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Letters

INSTRUCTORS AREN’T HIDING

What a poorly titled cover [“Deployment fairness. New rules mean no more hiding at: schools, recruiting, drill duty,” May 4].

I remember a year or so ago when instructor duty (drill sergeant or otherwise) and recruiting duty were being touted as breaks from the combat zone.

Now you have the gall to report it as hiding out. I know instructors that have volunteered multiple times and get turned down because their instructor duties are that important.

Some of those guys go there to get a break from deploying, it’s true. Who can blame anybody for wanting a break? After a while you need a break from deployment or you’ll burn out.

The other part of being an instructor, and it greatly benefits the Army, is that you get fresh-from-the-field knowledge injected into training, either by drill sergeants or Noncommissioned Officer Education System instructors.

I would hardly call it hiding. Quite the opposite. Instructor duty is not the easiest job in the world.

-- Sgt. 1st Class Douglas Tolliver Jr., San Antonio

RETOOL SUICIDE EDUCATION

While I concur that the Army’s efforts to address awareness of soldier suicides are noble, I take exception to the scenarios we watched and had to analyze in the first part of the new Army suicide prevention training.

The second scenario in particular, involving two senior noncommissioned officers, seems to, at the end, lay blame on the buddy of the soldier who commits suicide, for not “doing enough.”

Particularly disturbing is the scenario when a soldier (the E-4 whose fiancée left him) does the mature thing and seeks assistance. His comrades chastise him for it. What kind of message is this sending; that it is okay for soldiers to torment a buddy who is having a tough time emotionally?

According to the video, “[the teasing] is just what soldiers do.” I hope future efforts are geared less to the buddy having to shoulder the guilt, and more towards commanders and senior NCOs trying to remove the macho stigma against soldiers who pre-emptively seek counseling for their troubles.

There is no school solution in dealing with a suicidal soldier or family member. We can do our best to find help for that person, but in the end, if our efforts fail, it is irresponsible to lay blame at the feet of the survivors.

-- Capt. Brian F. Ellis, Fort Bragg, N.C.

PIRATES’ HARRIED HISTORY

This is in response to the letter “The pirate problem” [May 4]. I’ve noticed that a lot of service members have an opinion very similar, but the means mentioned, consisting of a more heavy-handed approach with armed guards that have shoot-to-kill orders and naval warships, will completely miss the mark. It is a quick fix for a much more deeply rooted problem.

The current problem is a function of our own policies in the 1990s, very similar to our current issues in Afghanistan, reaching back to the 1980s. We were there and left without cultivating infrastructure in both cases. In Afghanistan, we left a vacuum of power, the Pashtun tribes rose up to seize power and the Taliban grew out of the ashes. Somalia, and the “Black Hawk Down” mission/book/movie, was a much more direct approach than Afghanistan. We stepped in to ensure humanitarian aid was being given, but after our losses, we got out and stayed away. The society that is there now is partly due to our standoff approach.

Second, the Gulf of Aden and the Mandeb Strait have long been notorious for piracy. It has just recently come into the international view, but has long been a problem because of the strategic location of the Horn of Africa and the sea traffic in the area.

Third, after the collapse of the Somali government, armed militias and warlords took over the fishing industry, which was the major source of income for Somalis. But they couldn’t fend off the international community, which seized the opportunity to illegally dump waste in Somali waters and fish off Somali shores. Somalis want their waters back, have no means of regular income, and pirates are putting the two pieces together in a very lucrative fashion.

There are deeply rooted issues here, and we must consider the issues below the surface to ever render a fix or an equitable return to normalcy for both the international community and Somalia.

-- Capt. Chaveso L. Cook, Fort Bragg, N.C.

VALID ABU GHRAIB APPEAL

I agree with the appeal attorney Charles Gittins has filed on behalf of former Army Spc. Charles Graner Jr., who was convicted along with several others for abusing prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq [“Torture memos spark Abu Ghraib appeal,” May 18].

At the time the trials were going on, I marveled that these junior enlisted personnel were being court-martialed for abusing prisoners while at the same time others were using even harsher “legally sanctioned” tactics.

None of the court-martialed guards were lawyers. How can they be held to know the law when there is still a raging debate by law-of-war experts as to whether waterboarding and other techniques are torture? What the convicted guards did pales in comparison to what certain Justice Department attorneys approved.

If the Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces does not reverse the convictions of all those who were convicted from Abu Ghraib, then President Barack Obama should give them all full pardons.

-- Cmdr. Wayne L. Johnson (ret.), Alexandria, Va.

‘DON’T ASK’ A TIRED DEBATE

I am sick and tired of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy being reviewed and criticized by studies, polls and now, “fact-based” books [“Evidence, not emotion, fuels new ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ debate,” April 13]. The author, Nathaniel Frank, a senior research fellow at the University of California at Santa Barbara and a history professor at New York University, claims to have research supporting his new book, “Unfriendly Fire.” Much of the input however, is from retired generals who didn’t address the issue while they were serving. Does anyone trust these so-called “objective” critics anyway?

Reading the author’s claims, one would think that half the country is gay and wants to serve in the military just to help out. This book claims that from 1998 to 2004, 6,416 troops had been discharged for being gay. That’s 1,069 discharges per year — a small percentage of the total Army.

When then-President Bill Clinton instituted the policy, it removed a hurdle for homosexuals to join. Kudos to that, I say. You don’t tell me, I don’t tell you … and military business doesn’t get mired in trivialities. Why change something that has worked all along, while in the midst of two wars?

Does this author think so little of us that he paints us as prejudiced, undisciplined service members undermining the military and weakening this great nation?

The book’s author claims the policy “increases stress, lowers morale … and creates a culture of indiscipline.” Think of the atmosphere it’ll create next time you’ll need to reprimand an openly gay subordinate.

Bottom line is I don’t care if anyone is gay or straight, so long as they can do their job well, shoot straight and save my life if necessary. But I don’t need or want to know anyone’s sexual orientation.

People should educate them-selves and stand up for what they believe in.

-- Sgt. Anthony Vera, Miami