Combat Clips: A Selection of OEF/OIF Veteran Statistics, July 2009

I'm always on the look-out for veteran-related stats, and I imagine that many of you are, too. In March 2007, I compiled a master list of data culled from news reports and studies; The War List: OEF/OIF Statistics quickly became (and remains) one of the most popular pages on this blog.

Unfortunately, I haven't had as much time as I'd like these past couple of years to return to it and overhaul it with fresh data. Until that can be done properly and fully, I'll begin occasionally saving and sharing some of the facts and figures I stumble upon during my research that I'd like to ferret away. Welcome to the first dose of random Combat Clips.

As 'cold' and sterile as a sea of numbers can be -- because, of course, the reality is that there is a warm body and full life attached to each of those figures -- taking a broad overview has its merits, too. So, let's get started, shall we?

VA Report: 23% of Young Vets Unemployed, Up from 10% in 2000

From Yochi J. Dreazen at the Wall Street Journal:

A new government report paints a dire picture of the employment prospects of returning military veterans, concluding that young veterans earn less and have a harder time finding work than do civilians in the same age group.

The report prepared for the Veterans Affairs Department found that the percentage of veterans not in the labor force -- because they couldn't find jobs, stopped looking for work, or went back to school -- jumped to 23% in 2005 from 10% in 2000. Half of the young veterans -- ages 20 to 24 -- with steady employment earned less than $25,000 per year, it found.

Young veterans "face career challenges when transitioning from the military service to the civilian workforce," and suffer from higher unemployment than their civilian peers, the report said. "Transitioning into civilian life and the workforce requires help and guidance," the report concluded. "The federal government might consider reevaluating or refining how it serves...these returning young service members to ensure a successful transition process."

Blackwater PTSD Care Questioned

From ABC News:

Along with congressional hearings on allegations of recklessness against Blackwater USA security forces in Iraq, questions are also being raised about the way military contractors deal with traumatic stress while overseas and upon returning home.

The House began hearings Tuesday on the military contractor Blackwater following reports about the company's employees in Iraq who were linked to the killings of 11 Iraqi civilians in September...In light of the high-profile incidents, possible explanations for the company's actions are emerging, including psychological harm such as post-traumatic stress that led to erratic behavior by some contractors.

"I have never heard of a company offering psychological counseling," a military contractor who works for another company said on the condition of anonymity because of his firm's involvement with the Blackwater investigation.

In February we looked at the mental health care given to private government contractors returning from work in combat zones like Iraq. While the focus at that time was on insurance coverage denial, related questions are rising from the current Blackwater story.

One problem area is the responsibility private companies have -- or do not have -- for providing returning employees access to sufficient health care resources (to treat PTSD, for example, if necessary). And how proactive do these private companies need to be in designing and delivering such a health care system?

Defense Department Contractor Leaves 580,000 Military Records Open to Identity Theft

Another failure to keep military records secure has taken place. From Stars & Stripes:

Social Security numbers, addresses and medical files of more than 580,000 military households may have been left open to identity thieves by a Defense Department contractor processing Tricare records, officials announced Friday.

Science Applications International Corp. first learned of the problem on May 29 but just this week finalized details of what and whose information was potentially exposed. Company spokeswoman Connie Custer said so far investigators have not seen any evidence the information was stolen or abused.

But officials at SAIC have promised to notify all of the affected families and offer them free credit protection services. “The security failure is completely unacceptable and occurred as a result of clear violations of SAIC’s strong internal IT security policies,” company CEO Ken Dahlberg said in a statement Friday. “We let down our customers and the servicemembers whom we support. For this, we are very sorry.”

Click on 'Article Link' below tags for related posts...


 Related Posts

• IG Report: Veterans Administration Lax in Implementing Database Security Measures
  
• VA Response to Military Personnel Data Theft

Government Contractors: Hidden Casualties, PTSD

Stunning figures reported yesterday:

In a largely invisible cost of the war in Iraq, nearly 800 civilians working under contract to the Pentagon have been killed and more than 3,300 hurt doing jobs normally handled by the U.S. military, according to figures gathered by The Associated Press.

Exactly how many of these employees doing the Pentagon's work are Americans is uncertain. But the casualty figures make it clear that the Defense Department's count of more than 3,100 U.S. military dead does not tell the whole story. "It's another unseen expense of the war," said Thomas Houle, a retired Air Force reservist whose brother-in-law died while driving a truck in Iraq. "It's almost disrespectful that it doesn't get the kind of publicity or respect that a soldier would."

Employees of defense contractors such as Halliburton, Blackwater and Wackenhut cook meals, do laundry, repair infrastruture, translate documents, analyze intelligence, guard prisoners, protect military convoys, deliver water in the heavily fortified Green Zone and stand sentry at buildings - often highly dangerous duties almost identical to those performed by many U.S. troops. The U.S. has outsourced so many war and reconstruction duties that there are almost as many contractors (120,000) as U.S. troops (135,000) in the war zone.

And contractors also get PTSD.

Click on 'Article Link' below tags for more...

Another couple of grafs to aquaint ourselves with some of the data before we take a look at the issue of PTSD as it relates to our civilian contractors:

If the contractor deaths were added to the Pentagon's count of U.S. military casualties, the number of war dead would climb about 25 percent, from about 3,000 as of the end of 2006 to nearly 3,800. If the contractors injured badly enough to be off the job for at least four days were added to the nearly 14,000 U.S. troops requiring medical air transport because of injuries, the injury total would rise by about the same percentage.

Early in the war, most of the casualties on the coalition side were military. But with the fall of Saddam Hussein, contractors flowed in behind the troops, and the number of deaths among the contract workers has been increasing each year.

Contractor deaths are less costly politically, said Deborah Avant, a political science professor at George Washington University. "Every time there's a new thing that the U.S. government wants the military to do and there's not enough military to do it, contractors are hired," she said. "When we see the 3,000 service member deaths, there's probably an additional 1,000 deaths we don't see."

Last week, NPR Day to Day had a program about their experiences in Iraq and in folding back into society once they return home. In some aspects, they have a rougher time because they don't have as good of a support system as the military does.

From a November article:

No one knows how many of them have been injured and killed. No one keeps track of how many contractors there are in Iraq. And when they come back, many find themselves abandoned. "Nobody ain't doing nothing for us," said Thompson, 43, who for six months in 2004 drove a supply truck in Iraq for Halliburton subsidiary KBR, the largest corporate contractor in Iraq.

Thompson was paid $1,850 a week while he was there -- far more than he had been earning before the war. "And I'll tell you right now, it wasn't worth it," he said. Thompson said he survived several roadside bombs, mortar and rocket attacks, and countless small-arms firefights as he transported supplies for U.S. troops along Iraq's perilous roads. He returned from Iraq without physical injuries.

But his war wounds are evident in the cocktail of prescription medications he takes every day -- for hostile behavior, hallucinations, depression, insomnia, anxiety, anxiety-related tics and spasms, and hypertension, all symptoms he says he developed during his time in Iraq.

Two doctors in North Carolina have independently diagnosed Thompson with post-traumatic stress disorder, a psychological ailment with symptoms that typically include anxiety, loss of sleep and flashbacks. The government has acknowledged that he is disabled, and he receives a $1,224 monthly Social Security payment.

But Thompson says his claim for treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder was denied by American International Group Inc., or AIG, the insurance company for KBR, on the grounds that there was not enough medical evidence of his trauma.

This from the Chattanooga Times Free Press:

"They've lost their livelihoods, their integrity, their families," said Jana Crowder, a Knoxville homemaker and mother of four who organized the conference. She started a Web site for contractors while her husband, a former contractor, was in Iraq in 2004. He wasn't injured, but her Web site, www.americancontractorsiniraq.com, attracted the attention of a number of contractors looking for help. She now spends as much as 12 hours a day contacting therapists, attorneys and medical professionals on behalf of injured workers.

E.C. Hurley, director of the Center for Stress and Combat Trauma near Fort Campbell, Ky., held a session for the contractors on post traumatic stress disorder, similar to the debriefing soldiers get when returning from war. He said that 18 percent to 24 percent of combat soldiers experience PTSD, and the percentage can be higher for contractors. "What they are experiencing is the same," Dr. Hurley said. "(Contractors) are more open to talking about it than soldiers are. The military has a mentality that it's a weakness, that it's a career-stopper."

Some contractors noticed problems after they came home and had their first nightmare or lost a job or a girlfriend because of mood swings or a newfound temper. "I would cry and cry, and there were days when I didn't understand what was wrong with me," said Steve Thompson, a 43-year-old from Asheboro, N.C., who said he has been fired from several jobs since coming home from Iraq, lives in his car because he can't afford rent, and believes he has PTSD.

He said the doctor his insurance company pays for him to see is trying to prove that his problems today are caused by an anger problem that existed before he went to Iraq, not PTSD.

Where have we heard this before?

But while soldiers and contractors may share some common experiences, frustrations and traumas, that does not make them natural allies. Fox News ran a four part series in the summer of 2005 exploring this issue [ 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 ]. A few key grafs:

[T]he contractors' profile sometimes isn't seen as being as honorable. Many hold the view that contractors are only in Iraq to make a profit, often stepping on the toes of the military and causing more chaos in regions that already are on shaky ground. In the contractor corps, many civilian workers are former military personnel who say they're trying to make a difference while making a better living. ... Most military personnel are deployed on yearlong missions and some have been deployed two to three times already. Many contractors, on the other hand, get more flexible rest and relaxation (R&R) time and often do get to see their families more often.

These disparities, added with the high intensity found in a combat zone, can result in anger and animosity, as seen in this well-publicized incident from May 2005:

For three days, a group of 16 American contractors in Iraq feared they had stumbled into a different world — one where the U.S. military viewed them, and not Islamic extremists, as the enemy.

The ordeal began May 28 when a group of Marines suspected the contractors for Zapata Engineering (search) of shooting at them and Iraqi civilians in Fallujah. The Marines allegedly bound and roughed up the contractors, who were given orange jumpsuits to wear. They also received a prayer rug and a copy of the Koran (search) and were placed in a cell next to Iraqi insurgent suspects.

The contractors, eight of whom are former military men, wondered how the Marines supposedly could throw the idea of "Semper Fi" out the window and treat fellow Americans so poorly. "If we were terrorists, they would have extradited us so they could have charged us … once they cleared us, they should have let us go," Pete Ginter, one of the Zapata contractors, told FOXNews.com in a recent interview. "I think it's some personal vendetta they had against us."

Several of the contractors told FOXNews.com the gripe appeared to be financial, stemming from jealousy over the belief that contractors make more money. "How do you like your contractor money now?" one Marine barked, according to those contractors interviewed. ...

Among the contractors are about 20,000 who work for private security companies, some of whom have come under criticism for bad behavior. Witnesses have been quoted telling stories about caravans of intimidating contractors driving fast through Iraqi streets in their SUVs with guns hanging out the window.

Marine Col. John Toolan, who was the military commander of the area that included Fallujah when four private security contractors employed by Blackwater were ambushed and murdered last year, told PBS' "Frontline" that the part of the problem is that the military and contractors have different motivations in a dangerous environment.

"We have a tendency to want to be a little bit more sure about operating in an environment," he said. "Whereas I think some of the contractors are motivated by the financial remuneration and the fact that they probably want to get someplace from point A to point B quickly, their tendency [is] to have a little more risk. So yes, we're at odds. But we can work it out."

From Congressional testimony given by the four widows of the Blackwater contractors who were killed in Fallujah, we glimpse the reality of life as a civilian contractor. Here's one wife's story, find the others here.


See Private Warriors, a Frontline special, for more.

[UPDATE June 30 2007] Dan Rather Reports did a segment on HDNet worthy of viewing called "Civilians at War":

Part 1


Part 2


Part 3



 Related Posts

• Blackwater Employee PTSD Care Questioned
  
• Combat Zone-Wounded DoD Civilian Employees Slip Through Health Care System Cracks, Too
  
• State Deptartment Diplomats Join Troops in Suffering From Combat-Zone Stress
  
• San Francisco Chronicle: Civilian Contractors Tell of Insurance Co. PTSD Denials

Vet Orgs Take to Washington, Need Our Help

A number of veterans organizations are turning up the heat lately in Washington, D.C., on issues having to do with homecoming reintegration and healthcare, accountability, the escalation (or troop 'surge') in Iraq, and even a stand against entering war with Iran. Thought I'd pass along a few of their calls for action.

Click on 'Article Link' below tags for more...

Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA)
2007 Legislative Agenda

IAVA is going to Washington. IAVA is launching one of our most important projects to date - the 2007 IAVA Legislative Agenda. Our Legislative Agenda contains 31 action items for the new Congress: concrete steps lawmakers can take to get troops and veterans the support they need and deserve.

Our agenda covers all aspects of the issues facing new vets, including:

• Mandatory and confidential mental health screening for troops coming home from combat. [more on mental health and healthcare agenda]
• A better transition system to help new veterans go to college, get a job, or start their own business. [more on homecoming agenda]
• Criminal investigation of fraud and waste by contractors. [more on accountability agenda]

Read it in full online, download the PDF, or check out the MS Word version.

In the next few weeks, we'll be reaching out to legislators on both sides of the aisle to present our agenda and ask for their support, and we'll need you to get involved.

Thank you for your continued support.

Sincerely,

Paul Rieckhoff
Iraq Veteran
Executive Director/Founder
Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America

VoteVets.org
Meets with Democratic Leaders on Hill

Today, VoteVets.org is profiled in the Washington Post, regarding our trips to Capitol Hill and ads we've been running.

Because of our campaign against the escalation of the war in Iraq, we're seeing some serious movement. This article details that many Senators who had blocked a debate on the bipartisan resolution against escalation are now doing a quick about-face. Because of you, the proponents of escalation of the war are starting to crumble.
We're not done yet!

This week, we had meetings with a dozen Senate offices from both sides of the aisle, and a very productive meeting with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer. We have their firm commitment that nothing will get in the way of the House speaking out forcefully against an escalation in Iraq. We will do everything we can to ensure quick passage of a resolution against escalation. Once a resolution passes in the House, and more Republicans in the Senate come to the conclusion that their political lives depend on them doing the right thing, we will see the Senate follow suit.

Please help us keep the heat on. Call your Representatives and Senators, and tell them that you stand with VoteVets.org's troops and veterans of the war in Iraq by opposing the escalation. The Capitol Hill switchboard number is 202-224-3121.
Thank you for supporting the Voice of the 21st Century American Patriot.

Best,

Jon Soltz
Iraq War veteran
Co-Founder and Chairman,
VoteVets.org

Veterans for America
Demand Congressional Action

We rushed into our war with Iraq without sufficient congressional involvement, and the consequences have been dire, far-reaching, and irrevocable.

Political action is the ONLY way to prevent this from happening again.

The 110th Congress campaigned with the promise to reengage in war making decisions and we empowered them accordingly. We must hold them to this promise.

Recently, Senator Robert C. Byrd (D-West Virginia) introduced a much-needed resolution [pdf] that states that Congress must approve any offensive military action taken by the United States against another country.

Veterans for America strongly supports Senator Byrd’s resolution, and we are working to rally support for it. To join our effort, please contact your Senators and urge them to co-sponsor Senate Resolution 39.

Send a message to your Senators by visiting the Veterans for America Congressional Action webpage. Together, we can make it clear that the American people will not allow our war to be expanded to include other countries without congressional authorization.

Thank you for your continued support,

Bobby Muller
President, Veterans for America

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San Francisco Chronicle: Civilian Contractors Tell of Insurance Co. PTSD Denials

Very interesting piece from the San Francisco Chronicle:

Thompson was paid $1,850 a week while he was there -- far more than he had been earning before the war. 'And I'll tell you right now, it wasn't worth it,' he said. Thompson said he survived several roadside bombs, mortar and rocket attacks, and countless small-arms firefights as he transported supplies for U.S. troops along Iraq's perilous roads. He returned from Iraq without physical injuries.

But his war wounds are evident in the cocktail of prescription medications he takes every day -- for hostile behavior, hallucinations, depression, insomnia, anxiety, anxiety-related tics and spasms, and hypertension, all symptoms he says he developed during his time in Iraq.

Two doctors in North Carolina have independently diagnosed Thompson with post-traumatic stress disorder, a psychological ailment with symptoms that typically include anxiety, loss of sleep and flashbacks. The government has acknowledged that he is disabled, and he receives a $1,224 monthly Social Security payment. But Thompson says his claim for treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder was denied by American International Group Inc., or AIG, the insurance company for KBR, on the grounds that there was not enough medical evidence of his trauma.

Click on 'Article Link' below tags for more...

Continuing:

The [civilian contractors'] policy entitles the contract workers to reasonable and necessary health care for the rest of their lives, free access to an attorney, and weekly compensation for the time doctors' orders prevent them from working. But Gary Pitts, a Houston lawyer who represents more than 200 civilian contractors and their families with claims against AIG, said claims that involve post-traumatic stress are rarely honored.

"Generally, AIG doesn't pay for any PTSD treatment, and the reason is because PTSD is not like having a leg blown off," said Pitts, who represents Thompson and more than 30 other clients who have been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. "It's a gray area."

A gray area?


 Related Posts

• Blackwater Employee PTSD Care Questioned
  
• Government Contractors: Hidden Casualties, PTSD
  
• Combat Zone-Wounded DoD Civilian Employees Slip Through Health Care System Cracks, Too
  
• State Deptartment Diplomats Join Troops in Suffering From Combat-Zone Stress