Stars and stripes 12915

Volume 7, No. 7 ŠSS 2015

FRIDAY, JANUARY 30, 2015

Afghan national sport kicks off another season Page 2

JOSH SMITH /Stars and Stripes

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

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Friday, January 30, 2015

COVER STORY

PHOTOS

BY

JOSH SMITH /Stars and Stripes

One rider, left, tries to keep a calf carcass from his competitors during a buzkashi match on the outskirts of Kabul, Afghanistan, on Jan. 15. Individual riders can win money and other accolades by wrestling the calf from dozens of other competitors, carrying the carcass around a flag, and dropping it in the “end zone.”

From left: Buzkashi riders wrestle over a calf carcass; crowds watch the match; and a player scores by dropping a calf carcass in a chalk circle.

New year brings new season of buzkashi

BY JOSH SMITH Stars and Stripes

KABUL, Afghanistan ith a swirl of dust, sweat and pounding hooves, the annual season of buzkashi, Afghanistan’s national sport, is in full swing.

The final months of winter traditionally serve as the informal season when riders mount horses to wrestle over a decapitated and disemboweled calf or

W

goat. Buzkashi is translated as “goat dragging” in the local Persian, but a calf carcass is usually used because it lasts longer during the pulling and tugging.

A game of horsemanship that traces its roots to the medieval nomadic tribes that roamed Central Asia’s steppes, buzkashi is still played in various forms across the region, but Afghans are perhaps the most famous players. The game was immortalized by Hollywood in the third installment of “Rambo,” when the action hero plays buzkashi with mujahedeen fighters before shooting down a Soviet helicopter

The game was banned under the Taliban, but has made a comeback since the regime’s fall in 2001.

Matches are notoriously haphazard affairs with widely varying or nonexistent rules, although more regulated versions have appeared in recent years.

Riders usually compete as individuals and try to fight off other players to carry the carcass around a flag and across a field to a chalk circle that serves as an “end zone.” smith.josh@stripes.com Twitter: @joshjonsmith

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VETERANS

VA revamp is unveiled without cost estimate

BY H EATH DRUZIN Stars and Stripes

The Department of Veterans Affairs announced a major restructuring effort Monday to streamline its often disjointed bureaucracy by standardizing service regions in the country and increasing coordination between them.

For years, the nine organizations within the department have divided the country into their own regions with little or no coordination. By June 30, VA aims to have the entire department under the same service boundaries through a program called MyVA, breaking the country into five regions.

Officials said in a conference call with reporters that the move is a cornerstone of

VA Secretary Bob McDonald’s push to overhaul the scandalridden organization. The VA does not have an estimate for how much the restructuring will cost, officials said, nor are there many details about what the changes will mean for veterans’ care.

“The overall transformation will take a while,” said Scott Blackburn, director of the MyVA Program Management Office.

“There will be a lot of analysis and we’ll know a lot more of the answers over the next couple of months.”

The department has been undergoing changes since a national health care scandal cost former Secretary Eric Shinseki his job, following revelations that patients languished for years on secret

lists created to make wait times appear artificially short.

Some veterans died while awaiting care.

In addition, the VA has been criticized for a backlog of hundreds of thousands of disability claims and a confusing bureaucracy that often frustrates veterans seeking care and compensation for serviceconnected injuries.

The hope is that MyVA will make it easier for veterans to interact with the department.

“Ultimately, this reform will improve the Veteran experience by enabling Veterans to more easily navigate VA and access their earned care and benefits,” McDonald said in a released statement.

One change, for example, allows call center agents to suspend or resume certain

benefits payments without making veterans go through additional steps.

Officials said MyVA is the largest restructuring in the department’s history, though details on exactly what it will entail or how the changes will be made were not announced Monday.

In terms of employees, Veterans Affairs is the secondlargest department in the federal government, after the

Department of Defense. Bob Snyder, the executive director of the MyVA Program Management Office, said despite consolidation in some parts of the department, he does not anticipate job cuts.

“There is more than enough work to do across the VA,” he said. “This not about cutting jobs.” druzin.heath@stripes.com Twitter: @Druzin_Stripes

VA chided for not endorsing bill that allows bonuses to be rescinded

BY H EATH DRUZIN Stars and Stripes

In a sign that some lawmakers may be losing patience with the man brought in to clean up the Department of Veterans Affairs, VA Secretary Bob McDonald came under unusually personal criticism Tuesday during a hearing on a bill that would give him sweeping powers to rescind bonuses and reduce pensions.

After VA officials told the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs that the department had not taken a position on the bill, Rep. Mike Coffman, R-Colo., gave a pointed response.

“We have a secretary of Veterans Affairs who can’t make a decision on something that’s so obvious,” he said.

“It’s just extraordinary, and what it says to me and what it says to the veterans of this country is nothing’s really changed.”

The VA did not immediately respond to a request for comment. McDonald, who replaced Eric Shinseki in July, has come under fire for not doing more to hold accountable officials connected to a health care scandal. He has said

JOE G ROMELSKI /Stars and Stripes

Rep. Jeff Miller, R-Fla., wants the Department of Veterans Affairs secretary to be able to take back performance pay from managers implicated in last year’s wait-time scandal and other wrongdoing. that he must work within the legal framework established to discipline employees.

VA counsel Kim McLeod said she is not aware of any current mechanism the department has to recoup bonuses from employees, except in the case of

administrative errors.

The bill, introduced this month by House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs Chairman Rep. Jeff Miller, R-Fla., is a response to what he sees as inaction in the face of the nationwide VA crisis.

Many senior executives tied to secret

lists that had veterans waiting months for care remain in their jobs or on paid administrative leave. Some received lucrative bonuses.

“It’s stunning to me that the VA does not have the ability to recoup a bonus if a crime is committed,” Miller said.

H.R. 280 would also limit the amount of time employees being investigated for malfeasance can spend on administrative leave, and the number of senior executives who receive bonuses in a single year.

VA officials said the department is still researching the bill. Veterans advocacy groups were generally supportive of it.

“When an executive receives a bonus after overseeing a system that failed veterans and caused suffering, it erodes the confidence of those veterans in the system meant to serve them,” according to submitted testimony from Zachary Hearn, the American Legion’s deputy director for claims, veterans affairs and rehabilitation.

The full bill can be found here: http://tinyurl.com/q967sec druzin.heath@stripes.com Twitter: @Druzin_Stripes

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MILITARY

A-10 backlash stirs free speech debate General’s ‘treason’ comment sparks concerns over servicemember rights

BY TRAVIS J. TRITTEN Stars and Stripes

WASHINGTON — Maj. Gen. James Post raised eyebrows this month when he warned fellow airmen in Nevada that talking to Congress about the embattled A-10 Thunderbolt could qualify as treason.

“If anyone accuses me of saying this, I will deny it … anyone who is passing information to Congress about A-10 capabilities is committing treason,” Post told an audience of officers at Nellis Air Force Base accordPost ing to the military blog John Q. Public, an opinion forum not aligned with organization.

The Air Force has brushed off the statement as hyperbole but confirmed Jan. 23 that the inspector general has opened an investigation.

The two-star general’s warning comes at a delicate time for the Warthog. The service is facing an internal backlash from airmen who want to keep the close-airsupport aircraft and another uphill budget battle with Congress over the retirement. The blog said it corroborated the quote through senior officials and several other sources who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Experts said the statement was meant to quash disagreement within the Air Force over phasing out the A-10 and push the plans by leadership.

Whether Post’s method was inappropriate or trampled

the rights of servicemembers depends on one’s point of view.

“Just to the lay person who has never been in the military, it would seem to have a chilling effect” on protected speech among troops, said Larry Youngner, who served as an Air Force judge advocate for 20 years and is now a managing partner in the Virginia law firm Tully Rinckey.

“Most of the A-10 pilots I’ve known in the past would take it as a challenge … They are so proud of the accomplishments of the A-10 they would take it as an opportunity. It would embolden them to contact Congress.”

Post is the vice commander of the Air Combat Command, which oversees A-10 air wings and close-air-support units.

Federal and military law give all servicemembers the right to communicate with congressional representatives through official and private channels, though they are not to use their service or rank to endorse partisan political causes or campaigns.

“I love that platform. That said, if I’m for it or against it, I have the unfettered right to contact Sen. Lindsey Graham in South Carolina and tell him about my support of that aircraft,” Youngner said.

He said most airmen understand their rights, and concern over Post’s comments is likely overblown.

“It would appear to me he was advocating a policy decision and the way he approached it, frankly, wasn’t the best way to approach it,” Youngner said. “He is a fighter pilot. He is blunt and direct and probably said it in a way that was consistent with his upbringing.

“In his defense, it was so outrageous that he couldn’t have been serious.”

SEE PAGE 6

Courtesy of the U.S. Air Force

An A-10 Warthog is shown in flight during a NATO Operation Allied Force combat mission.

Friday, January 30, 2015

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Friday, January 30, 2015

MILITARY

Pentagon denies any Bergdahl decision Stars and Stripes

The Army on Tuesday pushed back against reports that a decision had been made to prosecute Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl for desertion.

Retired Lt. Col. Tony Shaffer, who now works at the London Center for Policy Research, told Fox News’ “The O’Reilly Factor” on Monday that he learned of the military’s decision from two sources.

“The Army has come to its conclusion, and Bowe Bergdahl ... will be charged with desertion,” he said.

NBC News followed that Tuesday with a report that senior defense officials said Bergdahl would be charged with desertion, and that charges could be referred within a week.

The charges, NBC reported, will not allege that Bergdahl left his base with the intent never to return.

While a court-martial could lead to prison time, NBC News reported defense and military officials as saying it is likely Bergdahl would be given consideration for the five years he spent in captivity and be permitted to leave the Army with a “less than honorable”

discharge.

“The reporting from Fox News and NBC on Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl is patently false,” the Army said in a statement emailed late Tuesday.

“To be clear there have been no actions or decisions on the Sgt. Bergdahl investigation.”

The only American prisoner of war from the 13-year fight in Afghanistan was released from Taliban captivity in May, but the celebration was short-lived.

Some of Bergdahl’s former colleagues claimed that he deserted and

that soldiers were killed or injured trying to find him.

Army Gen. Mark Milley, the command authority in the Bergdahl case, has not publicly released his findings, NBC reported.

“The investigation is still with [Milley],” the Army statement continued, “who will determine appropriate action — which ranges from no further action to convening a court-martial.

We understand the public interest in this case and once a decision has been made, the Army will be open and transparent in this matter.”

FROM PAGE 4

The Air Combat Command put out a statement saying the reference to treason was “hyperbole” meant to underscore an important point.

“While subsequent government debate will continue at the highest levels … our job as airmen is to continue to execute our mission and duties,” the written statement said. “Certainly our role as individual military members is not to engage in public debate or advocacy for policy.”

But mention of treason should not be taken lightly, especially by a high-ranking military officer talking about servicemembers’ right to contact their representatives, said Eugene R. Fidell, who teaches military justice at Yale University and served as a judge advocate in the Coast Guard.

“Maybe it is being blown out of proportion, but there is a problem there,” Fidell said.

“You are playing with fire when you tell members of the services that they better not get in touch with members of the Congress.”

He said the military has a

‘ He is a fighter pilot. He is blunt and direct and probably said it in a way that was consistent with his upbringing. In his defense, it was so outrageous that he couldn’t have been serious.

’

Larry Youngner former Air Force judge advocate

‘ Maybe it is being blown out of proportion, but

there is a problem there. You are playing with fire when you tell members of the services that they better not get in touch with members of the Congress.

’

strict hierarchy that means lower-ranking members listen closely to what superiors say and do. Statements like the one made by Post have to be heeded.

“The danger is it can have a chilling effect beyond what is needed for an orderly workforce, and it can deprive Congress of valuable information,”

Eugene R. Fidell military justice teacher at Yale University

Fidell said.

Maj. Pete Hughes, an Air Force spokesman, said last week that the service’s independent watchdog is looking into the matter after urging by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.

“The Air Force Inspector General’s Office is conducting a thorough, timely, investigation into the allegations against

Major General Post and is actively engaged in determining the facts of the matter in the most expeditious manner possible,” he wrote in an email to Stars and Stripes.

Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H., said she was “disturbed” by the treason comment and said U.S. law protects the right of servicemembers to speak to

lawmakers.

“How could members of the armed forces exercising their lawful right to communicate with Congress be providing aid and comfort to our enemies?” she said in a statement. “If the facts are on the Air Force’s side regarding its efforts to prematurely divest the A-10, what does the Air Force fear?”

The Air Force proposed the retirement of the A-10, known for its belching nose cannon, last year. Powerful lawmakers such as McCain and retired Rep. Buck McKeon, R-Calif., came out against the move but eventually suffered a minor loss in December when Congress gave the service some leeway to decrease maintenance and flying hours.

The debate is set to come roaring back as the 2016 defense budget begins to be hammered out.

The Air Force, along with the rest of the Defense Department, is hashing out its budget strategy now. Hearings on Capitol Hill are expected to begin next month. tritten.travis@stripes.com Twitter: @Travis_Tritten

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PAGE 11

PACIFIC

JPAC saw increase in identifications in 2014

Better technology, lab space help program more than double number of MIA results

BY WYATT OLSON Stars and Stripes

JOINT BASE PEARL HARBOR-HICKAM, Hawaii — The beleaguered command tasked with finding the remains of lost U.S. troops said it has more than doubled the number of identifications of MIA remains in 2014 over the year before.

The 107 identifications for 2014 by the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command came primarily from remains linked to the Korean War (42), World War II (36) and the site of a 1952 crash of an Air Force cargo plane into Mount Gannett in Alaska (17).

The number of identifications from the Vietnam War, at 12, was about half the average of 21 IDs made annually over the previous nine years.

John Byrd, JPAC’s laboratory director, credits the increase to a mix of new procedures, increased lab space and developments in technology.

‘Success for us’ “It’s success for us, big success for us,” Byrd said during an interview at his office at JPAC headquarters at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam.

“A lot of the programs that we’ve put together through the years are reaching maturity and bearing fruit now.”

The words “success” and “JPAC” have not been associated often in the past couple of years.

A Defense Department Inspector General’s report in October concluded that the MIA accounting effort lacked clarity of mission, a strategic plan, a disinterment policy, a centralized database of MIAs and coordination with combatant commands and host nations.

More than 40 current and former employees complained of mismanagement, which taken as a whole “paint a picture of long-term leadership and management problems,” the report said.

Last year the defense secretary ordered an overhaul of the agency, which is now underway.

Just how the restructuring and new personnel will mitigate shortcomings and increase the effectiveness in accounting for MIAs remains to be seen.

An opportunity JPAC spokesman Lee Tucker described the agency makeover as “a phenomenal opportunity” for “taking an already talented and great organization and doing nothing but improving it.”

Asked how that assessment jibes with shortcomings cited by the IG report, Tucker said: “I think that we’re being very responsive right now in addressing all those concerns head-on in forming an entirely new DOD agency.

“We’re not just putting Band-Aids on here and there.”

The increase in identifications for 2014 is the first sign of improvements to come, he said.

The 107 remains identified won’t be officially “accounted” for until their nearest kin are contacted and they agree with JPAC’s findings, Byrd said.

“We have an eclectic, diverse tool kit that takes advantage of the kinds of records that the military built up and maintained over the years,” Byrd said.

One of JPAC’s most productive programs now is identifying a set of Korean War remains called K208.

The remains were turned over to the U.S. in 208 boxes toward the end of that conflict and are estimated to hold the commingled remains of about 350 individuals, based on subsequent testing, Byrd said.

Using the standard operating procedures of the time, U.S. mortuary personnel dipped the remains in a chemical bath to sanitize them before examination, he said.

Among the chemicals was formaldehyde, which years later was discovered to have degraded DNA in the tissue and bones, which makes sampling difficult.

“We were stuck for a long time,” Byrd said.

‘Wheels turning’ But “a lot of wheels turning between 2008 and 2012” helped produce last year’s identifications, he said.

“In 2006 we were identifying one or two soldiers a year from the K208, and it had been that way since the early 1990,” Byrd said. In 2008, a separate lab was set up for the K208 remains.

“That gave us the ability to take all of the remains out at one time and look at them as a large group,” Byrd said.

“The problem with that group is that they’re commingled in a very massive way.”

The lab developed a DNA protocol for “untangling” the commingled remains.

“That protocol is one of the big breakthroughs that has helped speed things up,” Byrd said. “We’ve identified over 40 Korean war cases this year.”

Thirty of those were K208 remains, with an additional 10 from remains disinterred from the graves of unknown soldiers buried at National Memorial Cemetery of the Pa-

cific in Honolulu, also called the Punchbowl.

Chest X-rays Another development over the past five years aided in identifying Korean War remains and, to a lesser degree, those from World War II: chest X-rays.

Sometime around 2005, JPAC learned that the services had taken and stored chest X-rays of inductees during the 1940s and ’50s to screen for tuberculosis.

Numerous times, JPAC queried the National Archives and Records Administration, which holds the bulk of military records in warehouses in St. Louis, but were always told their whereabouts were unknown, Byrd said.

Then, around 2008, the National Archives contacted JPAC “out of the blue” and said they were on the verge of recycling the entire stash of Army and Air Force X-rays for the minute amount of silver on each film.

JPAC retrieved about 7,500 X-rays belonging to soldiers or airmen missing from the Korean War and about 1,200 from the World War II era for those services.

Although the X-rays were of the lungs, the neck vertebrae and collarbones are also captured in each shot. Bones and teeth have patterns and shapes that are unique to a person, much as fingerprints are, Byrd said.

Technicians superimpose

the induction X-ray over an image of found bones, which at times “match up perfectly,” he said.

“Most forensic experts consider that kind of radiographic comparison to be positive identification, meaning that you can find uniqueness such that if you find a match, it shouldn’t be anybody else — if it matches up on multiple points.”

X-rays of inductees More recently, JPAC found and took possession of similar X-rays taken of inductees for the Navy and Marines. Each shot, however, was loaded onto reels that contain hundreds of X-rays, and over the past year, JPAC has been unraveling the chaotic filing system.

But in that time, they’ve found X-rays for 80 percent to 90 percent of the Marines missing from the Korean War. “For World War II we have a long way to go, but so far they culled out about 1,400 X-rays of missing sailors and Marines,” Byrd said.

Global climate change and melting glaciers played a role in retrieving and identifying 17 airmen from the cargo plane crash 62 years ago.

In 2012, the crew of an Alaska Army National Guard Black Hawk unit on a training flight saw a tire, life rafts and oxygen bottles on a glacier, according to a report by ABC News. olson.wyatt@stripes.com

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Friday, January 30, 2015

MILITARY

Hagel warns of limits on military might

BY JON H ARPER Stars and Stripes

WASHINGTON — As he prepares to hand over the reins of the Pentagon, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel is warning that military power has its limits and Americans should avoid believing that force alone can transform conflict-riven societies in the Middle East and elsewhere.

“It is easy to drift into other missions, and I do believe that you always have to ask the tough questions.

What happens next? Where do you want this to end up,” Hagel said in an interview with Stars and Stripes and Military Times. “Any secretary of defense has to always be on guard that we don’t inadvertently sometimes drift into a more accelerated use than we thought of what our military was going to be [doing] … I think the two long wars that we were in the last 13 years is pretty clear evidence of … how things can get out of control, and drift and wander.”

Hagel’s warning came as the U.S. military has returned to Iraq to help the Iraqi government defeat the Islamic State, which has seized about a third of Iraq and Syria. The U.S. Central Command is conducting an air campaign against the militants, and about 1,550 U.S. troops have been sent to Iraq to train and advise government and Kurdish peshmerga forces. An additional 800 troops are providing force protection.

President Barack Obama has ruled out using U.S. combat troops to fight the insurgents and has placed a cap of 3,100 personnel on the number of U.S. military forces deployed to Iraq.

But some members of Congress have urged the U.S. to play a more robust military role.

Meanwhile, about 10,600 U.S. troops remain in Afghanistan to advise and assist Afghan forces after the American combat role ended last month.

Hagel’s caution about mission creep stems from his experience as a combat infantryman in Vietnam, where a U.S. advisory role morphed into a long and divisive war involving at its height more than a half-million American servicemembers.

“We’re products of our experiences, and we all come at our jobs … being shaped by those experiences,” Hagel said. “The violence, the horrors, the suffering that I saw [in Vietnam] conditioned me ... I saw the suffering of our own troops; I saw the suffering of the Vietnamese people; I saw terrible things, which war always produces.”

Hagel said his experience in Vietnam, where both he and his brother Tom were wounded, convinced him that “you cannot impose your will, you can’t impose your values, you can’t impose your standards, your institutions on other societies and other countries. It has never worked; it never will work, as noble as you believe [the effort] is.”

Based on experience As a combat veteran and former VA official, Hagel is sensitive to the effects of open-ended military commitments on the force, including active-duty members, their families and veterans.

Since assuming the post in early 2013, Hagel has initiated institutional reforms and a number of reviews to try to get at some of the problems affecting the military community. He said he probably devoted as much time to those issues as anything else.

But he remains worried about the health of the all-volunteer force after 13 years of counterinsurgency fighting, and thinks more work needs to be done.

Physical and men-

tal health, suicide, morale and sexual assault within the ranks are some of the major people issues that Hagel has tried to tackle during his tenure.

At the same time, budget cuts, troop reductions and concern over pay and benefits have left the rankand-file uncertain about their future.

“Anytime there is uncertainty in an institution or a family … you will have people off balance,” Hagel said. “They will be concerned, and of course they are [right now] … I think there is a good deal of uncertainty out there.”

Proud of efforts Hagel said it was impossible to solve all of the problems on his plate during his fairly short tenure, but he’s proud of his efforts to get the ball rolling in the right direction.

“You’re not going to fix some of this in a year or two years, but … you can start to turn it around,” he said. “I hope that we can continue to do these things because health of the force is essential to everything we do,” he said.

“If you really have major breakdowns, you will not be able to continue to recruit and retain quality people. And without quality people, you don’t have much.”

In the past, Hagel has discussed problems that plagued the force in the Vietnam era, including poor disci-

pline and tensions within the ranks.

“I’m a little more oriented to these kinds of human dynamics and health of the force issues than maybe some would be because I saw it, I lived it, I understand it,” he said.

Hagel also waded into two controversial gender issues.

When the former infantryman was asked if he had any concerns about women being integrated into ground combat units — a concept the services are experimenting with — he said: “Anyone who is qualified and capable and wants to do a job in the military should have the opportunity to do that. [But] we’re not going to lower standards … No one wants that. If you’re quality, you’re capable, you want to do it, you should have an opportunity.”

Hagel was also asked whether transgender people should be allowed to serve in the military. They are currently barred from doing so, but there are calls from the LGBT community and elsewhere to change the rules.

He declined to say whether he thought the exclusion should be lifted, but noted that the military has dealt with controversial policy changes in the past, including racial integration, the repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell,” and gay marriage.

“This institution has been on the cutting edge of social change in this country since World War II,” Hagel said.

He believes the military needs to respect the desires of individuals to serve, but not make any changes that would jeopardize mission preparedness.

“I have confidence in the process and the system [and believe] that the transgender issue will be dealt with in a fair way,” he said.

Hagel is expected to be replaced next month after his nominated successor, Ashton Carter, is confirmed by the Senate.

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‘Johnnie Come Lately’ a story of love, family

MILITARY

Retired generals are urging W senators to lift spending cap

BY TRAVIS J. TRITTEN Stars and Stripes

WASHINGTON — Top retired military commanders on Tuesday warned the Senate that it should lift a mandatory cap on defense spending this year or put at risk military readiness as the world enters a new era of widespread conflict.

Retired Marine Gen. James Mattis, a former commander of U.S. Central Command, and former Army Chief of Staff Gen. John Keane testified against the budget caps and outlined the increasing dangers before the Senate Armed Services Committee at the behest of new chairman Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who is pressing for more defense dollars and deeper military intervention abroad.

The hearing comes as the White House and Defense Department prepared to release proposed annual budgets Monday that will include a spending cap imposed by sequestration — and a political fight over cuts to troop benefits. Many lawmakers in the Senate and House say the modest $1.7 billion increase to the cap of the $523 billion 2016 defense budget should be removed to allow bigger increases.

“No nation in history has maintained its military power but failed to keep its fiscal house in order,” Mattis said.

Friday, January 30, 2015

But Congress’ agreement to cap defense dollars was meant to force wise choices on reducing spending and “it has failed in that regard,” he said.

Spending caps are set to kick in across the federal government next fall as a way to decrease the nation’s debt and will remain in place into the next decade, keeping defense spending to increases of about 2 percent.

With the fiscal 2016 budget proposals next week, Congress, the Obama administration and the DOD are set to begin another grappling match over whether military personnel expenditures such as pay, retirement and benefits should be slashed. The Pentagon has argued those costs are ballooning and will crowd out other needs.

Mattis said the DOD cap should be repealed because it is sapping troop morale and causing uncertainty within the military.

Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., said Congress and the military should first develop a foreign policy strategy and then come up with the money to cover it, but the spending limit is upending that process. “We’ve been allowing budgetary indecision to drive strategy, and that is the worst thing to do,” Kaine said.

The testimony also included comments from former CENTCOM commander Adm. William “Fox” Fallon, who

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said bickering over budget issues could raise doubts among American allies abroad.

Meanwhile, the cap comes as the United States is facing an array of global threats — Islamic radicalism, a resurgent Russia, a nuclearambitious Iran, a rising China — that has not been seen since the rise of the USSR during the Cold War, Keane said.

He told the Senate defense oversight panel that the country should generally take a more active military role around the world, including sending some ground troops to direct airstrikes against Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria.

The removal of combat troops and planned drawdown of advisory forces in Afghanistan could be premature and thus create instability in the future, Keane said.

“How can we not learn the obvious and painful lesson from Iraq,” he asked, and avoid pulling military forces according to a political time line?

President Barack Obama and his administration have “adopted a cheap fatalism” in claiming the various conflicts around the world have no military solution, McCain said in a statement submitted for the record. The senator was in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday and could not chair the hearing. tritten.travis@stripes.com Twitter: @Travis_Tritten

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.

The appearance of advertising in this publication, including inserts or supplements, does not constitute endorsement by the DOD or Stars and Stripes of the products or services advertised.

Products or services advertised in this publication shall be made available for purchase, use, or patronage without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, marital status, physical handicap, political affiliation, or any other nonmerit factor of the purchaser, user, or patron.

© Stars and Stripes, 2015

themselves. Revealed one by hen Kathleen one throughout the story, these Rodgers wrote secrets draw the reader in, giv“Johnnie Come ing hints about the characters’ Lately,” pieces of actions and interactions. her military background found Along with the subterfuge their way into the story. In fact, and conflict in the Kitchen a lot of her life found its way family, the author provides a into the story of Johnnie Kitchpoint of comfort in the form of en and her family in the book, Brother Dog, the family’s large which hits bookstore shelves and loyal Labrador retriever.

Sunday. The action takes place He’s a constant for all the charin Texas, for instance; Rodgers acters, particularly Johnnie, a and her husband, now retired repository of the trust and love from the Air Force, also live in the family has for each other, Texas. even when they don’t feel it. He However, the book is not provides an overarching sense a purely military story. It’s a of stability of story about a family with military elements woven throughSPOUSE CALLS the family in the midst of out. The protagonist, Johnnie, turmoil, as is not a military wife, but well as hope her husband, Dale, is from a for healing military family. The book is set the family’s in 2007 during both the Afghan pain. and Iraq wars. A family friend Elements is injured in combat. Johnnie of Rodgers’s and Dale are at odds when own sons their 18-year-old son wants to made it into join the Army. Johnnie’s shadthe book as owy memories of the young T erri Barnes well, with soldier who was her father are their blessa recurring ing, she said. element of the Join the conversation with Terri at stripes.com/go/spousecalls One of Johnnarrative. nie’s sons is Johnnie’s an artist, and backstory the other wants to be a soldier. is provided through flashRodgers has one son who is an backs and in poignant, mostly artist and another in the Army, unsent letters Johnnie writes who recently returned from to various characters, includdeployment in Afghanistan. ing both of her absent parents, “Johnnie” is Rodgers’s secpast lovers, advice columnist ond novel. Her first, “The Final Dear Abby and singer Karen Salute,” about an Air Force Carpenter. pilot, was released in paperThe late recording artist back last fall. has relevance to Johnnie, who That book was recognized overcame an eating disorder with a silver medal for fiction much earlier in her life, a charby the Military Writers Society acteristic she also shares with her creator. Perhaps because of of America after its hardcover release in 2009. her own experiences, Rodgers Rodgers said she began said she wanted to write about thinking of herself as a writer a woman who had overcome in her mid-teens and joined the her past, but was still haunted staff of her high school newsby it. Writing about healing paper to avoid taking home and for the purpose of healing economics. is important to Rodgers.

“One day I was carrying “In ‘Johnnie,’ I wanted to around a raw egg pretending write about someone who has it was a baby, and I decided I struggled with something, like hated that home ec class, bean addiction, and come out on cause I was never going to get the other side,” Rodgers said. married and have kids,” she “I wanted to write about a really deep issue, but this isn’t said, laughing at the certainty a novel just about bulimia. It’s of her younger self. about being a mother.”

“My dream was to be a It’s also a book about being writer,” Rodgers said. “I didn’t a daughter, a granddaughknow in the old days what ter and a wife. It’s about an exactly that was. We’re never extended family with plenty quite where we want to be as of secrets, which they keep to writers, but when we look back, protect each other as well as we’ve come a long way.”

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