Soldier charged in $630,000 theft of high-tech military gear

The mystery of missing sophisticated military equipment from Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington state may have taken a step toward being partially resolved Thursday when the Army announced it had charged a 22-year-old infantryman with theft.

But the Army's terse news release only hints at the full story -- which also includes charges of drugs and a murder threat -- that led to a days-long base lockdown in January for up to 100 members of the 4th Stryker Brigade.

"The bottom line is, the lockdown did work. As an administrative action to gather the information that they needed, it was a plus," Lt. Col. Gary Dangerfield, I Corps Army spokesman, told The Times.

Pvt. Nicholas A. Solt of Slatington, Pa., has been charged with stealing and selling military targeting equipment valued at $630,000. He is also charged with possession of drugs and steroids and with communicating a threat to kill an individual. He is in pretrial confinement on base and, if convicted in military court, faces up to 59 years in prison.

Dangerfield, citing the ongoing investigation, declined to describe the nature of the purported threat. Nor would he say how the private came into possession of the stolen equipment, which went missing after soldiers of 4th Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division's "C" company went on holiday break in December.

But the Army's statement said speedy detective work by the Army's criminal investigative division and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives helped locate and recover 98% of the missing equipment.

The high-tech gear, which was eventually tracked down at off-base residences, included sophisticated optics and sights for rifles and night-vision goggles. 

Criminal Investigation Command "agents were able to move quickly because of the administrative actions taken and the I Corps Command appreciates their hard work, dedication and terrific police work," I Corps Chief of Staff Col. Steven Bullimore said in the statement.

Solt joined the Army in June 2008, trained at Ft. Benning, Ga., and arrived at Lewis-McChord in October 2008. He was deployed to Iraq from September 2009 to September 2010.

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Photo: A soldier in Baghdad uses night-vision goggles similar to those that were among the  equipment stolen at Joint Base Lewis-McChord. Credit: Chris Hondros/Getty Images

 

'Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter' winning over Lincoln historians

"Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter" won't be in theaters until June 22. But the horror-meets-history thriller that re-envisions our 16th president as an ax-wielding fang-fighter already has an unexpected fan base: historians.

But that fan base didn't develop overnight. When the experts at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield, Ill., first heard about the fictional book "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter," by Seth Grahame-Smith, they were not exactly pleased. Would it make a mockery of the Great Emancipator? Would it ignore Lincoln's pivotal role in history? Would it portray him as a cartoonish figure in a stovepipe hat?

"There was a lot of skepticism, let's just say that," library spokesman Dave Blanchett told The Times.

But "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter" appears to be winning over historians with its attention to fact and detail even as it swings wildly into the fantastic and the fictional.

The trailer for the movie was posted online Monday by 20th Century Fox, timed to coincide with  the official observances of the 203rd anniversary of Lincoln's Feb. 12, 1809, birth.

That trailer was a mere morsel for the masses when compared to the banquet served up Friday night at the library.

Director Timur Bekmambetov ("Wanted," "Night Watch") and actor Benjamin Walker, who plays Honest Abe, personally introduced several scenes from the movie to library staff and movie critics who flew in as part of a Hollywood junket. Producer Tim Burton couldn't make it, but he sent the next best thing, Blanchette said: a black-and-white digital message with several Burtonesque touches that seemed to thrill those in attendance.

Slain boys: Radio host gets death threat for deal with Westboro

Washington state-based radio host Bobby D says his job is pretty simple -- entertain listeners each morning with pop music, celebrity interviews, saucy banter and general zaniness. In other words, he's probably the last person you'd expect to find brokering the deal that kept Westboro Baptist Church protesters away from a funeral Saturday morning for two slain children.

But Bobby D did just that when he agreed to turn over a portion of the Bobby D Show on Monday morning to Fred Phelps Sr., founder of Topeka, Kansas-based Westboro Baptist. The church has gained notoriety for its extreme anti-gay views -- views that lead church members to protest outside funerals for U.S. soldiers.

The deejay's efforts earned him a death threat. "Yeah, someone threatened to blow us up," Bobby D told The Times. But many more people hailed him for stepping in and putting a stop to what likely would have become a media circus of protesters, counter-protesters and grief-stricken relatives.

Some of the comments posted on the blog for the Bobby D Show:  "Thank you…It was a gift to be able to celebrate the lives of two beautiful boys without any negativity." "Thank you for proving that good can triumph over evil." "Thank you sir, for displaying what true Christianity looks like."

Here's how events unfolded: 

Josh Powell horrified Washington, and indeed all of America, on Feb. 5 when he took an axe to his children -- Charles, 7, and Braden, 5 -- and then killed all three of them in a gasoline-fueled inferno in Graham, Wash. The deaths were the culmination of a disturbing family drama that dated back to the 2009 disappearance of the boys' mother, Susan Powell, when the family lived in Utah.

While this tragedy was playing out in headlines, Washington state legislators were on their way to approving same-sex marriage legislation that Gov. Christine Gregoire signed into law Monday.

Members of the Westboro Baptist Church connected the dots between these two seemingly unrelated events. They laid the blame for the deaths on Gregoire and announced that they would protest outside the boys' funeral to remind everyone that the boys died because of the country's increasingly permissive attitude toward gays and lesbians.

That led counter-protesters to promise to be a buffer between Westboro members and grieving relatives. The boys' maternal grandparents, meanwhile, pleaded with everyone to stay away so the family could grieve in peace.

Bobby D said he was watching the events unfold much like any other Washington state resident -- it had nothing to do with him. Then, he came across an article that noted that Westboro congregants have increasingly been employing a new strategy: They agree to call off protests in exchange for radio time, which they believe gives them a broader audience.

"I thought, 'Hey, maybe I could do something here,' " Bobby D said. He knew the deal probably wouldn't gain him new listeners and would no doubt offend many. But he said he remembered an especially dark time during high school when he lost his mother, and then his best friend. He said he couldn't imagine how painful it would be to have Westboro congregants -- or anyone else -- causing a ruckus outside those funerals.

"On one hand, I didn't want to give these guys a venue to spew their hate," he said. "On the other, I thought, 'Man, I can stop these people from doing this.' "

Bobby D contacted Westboro, and church members agreed to halt the protest in exchange for air time. Bobby D interviewed Phelps on Friday and promised to air the conversation Monday morning, but only if Westboro steered clear of the funeral. Both sides kept the bargain, and the interview was broadcast as planned.

(Bobby D. also told Phelps that, during the interview,  he could not use the F-word -- referring not to the four-letter F-word, but the three letter F-word used as a pejorative for gays.)

You can listen to the interview here, as well as read more about Bobby D's decision.

The interview was difficult, Bobby D said. He had genuine questions for Phelps but also had to rein in his outrage at some of Phelps' answers. Bobby D said he didn't want to antagonize Phelps and trigger congregants to relaunch their protest plans.

Not everyone agreed with Bobby D's move, as evidenced by other comments left on his blog: "You’ve turned extortion into a business deal." "Bobby, you've been played." And "Trading air time for protests saves Westboro money in travel expenses and gives them a much wider outreach."

But Bobby D said he has no regrets. "I’d rather people be mad at me and hate my show than have these people ruin a day that was already going to be so horrible," he said.

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Photo: Bobby D at work. Photo credit: The Bobby D Show

U.S. military meals redux: More fruit and vegetables, less fat

The diet revolution has a new front. The U.S. military -- revising its nutrition standards for the first time in two decades -- will soon be serving more fruit and less fat.

Pentagon officials will officially announce the program Thursday afternoon when First Lady Michelle Obama visits Little Rock Air Force Base in Arkansas. The military has already launched a pilot program there to improve the nutrition of its food.

Obama's visit is part of a three-day tour marking the second anniversary of her “Let’s Move” program, designed to improve the health of children through better diet and exercise.

The military's efforts to improve nutrition go beyond the efforts focused on children and the next generation’s health.

“The Department of Defense considers obesity not only a national problem, but a national security issue,” Dr. Jonathan Woodson, assistant secretary of defense for health affairs, told reporters in a conference call earlier this week. “About a quarter of entry-level candidates are too overweight to actually either enter the military or sustain themselves through the first enlistment.”

As famed French leader Napoleon Bonaparte learned to his chagrin, an army does indeed march on its stomach, an aphorism sometimes also attributed to Frederick the Great. In any case, generations of war novels and movies have portrayed the fuel needed to move the U.S. military machine as little better than swill.

But it has been expensive fuel, indeed.

The Defense Department says it spends an estimated $4.5 billion a year on food services, and $1.1 billion a year on medical care to cope with obesity-related issues. The new campaign will increase the offerings of fruit, vegetables and whole grains in general, while cutting back on fats. Military dependents can expect to have to make healthier choices in base schools and snack bars.

The changes mirror those that nutritionists are seeking in society.

Most experts agree that the United States has dietary problems, too many obese people who eat too much and move around too little -- much to the detriment of the civilian health care system.

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Photo: Military researchers in 2007 experiment with foods for future Meals, Ready to Eat, hoping to make the food more palatable. Credit: Pete Souza / Chicago Tribune
 

 

Super Bowl parade? What about a parade for Iraq vets?

It's a pretty simple question on the eve of Super Bowl XLVI weekend: "If the Giants and Patriots Deserve a Super Bowl Parade, Don't Iraq Vets?"

That's the query posed by a new online petition posted at Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, which describes itself as the nation's first and largest nonprofit, nonpartisan organization for veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Last check, the petition had almost 9,000 supporters and counting and their Facebook page championing the campaign has 333,271 "likes."

But expect those petition numbers to jump. After getting some high-profile support on both sides of the political aisle, it's doubled in the last 12 hours alone. MSNBC's "The Rachel Maddow Show" gave the cause a shout-out, and it was featured Friday morning on Forbes.com.

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You might be wondering why this is even an issue -- why don't the vets just get a parade? Well, it's complicated.

New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg said a parade would be premature because there are still so many troops overseas. He also says that military leaders have made it clear that televised images of a U.S. victory parade could jeopardize the safety of troops still overseas.

But clearly, not everyone feels that way. The city of St. Louis hosted a "Welcome Home the Heroes" parade last month that was attended by a reported 100,000 people and had 20,000 participants. And IAVA clearly wants a parade.

Here's what the organization says in its petition directed at President Obama as well as the New York and Boston mayors, each of whom are poised to oversee a ticker-tape parade for the Super Bowl XLVI winner:

If the Giants and Patriots Deserve a Super Bowl Parade, Don't Iraq Vets?

Now is the time to remember those we've lost, respect those who've served, and respond to the issues they're facing at home.

Mr. President, New York Mayor Bloomberg, Boston Mayor Menino, Mayors and government officials across America:

Stand with IAVA Members nationwide to organize a single national day of action, coordinating the efforts of cities and towns nationwide to celebrate our nation's newest heroes and connect them with the resources they have earned.

Let's work together to make history.

Finally, if you are planning to watch a commercial this Super Bowl XLVI weekend, you might want to make it this one, above, for IAVA.

It's remarkable for many reasons, but mostly because of the footage of a soldier explaining in stunningly simple terms why so many veterans have trouble making the transition from combat duty to civilian life.

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Recalling nephew, Rep. Chu says: Military hazing 'must stop'

For Rep. Judy Chu, the Capitol Hill gathering of lawmakers calling for the Pentagon to crack down on hazing in the military was personal.

Her nephew, Harry Lew, a 21-year-old Marine lance corporal who committed suicide in Afghanistan in April, was a victim of hazing, the California Democrat said.

"This must stop," she said, calling for congressional hearings on hazing in the military. "Too many patriotic young people, who only want to serve our country, are being harmed."

Since her nephew’s death, Chu said, she has received letters from others recounting their family’s own experiences with hazing in the military. "What was even more disturbing is the fact that they felt helpless in fighting it," she said, standing by a picture of a uniformed Lew with his family.

Lew underwent three hours and 20 minutes of hazing that included having to do push-ups, crunches and other exercises while wearing full body armor, according to Chu. Fellow Marines, reportedly angry that Lew fell asleep while on watch, poured sand on his face and into his mouth and kicked him and punched him, she added.

Shortly after the abuse, he shot himself to death. He wrote a note on his arm: "May hate me now, but in the long run this was the right choice I'm sorry my mom deserves to know the truth."

Pentagon spokesman Navy Capt. John Kirby said in an email: "Our thoughts and prayers go out to the Lew and Chu families and to all those in the military who have been affected by hazing and bullying. 

"We agree with Rep. Chu that this behavior is inexcusable and completely at odds with our core values."

Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta, in a stern message to service members last month, said, "I will not tolerate any instance where one service member inflicts any form of physical or psychological abuse that degrades, insults, dehumanizes or injures another service member."

Chu and several other members of Congress said in a recent letter seeking congressional hearings that, although they welcomed Panetta’s condemnation of hazing, they were "shocked to learn that some of the services do not keep track of the number of hazing incidents and they don’t have policies in place to determine if their training and education about hazing is effective."

"While some services require new service members to undergo training about hazing during basic training, others do not," the letter says. "And it seems that there is no policy in place that prescribes a minimum appropriate response to hazing incidents to help correct a culture of hazing and prevent further incidents."

Lew’s sister, Carmen, called into the Capitol Hill news conference from her Santa Clara, Calif., home to say: "We want more than anything for justice to be done.... Harry’s death left a hole in our hearts. We want to make sure no other military family will have to suffer like we did."

Earlier this week, Lance Cpl. Jacob Jacoby was sentenced to 30 days in jail and reduction in rank after pleading guilty to assault in punching and kicking Lew.

Chu said that other hazing incidents and the "lack of justice in Harry’s case show that hazing is not taken seriously by the military... "

Two other Marines face courts-martial in connection with the incident.

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Lawmaker: Bring National Guard back to murder-ravaged New Orleans

New Orleans' murder rate is 10 times the national rate. There were 199 murders in 2011, and just a few weeks in to 2012, there have been 20 slayings.

What could possibly stop the killing on the streets of New Orleans?

Some city residents -- and now, one state lawmaker -- are looking back to the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina for a solution: They want to call in the National Guard.

This week, residents' disgust, outrage and fear appeared to reach a boiling point after a man in the historic Algiers Point neighborhood reportedly was killed while trying to stop a carjacking.

The man, Harry "Mike" Ainsworth, had jumped on the hood of the car Wednesday morning; his young sons, whom he had just dropped off at a bus stop, heard the gunshots and watched as their father staggered onto a lawn and collapsed, according to the Times-Picayune.

Mayor Mitch Landrieu held a scheduled news conference a few hours later announcing that he was asking local judges to set higher bonds for people arrested on weapons charges. Landrieu also planned to implement a program used in Milwaukee that reportedly drastically reduced that city's homicide rate.

But others are calling for more drastic and immediate measures: They want the National Guard back.

Some residents of Algiers Point asked police Supt. Ronal Serpas about the idea at a packed neighborhood meeting Thursday. Serpas told them that he would rather see more probation and parole officers in the city and the freeing up of city officers by allowing state police to deal with car accidents on interstates inside the city, the Picayune reported.

A local TV station, WDSU, reported that state Rep. Austin Badon Jr. has called for redeploying the troops, thousands of whom were dispatched to the city to bring order after the flooding and mayhem caused by Hurricane Katrina in August 2005.

The troops left in January 2006, but they returned again in the middle part of that year when the streets turned violent again. The troops pulled out a second time in 2009.

The deployment of the Guard in those instances drew criticism from civil libertarians and some locals, who decried the militarization of the city and worried that the Guard lacked domestic law enforcement training.

Badon, a Democrat and native of New Orleans, apparently has more pressing concerns.

"You have to have a high amount of visibility of law enforcement on the streets. Bringing in the National Guard, the Louisiana National Guard, is a quick fix to a long-term problem," Badon told the TV station. "It would make the citizens feel a lot safer by having as many law enforcement on the street."

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Photo: With the Mississippi River bridge behind them, Louisiana National Guard troops march in New Orleans on June 20, 2006. Credit: Alex Brandon / Associated Press

Court-martial recommended in U.S. soldier's death in Afghanistan

 

A U.S. military investigating commission has recommended that one of eight soldiers accused in the death of a fellow serviceman in Afghanistan be court-martialed on charges that include negligent homicide, battery and reckless endangerment, but not on the most serious allegation of manslaughter.

The recommendation was announced Monday following an Article 32 hearing in Afghanistan to determine whether Spc. Ryan Offutt should face charges in the death last October of Pvt. Danny Chen of New York.

Chen died of a gunshot wound at a base in southern Afghanistan, and military officials have said he shot himself. But they launched an investigation into his death amid allegations that Chen had faced relentless taunts and physical abuse by fellow soldiers.

Offutt, 32, of Greenville, Pa., is one of eight soldiers who were accused of mistreating Chen, who complained of abuse in messages to friends before he died. The other seven soldiers face their own Article 32 hearings in the next few weeks. Military commanders in Afghanistan will make the final decision on whether to follow the investigating officer's recommendations.

Elizabeth OuYang of the Organization of Chinese Americans, which had led calls for a probe of Chen's death, said the family was "very disappointed" that the involuntary manslaughter charge against Offutt, which carried a penalty of up to 10 years in prison, had been dropped.

"There is a big difference between a three- and a 10-year prison sentence," she told the New York all-news channel, NY1.

The Army has identified the other accused soldiers as 1st Lt. Daniel Schwartz, the only officer accused in the case; Staff Sgt. Blaine G. Dugas of Port Arthur, Texas; Staff Sgt. Andrew J. Van Bockel of Aberdeen, S.D.; Sgt. Adam M. Holcomb of Youngstown, Ohio; Sgt. Jeffrey T. Hurst of Brooklyn, Iowa; Spc. Thomas P. Curtis of Hendersonville, Tenn.; and Sgt. Travis F. Carden of Fowler, Ind.

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U.S. military: Suicides level off overall; sexual assaults are up

The suicide rate in the U.S. military has stopped rising and in some categories has begun to fall -- though it hit another record among active-duty soldiers -- but sexual assault and post-traumatic stress problems are on the rise, the Pentagon said this week as it released new data outlining the scope of both problems.

Being a soldier is by definition a high-stress occupation, especially in recent years with many repeated deployments to staff two wars. And even with an end to the U.S. military role in Iraq and the scheduled drawdown in Afghanistan, it is likely to remain a tough proposition as the Pentagon seeks to reset the military mission in the forthcoming, and financially tight, years.

In separate news conferences, the top echelons of the Defense Department and the Army sought to explain how far the military has come in dealing with a range of health-related problems and how much further it has to go, particularly in dealing with sexual assaults.

On Thursday, the Army released a report, “Generating Health and Discipline in the Force, Ahead of the Strategic Reset,” the result of a three-year study that portrays the difficulties in dealing with suicide. The findings were mixed: Active-duty soldiers killed themselves at a record level in 2011, but the overall suicide rate dropped when non-mobilized Reserve and National Guard troops were included.

“For the calendar year 2011, if you take a look at all the categories, the overall suicide numbers decrease by 10%, from 350 to 315,” Army Gen. Peter Chiarelli, the outgoing vice chief of staff, told reporters. “The only category where we had an increase of five suicides was in the active-duty category.

"I think we've at least arrested this problem and hopefully will start to push it down,” Chiarelli said. "For all practical purposes ... it has leveled off."

Chiarelli said he is most concerned about an increase in violent sex crimes among members of the Army, which rose 64% from 2006 to 2011. “This is unacceptable. We have zero tolerance for this,” he said.

The day before, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta had announced that there were 3,191 sexual assaults reported in the military last year, up slightly from the 3,158 reported in 2010. But he and experts agree that the real number of assaults is probably closer to 19,000 because most attacks are not reported.

“It is an affront to the basic American values we defend, and it is a stain on the good honor of the great majority of our troops and our families,” Panetta said at a Pentagon news conference.

“Our men and women in uniform put their lives on the line every day to try to keep America safe,” he told reporters later. “We have a moral duty to keep them safe from those who would attack their dignity and their honor.”

Panetta announced several efforts to address the problem, such as expanding victim services to entire families and additional funding for investigators. He also ordered that an assessment be completed in 120 days explaining how commanding officers and senior enlisted leaders are trained in preventing assaults and in responding to complaints. At the news conference he said the measures were just the first steps and that more proposals would be presented in coming months.

But the steps, while welcome, do not go far enough, said Rep. Jackie Speier, a Democrat who represents parts of San Mateo County and San Francisco.

Speier is the author of the Sexual Assault Training Oversight and Prevention Act, or STOP Act, which seeks to overhaul how sexual cases are handled by the military. A spokeswoman on Friday said the congresswoman hopes there will be hearings on her bill, which has 113 co-sponsors.

“The secretary’s acknowledgment that sexual assault, in his words, ‘has no place in this department,’ is needed,” Speier said in a statement. “It sets the tone for our commanding officers who are expected to carry the message of zero tolerance to 1.4 million men and women in uniform. And I am glad to see the secretary extended these new policies to include spouses and adult dependent children of those in the military.

“But the core of the flawed system remains in place –- unit commanders will continue to have complete and total discretion over incidents of assault in their unit,” Speier said.

“I am advocating for the elimination of the conflicts that exist in the military sexual assault justice system. What Secretary Panetta is doing helps, but it is tinkering rather than overhauling a system that does not adequately protect the honor of the men and women in uniform,” she said.

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Photo: Army Gen. Peter Chiarelli conducts a news briefing at the Pentagon on Thursday. Credit: Alex Wong/Getty Images

 

Army destroying last chemical weapons in Utah cache

At 2:11 p.m. Wednesday, a tray carrying 23 projectiles packed with mustard agent was removed from a 1,500-degree furnace at a U.S. Army facility in Utah. The two-hour process stripped the mustard agent of its toxicity -- its ability to blister the skin and attack the respiratory system.

And with that, officials celebrated the destruction of the last hard weapons at the Deseret Chemical Depot, which once housed the Army’s largest cache of chemical agents.

By the end of the week, when officials burn the last of the depot’s skin and lung irritant, the Army will have destroyed about 90% of its chemical weapons, the Associated Press reported. It could take until 2021 to rid depots in Colorado and Kentucky of the final 10%.

Although the U.S. will miss an April 29 deadline to dispose of all its chemical weapons, as it vowed to do under an international treaty, it’s further along than other nations that have signed on. Russia, for example, has destroyed about half of its stockpile, the AP said.

Disposing of chemical weapons is a delicate task. For decades, the depot near Tooele, Utah, burned toxins in the open air, the Salt Lake Tribune reported. In the 1970s, chemical incineration was halted while researchers figured out more environmentally sound methods.

Since weapons destruction resumed in 1996, the remote depot has rid itself of 1.1 million munitions and 13,600 tons of chemical agents.

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Photo: Becky Webster positions a container filled with 170 gallons of nerve gas onto a pallet at the Deseret Chemical Depot in Tooele, Utah, in 2001. This week, the depot is destroying the last of its toxins. Credit: Douglas C. Pizac/Associated Press