This article, by William Arkin, was first posted to the Washington Post, May 2, 2008
It was a big day for apologies to the troops yesterday. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates apologized once again for the sub-standard treatment the war wounded receive, security rules are being modified to avoid the stigma that mental health treatment disqualifies one for a clearance, and the Secretary labeled the barracks conditions of soldiers in North Carolina "appalling."
Though it is true that a Secretary of the Army and a few generals and other officers have been relieved as a result of the Walter Reed scandals, the larger scandal is that our defense budget has never been bigger while the number in uniform has hardly ever been smaller, and yet we still are unable to fulfill our Constitutional responsibilities - our Constitutional responsibilities - to support and maintain a military.
The first impulse when the subject of supporting the troops comes up is either to have more troops (!) or spend more money. This is the stance of all three presidential candidates, by the way. No one is saying: Where the hell does the half a trillion dollars we spend every year on defense go? Not even anyone in Congress seems to be that alarmed that we could be so incompetent or wasteful or inattentive that hospitals and barracks could, in this day and age, be "appalling." And I might add that under the Constitution it is the responsibility of Congress to support and maintain the Army and the Navy.
The answer is clearly not more money: The Pentagon has got to be the only large-scale enterprise on the planet (after all, the Soviet Union is gone) where the more it screws up, the more it fails its workers, the more it fails to produce a bottom line, the more it gets. I've asked many times before where all that money goes. What is appalling is that not very man people in power seem to any longer care.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates had to learn from the television networks and from YouTube of the conditions of barracks at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. The father of a soldier assigned to the 82nd Airborne Division ("All Americans"!) shot the video showing peeling lead-based paint, broken plumbing and sewage backing up into sinks, busted toilet seats (remember those $600 seats!) and mold throughout the barracks.
Gates also said that the military had made mistakes in treating returning combat troops, not just in having them live in squalor, but in their physical and mental health care. Anyone who has been awake for the past year knows the story, and by now we've heard the Pentagon's sad laments and its commitment to do better ad nauseum.
Gates was in Texas to announce a change in procedures regarding the granting and maintaining of security clearances: henceforth soldiers seeking treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or other mental health problems can seek treatment without fear of losing their clearances or harming their careers. The ever empathetic Gates told a group of junior officers that he "shared" their frustrations.
Here are my thoughts: There's a form (Standard Form 86) that soldiers have to fill out to apply for a security clearance. "Question 21" is the infamous question in which a soldier is asked whether he or she has ever sought mental health treatment in the past seven years. The Pentagon has announced that applicants will no longer have to disclose this information. A new question will ask if they received treatment "strictly related to adjustments from service in a military combat environment."
How many millions do you think it will take to design, rewrite, edit, print, and distribute the new forms? How many millions will go into the new regulations explaining the new rules and what "military combat environment" means, first a Defense Department regulation followed by an Army regulation, A Navy instruction, a Marine Corps directive, and an Air Force regulation (followed by command regulations and unit regulations down to the battalion level)? They have to be edited and formatted and printed too. How many millions will go into training modules and "sensitivity" sessions for bureaucrats and security clearance adjudicators to understand the new rules? How many conferences will the military run for psychologists and doctors and security goons entitled "Mental Health and Security Clearances: The New Era?" And how many will be held in Alaska or Montana in the winter? How many consulting companies will be hired to study the problem (and I'm not even talking studying PTSD) and how many reports will be written to recommend even more changes in procedures and "culture"? How many audits and IG inspections will then be conducted, and how many reports to Congress will be required and how many statistics needed to show progress?
That's how we support the troops. That's where the money goes.
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