Good morning, Legionnaires and veterans advocates, it’s Thursday, August 27, 2020.

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

AP: Vehicle collision with Russians injures 4 US troops in Syria
Military Times: VP Pence credits Trump with rebuilding the military, fixing VA in reelection pitch
Military.com: VA Secretary Moves to Block Gender-Neutral Change to Motto
WaPo: Missing Fort Hood soldier found dead, lawyer says, in growing toll of deaths there
Military Times: Veterans Affairs has now reported more than 50,000 coronavirus cases

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AP: Vehicle collision with Russians injures 4 US troops in Syria

[Editor’s Note: pretty wild video of the event at the link.]

Lolita Baldor and Robert Burns, The Associated Press

18 hours ago

2.2K

WASHINGTON — In the most violent skirmish in months between U.S. and Russian forces in Syria, a vehicle collision in the eastern part of the war-torn country left American troops with concussions, two U.S. officials said Wednesday.

One official said Russian vehicles sideswiped a light-armored U.S. military vehicle, injuring four Americans. The official said two Russian helicopters flew above the Americans, and one of the aircraft was within about 70 feet the vehicle.

National Security Council spokesman John Ullyot said in a statement that a Russian vehicle struck the American vehicle near Dayrick, in northeast Syria.

“To deescalate the situation, the coalition patrol departed the area,” Ullyot said. “Unsafe and unprofessional actions like this represent a breach of deconfliction protocols, committed to by the United States and Russia in December 2019.”

While there have been several other recent incidents between the American and Russian troops who all patrol in eastern Syria, officials described this one as the most serious. U.S. troops are usually accompanied by members of the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces.

Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity to provide details of the incident that were not yet made public. One official said the incident happened deep inside the eastern Syria deconfliction zone, where Russian troops generally should not be present.

The officials said the incident is being discussed by senior officials from both countries who routinely work to prevent conflicts between troops in that area. U.S. and Russian commanders have frequent conversations to try and avoid contact between their troops there.

Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, spoke by phone on Wednesday to Gen. Valery Gerasimov, chief of the Russian General Staff. No details of the conversation were provided. Often the top U.S. and Russian military leaders do not publicly release the contents of their phone calls, so it’s not clear if the incident was discussed.

Ullyot said the U.S. forces were in what is called a Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected All-Terrain Vehicle. That replaced early versions of a vehicle developed more than a decade ago to allow troops in Afgnhanistan and Iraq to better withstand roadside bombs.

Military Times: VP Pence credits Trump with rebuilding the military, fixing VA in reelection pitch

Leo Shane III

8 hours ago

3.1K

Vice President Mike Pence lauded President Donald Trump for rebuilding the military, fixing the Department of Veterans Affairs and strengthening America’s national security in his Republican convention speech on Wednesday night.

“We’ve taken the fights of radical Islamic terrorists on our terms on their sites,” Pence said in a speech delivered from Fort McHenry in Baltimore that also touched on the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, the country’s economic turmoil and racial equality protests across the country. “We’ve stood up to our enemies and we’ve stood with our allies.”

The speech, which doubled as Pence’s formal acceptance of his re-nomination to serve as vice president in a second Trump term and an argument for why the Republican ticket deserves four more years, came on a night heavy with military imagery and veteran speakers.

Last week, Democratic leaders decried Trump as an erratic commander in chief who has been soft on foreign dictators, adversarial towards allies and callous about the impact of his decisions on military families.

But in the Republican Party rebuttal on Wednesday, second lady Karen Pence praised Trump as a champion of military spouses and veterans’ mental health care. Retired Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, the vice president’s national security adviser, stated that Trump “reversed the decline of our military and restructured our national security strategy with historic investment and vision.”

Pence — the son of a veteran and the father of a Marine Corps captain — noted that several Medal of Honor and Purple Heart recipients were among the crowd of several hundred spectators for his speech at the historic military site.

He credited Trump as a commander in chief who “stepped in and from day one and kept his word to rebuild our military” by signing sizable increases in military spending in recent years, a move that critics have said has come at the expense of other domestic and diplomatic priorities.

Pence noted that Trump founded the first new branch of the armed forces in decades, the U.S. Space Force. And the vice president highlighted improvements to the Department of Veterans Affairs in the last three years.

“After years of scandal robbed our veterans of the care that you’ve earned in the uniform, President Trump kept his word again,” Pence said. “We reformed the VA and Veterans Choice is now available for every veteran in America.”

The issue of medical care “choice” for veterans has been a key campaign focus for Trump, both this cycle and in 2016, and a point of controversy for his critics.

The availability of private-sector health care for veterans has expanded significantly since Trump signed the VA Mission Act into law two years ago, but prominent Democratic leaders (along with Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.) have blasted Trump’s shift of resources from VA hospitals to outside clinics as an abdication of government responsibilities.

Trump has also taken criticism for saying he came up with the idea of veterans “choice,” even though the named VA Choice program was started in 2014 under President Barack Obama.

But Pence said the improvements to VA and the military stand as as proof of Trump’s focus on fulfilling America’s responsibilities to its “heroes.”

Following the speech, Trump joined Pence in greeting and posing for pictures with the veterans and other audience members in attendance. The president is expected to deliver the closing remarks of the week-long convention on Thursday evening.

Military.com: VA Secretary Moves to Block Gender-Neutral Change to Motto

26 Aug 2020

Military.com | By Richard Sisk

VA Secretary Robert Wilkie went to President Abraham Lincoln's hometown of Springfield, Illinois, Wednesday to double down on his opposition to a gender-neutral update to the agency's iconic motto, taken from Lincoln's second inaugural address.

Wilkie dedicated a plaque at the VA's Camp Butler National Cemetery in Springfield with the existing motto: "To care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan." The VA secretary made his purpose in the visit clear in remarks that followed.

"The words that brought us here should not be diluted, parsed or canceled," Wilkie said, according to a VA release.

The Department of Veterans Affairs "welcomes all veterans, including the 10% of all veterans who are women," Wilkie said. But, he added, "the words that brought us here ought to be preserved as they were spoken and displayed so every generation understands the origin of America's progress in becoming the most tolerant nation on earth."

The current motto was adopted in 1959, and the words have since been emblazoned at the entrance to VA headquarters in Washington, D.C.

In his Memorial Day remarks this year, Wilkie announced that the motto would go up at more than 140 VA cemeteries nationwide, and the Camp Butler cemetery in Springfield became the first Wednesday. The VA has not yet given a cost estimate for the project.

The organizations Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America and the Service Women's Action Network and several lawmakers from both sides of the aisle have argued that the current motto is exclusionary, and fails to recognize that about 10% of veterans and 17% of the armed forces are women.

Advocates for changing the motto have offered up a paraphrase of Lincoln's words: "To care for those who have borne the battle, and for their families and survivors."

Another proposed version would state: "To fulfill President Lincoln's promise 'To care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan' by serving and honoring the men and women who are America's veterans."

Tom Porter, Government Affairs vice president at IAVA, noted that Wilkie's trip to Springfield coincided with the Defense Department's marking of "Women's Equality Day."

"It seems like he's trying really hard" to make it more difficult for any future change to the motto, Porter said of Wilkie. "It's kind of head-scratching what he's doing."

Changing a few words in the motto would not be a disservice to Lincoln's legacy, Porter said. "It's not canceling Lincoln," Porter said, adding that reverence for the 16th president "should not be used as an excuse to make women feel unwelcome" at the VA.

He speculated that if Lincoln were commander in chief today, he would be in favor of a change to the motto.

The debate over the motto resulted in a heated exchange at a House hearing last month between Acting VA Deputy Secretary Pamela Powers and Rep. Kathleen Rice, a New York Democrat.

In defending the current motto, Powers said at the July 24 hearing of a House Veterans Affairs subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations that the panel had "heard from some women on both sides of the issue," but she was cut off by Rice.

The motto can have the effect of keeping women from seeking health care at the VA, Rice said.

"You immediately feel like you don't belong there," she said. "I really hope that you will reconsider your position and stop making reference to words that were spoken many years ago because the reality of our military in 2020 is very different."

In a statement to Military.com Wednesday, Rice said she found it "disappointing that Secretary Wilkie is ignoring the calls of veterans and lawmakers and proceeding with adding new displays of the VA's outdated motto."

Lincoln's famous second inaugural address was given on March 4, 1865, ahead of the Confederate surrender at Appomattox, Virginia, on April 9, 1865. His fuller statement reads:

"With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan -- to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and a lasting peace among ourselves, and with all nations."

-- Richard Sisk can be reached at Richard.Sisk@Military.com.

WaPo: Missing Fort Hood soldier found dead, lawyer says, in growing toll of deaths there

Alex Horton

August 26, 2020 at 7:12 p.m. EDT

A soldier missing from Fort Hood was probably found dead, his family’s attorney said Wednesday, adding to the toll of service members at the Texas installation who have vanished or died in murky circumstances in recent months.

Sgt. Elder Fernandes, 23, was last seen Aug. 17 by members of his unit at a home in Killeen, outside the sprawling post, the Army said. His family later arrived in Texas from Massachusetts to aid in the search.

In a news conference Wednesday, Army officials said Fernandes reported he was a victim of a sexual assault in May. An investigation determined it was unsubstantiated. Fernandes recently learned the results of the inquiry, officials said.

Army officials had previously said Fernandes may have left the area on his own accord after speaking with soldiers in his unit.

Lt. Col. Justin Redfern told reporters Fernandes was an “exemplary” leader but became troubled in March, suggesting mental health issues. The commander said he believed it was unconnected to the sexual assault allegations.

Fernandes was hospitalized at Fort Hood on Aug. 11 and released on Aug. 17, the last day he was seen, Army official said, but declined to say for what purpose. The family grew concerned when he did not call his mother as promised after his discharge. His blue BMW was found at his unit motor pool, the family told The Washington Post.

Army officials told the family a body was found hanging in a tree in Temple, about 25 miles east of the installation, family attorney Natalie Khawam said. A black backpack at the scene contained his driver’s license, phone and hygiene items, Khawam said. Fernandes’s military ID was in a pants pocket.

The Temple Police Department said the ID indicated that the remains may belong to Fernandes but “no forensic confirmation has been made at this time.” The initial investigation has not found evidence of foul play, the department said.

Khawam is also the attorney for the family of Spc. Vanessa Guillén, a soldier who went missing from Fort Hood in April and whose remains were discovered in June.

“They don’t know what happened, whether it was suicide or whether murder. But I’m going to tell you what they did to him, the blood on their hands, it’s a form of murder,” Khawam said in a news conference in Florida on Wednesday, where she demanded a congressional investigation of Fort Hood.

The Fernandes family chastised the Army’s investigation in a Tuesday call with The Post, hours before they received word of the discovered remains.

“Somebody cannot just vanish from the face of the Earth like this. Somebody knows something,” said Isabel Fernandes, an aunt of the missing soldier. “We can’t sleep, we can’t eat. This is beyond cruelty.”

Fort Hood has been gripped by separate killings and high profile disappearances this year.

Investigators said a fellow soldier killed Guillén on Fort Hood and buried her remains in a shallow grave. Police confronted him on July 1, and he fatally shot himself, investigators said.

The remains of Pvt. Gregory Wedel-Morales, a soldier missing since August 2019, were found in a field in Killeen in June. Three other soldiers were killed in separate shooting incidents. Pfc. Brandon Rosecrans was killed in nearby Harker Heights in May. Spc. Freddy Delacruz was killed on March 14 and Spc. Shelby Jones was killed in early March.

The five suspected homicides of soldiers at Fort Hood between March and June outpaced the last four years combined, Stars and Stripes reported. Army data has shown more violent and nonviolent crimes occur among soldiers at Fort Hood than at Fort Bragg in North Carolina, which hosts thousands more troops.

A friend of Fernandes told Khawam that the soldier was being harassed and hazed within the unit. Lt. Col. Chris Brautigam, a spokesman for the 1st Cavalry Division, said Fernandes was transferred to another unit to avoid reprisals from superiors.

“These men and women go through a lot,” Khawam said. “I’m not talking about war here. It’s toxic command.”

Army officials said the search for Fernandes was a “top priority” of the 1st Cavalry Division, with soldiers searching for him on and off Fort Hood and with Killeen police also investigating.

But the family said the Army took too long to get the public involved. A news release was published four days after Fernandes was last seen.

“The Army goes online, posting they helped since day one,” Isabel Fernandes said. “It’s all bull — t.”

On July 30, under intense scrutiny after the Guillén slaying, the Army convened an independent panel to review the command climate at the base. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said Wednesday she was “heartsick” and vowed to investigate the Fernandes case and other deaths at Fort Hood.

Fernandes, a chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear specialist, was born in Cape Verde, a string of islands in the Atlantic west of Senegal. He arrived in the United States as a 10-year-old, his family said.

Friendly and family-focused, he had plans to reenlist in the Army when he visited family for Christmas, his aunt said, and did not reveal any problems with his command.

“He’s a giver. He will put his life on the line to protect others,” Isabel Fernandes said. “He wanted to do something positive for this country.”

Military Times: Veterans Affairs has now reported more than 50,000 coronavirus cases

Leo Shane III

1 day ago

1.4K

The Department of Veterans Affairs on Tuesday surpassed 50,000 coronavirus cases among its patients since the start of the pandemic in March, with more than half of those positive tests coming in the last 50 days alone.

Despite the milestone, the department has seen a significant decrease in its number of active coronavirus cases in recent weeks. As of Monday evening, 137 VA hospitals were monitoring 3,942 current cases of the fast-spreading illness, a drop of about 32 percent in the last month.

VA officials have said that they do not consider the active-case counts or the cumulative coronavirus totals as appropriate measures of the spread of the illness, and point instead to the hospitalization rate among patients with positive tests.

So far in August, about 15 percent of all patients who test positive for coronavirus have required hospitalization. That’s the lowest rate in the last five months. In July, the figure was 17 percent. In the prior four months, the figure topped 20 percent.

Currently only two department sites — one in North Chicago, one in Gainesville, Fla. — have reported more than 100 active coronavirus cases on campus. That number was as high as 14 late last month.

Of the 50,000-plus cases among VA patients in the last six months, about 87 percent of the cases were veterans. The remainder are a mix of dependents, military personnel, VA employees and community members receiving care at veterans hospitals as part of the department’s federal mission to serve as a backup health system for the nation.

At least 2,636 VA patients have died from the illness since March 18. More than 520 of those deaths were in August so far, making it the deadliest month for virus patients in the system since May, when 740 deaths were recorded.

In June and July, that number did not top 500. The department is on pace to hit nearly 650 in August alone.

Along with the patient deaths, the department has seen 49 fatal cases of the virus among its employees. All but nine of those occurred before July 9.

The decrease in active cases and increase in fatalities comes as large sections of America are seeing similar trends after a summer spike in coronavirus transmissions, particularly in the south and west.

More than 176,000 Americans have died from complications related to the virus in the last six months.

VA officials have said they are preparing for the possibility of another surge in cases this fall, in line with predictions from national health experts.

But the department has also worked to reopen many medical care sites to non-emergency patients, staff and visitors in recent weeks, in an effort to return to normal operations.