Stars and Stripes January 8, 2016

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Volume 8, No. 4 ©SS 2016

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FRIDAY, JANUARY 8, 2016

What the services can expect in the coming months

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BY JASON DUHR Stars and Stripes

From new uniforms to new jobs for women, 2016 figures to be a busy year for the Army. Here’s a look at some of the top items soldiers can expect.

COMBAT ROLES FOR WOMEN Integrating women into combat units tops the agenda for all branches of the service.

After nearly five years of surveying and testing, the decision to open all military occupational specialties to women was announced earlier this month by Defense Secretary Ash Carter. For the Army, that means five officer, one warrant officer and 13 enlisted occupations will soon be able to accept female applicants.

The Army took part in five studies, including a pilot program at the U.S. Army Ranger School in which three female officers earned their Ranger tabs. The Army is required to submit its plan to integrate women into combat positions by Jan. 1, with full implementation set for April 1.

Going from the approval phase to the implementation phase will require work on everyone’s part, Carter said.

“The responsibility for implementation is not borne solely on the shoulders of women, nor by the forces within the newly integrated career fields; it is borne in equal measure by the entire force and the military and civilian leadership of the Department of Defense,” Carter said in a memorandum released to Stars and Stripes.

NCO RATINGS For the first time in nearly 30 years, the Army will introduce a new system to evaluate its noncommissioned officer corps. One of the biggest changes to the NCOER system — set to take effect in January — focuses on the percentage of soldiers who can be rated “most qualified” by their senior raters.

Under the new system, senior raters will be limited to giving out “most

qualified” ratings to no more than 24 percent of their soldiers, a move aimed at improving promotion boards. Over the years, NCOER inflation has led many to complain that the system was useless for recognizing promotion potential because too many soldiers were rated “most qualified.”

A second change involves the forms used for the NCO rank. No longer will all E-5s through E-9s be evaluated using the same form. There are now three forms — for sergeants, for staff sergeant through first sergeants, and for sergeant majors and command sergeant majors.

Counseling is also being emphasized, the Army says. Under the new system, raters are held accountable by senior raters throughout the counseling year. Raters have to counsel their NCOs quarterly, while senior raters have to counsel the rated NCO at least twice a year.

The outgoing NCOER system has been in use since 1987.

NEW UNIFORMS Recruits will be issued the Operational Camouflage Pattern for the Army Combat Uniform during basic training, starting in January.

The new design boasts nine changes, including less Velcro, removed drawstrings and added buttons and zippers.

While new recruits will have a full duffle bag of uniform items that match for the New Year, current soldiers will have the opportunity to piecemeal their set, incorporating new items with the Universal Camouflage Pattern.

The phased transition will allow soldiers the chance

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to purchase new uniform items as they receive annual clothing allowances.

Changes are also afoot to the physical fitness uniform.

A sea of black and gold uniforms will start to fill physical training formations in 2016 as the Army does away with the Improved Physical Fitness Uniform.

With the new workout gear comes the option of wearing either black or white socks ... at least until a final ruling is made.

In 2015, the fashion issue was the hot topic of discussion during town hall meetings conducted by Sgt. Major of the Army Dan Dailey.

The soldiers’ voices were heard, and the Army has given troops the choice of wearing either color until a new Army Regulation 6701 is released sometime in the new year.

NEW EDUCATION REQUIREMENTS The revolving door of renaming and changing parts of the NCO education system continues to evolve to better equip future leaders, according to Army officials.

Before 2016, the Army had taken steps to implement changes to the NCO Professional Development System. In October, the Army changed the name of the Warrior Leader Course to the Basic Leader Course in hopes it would better translate to civilian employers.

The course is required before any soldier can pin on the sergeant rank.

In the past, some NCOs were able to get promoted without completing the required training courses.

That practice will be a thing of the past in the new year.

A sergeant selected to staff sergeant will be required to complete the Advanced Leaders Course; staff sergeants will have to knock out Structured Self Development 3 and complete the Senior Leaders Course before pinning on sergeant first class. Perhaps the biggest change coming to the promotion system will occur for soldiers seeking to become master sergeants. The Army is preparing a course to fill the gap between the Senior Leaders Course and the Sergeants Major Academy, to be called the Master Leaders Course.

MLC is still being vetted, but the first pilot class ended on Nov. 2, with 32 students graduating. A second pilot class is expected to take place at Camp Williams, Utah, in 2016 and a final one at Fort Knox, Ky.

FORCE REDUCTION Perhaps, the biggest impact on soldiers

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Courtesy of the U.S. Army

In 2016, the Army will cut nearly 30,000 soldiers by the Sept. 30 deadline set by the FY16 National Defense Authorization Act. in the coming year is the required cut of nearly 30,000 troops as required by the fiscal year 2016 National Defense Authorization Act. Under the law, the Army’s active-duty component will be cut to an end strength of 475,000, while the National Guard will drop to 342,000 and the Reserves to 198,000.

Active Guard and Reserve positions in the Guard will hold 30,770 soldiers, and AGR positions in the Reserves will remain unchanged at 16,261. This 6 percent reduction across the entire Army is a step toward reducing defense spending.

UPGRADE SMALL ARMS Throughout 2016, the Army will work with the Navy to submit a report detailing a plan to modernize the Army’s and Marines’ smallarms arsenal.

The plan will include the modernization of pistols, carbines, rifles, automatic rifles and light machine guns. A key factor in the plan is how the Army will encourage competition among suppliers, according to the NDAA. The modernization period is set to last 15 years, but the Army got a head start on the project when it announced it was looking to replace its 9 mm pistol, which has been in service since the 1980s.

Small-arms suppliers, which include SIG Sauer, Smith & Wesson and Glock, are among some of the competitors expected to bid to manufacture the 9 mm replacement by the Jan. 28 deadline.

The Army has yet to choose a caliber for the new pistol, but is allowing each competitor the opportunity to submit a pistol with its bore size of choice, among them 9 mm, 40 mm and .45-caliber.

U.S. Army Maj. Lisa Jaster is seen during her Ranger School graduation at Fort Benning, Ga., on Oct. 16.

A LEX M ANNE /Courtesy of the U.S. Army

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CHRIS CHURCH

Stars and Stripes

From additions to the active-duty and reserve forces to new uniforms and new ships for the fleet, 2016 will play out as a big year for the Navy.

NEW UNIFORMS The iconic 13-button service dress blue trousers will soon disappear and be replaced by a front-facing zipper trouser with a nonfunctional 13-button flap.

Beginning Oct. 1, sailors ranked E-6 and below will be able to purchase updated service dress blue uniforms and new recruits will start being issued their new threads. The uniform will look the same, but will have side zippers on the jumper in addition to the more modern trouser.

Toward the end of the year, the Navy expects the new white uniforms to be ready for purchase and distribution to newly minted recruits in training. The updated uniform will feature tailored cuffs and blue piping on the cuffs and jumper flap.

The famous dixie cups covers for E-6 and bellow will also become a unisex cover. It is authorized for wear by both male and female sailors by April and will be required for the service dress white and blue uniforms by October.

In addition to updated duds for formal situations, sailors will also have a new uniform for physical training. The moisture-wicking workout wear will be called a Fitness Suit and is intended to be worn on training days when it is too cool for the Navy-issued T-shirt and shorts set and too warm for Navy-issued sweats.

STANDARDS Beginning Jan. 1, the new Body Composition Assessment will take effect to ease the requirements of weight and body fat standards. That will also allow sailors who fail the body composition evaluation to still take the physical readiness test.

The new rules add a single-step abdominal measurement for those who don’t meet the Navy’s maximum weight allowances by height, and they raise body fat limits to a maximum 26 percent for men and 35 percent for women, following Department of Defense standards. They also reduce the number of permitted failures to two in three years from three in four.

Navy officials said the changes are the first step in the Navy’s move away from an emphasis on body size and toward strengthening the exercise test, known as the physical

readiness test, or PRT. “I want them taking PRTs,” Chief of Naval Personnel Vice Adm. Bill Moran said of the changes in a video released by the Navy. “I want them testing. I want them physically active. That’s going to improve our overall health at the end of the day.”

The new physical fitness assessment standards are part of an effort to emphasize a more holistic look at health and fitness by the Navy.

WOMEN IN SUBS While the military begins working on how to integrate women into combat roles, the Navy continues moving forward with its integration of female enlisted sailors aboard submarines.

Many of the first 38 women who volunteered and were selected for submarine duty are already in training. The first four are scheduled to graduate and report to duty early this year.

Currently, only the larger Ohio-class submarines are capable of housing both men and women.

The Navy integrated female officers into the submarine community in 2011 aboard ballistic missile and guided-missile submarines, and is on track to integrate both commissioned officers and enlisted women into the smaller Virginia-class submarines by 2020.

NEW FUELS For the last six years, the Navy has been talking of deploying the Great Green Fleet.

That is finally expected to happen this year.

The San Diego-based aircraft carrier USS John C. Stennis is scheduled to lead the battle group of ships and aircraft designed to use alternative fuel sources when it departs it’s southern California home in late January. The alternative energy sources include nuclear power and advanced biofuel blends made from used cooking oil and algae and petroleum-based marine diesel or aviation fuel, the U.S. Navy said in a fact sheet.

The Navy demonstrated the Green Fleet in 2012 during the annual Rim of the Pacific exercise, the world’s largest international maritime exercise. There, approximately 450,000 gallons of biofuel were purchased

D ECLAN BARNES/Courtesy of the U.S. Navy

A sailor assigned to the USS George Washington performs push-ups during the Navy-wide, semi-annual physical readiness test. The PRT is composed of curlups, push-ups and a 1.5-mile run or alternate cardiovascular event to evaluate the physical readiness of each sailor. and used, the Navy said.

The energy goals are designed to improve combat capability and increase energy security by cutting dependence on foreign oil.

Other energy-saving features highlighted in the Great Green Fleet include LED lighting, a shipboard energy dashboard to provide real-time energy usage, a tracking device to recommend more fuel-efficient routes and stern flaps that decrease the amount of drag and resistance providing the ship a more hydrodynamic profile.

NEW SHIPS Six new ships are expected to be commissioned this year, headlined by the newest aircraft carrier, the $13-billion USS Gerald R. Ford.

The Ford is the first of the Ford-class nuclear-powered carriers and set to replace the current Nimitz-class flattops. Though similar in appearance, the new carrier’s technological superiority to its older cousin is expected to reduce crew requirements by automating hundreds of tasks while boasting a new catapult launch system — the Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System — to replace the traditional steam systems currently in use, along with a new nuclear reactor design and revamped weapons systems.

The controversial new destroyer class DDG-1000 series ships, led by USS Zumwalt, are also expected for delivery this year.

Zumwalt is currently performing sea trials.

Also set for commission are the Independence variant littoral combat ships USS Montgomery, USS Omaha, the Freedom variant USS Detroit, together with the amphibious transport dock ship USS John P. Murtha.

MY NAVY PORTAL The Navy will start rolling out My Navy Portal this year, with the goal of consolidating sailors’ online career needs.

The service will begin integrating the several Navy websites into one in an effort to give sailors a one-stop shop for various personnel and training resources.

The rollout will occur in multiple phases over a couple of years, the first occurring during 2016, said Lt. Cmdr. Nathan Christensen, spokesman for the Navy’s personnel chief.

He said the phased rollout is to allow for a continuing conversation to ensure everything is done right as more and more programs are integrated.

One of the first systems to be consolidated is Navy Knowledge Online, which focuses on educating and training sailors and is the source for many training modules.

Creating the new system is part of the Navy’s larger push to modernize the Navy’s aging personnel system. My Navy Portal is expected to be fully operational in fiscal year 2019.

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BY M ICHAEL B. K ELLER Stars and Stripes

The Air Force is looking at some changes in 2016, including enlisted pilots and cuts to Tops in Blue.

REBUILDING THE FORCE After steep cuts in 2014, the Air Force had just 312,980 active-duty airmen on its books in 2015. The service’s end-strength was lower in only one year, 1947, when it was formed.

Fewer troops means several important career fields are undermanned, such as airborne cryptologic language analysts, combat controllers and airmen working in mental health services. Especially hard hit were aircraft maintainers who are forced to work long hours to keep up with an ever-increasing operations tempo.

The Air Force has several programs designed to boost its numbers in 2016.

Some plans center on bringing in new airmen. For instance, the original call for 24,000 recruits has grown to more than 28,000.

There are also programs that offer prior service enlisted airmen and officers from critical career fields the opportunity to serve again.

In addition, re-enlistment bonuses for more than 70 jobs and high-year tenure extensions for a few hundred enlisted airmen aim to keep experienced individuals the Air Force may have lost otherwise.

MALE-ONLY JOBS NO LONGER Defense Secretary Ash Carter announced earlier this month that all combat jobs will be open to women. This includes six Air Force career fields that were previously open only to men.

They are: combat rescue officer, special tactics officer, enlisted combat control, pararescue, tactical air control party and special operations weather airman.

In an effort to develop gender-neutral standards for combat-related jobs, roughly 70 female airmen participated in a series of tests during two months in Texas. The tests were based on real-life scenarios and specific tasks that could be encountered in combat. The results will be used to adapt some of the regular physical fitness activities.

Although the standards will be gender-neutral, according to Lt. Gen. Bradley Heithold, the commander of Air Force Special Operations Command, the physical fitness regimen will be just as grueling as before.

“The standards will not be lowered to

incorporate or integrate women into our formations at U.S. Special Operations Command or in AFSOC — repeat, will not be lowered,” Heithold said in an interview with the Air Force Times.

CUTS TO TOPS IN BLUE The Air Force’s much-maligned musical group Tops in Blue may be facing a final curtain call.

For 62 years, the service’s premier band has traveled around the globe to entertain airmen and their families. Surveys show that 96 percent of commanders feel that the entertainment value is excellent.

To get the rank-and-file perspective, the Air Force in October surveyed 4,674 enlisted airmen, officers and civilians to see if they think the benefits of Tops in Blue outweigh the cost. The results of that survey contributed to Air Force officials announcing that the

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group’s 2016 season will be canceled for “an extended review of the program.”

A recurring theme in Air Force Airmen Powered by Innovation program submissions has been to cut Tops in Blue to fund more widely used base events and facilities.

This year, Tops in Blue cost the Air Force at least $1.3 million, $1 million of which was Morale, Welfare and Readiness funding taken from other base programs.

While the band’s costs went up 13 percent compared with those in 2014, corporate sponsorship went down, dropping from around $170,000 last year, to only $25,000 in 2015.

Taxpayer appropriated fund contributions stayed at $319,000.

Critics point out that those numbers do not include the salaries of the 37 enlisted airmen and officers away from their primary duties for a year, or the travel costs of sending them to their concerts.

The last scheduled show will be at Scott Air Force Base, Ill., on Jan. 15.

RETIREMENT CHANGES Big changes are in store for the military’s 70-year-old retirement system.

The new defense authorization bill significantly reduces the value of future 20-year pensions and implements a new blended program resembling civilian 401(k) retirement accounts.

The new program will have troops invest 3 percent of their monthly paychecks automatically into a Thrift Savings Plan account, with 1 percent being matched by the Defense Department. That DOD contribution will increase to 5 percent of pay after two years of service. The program will not be in full effect until 2018.

Another issue that needs to be addressed is how each service will handle continuation pay. Designed to boost midcareer retention, continuation pay would trade cash for another four years of service after the 12-year mark.

Active-duty servicemembers could earn 2.5 times their basic pay per month, and reservists could earn 0.5 times their basic pay.

The service secretaries can also authorize a basic monthly pay multiplier of up to 13 for active-duty and six for reservists for hard-to-fill jobs.

The Military Compensation and Retirement Modernization Commission even recommended the Air Force increase continuation pay

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up to 15.9 for some officers, which would allow the service to meet future manpower challenges. The final numbers will ultimately be decided by Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James, but Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Welsh shared a word of encouragement during an edition of Airman to Airman.

“Nobody’s going to hurt you on the pay side of the house,” Welsh said. “Nobody’s going to make retirement something you won’t be very satisfied with. ... The Air Force isn’t going to allow it, the Department of Defense is not going to allow it and Congress is not going to allow it. So let us work the details of those programs, and you focus on getting the job done.”

ENLISTED PILOTS The Air Force made a decision in December to bring back something the service hasn’t had since 1957: enlisted pilots.

Specifically, flying remotely piloted aircraft.

Enlisted airmen will no longer serve solely in crew roles, such as a sensor operator.

Under the new policy, airmen will be allowed to pilot the unarmed RQ-4 Global Hawk, and could be approved to fly the MQ-1 Predator and MQ-9 Reaper drones — both of which carry missiles.

Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James and Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Welsh have expressed their confidence that enlisted airmen are up to the task.

Enlisted drone operators are seen as a big help in the undermanned and overworked field, where Predator and Reaper pilots fly about 1,000 hours annually, compared with the average fighter pilot’s 250 hours.

Compounding the staffing shortage, the Air Force is losing 240 pilots a year while training only 180 replacements.

That prompted Defense Secretary Ash Carter to cut daily armed air patrols in combat zones.

Detractors point out that there are several issues that would need to be addressed before airmen get the controls of the drones. Officers and enlisted airmen would be doing the same job while earning very different pay checks.

There is also the concern about what the chain of command would look like.

These are some of the same conundrums that led the Air Force to do away with enlisted pilots after Master Sgt. George H. Holmes — the last enlisted pilot — retired 58 years ago.

Because of a severe shortage of drone pilots, the Air Force will examine the possibility of allowing some enlisted airmen to fill the empty slots.

A DAWN K ELSEY/Courtesy of the U.S. Air Force

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officials have battled over the plan, which will also allow the U.S. to relocate thousands of Marines to Guam.

The sticking point, for many Okinawans, is the fact that too many Marines would remain on their island.

“Even after 70 years, 74 percent of U.S. military bases in Japan are located on Okinawa, which accounts for only 0.6 percent of the total land surface of the country,” Okinawa Gov. Takeshi Onaga told Stars and Stripes in October. “The central government has little understanding of the painful experiences suffered by the people of Okinawa.”

For now, the runway construction is in limbo. Onaga recently revoked a work permit that would have allowed for the construction.

The Japanese government has since filed a lawsuit to dismiss Onaga’s revocation.

At this point, the future of the plan is in the court’s hands.

CAREER INCENTIVES VANESSA A USTIN /Courtesy of the U.S. Marine Corps

Tyler Cunningham crawls through a combat training course on Parris Island, S.C. The Corps will hand out $56 million in re-enlistment bonuses to keep Marines in hard-to-fill jobs.

BY M ICHAEL S. DARNELL Stars and Stripes

The new year is shaping up to be a busy one for the new Marine Corps commandant, Gen. Robert B. Neller, who took over for Gen. Joseph Dunford in September.

WOMEN IN THE INFANTRY In December, Defense Secretary Ash Carter opened all military jobs to women, and while the ruling applies to every branch of service, none has opposed the move more than the Marine Corps.

In September, the Marine Corps released a summary of a $36-million study looking into the effectiveness of women in combat roles.

The report concluded women were at significantly higher risk for injury, were less accurate when firing weapons and less capable of lifting heavy objects.

While that report has since come under fire for its methodology, it has remained a lightning rod for detractors of the move to integrate women into modern infantry units.

This move will open more than 30,000 individual positions within the Marine Corps to women.

Regardless, top Marine officials say the

Corps has received its marching orders and will spend much of 2016 integrating the once male-only job fields.

“We have a decision. It’s time to move out,” new Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Robert B. Neller said Dec. 4 during a video address to the troops.

A plan to integrate women into these new roles is expected on Carter’s desk in early January.

FUTENMA’S FUTURE IN LIMBO Someday, the United States might actually be able to close Marine Corps Air Station Futenma and move thousands of Marines north to Camp Schwab. Whether the longplanned, long-delayed project to build a runway at Schwab will get untracked in 2016 is unclear.

For nearly 20 years, Tokyo and Okinawa

The Corps has $56 million in re-enlistment bonuses to hand out, most of which will go to just a handful of military occupational specialties.

Some jobs, including counterintel and critical skills operators, are offering noncommissioned officers re-enlistment bonuses upward of $56,000.

Marines can expect a mixed bag in other career fields. For instance, officer force-shaping incentives are also drying up. The temporary early retirement authority — a program offering early outs for O-3s through O-5s — will shrink in scope. Previously, 26 jobs were eligible for the program, but that number will be reduced to eight in the new year.

On the good news front, enlisted-to-officer programs are steadily increasing. Over the past three years, 111 enlisted Marines made the jump to officer, and Marine Corps Recruiting Command is hoping that 150 troops make the transition in 2016.

On the pay front, Marines will get a 1.3 percent pay raise, a slight increase over the past few years.

TACKLING SEXUAL ASSAULT Sexual assault and harassment remains a problem for the Marine Corps, even more so than the other branches.

Nearly 8 percent of women Marines report being assaulted during their careers, according to a 2014 Department of Defense and Rand Corp. review of sexual assault among servicemembers. That sits in stark contrast to the Air Force, where the number is closer to 3 percent.

The majority of assaults occur in the lower enlisted ranks.

In May, the DOD released reports stating that every branch will have to do more to

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prevent both sexual assault and retaliation by superiors against uniformed victims.

As the Marine Corps integrates women into previously male-only battalions, expect more focus in 2016 on preventative measures across the board.

A NEW COMMANDANT When Gen. Joseph Dunford was promoted to be the 19th chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Robert B. Neller found himself in control of a Marine Corps facing some of its largest cultural shifts in its 240-year history.

Not only will Neller oversee the integration of women into combat arms, but he’ll also guide the Corps as it returns to garrison life.

As the war in Afghanistan winds down and deployment opportunities dry up, the peacetime Corps — a situation dreaded by many of the troops — has returned.

In his 2015 vision for the Corps, Dunford emphasized training and finding new uses for the Marines’ expeditionary nature.

“While we emphasize the resourcing of our forward-deployed forces to meet the combatant commanders’ requirements, it is equally important that our nondeployed forces are ready to respond quickly and successfully to the unexpected,” Dunford said.

Upon taking over command in September, Neller promised that he’d issue his follow-up to that guidance no later than the New Year.

Marines expect that guidance to have a substantial impact on direction of the Corps in 2016 and beyond.

MANNING AND END-STRENGTH CONCERNS The Marine Corps continues to shrink, but not as quickly as previously announced by the Defense Department.

During the Iraq troop surge, there were roughly 202,000 Marines — a number that was supposed to dwindle to some 174,000 as part of sequestration.

Then, in March 2015, the numbers were readjusted to 182,000, and revised again to 184,000 in the Navy’s Fiscal Year 2016 budget.

These fluctuating numbers have created some uncertainty among the troops.

Will there still be room for them in the Marine Corps? Will force-shaping measures, such as the voluntary enlisted early release program, continue past 2016?

“We will address the current gaps in NCO and SNCO leadership by revamping our current manpower management and readiness reporting models, systems, policies and processes,” the 2015 Commandant’s Planning Guidance stated.

What policies will be affected and when remains to be seen.

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An Afghan child shows off his slingshot near Bagram Air Field on May 9.

An Afghan soldier grins during an operation in Nangarhar province in August.

JAD SLEIMAN /Stars and Stripes

JOSH SMITH /Stars and Stripes

Spc. Ryan Bussell works out at the gym at the coalition base in Besmaya, Iraq, on April 26.

JOSH SMITH /Stars and Stripes

Afghan soldiers rest before an operation in Nangarhar province in August.

JOSH SMITH /Stars and Stripes

Members of the Washington Redskins cheerleading squad take a group selfie with U.S. servicemembers during the Super Bowl XLIX party at Bagram Air Field on Feb. 2.

CARLO M UNOZ /Stars and Stripes

JOSH SMITH /Stars and Stripes

Men run from an Afghan Mi-17 helicopter outside Kunduz, Afghanistan, on Oct. 7.

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MILITARY

Pemberton to remain at Philippines base for now

BY SETH ROBSON Stars and Stripes

The U.S. and the Philippines have agreed a U.S. Marine convicted last week of killing a transgender Filipina will remain detained at a Philippines military base while another facility is upgraded.

Lance Cpl. Joseph Scott Pemberton has been held in a makeshift jail on Camp Aguinaldo — headquarters of the Armed Forces of the Philippines — in Manila since shortly after his arrest for the killing of Jeffrey “Jennifer”

Laude in an Olongapo City hotel bathroom in October 2014.

After finding Pemberton guilty of homicide last week, Judge Roline Ginez-Jabalde gave officials five days to decide where to incarcerate him.

CNN Philippines reported Tuesday that documents submitted to the court by the Presidential Commission on Visiting Forces indicate that the U.S. and the Philippines governments have agreed that Pemberton be detained at the Armed Forces of the Philip-

pines Custodial Center on Camp Aguinaldo.

Pemberton will remain in his temporary jail while the custodial center is renovated to install equipment such as security cameras, cellphone jammers, electric fans and kitchen equipment, according to the documents cited by CNN. The documents submitted to the court don’t specify when the upgrade of the Custodial Center will be finished or when Pemberton will be transferred, CNN reported. robson.seth@stripes.com

DANIEL BROWN /Courtesy of the U.S. Marine Corps

An MV-22B Osprey flies in Japan in 2012. A Japanese man was arrested Monday on suspicion of flashing a laser-like light at a Marine Corps helicopter flying over Ginowan, Okinawa.

Japanese man accused in ‘laser’ incidents Stars and Stripes

CAMP FOSTER, Okinawa — A Japanese man has been arrested on suspicion of flashing a laser-like light at a Marine Corps helicopter flying over Ginowan, Okinawa, in one of five such incidents that have occurred in the tiny island prefecture since July.

Katsuro Hiraoka, 56, is accused of beaming a green light at the helicopter using a laser pointer on July 1 from 9:03 to 9:12 p.m., interrupting Marine Corps training, a prefectural police spokesman said. The incident presented a significant risk to public safety, the Japa-

nese government said.

Hiraoka admitted to flashing the laser pointer but has not admitted to purposely trying to interrupt the training, police said. Police are investigating his motives and whether he is involved in other cases.

Hiraoka was in police custody Tuesday, charged with forcible obstruction of business. The case was handed over to the prosecutor’s office Tuesday.

“This is an extremely dangerous act, and a malicious act that could cause grave harm to the people living in the vicinity,” Defense Minister

Gen Nakatani said Friday. “We urge people to stop conducting these acts.”

There have been reports of laserlike lights being beamed at U.S. and Japanese aircraft at bases and airports throughout Japan. Nakatani said the ministry is working to gauge the scope of the problem.

The Japan Maritime SelfDefense Force’s Fleet Air Wing 4 reported about 80 cases in which lights were beamed at SDF and U.S. military aircraft since 2013, Nakatani said. Approximately 10 of these cases involved SDF aircraft. news@stripes.com

Audit finds errors in VA travel pay

BY COREY DICKSTEIN Stars and Stripes

WASHINGTON — Processing irregularities at three Department of Veterans Affairs medical facilities led to an estimated $37,400 in improper travel reimbursement payments last year, an inspector general audit found.

VA Inspector General reviews at the three facilities — Hudson Valley Health Care System in New York; Hampton VA Medical Center in Hampton, Va.; and Lexington VA Medical Center in Lexington, Ky. — determined about 21 percent of Beneficiary Travel Program vouchers inspected included one or more processing errors leading to the overpayments, according to the report released Monday.

The Beneficiary Travel Program provides eligible veterans and other beneficiaries mileage reimbursement for travel for medical care including exams, rehabilitation and counseling services.

“Generally, errors occurred because the medical facilities did not fully use all … (Beneficiary Travel Program) enhancements and had not developed or implemented formal, routine quality reviews of approved mileage reimbursement vouchers,” the report stated.

The audits were launched following separate allegations of issues with the program made between December 2014 and April 2015.

The majority of the processing errors found in the random samples the inspector general examined at the three sites were due to incorrect mileage calculation or approval of appointments that did not qualify for travel reimbursement, the report found.

The Hudson Valley

At the VA’s Hudson Valley facility, investigators found processing errors in 38 percent of reviewed vouchers, leading to an estimated $27,200 in improperly approved reimbursements. facility made the most errors. Investigators found processing errors in 38 percent of reviewed vouchers, leading to an estimated $27,200 in improperly approved reimbursements.

At the Hampton facility, investigators found processing errors in 21 percent of vouchers reviewed and estimated about $9,700 in improperly approved reimbursements were paid out in 2014.

In Lexington, investigators found irregularities in only 7 percent of reviewed vouchers and estimated about $500 in improperly approved reimbursements were paid.

“Although individual approved travel reimbursements averaged less than $26 per trip for the facilities within our scope, if program weaknesses identified occur across VA’s facilities nationwide, they have the potential to be significant,” the report stated.

The inspector general recommended the VA review its process for approving travel vouchers and better train its staff to handle reimbursement responsibilities. According to the report, the VA “concurred with … the findings and recommendations and provided an appropriate action plan.” dickstein.corey@stripes.com Twitter: @CDicksteinDC

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WAR ON TERRORISM

Dunford: Other nations’ special ops to join fight

BY CHRIS CHURCH Stars and Stripes

MANAMA, Bahrain — Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Joseph Dunford said Monday that special operators from other countries may be joining in the fight against the Islamic State group.

“Although I can’t talk to you about the countries right now, because we are still in the process of discussing with them, we have a number of other countries that we are working with right now to provide additional special operations in Syria and Iraq,” Dunford said at a stop in Bahrain during a USO tour of U.S. installations in several countries.

Servicemembers he’s met along the way recognize the nature of the threat and have expressed their eagerness to do battle, he said.

“I had dinner with two sailors and about six Marines from FAST Company, and what they wanted to know is when do we need them to get in the fight,” Dunford said.

“They say, ‘Hey sir, what do you need us to do? We are ready to do it.’ ” Dunford told Stars and Stripes in an interview Monday that he heard the same motivation from servicemembers in Sicily and Djibouti before his trip to Bahrain.

Last week the Pentagon announced plans to send to Iraq a new special forces unit of 100 men to fight the Islamic State group, also known as ISIS or ISIL. Soon after that announcement, Germany’s parliament — responding to France’s request for support in the wake of the Nov. 13 terrorist attacks in Paris — voted to send reconnaissance planes, a frigate and fueling capacity to the Middle East.

Dunford said the U.S. has received encouraging responses from regional allies regarding the deployment of forces to fight the Islamic State group but is waiting to see actual boots on the ground.

“It didn’t take Paris for us as Americans to recognize the nature of the threat, or many others, in fairness,” Dunford said. “But if anyone in the wake of Paris doesn’t think it’s their problem, they aren’t thinking hard enough.”

Though the 28-nation NATO alliance said it will not provide ground troops, the coalition against the Islamic State group already involves special operations contributions from individual NATO member states and may have more in the future, Dunford said.

The 60-plus-member coalition has seen an increase in contributions in the wake of Paris from a number of countries, including Italy, Germany, France and, most recently, the United Kingdom.

However, the U.S. is still pushing for more involvement from regional allies, Dunford said. The U.S. has written letters to several countries identifying how they could contribute to the campaign, especially in the wake of the Paris terrorist attack.

During the past week, the Iraqi government, including Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, has said the country doesn’t need additional foreign ground combat troops, but Dunford said everything the U.S. is doing is in conjunction with the Iraqi government.

“When Prime Minister Abadi made that statement, he was really talking about large formations of U.S. combat forces and was not referring to special operations forces or other unique capabilities that

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C HRIS C HURCH /Stars and Stripes

Above: Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Joseph Dunford, center, eats with servicemembers at Naval Support Activity Bahrain on Monday. Below left and right: Dunford addresses NSA Bahrain forces.

France now overseeing anti-terrorism task force the Iraqis have actually asked us for and we’ll support,” he said.

Dunford also said he’ll continue to make recommendations he believes will advance the momentum of the campaign, including increasing unique U.S. capabilities and special operators.

“At the end of the day, while it’s going to take a coalition to defeat ISIL, and while many nations have to deal with this issue, it’s also a threat to the homeland, to the United States,” Dunford said. “So we have significant interest in making sure that we defeat [the Islamic State group].” church.chris@stripes.com Twitter: @CChurchStripes

BY CHRIS CHURCH Stars and Stripes

MANAMA, Bahrain — France has taken a key leadership role overseeing a task force responsible for planning and conducting strike operations against the Islamic State group, the Navy said Monday.

Rear Adm. Rene-Jean Crignola, on board his flagship, the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle, has assumed command of U.S. Naval Forces Central Command’s Task Force 50, which is conducting coalition naval strike operations against the jihadi group.

The plan for the French to take control of the task force has been in place for several months and is not in response to the Paris attacks, a Navy spokesman said.

The Charles de Gaulle and its battle group left their homeport of Toulon, France, on Nov. 18 to support strike operations over Iraq and Syria. It is currently in the U.S. 5th Fleet Area of Operations.

The U.S. 5th Fleet is responsible for some 2.5 million square miles of area, including the Persian Gulf, Gulf of Oman, North Arabian Sea, Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea. church.chris@stripes.com Twitter: @CChurchStripes

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MILITARY

USS Zumwalt starts sea trials Next-generation warship put to test after many setbacks

BY TARA COPP Stars and Stripes

WASHINGTON — The Navy’s new stealth destroyer began a week of sea trials Monday to try and prove that after years of setbacks, the next-generation warship was worth the wait.

The USS Zumwalt is the first in a class of futuristic destroyers that will have an angular but low external profile to maximize stealth on the outside, and next-generation power systems to enable the ship to run energy-demanding future weapons and sensor systems on the inside.

The ship sailed Monday from its port in Bath, Maine, for a weeklong test of its onboard systems, according to the Navy.

“Over the next several days, the Navy will demonstrate many of the ship’s key systems and technologies,” said Capt. Thurraya Kent, a Navy spokeswoman. “The Navy and the shipbuilder are executing the test program of this first of class ship with extreme rigor, and this initial at-sea period will allow for

earlier issue identification and risk mitigation.”

The Zumwalt was designed to replace the Navy’s current fleet of Arleigh-Burke destroyers but cost overruns and program delays led the Navy to cap the ship’s production to three. The procurement costs of the three Zumwalt ships is estimated to top $12.3 billion, about 37 percent more than their initial $8.9 billion program estimate.

The program as a whole, including research and development costs, is estimated to reach $22 billion.

Critics have questioned whether the ship is the right fit for future warfare, and it’s escalating price tag hasn’t helped, said Peter Singer, a senior fellow at the New America Foundation and co-author of “Ghost Fleet: A Novel of the Next World War.” “No ship is more interesting in the way that it links the past with the questions that surround the future of naval war,” he said. “It is both a throwback and a breakthrough. It is the size of a World War I battleship, originally designed for gunfire shore bombard-

ment, a role many are not sure we even need anymore, but utterly revolutionary in other ways.”

Singer said the Zumwalt’s focus won’t be fighting the Islamic State group, but deterring China.

“Given the re-entry of the great power rivalry to 21st-century politics, that is a good thing,” he said.

While the ship has experienced setbacks, the Zumwalt offers technological improvements that will be required in the Navy’s future fleet whether it is the future platform of choice, said naval expert Ron O’Rourke, of the Congressional Research Service.

Unlike with the current fleet of destroyers and cruisers, an integrated electric drive powers the Zumwalt’s stealth and weapons systems such as lasers and an electromagnetic rail gun developed to compete with Chinese and Russian technology, O’Rourke said.

“If you don’t do that through integrated electric drives, you have to do that with other power structure — batteries and capacitors and such,” said O’Rourke, who was speaking at a U.S. Navy Institute

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conference in Washington on future U.S. sea power challenges.

“Right now we don’t have ships on the books on the shipbuilding plan beyond the three Zumwalts that will do that. So now the question becomes, Are you going to do that in some other way? We need to address that.” copp.tara@stripes.com Twitter: @TaraCopp

G ENERAL D YNAMICS BATH IRON WORKS /Courtesy of the U.S. Navy

The USS Zumwalt gets underway on Monday for the first time conducting at-sea tests and trials. The multimission ship will provide independent forward presence and deterrence, support special operations forces, and operate as an integral part of joint and combined expeditionary forces.

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PACIFIC

Vietnam vets make good life for themselves in Cambodia

BY M ATTHEW M. BURKE Stars and Stripes

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia he scent of burning marijuana mixes with the pungent odors from food push carts and garbage piles.

Scantily clad women lure tourists to bars that offer ice-cold beer to stave off the steamy heat.

Cambodia has come a long way since the brutal Khmer Rouge massacred more than 1 million people in the infamous “killing fields” in the 1970s. Yet it also remains a nation rooted in the past, a land of friendly locals and immense cultural beauty with darkness and debauchery lurking beneath the surface.

Phnom Penh, its capital, is a place where the business of survival never sleeps — panhandlers carrying babies meander in a seemingly endless parade, motorized rickshaw drivers offer cheap rides at all hours, fasttalking children peddle homemade wares, and nearly every price is dirt cheap — and negotiable.

In many ways, it’s frozen in time, reminiscent of Saigon at the height of the Vietnam War. For a handful of American Vietnam veterans who left a little piece of themselves behind during the ferocious jungle war and say they were vilified when they went back to the states, Phnom Penh has become home.

“The war was the worst

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Andy Richards during the Vietnam War. Courtesy of Andy Richards

M ATTHEW M. BURKE /Stars and Stripes

Photographer Al Rockoff, who got his start as a combat photographer in the Vietnam War, takes a “selfie” with exKhmer Rouge commander Em Son at a ceremony on the Cambodian island of Koh Tang. thing that ever happened to me,” Andy Richards, 65, said as he sat in a bar booth, swirling wine in a glass. “I’ve had three open-heart surgeries.”

Richards, a bar manager with a handlebar mustache and sunbaked skin, generally attributes his heart problems to the war. He is warm, friendly and easygoing.

“I like Cambodia,” said Richards, who arrived in 2002. “I like the lack of rules. There’s more personal freedoms here than anywhere else.

It’s inexpensive. The people are very nice.”

The Madison, Wis., native joined the Army in 1968 at 18 because he expected to be drafted. He spent a short time in the storied 82nd Airborne Division but disliked it because it was “too spit-shined.” He transferred to the 101st Airborne and headed for Vietnam’s jungles.

Richards went from a paratrooper to a bandanna-wearing grunt, like something out of the 1986 film “Platoon.” He and his fellow soldiers spent time in the most northern part of South Vietnam, the region with the highest concentration of North Vietnamese Army forces.

They operated near Khe Sanh, in the highlands, and made forays into the demilitarized zone.

Richards left the Army and Vietnam behind in April 1971 and earned a journalism degree from the University of Wisconsin. He worked at small local newspapers but battled the bottle and his anger for years.

“They considered us whiners,” Richards said of his return stateside.

“We were a pariah.”

In 1999, at the prodding of a friend, he went back to Vietnam to “release the ghosts.”

“I was scared,” Richards said. “I was apprehensive. But after my first day in Saigon, I was talking with exNVA, telling war stories. I got that monkey off my back. It was the best thing for me.”

In southern Vietnam, Richards got the thanks he didn’t receive at home.

They were kind to him; they shook his hand and thanked him for trying to help them. He then traveled to Thailand and Laos.

After briefly returning to the U.S., Richards went back to Southeast Asia for good in November 1999, living first in Thailand, then Vietnam and Cambodia, where he put down roots. After years of searching, he had found a home.

John Muller, 66, from Seattle, told a similar tale. He joined the Army in 1969 and spent the next year in Vietnam.

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M ATTHEW M. BURKE /Stars and Stripes

Andy Richards is a member of a small but thriving community of Vietnam veteran expatriates in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. The 65-year-old from Madison, Wis., served in the Army’s storied 82nd and 101st Airborne divisions. He came back to Southeast Asia in 1999, hoping to release the ghosts that haunted him from the war, and never left.

Below: Richards poses at the Khe Sanh airstrip during a recent road trip of Vietnam.

Courtesy of Andy Richards

Courtesy of Andy Richards

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“I wish I’d never gone,” he said.

“It was a real waste of lives and a huge expense.”

After the war, he returned to the States and, like Richards, went to school, earning a political science degree. He, too, felt he and his fellow veterans were treated like criminals, and, after several jobs, he decided to leave for good.

Muller had visited Southeast Asia several times beginning in 1976 and returned there to live 10 years later.

“I wanted to come back and do something good,” he said. “That’s my whole motive for why I’m out here.”

Muller, who runs a private security company, said his legacy has been working with the Cambodian government to regulate the industry, taking guns off the streets and

John Muller, the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 11575 Phnom Penh post commander, left, served in the Army in Vietnam. He made the decision to come back to Southeast Asia for good after returning home to America, where he said he and his comrades were treated like criminals. Famed war photographer Al Rockoff sits to his right.

said he once died on the table after providing jobs to ex-troops. a piece of shrapnel pierced his heart “It’s easy to work here,” Muller while taking pictures at the front as said. “There is a lot of opportunity. the Khmer Rouge advanced through It’s easy for me to get around and do the countryside. A Swedish surgeon business.” saved him.

For legendary and eccentric phoHe splits his time between Florida tographer Al Rockoff — portrayed and his adopted country, and can

by John Malkovich in the Academy still be seen riding around Phnom Award-winning film “The Killing Penh on the back of a Fields,” which he derides moped, camera in hand, — his continued work snapping pictures of in Cambodia is the next the colorful people he chapter in a love affair encounters. that began when he was “This country has opan Army combat photogportunity like Thailand rapher in Vietnam. did 20 to 30 years after Rockoff was known to World War II,” he said. go to extreme lengths to “It has a good nightlife. get his iconic images that … The police deal with today adorn the walls of people all right. I’m getthe U.S. Embassy and the See the latest installment ting back to where I left Foreign Correspondents’ of our continuing series about how the Vietnam off in the Army. I want to Club in Phnom Penh. He

1965 War changed America at stripes.com/vietnam50

show people what’s going on.”

Richards, Muller and Rockoff belong to a small club. While Thailand has many Air Force and Army veterans living there, and Vietnam has a growing number, Cambodia still has few.

Richards said Phnom Penh draws him partially because it is a big city with a small-city feel, and has become almost “cosmopolitan” in recent years. Rockoff likened its charm to Monaco.

Yet, despite all the growth and development, which was inevitable as Cambodia came out of the dark Khmer Rouge period in the early ‘90s, the men say their adopted country will never lose its luster.

“I will stay here,” Richards said.

“I wouldn’t live anywhere else. This is the end of the road, dude.” burke.matt@stripes.com

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VETERANS

Headway made on PTSD treatments

BY DIANNA CAHN Stars and Stripes

Before he launched into his lecture on the long-term consequences of “the blast,” Alan Peterson, a clinical psychologist, took a moment to pay tribute to his subjects — and to get his audience’s attention.

“This time of year, keep in mind, we have a lot of people who are deployed,” said Peterson, who is the behavioral medicine chief at the medical school of the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio. “For our troops who are deployed, Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah and …”

“BOOM!” he said, in a sudden shout.

Beside him, images flashed across a screen: ripped, ragged limbs, pools of blood, furniture — and people — thrown like rag dolls.

Peterson’s voice was shaky. “There was just this incredible, loud boom, and all you could, just, like, the smell was of carbon, like a metal taste in my mouth,” he said. “There was moaning and there was screaming and the medics showed up. People were just blown to pieces. And they were helping people and there was just so much blood.”

The images came quickly now. A torso pierced by shrapnel. A stretcher.

Body parts.

“Oh God, that one dude, I could see inside of his head. And there was just kind of mass chaos. There was just so much blood … so much blood.”

He paused. The screen stopped on an image of the tent, giant holes torn through its walls and roof in jagged, violent angles. Peterson turned to the room full of medical colleagues.

“That’s the way that blast occurs, right?” he said. “You are at a rock concert, in Paris, you are having a good time, the next thing you know it is mass, mass chaos.”

The IED, or improvised explosive device, is considered the number one culprit for battle wounds in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. It evolved into the go-to weapon for enemies of U.S. forces as they patrolled the streets trying to reach out to people. Nearly 80 percent of combat injuries to U.S. forces in those conflicts were from blasts — the highest proportion in the history of large-scale conflict, Peterson said.

For U.S. forces, that has meant myriad complex injuries ranging from burns and amputations to musculoskeletal, skin, genital, organ and brain

D IANNA CAHN /Stars and Stripes

Clinical psychologist Alan Peterson, a professor at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio and a research scientist with the South Texas Veterans Health Care System, talks Dec. 2 at a federal health conference in San Antonio about the effects of blasts. injuries, as well as psychological consequences that can last decades.

But the proliferation of the blast also has meant a robust focus on protection and treatment. Forces are now equipped with better body armor, bomb detectors, robots and protective vehicles, along with more focused training and human intelligence. Far more survive.

And while some injuries — to the brain in particular — are still confounding scientists, doctors are making tremendous headway in treating not only the physical wounds of these wars, but also another signature injury: post-traumatic stress disorder.

PTSD and traumatic brain injury often overlap, said Peterson, who is part of a south Texas consortium studying the treatments of PTSD. Often, those suffering from TBI have PTSD as well.

Many of the symptoms are similar — trouble sleeping, memory problems, poor concentration, depression, anxiety and irritability.

But there are differences as well.

TBI patients struggle with headaches, dizziness, fatigue and light and noise intolerance, while symptoms unique to PTSD involve re-experiencing the trauma, avoiding reminders or triggers, negative changes in thought processes and moods and heightened excitement.

The symptoms compound each other, Peterson said. A PTSD sufferer stops going outside, doing his or her favorite things for fear that something will trigger symptoms. That leads to isolation and depression, he said.

Military forces can train for the horrors of war and to be resilient, Peterson said. But the trauma comes when the unexpected happens. So while special operations forces might be the most resilient and prepared, they are also the most exposed and at risk of experiencing things that one could not have imagined in advance.

“Things occur that no human being could possibly anticipate would occur,” he said. “Oftentimes, these are the things people struggle with.”

The cost for these injuries is also staggering, Peterson said. The costs for disability payments alone for a servicemember claiming PTSD can tally $500,000 during a lifetime, he said.

That’s not including medical, unemployment and other associated costs.

Though many treatments might work, the departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs have sanctioned two of them for pervasive use: prolonged exposure therapy, in which a patient reviews the traumatic experience again and again until the event becomes historical and stops setting off triggers, and cognitive processing therapy, in which the patient reviews symptoms and accounts of the trauma and works to modify thoughts and beliefs related to it — more of an adaptation of perspective.

A 2012 study found 80 percent of civilians treated with these therapies were basically cured, and remained that way five years later.

But doctors have yet to conclude that it works as well on military veterans.

Part of the problem, Peterson said, is

that active-duty servicemembers don’t manage to show up for sessions during a 12-to-15-week period. Doctors are now trying compressed treatments, in which the sessions are daily for two weeks, rather than spread out over a longer period.

In Israel, a 2011 study found early intervention following a trauma can help prevent the full onset of PTSD. The study divided nearly 300 participants into five groups receiving exposure therapy, cognitive therapy, medication, one placebo and one on a wait list.

At the end of five months, 20 percent of the two therapy groups developed full-blown PTSD while 60 percent of the other three groups developed the symptoms.

More than 25 PTSD research studies are being conducted by the consortium at the UT Health Science Center, where Peterson is one of more than 100 investigators. The group, called STRONG STAR — the South Texas Research Organizational Network Guiding Studies on Trauma and Resilience — is the largest of its kind in the world, involving more than 30 collaborating institutions, including the VA’s National Center for PTSD. Several of the studies are being conducted by the doctors who developed exposure and cognitive therapies, Peterson said.

One being conducted at Fort Hood, Texas divided 370 people into four groups, comparing standard prolonged exposure therapy with the same therapy compressed into two weeks. A third group that did standard therapy, known as present center therapy, and a fourth group received minimal contact.

Those results are not out yet.

A study published this month in the Journal of Consulting Clinical Psychology compared prolonged exposure, cognitive processing and present center group therapies, Peterson said. Cognitive processing was most successful, and prolonged exposure a little less so.

But neither worked as well as 80 percent — the results in the civilian study, he said.

A third study compared group and individual cognitive processing therapies and initial findings are showing the individual therapy is more successful, Peterson said.

Ultimately, he said, treating PTSD is oddly similar to treating cancer. There are all these different treatments, Peterson said, if one doesn’t work, keep trying until you find one that does. cahn.dianna@stripes.com Twitter: @diannacahn

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Despite concerns, military still using burn pits

BY TARA COPP Stars and Stripes

WASHINGTON — The U.S. military still relies on burn pits to dispose of waste in Iraq despite concerns that toxic smoke and fumes released by fires can cause serious illnesses to troops.

During the bulk of wartime operations in Afghanistan and Iraq since 2001, the military relied on hundreds of large, open-air pits to burn solid waste, exposing personnel working the pits and others living nearby to toxic smoke.

In 2009, the Department of Defense limited the times when burn pits could be used in response to Congress and growing health concerns.

DOD regulations require an incinerator to be used at any base where there are more than 100 personnel and require base commanders to come up with contingency plans for the disposal of solid waste, noting burn pits should be a short-term solution only.

Now, “there are no burn pits operated at any U.S. base in Afghanistan,” said Col. Michael Lawhorn, spokesman for Operation Resolute Support.

However, some pits are in limited use in Iraq, according to DOD officials.

When U.S. forces returned to Iraq in late 2014 and summer 2015 to assist the Iraqis in rebuilding their army and security forces, burn pits were put back in use, said Army Capt. Traun Moore, spokesman for Operation Inherent Resolve.

“Coalition forces at Al Asad Air Base and al-Taqaddum Air Base disposed of garbage by using burn pits, in accordance with Central Command environmental guidelines,” Moore said. “The burn pit at Al Asad has been replaced by an incinerator and is no longer in use.

Regular garbage at [al-Taqaddum] is disposed of by a local contractor.

However, a registered medical waste burn pit is still in use. An incinerator has been shipped to [al-Taqaddum] and is in the process of being put into operation.”

In 2010, the Government Accountability Office found the DOD was not following its own regulations for safe burn-pit operations, and earlier pits were used regularly to dispose of prohibited plastics, paints, batteries, aerosols, aluminum and other items that could produce harmful emissions when burned.

KBR Inc., under the military’s logistical support contract, operated many of the pits. On Jan. 21, a federal

Courtesy of Diane Slape

Army Sgt. 1st Class Fred Slape, shown with his wife, Diane, and their daughter, Montana, died of lung cancer and two brain tumors. During his two deployments to Afghanistan, he worked in a motor pool that was close to his base’s burn pit. court in Maryland will consider a lawsuit alleging soldiers’ exposure to burn pits in Iraq and Afghanistan led to serious respiratory illnesses and deaths.

Sgt. 1st Class Fred Slape, who served two tours in Afghanistan between 2008 and 2011, died just eight weeks after doctors diagnosed him with advanced lung cancer. He was 42.

“Fred was the motor sergeant who ran the motor pools, which included the living areas of most mechanic personnel,” his widow, Diane Slape, told Stars and Stripes. “These areas were always far in the rear of the [forward operating base], which was only 25 feet from these burn pits.”

Slape served with the 2nd Battalion, 2nd Infantry Regiment, 3rd Brigade, 1st Infantry Division. During his tours, he was assigned to Forward Operating Base Ramrod in Kandahar and Forward Operating Base Andar to the north and east of Kandahar.

Diane Slape said her husband would tell her how he was having trouble breathing and that the pits “burned anything and everything from food waste, medical waste, motor oil, tires, track rubber, bloody uniforms (some flame retardant), amputated body parts and many other items that shouldn’t be burned, much less burned together, all set on fire and kept burning with gasoline or jet fuel.

“My husband complained of these burn pits immediately” and

the smoke that would linger in their living facilities, she said. But her husband told her that he was instructed to “stop being so dramatic.”

Fred Slape was also a lifetime cigarette smoker but did not experience health concerns, including distorted vision and severe headaches, until he came back from deployment, Diane Slape said. Tests found two brain tumors and advanced lung cancer and Slape died Oct. 22, 2015.

Diane Slape is not party to the lawsuit against KBR because the contractor did not operate the burn pits at the bases where her husband was stationed.

After her husband’s death, Diane Slape has become active in Burn Pits 360, a nonprofit advocacy group pushing veterans who served in Iraq and Afghanistan to get tested for respiratory disease and register with the national database that the Department of Veterans Affairs has established to track how many veterans could face health issues due to the pits.

“I promised him whether he lived or died,” Diane Slape said of her efforts to help other soldiers.

On Jan. 21, a federal district court in Greenbelt, Md., will hear arguments to determine the scope of the case, which was filed in 2010 and could include more than 53 former or current bases in Iraq, including alTaqaddum Air Base and Taji, where some of the 3,550 U.S. soldiers sent back to Iraq are deployed to train

Iraqi security forces.

Nine locations in Afghanistan and another eight bases supporting Iraq and Afghanistan operations, such as Camp Arifjan in Kuwait, also could be included in the lawsuit.

Since 2010, dozens of similar lawsuits by servicemembers have been consolidated under this case, which is being presided over by Judge Robert W. Titus at the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland, Greenbelt Division.

The lawsuit is just one of several fronts in which veterans groups and the DOD are attempting to weigh what effect burn-pit exposure has had on servicemembers.

In 2015, Congress added burn-pit exposure to a list of peer-reviewed medical issues to be studied by the Congressionally Directed Medical Research Program at Fort Detrick, Md. That study is not yet underway, said Gail Whitehead, a spokesman for the program. Research funding for the congressional program starts at two years and typically produces a report within three years, Whitehead said. Burn-pit exposure was not included in the 2016 list of topics.

In addition, the VA opened a burnpit registry in 2014 for the estimated 2.3 million veterans who served in Operation Desert Storm in the 1990s or supported the more recent operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. The VA did so to record what ailments they were experiencing, where and when they served and whether they were exposed to burn pits.

As of Nov. 30, 53,255 veterans had registered, said Rosie Torres, executive director of Burn Pits 360.

The VA has released two studies based on information collected from the registry. The data show that personnel who worked at burn pits were more likely to report a chronic respiratory disease, and the department has said “veterans who were closer to burn-pit smoke may be at greater risk.”

However, the VA said, “At this time, research does not show evidence of long-term health problems from exposure to burn pits.”

The VA will be expected to report to Congress later this year on its findings from the registry, based on language inserted by Sen. Tom Udall, D-N.M., into the 2016 Omnibus Appropriations bill.

Stars and Stripes reporter Heath Druzin contributed to this report from Afghanistan. druzin.heath@stripes.com copp.tara@stripes.com Twitter: @TaraCopp

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K EITH D EVINNEY/Courtesy of the U.S. Navy

The littoral combat ships USS Independence, left, and USS Coronado power through the Pacific Ocean in April 2014. A Government Accountability Office report released on Dec. 18 said the Navy has reduced the ships’ “lethality and survivability requirements.”

Report: LCS funding should be delayed

BY WYATT OLSON Stars and Stripes

A government watchdog agency has recommended that Congress delay funding the littoral combat ship project until the Navy completes testing on how well the ships endure attacks.

With six ships already delivered and 20 more under construction, the “actual lethality and survivability performance of LCS is still largely unproven through realistic testing,” concluded the Government Accountability Office in a report released on Dec. 18. A classified version was completed in July.

The Navy’s Littoral Combat Ship/ Frigate program aims to procure 52 LCSs and frigates. Two dozen LCSs have been funded since 2005, according to a report issued last week by the Congressional Research Service. The Navy’s fiscal 2016 budget requests procurement of three more LCSs at a cost of just over $1.4 billion, the CRS report said.

Bloomberg News on Dec. 17 reported that Defense Secretary Ash Carter

advised Navy Secretary Ray Mabus in a memo that the Navy should reduce the number of littoral combat ships and frigates being purchased from 52 to 40 — and invest instead in aircraft.

The GAO report said that since the LCS program was initially authorized and funded, costs have increased The and “the Navy has vulnerability further reduced the ship’s lethality of the ship’s and survivability requirements.” hulls to Survivability various sea is the ability of a ship to avoid, withconditions and recover … remains stand from damage. unknown.

The GAO had Government questioned the Accountability survivability of Office report the ships in previous reports, leading then-Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel to order the program revamped in February 2014 to make a more survivable ship.

Two shipyards are constructing two

‘

’

different design variations, the GAO report said. The Navy has planned to buy another 28 ships, and the final 20 will be designated as frigates that will use modified versions of the two types of frames now being used for the LCSs, the GAO report said.

Procurement of those ships is slated to begin in 2019.

The Navy, however, has not yet demonstrated that the LCS will achieve the required survivability, and assessments for that won’t be completed until 2018, after 24 ships are in the fleet or under construction, the report said.

Among the risks to the LCS is vulnerability due to the use of an aluminum alloy that’s unlike any used on other Navy ships, the report said. Using aluminum rather than steel helps the LCS achieve high speeds due to less weight.

Aluminum, however, loses its stiffness more quickly than steel in the high temperatures of fire — a vulnerability that the Navy has identified as needing more study on the LCS, the report said.

Testing has been done using modeling and simulated attacks on surrogate vessels, such as two decommissioned

Finnish fast-attack craft and other aluminum structures.

But the Navy still lacks adequate data on how fire or underwater explosions will affect the ships’ aluminum.

The GAO said technical experts from the Naval Sea Systems Command say they don’t fully understand how the hull would react to whipping caused by the shock wave of an underwater explosion.

Significant whipping can cause a ship to break apart.

“The vulnerability of the ship’s hulls to various sea conditions also remains unknown,” the report said. “Due to the dynamic nature of waves, the Navy cannot rely on modeling and simulation alone to provide an accurate assessment of a ship’s performance in rough seas.”

The GAO recommended Congress consider not funding the LCS ships at all beyond 2016, “given the uncertainties over the long term about the ship’s survivability and lethality and proposed changes to future ships.” olson.wyatt@stripes.com Twitter: @WyattWOlson

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2 Iraq veterans get implantable prosthetic legs

BY M ATTHEW M. BURKE Stars and Stripes

Iraq War amputees Bryant Jacobs and Ed Salau received the first implantable prosthetic legs in American history last month through a Food and Drug Administration trial at the veterans affairs hospital in Salt Lake City, Utah, their doctors said at a news conference Dec. 11.

Called a percutaneous osseointegrated prosthesis, the device features a titanium rod that is surgically implanted into the bottom of the femur.

An exterior portion will be attached in January, barring any complications.

Having a prosthesis rooted in the bone is designed to alleviate socket wear, fit and energy expenditure issues that plague amputees. Doctors for the men likened it to skiing with a loose boot versus getting one specifically fit for you.

Doctors warned against too much optimism, as the technology is still potentially decades away from the commercial market, but were hopeful that their work will improve the lives of wounded veterans.

We won’t “feel like this was a successful event … unless we see people functioning with their implant …

10 years down the line,” Dr. Erik Kubiak said at the press conference. “This is just the beginning of a process that potentially makes this available to more people.”

Neither Jacobs nor Salau was available to comment following the surgery. Doctors declined to provide details on how the surgery went or the men’s conditions, but said both were “excited” and had gone home ahead of schedule.

Last month’s surgeries were the culmination of several decades of work in both the U.S. and Europe, Kubiak said.

The surgery has been performed in Germany and Sweden, and American doctors had experimented with the implants on sheep in recent years.

Jacobs and Salau were ideal candidates because they are young, have had few medical problems and had enough residual limb left to work with, doctors said.

If the trial is successful, and approximately 10 patients have minimal complications for a year, the study will go back to the FDA, Kubiak said.

It will then go through a larger trial with potentially hundreds of patients before it is ready for the commercial market.

Kubiak said it could take as long as 30 years.

Above: Ed Salau twists his prosthetic leg at the “joint” during a 2009 visit to Camp Ramadi, Iraq.

Left: Bryant Jacobs speaks at a 2012 Homes for Our Troops ceremony. The two Iraq War veterans and amputees received implantable prosthetic legs last week at the veterans affairs hospital in Salt Lake City, Utah.

PHOTO ABOVE BY LIESL M ARELLI / Courtesy of the U.S. Army Phot o at l ef t by Al l en St okes/ Courtesy of the U.S. Air Force

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BIG BONU$ Air Force offers $125K in incentives to retain drone pilots

BY TARA COPP Stars and Stripes

WASHINGTON o attract and keep a drone pilot workforce that’s been stretched thin by rising demands for global surveillance, the Air Force announced Dec. 14 that it’s offering as much as $125,000 in bonuses to keep the pilots from leaving for the private sector.

Personnel eligible for the cash awards would be the more experienced and current pilots in the force.

Military personnel must be activeduty lieutenant colonels or below who

T

already have six years of experience flying remotely piloted aircraft and meet specific education and ratings requirements.

Drone pilots “are increasingly critical to national security, and our ability to retain experienced [drone] pilots will enable us to meet current and emergent mission requirements,” said Lt. Gen. Jay Raymond, Air Force deputy chief of operations.

The cash bonuses would amount to $25,000 annually for five years, but eligible recipients could elect to receive up to half of the bonus in the first payment, the Air Force an-

nounced in a news release.

The bonuses are meant to compete with the private sector, where drone pilot salaries start at about $102,000 yearly, according to the jobs website Indeed.com.

The Air Force has spent much of the year addressing the strain that rising demand for unmanned surveillance, intelligence gathering and targeting support have placed on the force.

Because of ongoing operations in Iraq and Syria, and rising requests for drone surveillance in Africa and the Pacific, the current force of drone

A drone pilot operates an MQ-1 Predator during a training mission at Creech Air Force Base in Nevada.

operators is badly strained, Air Force chief of staff Gen. Mark Welsh said earlier this year.

“They’ve been working six days on and two days off since they came into the job,” Welsh said. “Every time we go into one of those surge periods [where operational demand increases] they go to seven on, one off. This has never stopped.

“That’s the stress, and we’ve got to figure out how to get ahead,” he said. “We can’t afford to lose these people.” copp.tara@stripes.com Twitter:@TaraCopp

Courtesy of the U.S. Air Force

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Bergdahl: ‘A golden chicken’ to militants Taliban tell podcast interviewers soldier was very valuable

BY NANCY MONTGOMERY Stars and Stripes

The American soldier’s capture was a gift from God to the Taliban, the militants said; he was like “a golden chicken.”

They thought so even after 15 of their fighters were killed in a raid by U.S. forces trying their hardest in the summer of 2009 to find Pfc. Bowe Bergdahl.

“Some people are worth more than a thousand men,” a Taliban fighter, told reporters from the “Serial” podcast, which is running a series of episodes about Bergdahl, who walked off his base in Afghanistan, was captured and held by the Taliban for five years, then charged with serious military crimes on his return to the U.S. “He was worth more than maybe 5,000 individuals,” said the fighter, identified as Mujahid Rahman.

The second episode of the Bergdahl series, aired Dec. 17, focusing on Bergdahl’s capture from the Taliban perspective and the intense, but ultimately futile, U.S. military response.

Reporters for the series interviewed Taliban militants allegedly involved in Bergdahl’s capture and members of the military involved in trying to recover him.

Once the Taliban captured him hours after he walked off his post, they did their best to keep him. They moved Bergdahl constantly on the backs of motorcycles to evade U.S. troops who were flooding the region to search for him, kicking in doors sometimes just hours too late.

Although the U.S. wanted Bergdahl back, his fellow soldiers, whose nonstop, dangerous, dirty and dispiriting mission it was to find the soldier they were certain had voluntarily left his post, had little use for him, according to accounts on the podcast.

“If we’d found him, I think a lot of us would have shot him,

if that tells you anything,” said Darryl Hanson a platoon mate interviewed for the podcast.

Unlike during the first podcast, Bergdahl’s voice is rarely heard. But at the beginning of this episode, Bergdahl — who on Dec. 14 was referred to a general court-martial on desertion and misconduct charges that could result in his imprisonment and dishonorable discharge — discusses whether he would consider a plea bargain.

He probably wouldn’t, he explained in a phone conversation recorded some months earlier with movie producer Mark Boal. Then he wouldn’t be able to explain why he’d done what he’d done, and people would continue to hate him, he said. As frightening as it was, Bergdahl told Boal, not being able to explain himself would turn everything he’d done and everything he’d been through “into a really stupid joke.”

In the first episode, Bergdahl said he walked off post to inform top commanders of dangerous leadership issues in his unit. He was captured

by Taliban fighters on motorcycles out in the open after daybreak, hours after leaving post. The Taliban, interviewed by “Serial” reporters and host Sarah Koenig, said that the soldier had turned up in a nomad’s “koochie” tent and that he’d been told by his soonto-be captors that they were Afghan police.

To them, Bergdahl was an oddity, obviously “brainless,” and possibly drunk, though they said in fairness they’d never seen a drunk person.

Bergdahl was slapped and pelted with stones, he told Boal.

Bergdahl was not interviewed

‘ Some people are

worth more than a thousand men. He was worth more than maybe 5,000 individuals.

’

Taliban fighter

VOICE O F JIHAD WEBSITE /AP

The popular podcast “Serial” is featuring interviews with Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl in which he talks about his decision to leave his military base in Afghanistan, his subsequent 5-year imprisonment by the Taliban and the prisoner swap that secured his return to the United States. for the podcast, but excerpts from his interview with Boal were broadcast. Bergdahl told Boal in this week’s episode he knew he’d been captured by men who would kill him “just for the amusement of shooting you.” Early on, he tried to bolt but was tackled within seconds.

That Bergdahl was frightened was clear to Rahman, who was in charge of his custody for a time. He couldn’t eat, drink or sleep, the Talib said.

But he didn’t feel sorry for Bergdahl because he viewed him as an invader who came to his country to kill Muslims and because he himself had been jailed by Americans at Bagram Air Field for two years and had been treated worse.

At one point, Rahman said, the Taliban fighters did a traditional dance for Bergdahl to raise his spirits and get him to eat. “It did not help,” he said in remarks translated into English.

In the meantime, the U.S. had pulled out all the stops looking for Bergdahl. More than once, troops arrived at a compound where Bergdahl had been held shortly before.

Once, according to the Taliban

fighter, they came within 500 meters of U.S. troops while Bergdahl sat on the back of a motorcycle, his hands tied and his face covered.

The podcast explores at length the danger and difficulty of the effort in eastern Afghanistan and beyond. Foot patrols were out for weeks at a time without rest, their clothes rotting off them.

One special forces officer said his team did more than 50 missions searching for Bergdahl, many of them during dangerous daylight hours.

Another said that his unit airassaulted into a booby-trapped compound on scanty intelligence they’d had no time to check, but the explosives failed to go off.

“We were just looking and looking and looking,” a soldier said. “Sleep became a distant reality,” said John Thurman, who was from Bergdahl’s company.

The search pitted the U.S. military — “a big, lumbering machine moving through that can destroy anything face on” yet is unaware of its environment — against a tiny but more nimble foe on its home turf, said Army Maj. Jason

Dempsey, who was an operations officer in Afghanistan.

An Army report mentioned on the podcast suggested that the first foot patrols looking for Bergdahl gave candy to children and asked about a missing American might have tipped off the Afghans to look for him and could have lead to his capture.

The search lasted for at least 45 days, although the U.S. knew that the first 48 hours were critical and that Bergdahl would soon be taken across the border to Pakistan’s tribal areas, where it would be almost impossible for the U.S. to retrieve him, those interviewed said. The longer the search went on, the worse morale got.

Bergdahl, 29, was recovered last year in a prisoner swap that released five Taliban commanders from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to Qatar. Both the swap — and Bergdahl — have become lightning rods.

“Those who’ve come into close contact with Bergdahl are ready to forgive him,” Koenig says. “The Army as an institution continues to be furious.” montgomery.nancy@stripes.com

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Army officials update breast-feeding policy

BY COREY DICKSTEIN Stars and Stripes

WASHINGTON — Breast-feeding soldiers will no longer have to use restrooms as milk expressing stations under an updated Army policy that also ensures their commanders provide mothers adequate lactation breaks.

The new policy issued by acting Army Secretary Eric Fanning on Nov. 10 bans the use of restrooms as mandated stations for nursing mothers to breast-feed or express milk, which had been allowed under the service’s previous policy. Army spokesman Paul Prince said the policy update showed the Army’s commitment to supporting its breast-feeding soldiers.

“The further refining of this and other policies helps us to achieve our fundamental task of fighting and winning our nation’s war demands and helps to meet Army senior leaders’ requirement to have all available players on the field playing their positions,” Prince said Dec. 17.

“We are committed to perpetually reviewing and implementing change to our personnel policies in ways that best support the readiness and resilience of soldiers and their families and lessening relative support gaps.”

In September, the Army became the last of the military services to formally adopt a breast-feeding and lactation policy. ThenArmy Secretary John McHugh issued a directive instructing commanders to provide breast-feeding soldiers with a private space with a lock, electrical outlet and access to a safe water source for pumping during duty hours, such as a “fully enclosed, separate area designated for breast-feeding” in a restroom. That policy also instructed soldiers and commanders to “balance lactation sup-

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port and readiness” in scheduling lactation breaks. That policy was greeted with “sharp criticism from Army women and mothers who deemed it inadequate,” Rep. Niki Tsongas, D-Mass., said Dec. 16.

The congresswoman in statements earlier this year raised concerns about sanitary conditions in some restrooms and commanders not providing nursing mothers appropriate time to express milk.

Tsongas, who previously pushed the Army to develop a breast-feeding policy and advocated the service improve its initial directive, called the new policy “a positive step.”

The new policy states nursing mothers must have access to a “private space, other than a restroom, with locking capabilities for a soldier to breast-feed or express milk.” That area must include a seat, a flat surface not including the floor, and a safe water source “within reasonable distance.”

The new rule also specified “commanders will ensure that soldiers have adequate time to express milk,” at least through one year after childbirth. It states that the frequency and time women need to express milk can vary and provides the example that “new mothers commonly express milk every two to three hours for 15 to 30 minutes.”

“The Army listened to concerns from Army moms and took them seriously after putting forward an inadequate first attempt back in September,” Tsongas said. “This policy shows a strong commitment to helping our dedicated American servicewomen to be the best soldiers and the best mothers that they can be.”

The new policy, Prince said, went into immediate effect and apply to active-duty, National Guard and Reserve soldiers.

dickstein.corey@stripes.com

This publication is a compilation of stories from Stars and Stripes, the editorially independent newspaper authorized by the Department of Defense for members of the military community. The contents of Stars and Stripes are unofficial, and are not to be considered as the official views of, or endorsed by, the U.S. government, including the Defense Department or the military services. The U.S. Edition of Stars and Stripes is published jointly by Stars and Stripes and this newspaper.

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© Stars and Stripes, 2015

VA to expand coverage for Camp Lejeune water

BY TRAVIS J. TRITTEN Stars and Stripes

WASHINGTON — The Department of Veterans Affairs said Dec. 17 it plans to cover eight diseases newly linked to toxic contaminants once found in drinking water at Camp Lejeune, N.C. Veterans who served at the Marine Corps facility between 1953 and 1987 could be eligible for medical care and disability coverage if they develop kidney or liver cancer, non-Hodgkin lymphoma, leukemia, multiple myeloma, scleroderma, Parkinson’s disease or aplastic anemia, the VA announced.

About 1 million Marines and dependents might have been exposed to industrial solvents present in the base’s drinking water for more than three decades and 15 health conditions already have been linked to the contamination.

“The water at Camp Lejeune was a hidden hazard and it is only years later that we know how dangerous it was,” VA Secretary Bob McDonald said in a released statement. “We thank ATSDR for the thorough review that provided much of the evidence we needed to fully compensate veterans who develop one of the conditions known to be

Carrier Washington arrives in Virginia The USS George Washington pulled into Naval Station Norfolk, Va., on Dec. 17, completing a seven-month, 52,064mile voyage from Yokosuka Naval Base, Japan, where it spent several years as the Navy’s only forward-deployed aircraft carrier.

The ship is on deck to receive a midlife overhaul nuclear refueling at Newport News Shipbuilding that will take at least three years and will cost about $4 billion.

“Our crew is excited to return home to their families,” Capt. Timothy C. Kuehhas, Washington’s commanding officer, said in a Navy state-

‘

The water at Camp Lejeune was a hidden hazard and it is only years later that we know how dangerous it was.

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VA Secretary Bob McDonald related to exposure to the compounds in the drinking water.”

The change also would make reserve and National Guard personnel who served at Camp Lejeune for any length of time during the decades that the water was polluted eligible for disability, the department said. Surviving dependents would be eligible for dependency and indemnity compensation and burial benefits.

Expanded eligibility is, for now, a proposal by McDonald and must be accepted by the department as a final rule before veterans will be eligible.

It provided no timeline.

The VA now covers 15 health conditions for Camp Lejeune vets and considers other disability claims on a case-by-case basis. tritten.travis@stripes.com Twitter: @Travis_Tritten

ment. “Our homecoming is significant for both our crew members who have been on deployment for many months, and for our ship which is returning home after being forward deployed to Japan since 2008.”

George Washington’s arrival in Virginia completes a historic, three-carrier swap with the USS Ronald Reagan, which took George Washington’s place at Yokosuka in October, and the USS Theodore Roosevelt, which replaced Ronald Reagan in San Diego last month.

During its journey back to the states, George Washington visited Australia and Latin America. news@stripes.com

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A NDREW H ETHERINGTON /Courtesy of the Australian Army

U.S. Army 1st Lt. Audrey Griffith points out an area of interest to Spc. Heidi Gerke during a force-protection drill along the perimeter of Forward Operating Base Hadrian in Deh Rawud, Afghanistan, in March 2013.

BY COREY DICKSTEIN Stars and Stripes

WASHINGTON — Pentagon leaders are examining plans proposed by each military service to open about 225,000 previously male-only jobs to female troops in the coming months.

Implementation plans were due to Defense Secretary Ash Carter on Monday, about one month after he announced women would no longer be barred from serving in any position in the military for which they are qualified.

Officials from each service confirmed their implementation plans had been submitted.

The plans, which outline how each service intends to incorporate women into the newly opened jobs and units, will be reviewed by the Pentagon’s implementation working group, tasked with overseeing the short-term execution of Carter’s decision and “ensure there are no unintended consequences on the joint force,” the defense secretary said Dec. 3. The working group, co-chaired by Deputy Defense Secretary Bob Work and Air Force Gen.

Pentagon reviewing plans to open combat roles to women Paul Selva, the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was directed by Carter to work with the services to open all positions by April 1.

Carter’s decision followed years of studies on the impact that integrating women into the traditionally all-male jobs and units would have on the military. Mandated by Congress in 2011, the Defense Department reviewed its policies restricting women from roles primarily in the infantry, armor and special operations fields. The Army, Air Force

and Navy secretaries and the commander of U.S. Special Operations Command supported Carter’s decision, while the Marine Corps commandant asked for exceptions for several jobs.

“There will be no exceptions,” Carter said during his announcement. “This means that as long as they qualify and meet the standards, women will now be able to contribute to our mission in ways they could not before.

They’ll be allowed to drive tanks, fire mortars and lead

infantry soldiers into combat.”

The services conducted more than 30 comprehensive studies and developed genderneutral physical standards for individual occupations.

Despite years of planning, Pentagon officials have said some problems are expected to occur as women are integrating into the new fields.

“Implementation won’t happen overnight, and while at the end of the day this will make us a better and stronger force, there still will be problems to fix and challenges to

‘ Implementation won’t happen overnight, and while at the end of the day this will make us a better and stronger force, there still will be problems to fix and challenges to overcome.

’

Ash Carter Secretary of Defense

overcome,” Carter said.

He stressed the services’ implementation plans must not compromise unit effectiveness or weaken existing job standards. Additionally, Carter said equal opportunity would not mean there would be quotas for female troops in certain positions or units.

“Mission effectiveness is most important,” Carter said.

“Defending this country is our primary responsibility, and it cannot be compromised. That means everyone who serves in uniform — men and women alike — has to be able to meet the high standards for whatever job they’re in.”

Since 2013, more than 110,000 formerly male-only positions have opened to female troops, primarily in the Army, Navy and Air Force.

Carter’s decision opened the remaining 19 Army, 22 Marine Corps, five Navy and six Air Force male-only occupations to women. Nearly all of those jobs were in the infantry, armor, field artillery or special operations branches. dickstein.corey@stripes.com Twitter: @CDicksteinDC

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