried that the infantry soldiers might catch wind of the story and retaliate.

At the time, Myers also noted Garrison had pinned a combat action badge to his uniform during the HBO interview. “I knew he didn’t earn it because I was the only one who could have put him in for it,” he said.

The news coverage of Garrison and his war injuries dredged up the lie about Wilson’s death for other soldiers in the 10th Mountain Division.

But Garrison’s TBI and burn-pit exposure were also suspicious to Myers and another sergeant who supervised Garrison in Jalalabad, Keith Robinson.

Myers knew Garrison never had any contact with the enemy in the Korengal, or any traumatic combat experience.

“I’m not disputing his post-traumatic stress [but] he was never in nothing to where he should have feared for his life,” Myers said.

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COVER STORY

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He and Robinson also said Garrison was exaggerating his claims of being exposed daily to burn-pit fumes.

Troops at the remote Korengal outpost did have some exposure, but not daily, Myers said. In Jalalabad, soldiers in his unit were sent to drop off trash at the base burn pit about once a month, according to Robinson.

All the doubt rankled Wilkinson, who left the Army in August with a Purple Heart and Bronze Star with “V” device for valor. But the lie about Wilson’s death was above it all.

The original sin.

He said he wanted an apology from Garrison.

“It doesn’t have to be on TV or anything. Call his mom and apologize,” he told Stars and Stripes.

He and Myers called the Kansas City Fox News affiliate and warned the American Legion where Garrison worked.

It was their mission to keep going and not quit until Garrison set the record straight and offered an apology to Wilson’s family.

It might have gone differently, but Wilkinson did not get far after confronting his fellow soldier on Facebook in May. Garrison blocked him mid-conversation.

‘It felt real’ When confronted by Stars and Stripes, Garrison admitted the story about Wilson was a lie, a figment of his addled imagination while heavily medicated and under treatment at Walter Reed after his return from Afghanistan.

“To me, it felt real,” Garrison said in August.

“Those five to six months that I spent out there in the Korengal Valley were the most stressful of my life,” he said. “I should never have been sent out there. They sent me out there when they knew I had emotional issues.”

He cannot figure out why fellow 10th Mountain Division soldiers are attacking his accounts. He said Myers and Wilkinson want to paint him as a narcissistic manipulator who lied to Wilson’s mother and received unjustified support in Kansas City for his service.

“I had a conscience” about telling the story of Wilson’s death. “As a matter of fact, I have had to go through years of therapy to get over it,” he said.

Garrison guessed the other soldiers may be jealous of him receiving the house and the service dog. No matter, he said, he has dealt with enough politics to know everyone lies.

“This is the toughest year of my life but I know nobody is concerned about that,” he said, referring to the loss of his father in February.

But the lack of an apology to Ilka Halliday,

Courtesy of Paul Chapa

Brandon Garrison and his wife are surrounded by supportive mothers and sisters of fallen troops while receiving a donated service dog in February.

Wilson’s mother who befriended and supported Garrison after her son’s death, has been the most troubling for those who outed Garrison more than three months ago.

“I would be more than happy” to provide her an apology, Garrison said. But he said his legal advisers and coworkers advised him against contacting the family.

He declined to elaborate.

Garrison began his interview by saying he would not discuss any of his medical conditions, that he was advised against it. Still, he provided details and documentation to Stars and Stripes.

One document from the Department of Veterans Affairs showed he is rated as 70 percent disabled for anxiety disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder with depression, and he has a 10 percent disability rating for “residuals of traumatic brain injury.”

PTSD and a borderline personality disorder made him unfit for duty following “combat operations” in Afghanistan, according to an Army physical evaluation board convened in 2008.

Despite his claim of rupturing both eardrums, Garrison could not recall the incident that caused the injury — which he blames for his TBI — or

pinpoint exactly where or when it occurred. At first, he said he was uncertain whether it happened downrange, but then suggested it may have been caused by firing his service weapon in an enclosed space, or from a mortar launcher that was once set up near his tent.

“It’s all speculative. … I am convinced that it occurred in Afghanistan,” he said.

Garrison said his supervisors in Afghanistan are misremembering the burn-pit risk. He said he also deployed to Bagram Air Field for over two months, where he believes he experienced most of the exposure, though Robinson could not confirm that.

A document he provided Stars and Stripes showed he has received treatment for 53 ailments by the VA. Wearing the Army badge he had not earned on the HBO documentary was just a stupid move, Garrison said. He had assumed he would be approved for it, though he never was.

He said the questions over his service stem from his years-old lie about Wilson and have unjustly discredited him.

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COVER STORY FROM PAGE 4

In July, the local television news station confronted Garrison in the front yard of his donated home. He stormed off on camera — without the cane he had been leaning on in past news segments — and appeared to angrily shove open his front door.

Later, he called the crew back. He stood in his front yard wearing wraparound sunglasses and read a statement. There was no mention of Halliday or Wilson by name.

“I’d like to apologize first and foremost to the family members and servicemembers who were affected by the inaccuracies of my interview eight years ago,” he said. “I take full responsibility for that.”

Eight years in hell For the past eight years, Halliday believed Garrison’s story about her son’s death. She wants him to tell her he lied.

“I would like him to look me in the eyes the same way he looked me in the eyes when he told me my son died in his arms,” she said.

Sometimes there is anger. The sunglasses — he could not even take off his sunglasses for the television apology, she said. Or say Christopher’s name. Once a simple phone call would have been enough, though not now.

Halliday said she is trying to find reasons not to hate Garrison, and she cannot believe he lied to her out of malice. She remembers the “sweet boy” she knew during 2007, the worst year of her life. She remembers the Garrison whom she said named his baby son after Christopher.

“I realize he is sick,” she said. “I knew that he had mental issues due to what he had gone through. … I took him into my heart because I had no reason not to trust him.”

As a mother who lost a soldier son, it is hard to stop caring for others wounded in the war. “I don’t want his life to go straight down the toilet,” Halliday said. “I don’t want another life to be destroyed.”

But the ordeal has reopened a painful, barely closed wound for Wilson’s family.

“She said to me, ‘It’s been eight years that I’ve been in hell,’ ” said Katrina Evans, Wilson’s sister and Halliday’s stepdaughter.

Evans, who lives in Florida and is married to a disabled veteran, said she sent Garrison a message on Facebook calling him out. He blocked her, too.

“I think since he had the balls to go to a dead man’s mother and lie to her face he should apologize to her face,” she said.

Then there is the anger of a father who has lost a soldier son. Doug Wilson, a Vietnam veteran who lives in Texas, was ready to fly to Kansas City to confront the man who tarnished his son’s memory. He had found Garrison’s address, knew his associates. He was ready to go. But he was eventually talked down. Wilson still bristles when talking about Garrison and how he might be taking help away from other veterans in need.

“I think it is a sick thing,” he said of Garrison and the support he has received from the Kansas City community. “You are taking advantage of people who really need this care, so I think it is a disgusting thing to do.”

Wilson knew the truth about his son’s death from the beginning. Unlike Halliday, the exwife he separated from years before, Wilson had spoken with the other soldiers who were with his son when he died. He had no idea of Garrison’s lie until his fellow soldiers unearthed it in May. Despite the divorce from Halliday, he thought of her when Garrison’s lie came roaring back into their lives in May. “Immediately when it ignited, I knew it was going to hurt his mother,” he said.

Confusion, frustration The outing of Brandon Garrison has not swayed some in Kansas City from supporting him. Others are confused and frustrated.

Brian Scott, an Army vet and member of the Patriot Guard Riders, presented Garrison with his newly donated home in May 2014. He led a guard procession of motorcycles to home before turning the key.

He said group members are supporting Garrison, who has been remarkable in supporting veteran causes such as suicide awareness.

Garrison confided in Scott that he regrets the lie about Wilson’s death.

“He has admitted to me a lot of things he has done wrong … A lot of the things [Myers and Wilkinson] are saying are just their opinion,” Scott said. “His medical conditions are not from his own mind.”

Luana Schneider, co-founder of the nonprofit Tempered Steel, worked with Garrison, sending him out to events to speak on veteran issues.

“I thought he was trying everything possible to help those who need it. It just seemed like he was

trying to help,” she said.

Schneider and her son, a soldier who was disfigured in Iraq in 2006, created the group to raise awareness about the consequences of war injuries and heroism. They send combat vets to speak at schools, companies and community groups.

Garrison volunteered to speak at Fort Riley in Kansas about suicide prevention and to the VA in Topeka about the signs and symptoms of suicide, Schneider said.

“It seems like he does have some troubles and issues,” she said.

Schneider said she always had the impression Garrison was an infantry soldier but was unsure whether he told her that. She knows that war wounds can often be hidden or unseen.

The group split with Garrison several months ago after he came to Schneider and told her about the questions over his war accounts. She said he has since gone “off the grid.”

Schneider said she was not ready to judge Garrison and is struggling to understand the revelations.

Paul Chapa was not as hesitant. He runs the Kansas City nonprofit Food Industry Serving Heroes, which donated two service dogs to Garrison this year.

Chapa and Garrison were introduced by the mother of a servicemember who had been killed downrange. Garrison had befriended the woman, who was a member of American Gold Star Mothers, a survivors’ group. The mothers considered him a caring veteran with PTSD, a vet who could have been their son.

His group fast-tracked the service dog for Garrison at the end of his father’s terminal fight with cancer. It was a highly trained animal and a donation ultimately worth about $30,000, Chapa said.

“We moved heaven and earth trying to get this fellow not just any dog but the dog his father who served in law enforcement and the military always wanted him to have,” Chapa said.

Three weeks later and after his father’s funeral, Garrison called Chapa and said the Austrian Shepherd was scaring people. He wanted a different dog. The group ended up having to swap out the dog.

“We went above and beyond for this guy and to hear all these claims are untrue, that he exploited a soldier,” Chapa said. “How could he do that?” tritten.travis@stripes.com Twitter: @Travis_Tritten

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Navy set to start moving Marines to Guam in 2021

PACIFIC

BY WYATT OLSON Stars and Stripes

Courtesy of the U.S. Navy

Naval Air Crewman (Helicopter) 1st Class Chris Miller, of Helicopter Maritime Strike Squadron 51, uses his in-helmet microphone to communicate with the aircraft pilots and on-ground controllers during the Big Kanagawa Rescue exercise Aug. 30 in Kanagawa, Japan.

Military drills in Pacific focus on disaster relief BY AND

A ARON K IDD SETH ROBSON

Stars and Stripes

YOKOTA AIR BASE, Japan — U.S. servicemembers from Naval Air Facility Atsugi and Yokota Air Base took part in separate disaster-relief exercises last week, training to provide a strong response to such crises.

For the fourth year in a row, U.S. forces joined local and national Japanese agencies for the Big Kanagawa Rescue disaster exercise hosted Aug, 30 by Kanagawa Prefecture.

Pilots and aircrew from Atsugi’s Helicopter Maritime Strike Squadron 51 partnered with Commander, Fleet Activities Yokosuka to provide simulated medical treatment throughout the prefecture, according to a U.S. Navy statement. The drill involved overcoming difficulties — including downed power lines and gas and propane tank explosions — to prepare for

possible real-life scenarios.

“This is the first time I’ve been able to participate in a drill like this,” said Lt. Alex Stone, an HSM-51 pilot. “Having the opportunity to engage with our host nation and learn to operate alongside them has been an incredible asset, not only to me but to our whole squadron.”

On Sept. 1 at Yokota, airmen and Marines conducted humanitarian-aid training with an MV-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft. The exercise was aimed at getting the Marine Corps and Air Force used to working together when responding to natural disasters and other contingencies in the Indo-AsiaPacific region, 374th Airlift Wing spokeswoman Kaori Matsukasa said in an email.

“Since Yokota is the airlift hub of the western Pacific, and because of its proximity to one of the world’s most densely populated cities, it is vital we train here with all our valued partners, as Yokota provides a

strategic location for all parties to operate from during a natural disaster,” she said.

The training was supposed to involve numerous aircraft in disaster-readiness drills, but that part of the exercise was canceled because of rain.

In May, the Department of Defense announced that a special operations squadron of CV22 Ospreys would be stationed at Yokota from 2017.

Three Ospreys will arrive in the second half of 2017, with seven more slated to arrive by 2021, the DOD said.

The Ospreys, which have been stationed on Okinawa since 2012, had yet to arrive in Japan when a magnitude9.0 earthquake and tsunami struck Japan’s east coast in March 2011.

Yokota was used to support Operation Tomodachi, relief efforts by U.S. Forces Japan in response to the disaster.

kidd.aaron@stripes.com robson.seth@stripes.com

The Department of the Navy has cleared the last regulatory hurdle for building infrastructure on Guam needed to relocate about 5,000 Marines and roughly 1,300 dependents from Okinawa, Japan.

After completing a record of decision on an environment impact statement, the Navy is moving ahead with construction plans that could make way for the first Marines to move to the island in 2021, with the majority of them in place by 2023, said Cmdr. Daniel J. Schaan, director of the Joint Guam Program Office (Forward).

Many Okinawans have pushed for a reduction in U.S. Marines stationed on their island. However the original proposed relocation of about 8,600 Marines and 9,000 dependents from there to Guam met with opposition from some residents of the Micronesian island over population expansion and the infringement upon areas that hold ancient indigenous Chamorro graves and archeological sites. Some lawmakers in Congress balked at the cost of such a move.

In 2012, the U.S. and Japan agreed to move a smaller number of Marines to Guam, and the Navy altered parts of its plans for a base camp, family housing and a live-fire training complex.

The amended plans call for a longer, less-intense construction period and limit construction to property already under U.S. federal government control.

Congress has approved spending $8.725 billion for construction and relocation, although that figure can be adjusted for inflation, Schaan said.

The project has three primary components in different locations.

The first component is the cantonment to be built at the Naval Computer and Tele-

communications Station at Finegayan, which will be the Marines’ primary base. The first step there is designing and constructing underground utilities.

“Once those are to the point of completion, then they start the vertical construction,” Schaan said.

Family housing will be constructed on Andersen Air Force Base — a 10-year project that will also renovate existing Navy and Air Force housing to “leverage some efficiencies,” Schaan said.

The live-fire training range will be on the northern tip of the island, where the Guam National Wildlife Refuge is located. The project includes a significant upgrade of Route 3A, which is a deteriorated road that leads to the refuge.

It is a U.S. Department of Defense road that is leased to the government of Guam, Schaan said. The public will continue to have access to the road, he said.

Five ranges are planned, varying to accommodate weapon caliber and style. The ranges will be used for training of weapons up to .50 caliber.

“All the shooting is done from a stationary position, with a Marine standing or kneeling and shooting at a fixed target,” Schaan said.

Earthen berms will be built to backstop the firing ranges, which are configured so that shooting is in the direction of the bay.

A so-called “surface danger zone” surrounds each range.

“That’s basically a safety area,” Schaan said. “In the event a round escapes the range, there’s enough safety margin around the range that it won’t adversely affect anyone.”

Public access to the danger zones will be restricted only during live-fire training, he said. Artillery will not be used on the ranges. olson.wyatt@stripes.com Twitter: @WyattWOlson

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MILITARY

Safety review at DOD labs ordered

BY TARA COPP Stars and Stripes

WASHINGTON — The Army has ordered an “immediate safety review” of all Defense Department laboratories involved in handling biological agents after investigators found evidence of anthrax contamination at its Dugway Proving Ground in Utah “outside the primary containment area.”

Army Secretary John McHugh announced the review on Sept. 3 in an “abundance of caution,” according to a statement.

“The review follows the discovery of evidence of anthrax contamination

in secure areas located outside the primary containment area but still contained within the special enclosed lab for holding these materials” at Dugway, the statement said.

Investigators from both the Pentagon and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have been at the Dugway facility over the last few months to determine how that facility ended up shipping live samples of anthrax across the U.S. and to nine foreign countries.

The Pentagon statement said the review will involve all nine DOD labs and facilities “involved in the production, shipment, and handling of live

and inactivated select agents and toxins.” The labs must confirm within 10 days that they are now following appropriate protocols, it said.

In the meantime, all shipments of anthrax or other biological agents have been suspended “until the Army determines it is appropriate to resume operations,” the statement added.

The Pentagon confirmed last week that shipments of live anthrax were sent to 194 labs in all 50 states, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam and nine countries. No illnesses have been reported as a result of the shipments.

Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook

told reporters on Sept. 3 that he could not say whether the final report, due in October, would specify who within Dugway’s leadership was accountable for the shipments and what actions would be taken as a result. “It’s an active review right now,” he said.

The Army, which has the lead on the investigation, is “continuing to assess the situation at Dugway and these other facilities for safety and for exactly how these substances get handled going forward, and the question of accountability,” Cook said. copp.tara@stripes.com Twitter: @TaraCopp

5th Fleet change of command aboard the USS Roosevelt

BY CHRIS CHURCH Stars and Stripes

MANAMA, Bahrain — Vice Adm. Kevin M. Donegan assumed command on Sept. 3 of the U.S. 5th Fleet, relieving Vice Adm. John W. Miller, who has overseen the Navy’s contribution to the fight against the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria.

Donegan is familiar with the region because he previously served as the director of operations for U.S. Central Command, which oversees operations in the Middle East.

Fifth Fleet is formally known as U.S. Naval Forces Central Command.

Donegan said assuming command here was like a homecoming after serving three years in the Pentagon,

including as the acting deputy chief of naval operations for operations plans and strategy.

“I’m back in the operational fleet here getting to work side by side with our forward-deployed sailors and Marines,” Donegan said. “I can’t tell you how excited I am to be here.”

In July, Miller received the Navy Unit Commendation Medal on behalf of U.S. Naval Forces Central Command from the Chief of Naval Operations, Adm. Jonathan Greenert. Under Miller’s three-year watch, 5th Fleet supported airstrikes against the Islamic State group, as well as antipiracy operations and countermine measures.

“To all of you here tonight that have been a part of these efforts, you should be proud of what you’ve accomplished,”

‘ We’ve experienced tremendous

joy and, on occasion, unspeakable sadness. But never have we lost our focus on our mission.

’

Vice Adm. John W. Miller outgoing 5th Fleet commander

C HRIS C HURCH /Stars and Stripes

Vice Adm. Kevin M. Donegan, incoming 5th Fleet Commander, left, and Vice Adm. John W. Miller, outgoing 5th Fleet Commander, salute during the singing of the National Anthem during the U.S. 5th Fleet’s change of command ceremony aboard aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt on Sept. 3.

Miller said.

During the ceremony, Miller who is retiring, received the Distinguished Service Medal for his accomplishments while leading 5th Fleet. Last week, Miller received the Bahrain Medal of the First Class from the King of Bahrain, Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa, for his efforts in maintaining stability in the region.

The 5th Fleet’s area of responsibility covers some 2.5

million square miles, including the strategically important and conflict-prone Persian Gulf. Naval operations in the 5th Fleet aim to ensure the free movement of ships throughout the region, which includes the Strait of Hormuz, through which about one-fifth of the world’s oil supply flows.

The area also serves as the central hub for aircraft carriers conducting airstrikes against the Islamic State group as part of Operation

Inherent Resolve.

Miller reflected on some of his experiences in command of 5th Fleet. “Together, we’ve had victories and setbacks,” Miller said. “We’ve experienced tremendous joy and, on occasion, unspeakable sadness. But never have we lost our focus on our mission to promote maritime security or our quest for maritime stability.” church.chris@stripes.com Twitter: @CChurchStripes

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MILITARY Justin Constantine, a former Marine Corps Reserve officer wounded in Iraq, has developed a set of rules for talking to wounded veterans. Among them: Don’t show pity, and treat them like everyone else.

Photos courtesy of Justin Constantine

Rules of engagement Injured Marine offers tips on how to talk to wounded veterans

BY SETH ROBSON

J

Stars and Stripes

ustin Constantine, a former Marine Corps Reserve officer who came home with severe facial injuries after surviving a sniper’s bullet to the head in Habbaniyah, Iraq, in 2006, is used to the staring.

Those who speak to him are often uncomfortable, he said.

The disconnect between America’s civilian population and those who have served in the military means people are often uncertain about how to interact with veterans who bear the visible scars of war.

Nine years and multiple surgeries later, the former judge advocate gives motivational speeches and works with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to get jobs for wounded veterans and their caregivers.

But how do you talk to a wounded veteran?

Constantine, who will talk with servicemembers in the U.S. and Japan later this month, has drawn on his experiences to establish a set of parameters for talking to wounded veterans.

SEE WOUNDED ON PAGE 12

Constantine has endured numerous surgeries to reconstruct his head, mouth and face after being shot by a sniper in Habbaniyah, Iraq, in 2006.

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MILITARY

Wounded: Suggestions will promote respect for all involved FROM PAGE 11

The rules are designed to break down the issues in a way that’s respectful to everyone, he said.

He wrote down his rules for talking to wounded veterans after interacting with audience members during motivational speaking engagements.

“When I’m done talking, it is always well received, and people wait and talk to me afterwards,” he said. “Many point out that I’m the first wounded veteran they have talked to.”

Constantine’s rules are: “Don’t show pity. Treat us like everyone else. No wounded veteran wants to feel like they are pitied. We don’t feel pity for ourselves. We are still here, we have survived and we are looking forward.”

“Don’t bring up posttraumatic stress disorder. A lot of times it comes from a good place, but it is offensive.

People assume from Hollywood movies and the news that everybody who comes back from Afghanistan has PTSD. I know what my triggers are and how to deal with situations that exacerbate my PTSD. If you went to war and didn’t come back different, maybe there would be something wrong with that. If veterans want to talk about it with you, they will.”

“Don’t make huge promises. Just be our friend.

Wounded veterans get a lot of visits from politicians and community leaders who say stuff like, ‘Here’s my card.

Call me up and I will take care of anything you need.’ A lot of times when veterans take people up on those offers, they aren’t honored. We aren’t asking for them in the first place, so don’t bother making them.”

“Don’t assume we are helpless. Do let us help you.

We have had to work through the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Defense Department on retirement and compensation. We have juggled a lot of different balls.

We are dealing with a ton of stuff on our own that other people aren’t having to do.

That can be an asset.”

“Don’t ignore our caregivers. Involve them in conversation. They are the unsung heroes of war. There are now different caregiver groups, and there is an emphasis on them. For a long time, they weren’t really recognized.

All the attention was on the wounded vets, but without them, we wouldn’t be having successful recoveries.”

Before he deployed to Iraq, Constantine, a Virginia native, was a lawyer for Homeland Security. His duties in the Marine Corps Reserve involved teaching rules of engagement and the law of war to deploying troops. He volunteered to go to Iraq as the leader of a civil-affairs team attached to 3rd Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment, he said. At that time, there was heavy fighting in Habbaniyah, a town west of Baghdad in an area that’s still one of Iraq’s most violent.

Constantine’s job took him outside the wire on almost a daily basis. It was during a visit to some local business owners that a bullet from a sniper, who had already fatally shot several other Marines, found its mark. The bullet entered behind his left ear and exited his mouth. Miraculously, his brain was undamaged.

In the years since, Constantine has endured numerous operations to reconstruct his head, mouth and face, but he still lacks his top set of teeth and part of his tongue.

His injuries, however, don’t appear to have slowed him down. Since leaving the Marines, he’s linked up with the Chamber of Commerce to encourage businesses to hire wounded veterans and their caregivers, and he’s about to publish a book, “My Battlefield, Your Office: Leadership Lessons from the Front Lines.”

Constantine, who lives in New York, is set to speak Sept.

15 at Fort Carson, and Sept. 2830 at Marine Corps Air Station Futenma and camps Kinser, Foster, Hansen and Schwab on Okinawa, and Oct. 2 at Camp Fuji on mainland Japan. robson.seth@stripes.com

JOHN VANDIVER /Stars and Stripes

Polish Lt. Gen. Miroslaw Rozanski, foreground, and U.S. Army Europe’s Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges observe a live-fire drill at a military training ground in Szczecin, Poland, on Sept. 3.

Poland, US plan military war games next summer

BY JOHN VANDIVER Stars and Stripes

SZCZECIN, Poland — Polish and U.S. Army Europe forces are planning a large-scale war game next summer ahead of a NATO summit in Warsaw. It is expected to be among the largest military exercises in recent years, Army leaders said.

Dubbed Anakonda 16, the exercise will take place at locations across Poland and will include a command element based in the U.S. While planning is still in the early stages, the effort is expected to involve about 25,000 troops and include several allied countries.

“This is all about deterrence,” USAREUR’s Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges said during a recent stop in Poland. “Deterrence is based on capability and demonstrating the ability to use it.”

Standing beside the general commander of the Polish armed forces, Lt. Gen. Miroslaw Rozanski, Hodges added: “If that means deterring a war, that’s worth it.”

During a quick visit to a Polish military base in

‘ This is all about deterrence.

Deterrence is based on capability and demonstrating the ability to use it.

’

Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges U.S. Army Europe Szczecin, U.S. Army leaders were briefed on the latest developments in the Anakonda exercise, another in a recent series of large-scale maneuvers involving USAREUR. While some critics question whether the U.S. and NATO’s more robust training mission in eastern Europe is raising tensions with Russia, Hodges said the allies’ efforts are a fraction of the size of Russian “snap” exercises that are conducted without any public notice.

Plans for the exercise in Poland come as Polish leaders are more insistently demanding increased NATO support, including NATO forces stationed permanently in the country, as advocated by newly elected Polish President Andrzej Duda.

That’s controversial within NATO. Germany and some other countries view any such move as a violation of NATO agreements with Russia.

When asked whether he would favor seeing a permanent U.S. presence in Poland, Hodges stopped short of offering a personal view: “Maintaining the unity of the alliance is paramount over anything,” he said.

U.S. plans to soon preposition tanks and other heavy weapons in Poland should be taken as a sign of U.S. commitment, Hodges said. Major exercises and a steady rotational presence of U.S. forces also send a signal of solidarity.

“We don’t have to have five divisions in Europe to achieve that deterrent effect,” he said. vandiver.john@stripes.com

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Friday, September 11, 2015

MILITARY

Attitude toward women in combat shaped by culture

BY WYATT OLSON Stars and Stripes

U.S. military branches have four months to meet the Pentagon’s deadline for opening all front-line combat positions to women unless a service seeks exception before Oct. 1. Much of the debate around the coming change has focused on the physical standards women will be held to in those positions.

After two female soldiers made history by earning their Ranger Tabs last month, a top Ranger School official took to Facebook to dispel rumors that standards had been lowered for the women.

Arguments over physical standards distract from a more fundamental issue about women in combat, said author Megan MacKenzie in “Beyond the Band of Brothers: The U.S. Military and the Myth that Women Can’t Fight,” published in June.

“I think the debates around physical standards can stop us from having a discussion about military culture,” said MacKenzie, a senior lecturer at the University of Sydney’s Department of Government and International Relations.

MacKenzie, who spent five years researching women in the military in the U.S., Cana-

da, New Zealand and Australia, interviewing male and female servicemembers as well as policymakers, is slated as a keynote speaker in October at the Association of the United States Army’s annual national meeting in Washington.

“I think women are showing they can do the job. Physical capability is not the issue; it’s men’s acceptance of women that’s the issue,” she said.

“That’s a cultural problem, not a physical problem at all, and that’s going to be the last hangup in terms of integration.”

At the heart of that cultural attitude, she argues, is the band of brothers “myth.”

The term reached its modern zenith with historian Stephen Ambrose’s 1992 book “Band of Brothers,” recounting the experiences of soldiers in the 101st Airborne during World War II in Europe. It later became an HBO miniseries.

The band of brothers myth, MacKenzie contends, is that the nation’s security rests upon this exclusive masculine camaraderie. This all-male bonding is often cast as “mysterious” and “indescribable,” and thus all-male units “are seen as elite as a result of their social bonds and physical superiority,” MacKenzie says in the book.

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Courtesy of the U.S. Army

Army Capt. Kristen Griest, left, and 1st Lt. Shaye Haver pose for photos Aug. 21 as they become the first women to graduate from Ranger School. Despite their accomplishment, the debate over women in combat roles continues.

About men, not women The formal exclusion of women from combat has always been about men, not women, with an evolving set of rules, guidelines, and ideas primarily used to validate the all-male combat unit as “elite, essential, and exceptional,” she wrote.

Women are often seen as “potential spoilers,” she wrote.

During the post-Vietnam War years, the military and popular culture embraced the band of brothers narrative as military thinkers — and moviemakers — began assessing U.S. shortcomings in that conflict, she said.

“Military morale was at a

This publication is a compilation of stories from Stars and Stripes, the editorially independent newspaper authorized by the Department of Defense for members of the military community. The contents of Stars and Stripes are unofficial, and are not to be considered as the official views of, or endorsed by, the U.S. government, including the Defense Department or the military services. The U.S. Edition of Stars and Stripes is published jointly by Stars and Stripes and this newspaper.

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low point,” MacKenzie said.

“You started to hear that part of the failure in Vietnam was a result of cohesion.”

Troop cohesion, “largely defined as men’s ability to trust each other and form social bonds,” became synonymous with combat effectiveness after Vietnam, “which by definition excluded women from cohesion,” she wrote.

MacKenzie’s book is in part a response to writings by former military officers who argued that placing women in combat roles would be detrimental to the military and national security.

Robert L. Maginnis, a retired Army colonel and author of “Deadly Consequences: How Cowards are Pushing Women into Combat,” told Stars and Stripes that MacKenzie’s argument “attempts to wrap feminist theories and ideologies around military realities that she knows little about.”

“She does not appear to understand cohesion,” he said. “Survival and mission accomplishment for ground combatants, based on significant combat evidence, depends on physical strength, and male advantages in physiology are an important aspect here.”

Cohesion, Maginnis said, does not depend on the “exclusion” of women. “That’s a boilerplate feminist theory, which is an anti-male philosophy

believing that men are hopeless misogynists and there are no differences between men and women that matter,” he said.

MacKenzie objects to differences between the sexes being cited as evidence of women’s inferiority for combat positions.

“We keep going back to women and men are different but ignoring that warfare is also different and physical standards also potentially need to be adapted,” she said.

“Most militaries around the world are adapting the physical standards because war has changed so much. Just basing standards around measuring the fitness of an average 23-year-old male doesn’t tell us much about whether someone can be a combat soldier.”

Debate over physical standards also ignores that in recent years, many women have been in de facto combat positions, she said. Many received combat-action badges.

Two died during raids.

With the military in the throes of a sexual assault epidemic, full combat integration for women could change the culture for the better, she said.

“We can still honor the military culture, but to try to say that there’s no room for change and women can’t make any change to the military, I think, is unfortunate,” she said. olson.wyatt@stripes.com Twitter: @WyattWOlson

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