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The Military Is Building Brain Chips to Treat PTSD

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Photo Credit: DefenseOneHow well can you predict your next mood swing? How well can anyone? It’s an existential dilemma for many of us but for the military, the ability to treat anxiety, depression, memory loss and the symptoms associated with post-traumatic stress disorder has become one of the most important battles of the post-war period.

Now the Pentagon is developing a new, innovative brain chip to treat PTSD in soldiers and veterans that could bring sweeping new changes to the way depression and anxiety is treated for millions of Americans.

With $12 million (and the potential for $26 million more if benchmarks are met), the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, wants to reach deep into your brain’s soft tissue to record, predict and possibly treat anxiety, depression and other maladies of mood and mind. Teams from the University of California at San Francisco, Lawrence Livermore National Lab and Medtronic will use the money to create a cybernetic implant with electrodes extending into the brain. The military hopes to have a prototype within 5 years and then plans to seek FDA approval.

DARPA’s Systems-Based Neurotechnology for Emerging Therapies, or SUBNETs, program draws from almost a decade of research in treating disorders such as Parkinson’s disease via a technique called deep brain stimulation. Low doses of electricity are sent deep into the brain in somewhat the same way that a defibrillator sends electricity to jumpstart a heart after cardiac arrest.

While it sounds high-tech, it’s a crude example of what’s possible with future brain-machine interaction and cybernetic implants in the decades ahead.

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How Low Can the President Stoop?

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Photo Credit: Weekly Standard Today in the Rose Garden, President Obama announced that he’s going to keep a little under 10,000 troops in Afghanistan through 2014, half that number by the end of 2015, and will have all those forces out by the end of 2016. Putting aside the fact that this is the lowest number military advisors estimated was necessary to maintain training and some counterterrorism capability in country over not just one year but several, the decision to halve and then zero out those forces by 2016 is a reminder not only of how seriously unserious this president on strategic matters can be but also how cynically partisan he is.

By pulling out all the troops in 2016, and perhaps before the consequences are fully felt in Afghanistan, he will be leaving for his successor the politically difficult decision of reversing course with all the attendant downsides of once again putting troops in harm’s way…

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No, Uncle Sam Doesn’t Really Want YOU: Military Now Turns Down 80% of Applicants (+video)

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These days, the U.S. military is only taking 20 percent of the applicants who walk into their local recruiter’s office intent on enlisting in the armed services.

Army Sgt. 1st Class Terrence Hoard told the Kansas City Star that his recruitment office once needed to sign up 16 to 20 soldiers per month to meet recruitment goals. Today, he can get by with 10 to 12.

“We’re turning down twice as many as before,” he told the paper, which reported that four of every five adults who seek to join the military in 2014 do not make the cut.

The U.S. Army hopes to hit 57,000 recruits for active duty this year. It’s on pace to do just that, even while applying a stricter set of standards as it pertains to physical fitness, appearance (i.e., tattoos), intelligence test results and an applicant’s criminal history.

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Judge Nap: Idea of Chaplain for Atheist Soldiers Is ‘Political Correctness Gone Crazy’

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Photo Credit: Fox News

Photo Credit: Fox News

The Department of Defense may soon consider adding a chaplain for atheist service members. A source told Fox News that the Military Association of Atheists and Free Thinkers planned to make the request today, floating its president Jason Torpy as the proposed chaplain.

Rep. John Fleming, R-La., who last year opposed the creation of such a position, also voiced concerns about the planned request. He told FoxNews.com he’s got to wait and see how the proposal plays out, but threatened to use legislation to block it if necessary.

“We’re only finding out about this now,” he said. Fleming said the law is clear that any chaplain needs to have an “endorsing agency” and questioned whether the applicant would have that here. “We just don’t see any avenue, but you know we’ve been surprised before by the military.”

The move would come after lawmakers, including Fleming, battled over the same issue last year.

Democrats tried, unsuccessfully, to pass legislation creating such a post in 2013. In response, Republicans offered up a measure of their own to prohibit the Pentagon from naming such a chaplain. The House approved the measure in July.

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Hagel: Military Should Review Transgender Ban

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Photo Credit: Fox News

Photo Credit: Fox News

The prohibition on transgender individuals serving in the U.S. military “continually should be reviewed,” Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said on Sunday.

Hagel did not indicate whether he believes the policy should be overturned. However, he said “every qualified American who wants to serve our country should have an opportunity if they fit the qualifications and can do it.”

A transgender individual is someone who has acquired the physical characteristics of the opposite sex or presents themselves in a way that does not correspond with their sex at birth.

A panel convened by a think tank at San Francisco State University recently estimated that about 15,450 transgender personnel serve in the military and in the National Guard and Reserve.

In 2010, Congress passed legislation allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly. Hagel said the issue of transgender serving in the military is more complicated. He said “these issues require medical attention” that at times cannot be provided in austere locations.

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Military Downsizing = National Security Danger

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Photo Credit: SAUL LOEB / AFP / Getty

Photo Credit: SAUL LOEB / AFP / Getty

The Democrats and the Obama Administration have decided to fund their domestic programs at the expense of America’s national security. The U.S. Army will be shrunk to its smallest force since before World War II, and the Marines will be reduced by manpower of about 8% by 2016. The entire fleet of Air Force A-10 jets will be eliminated. The Navy’s eleven aircraft carriers will have to reduce its operating status and the USS George Washington will be retired in 2016. Experts interviewed believe these reductions will impose a greater risk for the armed forces and a greater risk for America’s national security.

The new philosophy of protecting the U.S. emphasizes technology replacing the human component. Medal of Honor recipient retired Colonel Jack Jacobs believes this outlook will cause major problems in the future and sees this administration not having the political will to use manpower. “There is irony here and I believe the White House would roll over if they read this. But it is true; they are the natural descendants of Donald Rumsfeld’s way of thinking. He knew we did not have the political will to commit the right number of soldiers to do the job in Iraq so he decided to use machines instead. We did take Baghdad easily, but could not control anything because there were not enough people. This administration and the current military establishment are the intellectual children and think exactly like Rumsfeld, which is to take the easy way out.”

Jacobs further warns the need to remember the cardinal axiom on fighting military wars, ‘no matter the size of the war it always takes more resources to hold on to the objective.’ The danger to U.S. national security might not be now but will become obvious in five to seven years, since the administration’s way of thinking reduces flexibility and options.

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US Troops Arrive in Poland for Exercises Across Eastern Europe Amid Ukraine Crisis

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Photo Credit: REUTERS

Photo Credit: REUTERS

U.S. Army paratroopers are arriving in Poland to begin a series of military exercises in four countries across Eastern Europe to bolster allies in the wake of Russia’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula last month.

Pentagon press secretary Rear Adm. John Kirby said Tuesday that the exercises will last about a month, and initially involve about 600 troops.

An Army company of about 150 soldiers from the 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team based in Vicenza, Italy, will start the exercises Wednesday in Poland. Additional Army companies will head to Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania and are expected to arrive by Monday for similar land-based exercises in those countries.

Under the current plan, U.S. troops would rotate in and out of the four countries for additional exercises on a recurring basis.

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Support ‘Gays’ In Ranks Or Quit, Military Chiefs Told (+video)

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Photo Credit: Reuters

Photo Credit: Reuters

A video reveals that President Obama told the nation’s top military commanders to support his agenda of “gays” in the ranks – or find another job.

The stunning revelation comes in a video that was obtained by Buzzfeed under a Freedom of Information Act request and posted online.

The chief of the nation’s Coast Guard, Adm. Robert Papp, says in the video, “We were called into the Oval Office and President Obama looked all five service chiefs in the eye and said, ‘This is what I want to do.’”

Papp continued, “I cannot divulge everything he said to us, that’s private communications within the Oval Office, but if we didn’t agree with it – if any of us didn’t agree with it – we all had the opportunity to resign our commissions and go do other things.”

The issue was Obama’s abandonment of the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy that allowed homosexual soldiers as long as they kept their proclivities to themselves. Now the military promotes open homosexuality in the ranks.

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Peter King: Homegrown Terrorism a Big Concern on Military Bases

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Photo Credit: Rick Loomis / Los Angeles Times

Photo Credit: Rick Loomis / Los Angeles Times

Although Wednesday’s shooting at Fort Hood is not thought to have been terrorist-related, Rep. Peter King says homegrown terrorism is a major concern among U.S. military personnel.

King, a New York Republican, and former Sen. Joe Lieberman, a Connecticut independent, held joint hearings on the previous shooting at the Texas military base, which left 13 people dead in 2009. Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan was sentenced to death in August 2013 for that attack.

Hasan had been in communication with Muslim extremists leading up to the shootings.

Appearing Wednesday on Fox News Channel’s “On the Record with Greta Van Susteren,” King said the 2010 hearing brought out concerns that there are members of the military who have violent tendencies and terrorist inclinations and are not being removed.

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Army Recruit Suspected of Plotting ‘Ft. Hood-Inspired Jihad Against US Soldiers’

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Photo Credit: Fox News

Photo Credit: Fox News

The FBI is searching for a recent Army recruit believed to be planning a “Fort Hood-inspired jihad against U.S. soldiers,” FoxNews.com has learned.

The alert, whose legitimacy was confirmed by military and law enforcement officials, stated that a man identified as Booker had told friends of his “intention to commit jihad.” Booker, who is also known as Muhammad Abdullah Hassan, was recruited by the U.S. Army in Kansas City, Mo., in February 2014 and was scheduled to report for basic training on April 7. But he was discharged last week, apparently after law enforcement authorities learned of his alleged plan.

Both the FBI and the 902d Military Intelligence Group at Fort Leavenworth are involved in the hunt.

The alert, a copy of which was obtained by FoxNews.com, was sent out by the FBI’s Kansas City Division on Friday and distributed through the U.S. Marine Corps. The portion obtained by FoxNews.com did not include Hassan’s photo or age. It was also sent to the Kansas City Police Department, which could indicate authorities believe he may have remained in the area where he was recruited.

The alert is titled, “Planned Fort Hood-inspired Jihad against US Soldiers by Army Recruit” and was issued “to inform and protect officers who may encounter this individual or others exhibiting the same aspirations.” The source of the information contained in the alert was listed as “An FBI agent.”

Read more from this story HERE.