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Fort Hood Shooter Snapped Over Denial of Request for Leave, Army Confirms

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Photo Credit: U.S. Army

Photo Credit: U.S. Army

Fort Hood shooter Ivan Lopez’s rampage followed an argument over the denial of his request for leave and did not appear to be due to some ongoing mental problem, an Army official said Monday.

The word came as officials announced findings of their ongoing investigation, which included interviews with more than 1,100 people and a recreation of the shooting last Wednesday, which left four dead including Lopez, and 16 injured.

“We only have one suspect,” said Chris Grey, spokesman for the Army’s Criminal Investigation Command. “We are fully committed to this investigation and we will continue to pursue investigatively all leads.”

Grey, who was flanked by other law enforcement officials, did not take questions at the brief Monday news conference, and said he would not divulge any information that could jeopardize the investigation. But confirmation that an argument of a request for leave had immediately preceded the shooting seemed to further put to rest prior speculation that the 34-year-old Army specialist’s Lopez’s spree may have been related to Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Although he had reportedly been treated for mental issues including depression, military officials had expressed skepticism that his four-month tour in Iraq as that war wound down could have caused PTSD.

One complicating issue in the probe is the sheer size of the crime scene, Grey said, noting that it was comparable to two city blocks. The spree began in one building of the sprawling complex, where Lopez, who was 34, first pulled his .45-caliber Caliber Smith & Wesson handgun and killed one, injuring 10.

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U.S. Army General Walks Away With Forfeited Pay as Punishment in Sex Case

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Photo Credit: REUTERS/CHRIS KEANEA U.S. Army general who admitted to an adulterous sexual affair and other improper relationships with junior female officers was spared jail and dismissal from the service on Thursday, a sentence critics decried as a failure of military justice.

The case that derailed the 27-year Army career of Brigadier General Jeffrey Sinclair ended with a reprimand and $20,000 in forfeited pay as punishment after a plea deal in the rare court-martial of a top officer absolved him of sexual assault charges.

The one-star general’s defense team said they were grateful for the sentence ordered by the trial judge, Colonel James Pohl. They argued that Sinclair was unfairly portrayed as a sex offender when he was guilty of far lesser wrongdoing.

“The system has worked,” a relieved Sinclair, a married father of two sons, said after court in Fort Bragg, North Carolina. “All I want to do now is hug my kids and be with my wife.”

Advocates of military justice reform said the case proved the armed forces still tolerate sexual misconduct in their ranks despite political pressure from Congress and the president to curb it. They said the lenient sentence for Sinclair would have a chilling effect on other victims of abuse.

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Soldiers Survive Combat, then Lose their Jobs

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Photo Credit: William B. Plowman For thousands of career-military troops who endured combat and family separations during a dozen years of war in Iraq and Afghanistan, the end of hostilities brings a new directive from the government — your services are no longer needed.

Even as Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said Monday that future budget reductions cut “so deep, so quickly, that we cannot shrink the size of our military fast enough,” pinks slip were already on their way to soldiers.

In its first slice at reducing its force under budget pressure, the Army is letting 3,000 G.I.s go in order to thin ranks to 490,000 by the end of next year.

Ten Army officers — colonels and lieutenant colonels — learned while serving in Afghanistan in January that they would be forced to retire later this year.

And those are just the first firings. Tens of thousands more must be cut in the years ahead, and the services readily admit those separations won’t all be voluntary.

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Report: Pentagon to Propose Shrinking Army to Pre-WWII Level, Scrapping Some Jets

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Photo Credit: REUTERS/LUKAS BARTHBy Reuters.

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel will propose on Monday a reduction in the size of the U.S. Army to its smallest size since before World War Two and scrapping a class of Air Force attack jets, the New York Times reported on Sunday.

The plans, which the paper said were outlined by several Pentagon officials on condition of anonymity, would be aimed at reducing defense spending in the face of government austerity after a pledge by President Barack Obama to end U.S. involvement in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

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Photo Credit: REUTERS/KEVIN LAMARQUEU.S. governors plan to urge Obama not to downsize National Guard

By Aruna Viswanatha.

Governors from both U.S. political parties plan to talk to President Barack Obama on Monday about preventing potential cuts to National Guard units, several governors said on Sunday.

“In downsizing the military, we want to make sure that reserve and National Guard is protected in our country,” Connecticut Governor Dannel Malloy said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

“I’m going to have that discussion with the President tomorrow,” Malloy, a Democrat, said.

Many governors are in Washington this week for a national conference of state executives. They are scheduled to have dinner at the White House on Sunday and meet with Obama on Monday.

Several appeared on Sunday morning talk shows, where they said they wanted to speak to the president about the potential cuts to the National Guard. The Guard is a reserve force that is part of the Army but serves state governments often at times of crisis, such as during floods or after hurricanes.

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US Army Misconduct Firings Skyrocket

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The number of U.S. soldiers forced out of the Army because of crimes or misconduct has soared in the past several years as the military emerges from a decade of war that put a greater focus on battle competence than on character.

Data obtained by The Associated Press shows that the number of officers who left the Army due to misconduct more than tripled in the past three years. The number of enlisted soldiers forced out for drugs, alcohol, crimes and other misconduct shot up from about 5,600 in 2007, as the Iraq war peaked, to more than 11,000 last year.

The data reveals stark differences between the military services and underscores the strains that long, repeated deployments to the front lines have had on the Army’s soldiers and their leaders.

It also reflects the Army’s rapid growth in the middle part of the decade, and the decisions to relax standards a bit to bring in and retain tens of thousands of soldiers to fill the ranks as the Pentagon added troops in Iraq and continued the fight in Afghanistan.

The Army grew to a peak of about 570,000 soldiers during the height of the wars, and soldiers represented the bulk of the troops on the battlefields compared with the other services.

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Alaska-Based Paratroopers Head to Thailand for Cobra Gold

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Photo Credit: U.S. Army photo by Sgt. 1st Class Jason Epperson Paratroopers from U.S. Army Alaska’s 4th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division, are preparing to trade Alaska’s winter weather for the warmth of Thailand – for a few days at least – when they take part in exercise Cobra Gold 2014.

Cobra Gold officially kicked off Feb. 11, but the Spartan Brigade paratroopers will join in by flying nonstop this week on five Air Force and Air National Guard C-17 Globemaster III transports to complete a strategic airborne insertion at Lop Buri Airfield, Thailand, to assist with humanitarian assistance and disaster relief portions of the training.

Once on the ground, the soldiers will conduct combined ground operations with partner forces.

“What 4-25 brings to the table is unmatched throughout the Asia-Pacific region. We can quickly mass a large force to accomplish any mission that requires decisive action, from combat with a near-peer threat to humanitarian aid and disaster relief,” said Army Col. Matthew McFarlane, the brigade commander, who will jump into Thailand with his unit. “That this brigade can be wheels-up within mere hours to respond to a humanitarian crisis now versus later is a testament to the strategic reach that 4-25 gives to the [U.S. Pacific Command] commander.”

Cobra Gold is an annual multinational and multiservice exercise developed by the Thai and U.S. militaries. Cobra Gold 14 will consist of a command post exercise, humanitarian and civil assistance projects and a field training exercise. Now in its 33rd iteration, the exercise is designed to advance regional security by exercising a robust multinational force from nations sharing common goals and security commitments in the Asia-Pacific region.

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Army Chief: Just 2 Brigades Combat-Ready

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Photo Credit: REUTERSArmy Chief of Staff Gen. Ray Odierno revealed this week that just two Army brigades are combat-ready, with budget cuts hampering the military’s ability to train its own troops.

The startling comments were made Monday at the Association of the U.S. Army conference. Odierno and Army Secretary John McHugh both addressed the fallout from the budget cuts, as well as the recent partial government shutdown, and appealed to lawmakers to restore some stability to military funding.

“Functioning like this is just dysfunctional,” Odierno said.

He said that after the sequester kicked in, “we had to stop training basically” in the last six months of the year. He said the recently passed stopgap funding bill has further reduced the Army’s ability to train, and warned that the recurring budget battles in Washington could have serious consequences for America’s fighting force.

“So the worst-case scenario is you ask me deploy thousands of soldiers somewhere, and we have not properly trained them to go, because we simply don’t have the dollars and money,” he said.

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US Army Defines Christian Ministry as ‘Domestic Hate Group’

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Photo Credit: Fox News Several dozen U.S. Army active duty and reserve troops were told last week that the American Family Association, a well-respected Christian ministry, should be classified as a domestic hate group because the group advocates for traditional family values.

The briefing was held at Camp Shelby in Mississippi and listed the AFA alongside domestic hate groups like the Ku Klux Klan, Neo-Nazis, the Black Panthers and the Nation of Islam.

A soldier who attended the briefing contacted me and sent me a photograph of a slide show presentation that listed AFA as a domestic hate group. Under the AFA headline is a photograph of Westboro Baptist Church preacher Fred Phelps holding a sign reading “No special law for f***.”

American Family Association has absolutely no affiliation with the controversial church group known for picketing the funerals of American servicemembers.

“I had to show Americans what our soldiers are now being taught,” said the soldier who asked not to be identified. “I couldn’t just let this one pass.”

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Army’s Giant Surveillance Blimp to Start Tracking Objects in DC Region

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While Congress debates the merits of spending tens of millions of dollars to add missile interceptors on the East Coast while increasing the number already in place out West, a long-running developmental Army radar system is packing up and heading for Maryland.

From May 4 to June 14, Raytheon’s JLENS, or Joint Land Attack Cruise Missile Defense Elevated Netted Sensor System, was put through its paces by about 100 soldiers during user assessment tests out in Utah, but the company announced today that the 74-foot-high tethered airship is now headed to the Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland for a more ambitious operational assessment run by the US Northern Command.

The soldiers who were trained up to use the system in Utah will make the trip with the airship, but since JLENS will be running on a 24/7 basis once on the East Coast—and tracking anything that flies, drives, or floats near the National Capital Region—more soldiers will be trained to operate it before the assessments kick off in 2014.

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Washington Mayor: Mystery Helicopters “Terrorized” City

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Photo Credit: Reuters An Army official apologized Friday for conducting an unannounced training mission around the small city of Port Angeles, Wash., using special operations helicopters that the mayor said “terrorized” his city.

Dozens of alarmed residents called police to ask what was going on and said the noise and light from the mystery helicopters buzzing around the city panicked horses and other livestock, The Peninsula Daily News reported.

The Army said the helicopters involved included both twin-engine Chinooks and Blackhawk attack helicopters.

“No one had any warning about the helicopters, no one said anything afterward, and today city officials had to spend hours just trying to find out what had happened — who had invaded Port Angeles,” said Cherie Kidd, mayor of the Olympic Peninsula city about 60 miles west of Seattle.

The training exercise involved part of the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, which is based at Fort Campbell, Ky., but has individual units in various locations, said Sgt. Jimmy Norris, an I Corps spokesman at Joint Base Lewis-McChord near Tacoma, Wash. Part of the 160th is based at Lewis-McChord, he said.

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