Here is an update on the story of a US Army nurse set on fire by a civilian co-worker at the hospital at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Her supervisors ignored her pleas for months before the attack to do something about the guy. Now she is launching a lawsuit against the Army:
Before and after photos of 1st Lt. Katie Blanchard, who was set on fire by a civilian Army employee in 2016. (Facebook)
One year ago, an Army civilian who tossed a water bottle full of gasoline onto his supervisor and lit a match was sentenced by a judge to 20 years in prison for attempted murder.
The Feres doctrine prevents service members and their families from suing the Defense Department in the event of injury or death, but for 1st Lt. Katie Blanchard, that is beside the point. In September, she filed a personal injury claim against the Army Combined Arms Center at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, where she was working at Munson Army Health Center at the time of the September 2016 assault.
“Is it okay for us to have gross negligence and zero accountability in the military? Because if you look at my case, that’s what it is,” Blanchard told Army Times in a Wednesday phone interview. “Zero accountability for the way they treated me and the things that they missed that will forever affect my life.”
Blanchard, 28, is asking for just under $3.5 million to cover some of the costs of the permanent disabilities she faces, after more than 100 surgeries to date and an intense battle with post-traumatic stress. [Army Times]
I recommend reading the whole thing at the link because she was obviously failed by her leadership at Ft. Leavenworth. With that said the other failure I see in this case is the difficulty with trying to fire government civilian workers. I wonder how much that played into the attitude her superiors had with dealing with her co-worker?
With that all said it is going to be interesting to see how this lawsuit plays out because if the Army can be sued for negligence this will open a Pandora’s Box of lawsuits against the Army.
I really don’t have a firm opinion yet on the new Army Combat Fitness Test, but I doubt being able to do deadlifts would have done anything to help Task Force Smith during the Korean War:
General Mark Milley
While the Army’s new gender- and age-neutral combat fitness test is hard, soldiers should have time to train for it before it becomes mandatory on Oct. 1, 2020, Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Milley said Monday.
“If you can’t get in shape in 24 months, then maybe you should hit the road,” Milley said at the Association of the United States Army’s annual conference in Washington, D.C. “Maybe you should consider an alternative to this.”
During the 50-minute test, soldiers must complete a strength deadlift; throw a medicine ball over their head; do a set of pushups, during which they lift their hands off the ground after each pushup; complete a 250-meter “sprint, drag, carry” event; and finally run 2 miles. The Army is refining the standards for each event, which are based on whether a soldier’s military occupational specialty involves a “moderate,” “significant,” or “heavy” amount of physical exertion.
Task & Purpose asked Milley on Monday if the Army could end up losing older soldiers, who are unable to perform as well as younger ones on the combat fitness test.
“We don’t want to lose thousands of soldiers,” Milley said. “This fitness test is hard and no one should be under any illusions about it. But where we really don’t want to lose soldiers is on the battlefield. We don’t want young men and women killed in action because they weren’t fit.”
Many of the first soldiers sent to the Korean peninsula in 1950 were not physically prepared to fight a war in the hilly terrain, leading “countless numbers” of them to be killed as a result, Milley said. [Task and Purpose]
You can read more at the link, but there was many factors that led to what happened in the early months of the Korean War and not being able to do leg tucks was not one of them. For example being a able to throw a medicine ball at T-34 tanks would not have done much good when their bazookas and 105mm artillery could not even stop them.
Anyway here is my favorite part from the interview with General Milley:
“And there’s nothing like it. Ground combat is unbelievable. Go look at those kids, who are walking up and down the hills of Afghanistan. My dad at the beaches of Iwo Jima went 19 consecutive days without eating in some of the most brutal combat in military history. Combat is not for the faint of heart. It’s not for the weak-kneed.”
While the combat fitness test represents “a bit of a culture shock” for the Army that is sure to draw plenty of complaints, Milley said he expects the vast majority of soldiers to rise to the challenge.
“We’ve got to get this Army hard,” Milley said. “We’ve got to get it hard fast.”
Is that going to be the new Army recruiting slogan, ” Get Army Hard”? 😉
It will be interesting to get feedback in a few months if the weekend safety brief has actually been ended:
A captain gives a briefing on pet safety to the Army boxing team from Wiesbaden, Clay Kaserne, in 2013.
Don’t shoot anyone on post, don’t sleep with your squad mate’s spouse, don’t snort unknown substances and don’t live in your car while collecting rent money from the Army.
The warnings given to soldiers at weekend and holiday safety briefings in recent decades are the stuff of Army lore. As those mandatory briefings become optional or end entirely – the Army has eliminated several administrative requirements recently in a streamlining measure – a few soldiers shared their memories of unusual briefings with Stars and Stripes.
Situational briefings remain at a commander’s discretion and soldiers said they can be useful when there’s a critical issue at hand or when a topic is discussed with depth and insight. [Stars & Stripes]
Yet another example of when life imitates the Duffel Blog:
‘Horny bastard’ first sergeant had affair with female infantry private, Army says
Members of the first gender integrated infantry one-station unit training at Fort Benning, Ga., report in February 2017. An investigation found one of the women had an inappropriate relationship with her company first sergeant after joining the 82nd Airborne Division. (Patrick Albright/Army)
Critics said it was bound to happen, and, sure enough, it did.
Sgt. 1st Class Chase Usher, who had been serving as the top noncommissioned officer of B Company, 2nd Battalion, 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, has been removed from his position leading soldiers and is serving in a staff role, an 82nd Airborne spokesman told Army Times on Tuesday.
“Disciplinary action deemed appropriate by the chain of command was taken against both individuals and has been completed,” Lt. Col. Ramon Osorio, the division spokesman, said. “Both continue to serve within the division, however, the first sergeant was relieved of his position and currently serves on the staff of a different unit.” [Army Times]
Not even the Duffel Blog could have topped this quote:
A female platoon sergeant said Usher told a group of her colleagues that he was going to be Thor for Halloween, but wouldn’t need to carry a hammer ― because he already had a comparable tool in his pants, according to the investigation.
You can read much more of this stupidity at the link.
I can’t help but think that there is more to this story:
Spc. Yea Ji Sea, has served four years in the U.S. Army. She filed a lawsuit Thursday, July 19, 2018, asking for a response to her American citizenship application after the military moved to discharge her.
A U.S. Army specialist born in South Korea has sued asking for a response to her American citizenship application after the military moved to discharge her.
Yea Ji Sea, a 29-year-old from Gardena, California, who has served four years and is assigned to the duty station at Fort Sam Houston, Texas, filed a lawsuit Thursday in federal court.
She came to the country as a child on a visitor visa and held other visas before enlisting in 2013 under a special government program for foreign citizens who want to serve in the U.S. military. Under the program, recruits agreed in their enlistment contracts to apply to naturalize as soon as their honorable service was certified. [Associated Press]
You can read more at the link, but the article states she had a forged document from a defunct language school that caused her first application to be revoked causing her to reapply in 2016. It is hard and time consuming to get citizenship without the drama of forged documents.
The Army’s new physical fitness test is on its way with units beginning to field the equipment to take the test this year and final implementation in 2020:
There are six events in the ACFT:
Strength Deadlift. This is a three-repetition maximum deadlift to test muscular strength; it mimics movement to safety and effectively lifting and carrying heavy loads.
Standing Power Throw. This event involves throwing a 10-pound medicine ball as far as possible over the head and to the rear. It measures upper and lower muscular power, balance and whole body flexibility.
Hand-Raised Push-ups. This event forces the soldier to go all the way to the floor and raise his hands before coming back up again, measuring upper-body muscular endurance.
A 250-Meter Sprint, Drag and Carry. This is five different events within one event — a 50-meter sprint; a backward 50-meter drag of a 90-pound sled; a 50-meter movement; a 50-meter carry of two 40-pound kettle bells; and a final 50-meter sprint. It measures muscular strength, power, speed and reaction time.
Leg Tuck. A soldier hangs perpendicular to the pull-up bar and brings his knees up to his elbows and back down again for one repetition. It measures muscular strength, endurance and grip.
Two-Mile Run. The ACFT retains the two-mile run portion of the APFT, which is designed to measure aerobic and muscular endurance.
All events must be completed in 50 minutes or less, so there is mandated rest and a maximum time for each event, Frost said. Each soldier gets two minutes’ rest between each of the first five events and five minutes of rest before the two-mile run. [Military.com]
You can read much more at the link, but if soldiers must complete the test in 50 minutes or less I will be interested to see how a company level unit will be able to execute this with six events. It seems units would have to make this a multi-day event to get everyone complete.
I am also interested to see what the minimum scores will be considering this is a gender and age neutral test.
SOFREP reported on Spenser Rapone at the time in an article titled, “The Calls are Coming From Inside the House: America’s Communist Insider Threat.” At the time, SOFREP spoke to a former Delta Force Sergeant Major who expressed concern because West Point is the feeder mechanism to put officers into the Ranger Regiment and Special Forces, which in turn acts as a feeder for JSOC units like Delta. By Rapone’s own admission, he followed a communist philosophy advocated by Rudi Dutschke.
Dutschke advocated a strategy he called the, “long march through the institutions of power.” This entails burrowing inside the institutions of society, including the military, and subverting them from within and ultimately setting the conditions for a communist revolution. As we’ve seen in the recent past, ideological actors working inside the system such as Edward Snowden can do a tremendous amount of damage to national security. The idea of an avowed communist subverting important military units and functions from within has the potential to be catastrophic. (……..)
Recently, Spenser Rapone re-tweeted a post on Twitter which announced that he would be speaking at a socialist event in July as he was being processed out of the Army this June with an other than honorable discharge. This was likely the harshest punishment the Army could give Rapone unless they decided to charge him with something like sedition. With an other than honorable discharge, Rapone will not be entitled to VA benefits, the GI Bill, and may have difficulties in finding employment. [SOFREP]
You can read much more at the link, but I just find it amazing this guy was allowed into West Point in the first place and then despite faculty complaints against him was allowed to graduate.
It seems there could have been easier ways to get a relief for cause Officer Evaluation Report (OER) than doing something like this:
A resident captured this image of the stolen armored personnel carrier in Dinwiddie, Virginia.
A Virginia National Guard soldier faces charges of driving under the influence of drugs and eluding police after authorities say he drove an armored military vehicle in a two-hour police chase.
Police on Tuesday night pursued the M577 armored personnel carrier along Route 460 and Interstate 95 before the chase ended with the driver’s arrest in downtown Richmond.
In Richmond, bystanders captured the slow pursuit on video. Onlookers gawked as the boxy armored vehicle moved down a commercial street and traffic stopped for a line of police cars that followed behind, sirens blaring. Overhead, a police helicopter tracked the chase’s progress.
The vehicle was taken from Fort Pickett, a National Guard base in Blackstone shortly before 8 p.m. The vehicle can only drive a maximum speed of about 40 mph and wasn’t equipped with any weaponry.
Joshua Philip Yabut, 29, of Richmond, was arrested for allegedly driving under the influence of drugs, and state police charged him with one felony count of eluding police and one felony count of unauthorized use of a vehicle, the Virginia National Guard said. [CNN]
Assuming all these charges are true, I tend to think people like this have been doing shady stuff their whole career, but just now finally got caught:
Lt. Col. Christopher DeMure (left) takes command of JBER’s 3rd Battalion, 509th Infantry Regiment on Aug. 30, 2016. (Credit: From 4/25 Facebook page)
The head of an Army unit stationed at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson is charged with filing nearly half a million dollars in fraudulent insurance claims spanning more than three years.
Lt. Col. Christopher DeMure, 40, faces charges of mail and wire fraud as well as money laundering in the case, according to U.S. Attorney for Alaska, Bryan Schroder’s office. DeMure – commander of the 3rd Battalion, 509th Infantry Regiment within the 4th Brigade Combat Team (Airborne), 25th Infantry Division – allegedly made over $475,000 in false claims and received nearly $400,000 from September 2014 to February of this year.
U.S. Army Alaska spokesman John Pennell confirmed DeMure’s status as commander of the battalion, which recently returned from a tour of duty in Afghanistan, but he referred all other questions about the case to Schroder’s office.
According to charging documents, DeMure’s scheme involved claims made to military insurer USAA Federal Savings Bank as well as American Express on at least seven separate occasions. In one incident, he allegedly claimed more than $215,000 in false losses from a U-Haul van he said was burglarized in July 2016 when he moved to JBER from Fort Benning, Ga. [KTVA News 11]
You can read much more at the link, but once again assuming all of this is true, LTC DeMure must have thought USAA was stupid and would not catch on to his fraud claims. You would think he would at least try to make fraudulent claims with different insurance companies instead of making them all with USAA which makes it easier to detect.
Here is a really messed up story involving a USFK soldier who had his wife cheat on him, get pregnant, then falsely claim the child was his, and then falsely claim the baby died at child birth:
Sgt. Steven Garcia holds the baby, who is at the center of an unusual custody battle.
A South Korea-based soldier has been entangled in a monthslong drama complete with a cheating spouse, long-distance lies and kidnapping charges.
Sgt. Steven Garcia, 24, is a patrol supervisor with the 142nd Military Police Company at Yongsan Garrison in Seoul. In January, he was told that his wife, Marina Garcia, had given birth to a daughter back home in Arizona who died during childbirth.
“When my sister called me about that, it was pretty emotional,” Garcia told KVOA News in Tucson. “We cried quite a bit together over the phone. It was devastating.”
But he soon learned it wasn’t true.
On Feb. 5, an Arizona highway patrolman pulled over an out-of-state vehicle for speeding north of Willcox, Ariz., according to court documents. Inside was a Texas couple and a newborn.
Upon questioning the couple – Alex Hernandez, 33, and his wife, Leslie Morin Hernandez, 41 – the trooper learned that neither was a biological parent of the 3-day-old infant, the documents said.
Further questioning at the police station revealed that Alex Hernandez had fraudulently signed the birth certificate as the father after Marina Garcia arranged to give the child to them.
The Hernandezes were taken into custody, and the baby, who relatives said is named Leo, was handed over to Arizona’s Department of Child Safety.
Later that day, detectives questioned Marina Garcia, who was living in Sierra Vista with her boyfriend, an Army specialist. She admitted to conspiring with the Hernandezes and planned to travel to Texas to sign away her parental rights after recovering from delivery, according to court documents obtained by Stars and Stripes. [Stars & Stripes]
You can read more at the link, but Sergeant Garcia unsurprisingly wants a divorce. He also wants custody of the baby even though it is not his because he was a child that was adopted.
