TV News LIES

The military's premier crime lab has botched more of its evidence testing than has been previously known, raising broader questions about the quality of the forensic work relied on to convict soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines.

Now, the Supreme Court could weigh in, while two senators want the Pentagon to open a full-blown investigation. If they start looking, Pentagon officials will find that the crime lab's problems extend beyond one discredited analyst.

Gilbert resident JoAnn White says she was wounded while serving with the Air Force during the Vietnam War and has not been able to work since. Her injuries were not inflicted by a foreign enemy. She said she was raped and sexually assaulted during her military career by men who were supposed to be on her side.

White says her pain is as emotional as it was physical, and was exacerbated by a system that shrugged off her reports without investigating them.

U.S. troops fighting in Afghanistan are experiencing some of the greatest psychological stress and lowest morale in five years of fighting, reports a military study.

"We're an Army that's in uncharted territory here," says Gen. Peter Chiarelli, Army vice chief of staff, who has focused on combat stress. "We have never fought for this long with an all-volunteer force that's 1% of the population."

For military personnel, having at least one psychiatric disorder before deployment to Iraq or Afghanistan appears to increase the likelihood of developing posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) after deployment, the prospective Millennium Cohort Study showed.

The presence of a psychiatric disorder pre-deployment was associated with a 2.52-fold (95% CI 2.01 to 3.16) greater likelihood of post-deployment PTSD, independent of injury severity and numerous other potential confounders, according to Cynthia LeardMann, MPH, of the Naval Health Research Center in San Diego, and colleagues.

In the military, there are more than 3,000 chaplains who minister to the spiritual and emotional needs of active duty troops, regardless of their faiths. The vast majority are Christians, a few are Jews or Muslims, one is a Buddhist. A Hindu, possibly even a Wiccan may join their ranks soon. But an atheist?

Strange as it sounds, groups representing atheists and secular humanists are pushing for the appointment of one of their own to the chaplaincy, hoping to give voice to what they say is a large -- and largely underground -- population of nonbelievers in the military.

A lesbian cadet who resigned from West Point last year has been rejected for readmission to the academy even as the military moves toward repealing its "don't ask, don't tell" policy.

Officials at the U.S. Military Academy said they had no choice but to reject Katherine Miller's application, because the repeal of the policy barring gays from serving openly in the military is not in effect yet. The policy's repeal did not occur immediately after President Barack Obama signed the legislation in December as training and certification are required before the ban is lifted.