Friday, Dec 05th
Last update07:50:16 AM GMT
Military Glance
An environmental contractor dramatically underreported the level of a cancer-causing chemical found in tap water at Camp Lejeune, then omitted it altogether as the Marine base prepared for a federal health review, an Associated Press review has found.
In 2003, in a survey of female veterans conducted by the University of Iowa, funded by the US Department of Defense, 30% of the 500 female veterans interviewed reported an attempted or completed rape.
Equally worryingly, the Department of Defense estimated in its 2009 annual report on sexual assault, that around 90% of rapes in the military are never reported. Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez, who sits on the Military Personnel Subcommittee, successfully lobbied last year for the development of a Sexual Assault Database to encourage accountability within the Armed Forces.
Some estimates are that over a 30-year period, as many as 1 million people were exposed to well water that contained trichloroethylene (TCE), tetrachloroethylene (PCE), benzene and vinyl chloride. The chemicals were dumped into storm drains, leaked from fuel tanks or buried in pits across the base. They seeped through the groundwater and into the wells that fed the base areas of Hadnot Point and Tarawa Terrace.
A 2007 law required the Marine Corps to warn former residents of the potential danger, but many, such as Akers, say they've never been contacted.
A U.S. high-powered airborne laser weapon shot down a ballistic missile in the first successful test of a futuristic directed energy weapon, the U.S. Missile Defense Agency said on Friday.
"The Missile Defense Agency demonstrated the potential use of directed energy to defend against ballistic missiles when the Airborne Laser Testbed (ALTB) successfully destroyed a boosting ballistic missile" the agency said.
The Army needs to double its staff of substance-abuse counselors to handle the soaring numbers of soldiers seeking alcohol treatment, said Gen. Peter Chiarelli, the Army’s No. 2 officer.
The man had been staying at the shelter at the Volunteers of America Veterans Resource Center but was recently told he had to move out because he had been there for a year, the maximum amount of time residents can stay there, said Dennis Kresak, president of the Volunteers of America of Greater Ohio.
The man had been uncooperative about leaving in recent weeks and would not meet with veterans representatives, Kresak said.
Every year since 2005, the Senate has voted to eliminate the policy that denies widows the ability to collect both a military survivor's benefit and the full annuity bought when their military husbands were alive. But in each of those years, the fix was dropped when House and Senate negotiators wrote the final bill in private.
"What we always hear is that there is just no funding for us. 'Sorry, this is not your year,'" said Vivianne Wersel, chairwoman of the Government Relations Committee at Gold Star Wives of America.
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