Navy Cross recipient sues feds over dispute with park ranger

A disabled combat Marine who received the Navy Cross for heroism in Iraq is suing the federal government in a dispute over a Sequoia National Park handicap parking space in which he says a ranger handcuffed him and roughed him up in front of his family.

Dominic Esquibel, 42, of San Diego, is suing for assault and battery, false arrest and false imprisonment, negligence and intentional infliction of emotional distress, said his attorney, Nicholas “Butch” Wagner of Fresno.

His civil-rights complaint, filed last week in U.S. District Court in Fresno, does not specify how much in damages he is seeking. But a claim sent to the U.S. government prior to the lawsuit said Esquibel wants $750,000.

A phone call to Sequoia National Park on Friday was not immediately returned. A National Park Service spokeswoman has said previously that the service does not discuss lawsuits.

According to the citation for Esquibel’s Navy Cross, on Nov. 25, 2004, while serving a scout sniper for Company B, 1st Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment, the lance corporal spotted several wounded Marines pinned down by enemy fire. “With total disregard for his own safety,” Esquibel crawled up to the enemy stronghold and threw grenades, “destroying several enemy insurgents and silencing one of the enemy’s machine guns,” the citation says.

Under heavy enemy fire, Esquibel carried out two wounded Marines and carried out the body of another, the citation says.

Years later, while on combat duty, Esquibel was seriously injured in the Sanguin Valley in Afghanistan.

On March 25, 2011, he stepped on a bomb, seriously damaging his right leg and right elbow. He suffered significant hearing loss and wears an exoskeleton on his right leg that enables him to walk, the lawsuit says.

Despite his disability, Esquibel continues to serve in the Marines as a criminal investigator, Wagner said.

“It’s unbelievable what he has gone through,” Wagner said Friday. “For this to happen to him is unconscionable.”

What happened, according to the lawsuit, is this:

On Dec. 22, 2012, Esquibel and his family were visiting Sequoia National Park. As they entered the gate, a park employee (not named in court papers) asked him to wait at the entrance until traffic thinned out. Esquibel showed the employee a handicap park pass that allows him to enter for free, the lawsuit says.

After entering, Esquibel parked in a handicap space so he could use the restroom. He placed his handicap placard on his rear-view mirror and began walking from his vehicle when the park employee at the entrance booth yelled at him: “You can’t park there.” When Esquibel said he was disabled, the park employee replied: “I can see that you’re not,” the lawsuit says.

The park employee called a park ranger, who arrived a short time later and began questioning Esquibel. The complaint says the ranger, identified in court papers only as T. Parker, demanded that Esquibel show him a handicapped driver’s license. Esquibel told the ranger he did not have or need one to drive his vehicle. He offered to show the ranger the paperwork for the handicap placard, but the ranger was unwilling to listen, the lawsuit says.

The ranger arrested Esquibel for failing to follow a lawful order, the lawsuit says. Esquibel says his war-related injuries, which included a surgically repaired right arm, were made worse by the ranger’s forceful arrest and from being handcuffed.

During the arrest, the lawsuit says, the ranger kicked Esquibel’s disabled right leg in an attempt to spread Esquibel’s legs. Esquibel’s wife started to cry, and the ranger reached down and pulled up Esquibel’s pant leg to see the exoskeleton. “I told you I am a combat-wounded, limb-salvaged Marine,” Esquibel told the ranger. “You are damaging my leg and foot.”

The ranger still handcuffed Esquibel and put him in the back of the ranger’s patrol car, the lawsuit says. Esquibel was later cited for “failing to follow a lawful order” and released.

In a letter to Wagner, U.S. Department of the Interior officials said in August this year: “From our review of the circumstances surrounding the detention of Mr. Esquibel, it appears that the officer’s actions were reasonable.”

But Wagner said Friday at no time did Esquibel break the law or deserve such treatment. When Esquibel showed up in federal court in Fresno to address his citation issued by the Sequoia park ranger, the prosecutor dismissed the case on the spot, Wagner said.

“He was falsely arrested and falsely imprisoned,” Wagner said. “If they are doing it to a war hero, who knows who they are doing it to.”

©2014 The Fresno (Calif.) Bee. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.

Civilian contractors on remote Aleutian island, Coast Guard brace for Nuri

Gusts up to 96 mph hammered the remote island of Shemya in the western Aleutians on Friday morning as a strong storm barreled into the Bering Sea.

Forecasters said the “exceptionally strong storm,” formed from the remnants of Japan’s Typhoon Nuri, was moving into the open Bering Sea, far away from population centers. A hurricane-force wind warning for the region is in effect until 9 a.m. Saturday.

Much of the forecast was unchanged from Thursday, when warnings emerged of very strong winds and waves up to 50 feet, said Joe Wegman, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Anchorage. The U.S. Coast Guard spent the day preparing for the storm and urging mariners to keep an eye on weather reports and take shelter.

On Friday, Shemya, in the far western Aleutians, was reporting sustained winds of 70 mph with gusts up to 96, according to reports. The island is the site of Eareckson Air Station, a U.S. Air Force facility.

About 120 civilian contractors are currently stationed on Shemya, said Tommie Baker, community relations chief with the Alaskan Command Public Affairs Office. Friday afternoon, the contractors were in a “Phase 1” lockdown, the highest stage of alert, Baker said. That means people were locked inside buildings, with no authorized transit in or out.

With plenty of advance warning, the station was well prepared to face the storm, Baker said. By the time the winds hit, loose items, from dumpsters to vehicles to 55-gallon drums, had been secured.

“They had plenty of notice to get ready for this,” Baker said.

Baker also said the ferocity of Friday’s storm was not necessarily an anomaly. Shemya sees an average of six high-wind events a year, marked by winds blowing above 70 mph.

No storm-related injuries or distress calls had been reported as of late Friday afternoon, said Petty Officer 3rd Class Diana Honings, spokeswoman for the U.S. Coast Guard 17th District Public Affairs in Kodiak. The Coast Guard sent an MH-60T Jayhawk helicopter normally based at Air Station Kodiak to be on standby in Cold Bay, and an MH-65 helicopter was parked in a hangar in Dutch Harbor.

On Sunday, after the storm has quieted, the Coast Guard will conduct a fly-over to assess damage, Honings said.

The storm was expected to be at its strongest far out over the open Bering Sea on Friday night, Wegman said. But it's expected to weaken Saturday while moving eastward, staying north of the Aleutians.

Wegman emphasized that the storm is not expected to come anywhere close to the mainland.

“Even coastal communities, other than seeing some really high waves, are not going to see anything out of the ordinary,” Wegman said.

He said the storm is also unlikely to break the state record for lowest recorded barometric pressure, set in 1977 in Dutch Harbor.

“One, we don’t think it’s quite strong enough,” Wegman said. “And secondly, there aren’t any barometers out there (in the Bering Sea) to measure it.”

Aleutian communities to the east, such as Adak, won’t see the biggest impacts until Saturday night. But by that time, the storm will have weakened considerably, Wegman said.

On Adak, an island community of fewer than 300 people, the weather was calm Friday morning. City employees were at work and school was in session.

Winds and rain picked up later in the day, and children were let out early, at lunchtime.

“It’s nothing we haven’t seen before,” said Adak harbormaster Cal Kashevarof, speaking by phone from a fuel farm. “But it seems to be a lot stronger than I thought it was going to be.”

Visitors to Adak as well as residents were being warned to stay away from the east side of town, where high winds could strip debris off abandoned, dilapidated houses, said city manager Layton Lockett.

Out on the seas, fishing vessels and cargo ships were giving the area a wide berth Friday. Ed Page, a retired Coast Guard officer and executive director of Marine Exchange of Alaska, a Juneau-based vessel tracking and safety organization, said good forecast information helped crews avoid being caught by surprise.

“Fortunately, so far, things seem to be going well,” Page said. “No one is in distress, broken down or in harm’s way.”

A number of vessels are currently hovering around the Alaska Peninsula, waiting until the storm abates, Page said. Others are taking routes much farther south or north of the Aleutians Islands than normal.

The storm system will push freezing air into much of the Lower 48 next week, according to the National Weather Service.

©2014 the (Anchorage) Alaska Dispatch News. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.

Burned remains are probably 43 missing students, Mexico official says

MEXICO CITY — Suspects in the disappearance of 43 college students have confessed to loading the youths onto dump trucks, murdering them at a landfill, then burning the bodies and dumping the ashen remains into a river, Mexican authorities said Friday.

In a somber, lengthy explanation of the investigation, Attorney General Jesus Murillo Karam played video showing hundreds of charred fragments of bone and teeth fished from the river and its banks. He said it will be very difficult to extract DNA to confirm that they are the students missing since Sept. 26 after an attack by police in the southern state of Guerrero.

"I know the enormous pain the information we've obtained causes the family members, a pain we all share," Murillo Karam said at a news conference. "The statements and information that we have gotten unfortunately point to the murder of a large number of people in the municipality of Cocula."

Some 74 people have been detained so far in a case. Authorities say it said started when police, under orders of the former Mayor Jose Luis Abarca and working with a drug gang, opened fire on students in the city of Iguala, where they were collecting donations and had commandeered public buses. Six people were killed in two confrontations before the 43 were taken away and handed over to members of the Guerreros Unidos cartel. Abarca and his wife are among those arrested.

Murillo Karam said authorities are searching for more suspects.

The parents, human rights groups and Mexicans in general have been appalled by the government's slow response to a case that has exposed in the worst way decades of collusion between officials and organized crime along with government inaction. There had been accusations for more than a year that Abarca was involved in killing and disappearing rivals but no investigation. When students who survived the Iguala confrontation sought help from the military the night of the attack, they said they were turned away.

Parents reacting to Murillo Karam's report Friday said they have lost trust in anything the government says.

"As long as there are no results, our sons are alive," Felipe de la Cruz, the father of one of the disappeared. "Today they're trying to close the case this way ... a blatant way to further our torture by the federal government."

In the most comprehensive accounting to date of the disappearances and the subsequent investigation, Murillo Karam showed videotaped confessions by those who testified they used dump trucks to carry the students to a landfill site in Cocula, a city near Iguala. About 15 of the students were already dead when they arrived at the site and the rest were shot there, according to the suspects.

They then built an enormous funeral pyre that burned from midnight until 2 or 3 p.m. along the River San Juan in Cocula. "They assigned guards in shifts to make sure the fire lasted for hours, throwing diesel, gasoline, tires, wood and plastic," Murillo Karam said.

The suspects even burned their own clothes to destroy evidence, they said.

It was about 5:30 p.m. when the ashes had cooled enough to be handled. Those who disposed of the bodies were told to break up the burned bones, place them in black plastic garbage bags and empty them into the river.

Murillo Karam said the teeth were so badly charred that they practically dissolved into dust at the touch.

"The high level of degradation caused by the fire in the remains we found make it very difficult to extract the DNA that will allow an identification," he said.

Murillo Karma had told relatives of the missing students earlier Friday that authorities believe their children are these charred remains, but have no DNA confirmation.

Murillo Karam also confirmed at the news conference that human remains found in mass graves discovered after the students went missing did not include any of the 43 young men enrolled at a radical rural teachers college. Those graves held women and men believed to have been killed in August, he said.

Among the bodies found in the course of the investigation were a father and son. By searching for reports of father-son disappearances, authorities were able to make a positive identification. Murillo Karam said the victims, whose names he did not use, apparently made a call before disappearing to say they were being detained by Iguala police.

Associated Press writer Christopher Sherman contributed to this report.

McDonald: More than 1,000 VA workers could face disciplinary action

WASHINGTON — The Veterans Affairs Department is considering disciplinary action against more than 1,000 employees as it struggles to correct systemic problems that led to long wait times for veterans seeking health care and falsification of records to cover up delays, VA Secretary Robert McDonald said.

In an interview with the CBS News program "60 Minutes," McDonald said the VA is taking "aggressive, expeditious disciplinary action, consistent with the law" against more than 1,000 of its 315,000 employees.

McDonald said the disciplinary report given to the Veterans Affairs committees in the House and the Senate "has about 35 names on it. I've got another report that has over 1,000" names, McDonald said.

The interview with "60 Minutes" will be broadcast on Sunday. An excerpt aired Friday on the "CBS Evening News."

McDonald's comments represent a departure from his previous public remarks. At a news conference Thursday, he said the VA has proposed disciplinary action — up to an including firing — against more than 40 employees nationwide since June. Those cases are all related to a scandal over long patient wait times and manipulation of records to hide the delays.

At an appearance Friday at the National Press Club, McDonald said the VA has taken or is considering disciplinary action against 5,600 employees during the past year, although aides later clarified that most of those actions were not related to the health-care scandal.

"We are very serious about making sure that we hold people accountable," McDonald said.

The VA has been under intense scrutiny since a whistleblower reported that dozens of veterans may have died while awaiting treatment at the Phoenix VA hospital, and that appointment records were falsified. Since then problems have been revealed at VA health care sites across the country.

The scandal led to the ouster of former VA Secretary Eric Shinseki and to a new law making it easier for veterans to get VA-paid care from local doctors. The agency has been overwhelmed by the influx of veterans from wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the aging of Vietnam War veterans and expanded eligibility for benefits as a result of exposure to Agent Orange and other problems.

Some Republican lawmakers have criticized the VA for moving too slowly to fire managers involved in covering up wait times and other problems.

But McDonald said the agency is moving as fast as it legally can. All VA firings are subject to review by an administrative judge.

"We've got to make it stick," McDonald told CBS. "We propose the action, the judge rules and the individual has a time to appeal."

What the VA is "most concerned about is caring for veterans. So if someone has violated our values and we think has done bad things, we move them out," McDonald said. "And that's why we have a lot of people on administrative leave. We move them out. We don't want any harm to our veterans."

Only one of four senior employees recently targeted for removal by the VA has been fired, a fact Republican lawmakers cite in criticizing McDonald's implementation of the new law, which gives McDonald wide authority to fire poor-performing employees and streamlines the appeals process.

Two of the targeted employees retired. A third was granted an extension allowing her more time to reply to the VA's decision.

Associated Press writer Jackie Quinn contributed to this report.

On 10th anniversary of 2nd battle of Fallujah, veterans remember

CAMP PENDLETON, Calif. — Angel Hernandez came from New Jersey. Michael Blake came from New York. Aaron Westlund came from Minnesota. Ben Finnell came from Utah.

And retired Lt. Gen. Richard Natonski came from Virginia, returning to his “home” at 1st Marine Division to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the Marine Corps’ largest urban battle since Hue City in 1968.

On Nov. 8, 2004, the 1st Marine Division — supported by U.S. Army units, other Marine units, British forces and the Iraqi army — launched the second battle of Fallujah, Operation Al Fajr. Though time has passed, Natonski said, the battle is still fresh in the minds of those who fought it.

The troops moved house by house, block by block, through a city full of entrenched enemy, intent on killing Americans, said Natonski, who commanded 1st Marine Division at the time. Many of the enemy fighters were high on amphetamines, or wearing rubber ties on their limbs so they could continue fighting even if gravely injured, he said.

The troops dropped more than 300 bombs on the city and fired more than 6,000 rounds of artillery during the battle, which lasted until Dec. 23, Natonski said. Nine U.S. troops received the Navy Cross for their actions in Operation Al Fajr, and several more received the Silver Star.

In an interview with Stars and Stripes, Maj. Gen. Larry Nicholson, the current commander of 1st Marine Division, called the fight “the most iconic battle of the last decade.”

On Sept. 14, 2004 — the day he took command of 1st Marine Regiment — a rocket hit his command post, killing his communication officer, Maj. Kevin Shea, and badly wounding him.

Nicholson was medevaced to the United States and had several surgeries to repair his back and shoulder. He returned to Iraq on Christmas Eve, the day after the battle ended.

“I missed the fight,” he said, but he saw the long lines of people waiting for food and money, filtering back into what was by then a “pretty secure city.”

The battle really came down to decisions made by some of the most junior Marines, he said.

“It’s very, very challenging for young Marines to go through house after house, block after block. And this wasn’t done within large formations. This was done at squad and fire-team level,” he said. “I think it’s a great study in small-unit leadership, under the most challenging of circumstances of urban terrain.”

During the six-week battle, there were “so many incredible stories and accounts of heroism and bravery by young Marines and soldiers. I think you’ve got to remember a fight like that, because they don’t come along very often. That was a tough one.”

At the ceremony Friday, Natonski related anecdotes from the battle, such as when he heard Marines discussing who would play them in “Fallujah, the movie,” and when a regiment of Marines took an Army psychological operations vehicle into the city and played the Marines’ Hymn as loud as they could, in honor of the Marine Corps’ birthday.

“Believe me, it got quite a reception,” Natonski said.

Hundreds of current and former Marines, soldiers and sailors traveled to southern California for the ceremony and other memorial activities. Hernandez and Blake, who served in Charlie Battery, 1st Battalion, 12th Marines during the battle, said they wanted to pay their respects to those who died and to see some of their old friends.

“It was a very important part of our lives,” Blake said.

Finnell, who served as a corpsman with 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, said he was hoping to remember. Because of severe post-traumatic stress disorder, he said, two and a half or three years of his life are a blank.

“Coming here is a way to reconnect,” he said.

Though officials made a point of focusing the ceremony on what happened in 2004, Natonski did address the fact that the city fell to the Islamic State early this year. And on Friday, the Pentagon announced that more U.S. troops would be sent back to Iraq as advisers, including to Anbar province.

It’s “very disheartening and disappointing to those who were there 10 years ago,” he said, but the Marines in 2004 accomplished their mission “and more.”

Nicholson said that what is happening in Iraq now doesn’t change what the team did.

“We can’t control what’s going on now. What we could control was in 2004, and we did that very well,” he said. “That’s the message we want to give our guys: We did our job, we did it damn well.’”

hlad.jennifer@stripes.com

Twitter: @jhlad

Navy SEAL who says he killed bin Laden draws ire of colleagues

WASHINGTON — Some special operations servicemembers and veterans are unhappy that one of their own has taken credit publicly for killing Osama bin Laden. Others say they have gotten used to the idea that their brethren might break the code of silence and seek to profit from their deeds.

That internal debate gained intensity this week when retired Navy SEAL Robert O'Neill acknowledged that he had fired two rounds into the forehead of the al-Qaida leader during the 2011 raid on his secret compound in Pakistan. O'Neill says more and more people were becoming aware of his role and that his name was bound to become public anyway.

O'Neill had recounted his version of the bin Laden raid in February 2013 to Esquire magazine, which identified him only as "the shooter." In a story Thursday, The Washington Post identified him by name as he described shooting the leader of the terrorist group behind the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

One current and one former SEAL confirmed to The Associated Press that O'Neill was long known to have killed bin Laden. Defense Department officials confirmed that O'Neill was a member of SEAL Team Six and was part of the raid, but they said they could not confirm who fired the fatal shot, noting that other SEALs on the mission also fired at bin Laden.

If O'Neill discloses classified information during the interviews, he could be subject to an investigation or action by the Justice Department, the Defense Department officials said. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter by name.

O'Neill told the Post that shots also were fired by two other SEAL team members, including Matt Bissonnette, who described the raid somewhat differently in his book "No Easy Day." His lawyer said Bissonnette is under federal criminal investigation over whether he disclosed classified information in the book, which he did not vet with the military. In the Esquire piece, O'Neill makes no mention of Bissonnette shooting bin Laden.

Well before the Post interview, O'Neill discussed his role in the raid during a private meeting with relatives of victims of the 9/11 attack on New York's World Trade Center before the recent opening of the National Sept. 11 Memorial Museum. He donated the shirt he was wearing in the operation, which is now on display there.

O'Neill is scheduled to be featured in lengthy segments next week on Fox News. He told the Post he decided to go public because he feared his identity was going to be leaked by others. Indeed, his name appeared Monday on the website SOFREP, which is operated by former special operations troops.

The actions of both O'Neill and Bissonnette have drawn scorn from some of their colleagues. In an Oct. 31 open letter, Rear Adm. Brian Losey, who commands the Naval Special Warfare Group, and Force Master Chief Michael Magaraci, the top noncommissioned officer of the group, urged SEALs to lower their public profile. Their comments were widely perceived as being aimed at O'Neill and Bissonnette.

"At Naval Special Warfare's core is the SEAL ethos," the letter says. "A critical tenant of our ethos is 'I do not advertise the nature of my work, nor seek recognition for my actions.'"

The letter added, "We do not abide willful or selfish disregard for our core values in return for public notoriety or financial gain."

Debra Burlingame, whose brother Charles Burlingame was the pilot of the hijacked plane that crashed into the Pentagon, attended the 9/11 museum ceremony. She said O'Neill, whose name was not divulged at the event, offered the families clarity on conflicting information they had received about the raid.

She said she didn't have an opinion about whether SEALs should disclose information about their deeds. "Whatever that (SEALs') ethos is, is between the SEALS," she said. "The 9/11 families are the beneficiaries of any rules he might have broken or whatever lines he might have crossed."

"He went through the mission in really in great detail. All that information was very helpful to me because this is a figure in a terror organization that has loomed large in our lives," she said, adding that she listened to him so intently that the 9/11 commemorative coin she was clasping tightly in her hand left a bruise.

Rick Woolard, a former SEAL team commander who previously urged his comrades to avoid discussing recent operations, said active-duty SEALs are "pretty much very disappointed and I'd have to say angry with guys who have used their deeds and those of their companions for personal gain."

"No Easy Day" was published in 2012 under the pseudonym Mark Owen. Bissonnette recounted on CBS-TV's "60 Minutes" program that he sent a text to the commander of SEAL Team Six after its publication. He said the commander replied, "Delete me."

At the same time, Woolard said, there is frustration among some special operations soldiers that senior government officials have left office and written memoirs revealing and profiting from actions involving troops who are sworn to secrecy. However, one active-duty SEAL officer, who declined to be quoted by name because he had no permission to speak publicly, said some SEALs had grown accustomed to some of their members seeking to profit from their connections to the elite group, upon retirement.

Senior Pentagon and CIA officials cooperated extensively with the makers of "Zero Dark Thirty," a film that depicted both the CIA's yearslong hunt for bin Laden and the SEALs raid that killed him in Pakistan.

In the Esquire piece, O'Neill said he was one of two SEALs who went up to the third floor of the building where bin Laden was hiding. The first man fired two shots at bin Laden as he peeked out of the bedroom, but O'Neill says those shots missed. The man then tackled two women in the hallway outside of bin Laden's bedroom.

O'Neill went into the bedroom, he recounts. "There was bin Laden standing there. He had his hands on a woman's shoulders, pushing her ahead, not exactly toward me but by me, in the direction of the hallway commotion. It was his youngest wife, Amal."

O'Neill added: "In that second, I shot him two times in the forehead. Bap! Bap! The second time as he's going down. He crumpled onto the floor in front of his bed and I hit him again. Bap! Same place. ... He was dead."

Associated Press writers Deb Riechmann and Lolita C. Baldor contributed to this report.

For-profit colleges face 'gainful employment' rule

For-profit colleges that don’t produce graduates capable of paying off their student loans could soon face the wrath of the federal government.

Schools with career-oriented programs that fail to comply with the new rule announced Thursday by the Obama administration stand to lose access to federal student-aid programs.

To meet these “gainful employment” standards, a program will have to show that the estimated annual loan payment of a typical graduate does not exceed 20 percent of his or her discretionary income or 8 percent of total earnings.

The Education Department estimates that about 1,400 programs serving 840,000 students won’t pass. Ninety-nine percent of these programs are offered by for-profit schools, although affected career training programs can come from certificate programs elsewhere in higher education.

Education Secretary Arne Duncan says the department wants to make sure that programs that prey on students don’t continue abusive practices.

However, Steve Gunderson, president and CEO of the Association of Private Sector Colleges and Universities, calls the effort “nothing more than a bad-faith attempt to cut off access to education for millions of students who have been historically underserved by higher education.”

Some questions and answers arising from the new rule:

Q. Who goes to for-profit colleges?

A. Students seeking training in areas such as nursing, truck driving, culinary arts and auto repair. Such fields attract many nontraditional students, including military veterans and workers laid off during the economic downturn. About two-thirds are over the age of 24. Half have dependents and almost 40 percent work full time while enrolled, according to the Association of Private Sector Colleges and Universities. Students at for-profit schools are more likely to live at or below the federal poverty level and receive food stamp benefits than students in other sectors of higher education. About 1.3 million students enrolled last spring at a for-profit school, according to the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center. That was about a 5 percent decline from a year earlier.

Q. In what ways are for-profit colleges under fire?

A. The regulation, which goes into effect July 1, is the latest step in a yearslong fight by the Obama administration to improve outcomes and end aggressive recruiting at for-profit colleges. In 2012, the for-profit colleges convinced a judge that similar regulations were too arbitrary.

Last summer, the Education Department reached an agreement with Corinthian Colleges, a chain based in Santa Ana, California, to sell or close its more than 90 U.S. campuses.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau earlier this year filed suit against the large, for-profit college chain ITT Educational Services Inc. alleging that it pushed students into high-cost private loans that would likely end in default. The company denied the charges.

On Capitol Hill, Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, has aggressively investigated the industry. At the state level, several attorneys general have also pursued action.

“These regulations are a necessary step to ensure that colleges accepting federal funds protect students, cut costs and improve outcomes,” Duncan said.

Q. Why is the sector a target?

A. The industry has among the highest student loan default rates and lowest graduation rates in higher education. Some veterans’ advocates have accused it of aggressively targeting veterans because of their federal GI Bill money. Critics say the schools are too expensive and a waste of money not just for students, but for taxpayers who fund the GI Bill and other loan and grant dollars used by a large chunk of students to help pay to attend for-profit colleges.

Q. What’s the other side of the story?

A. For-profit colleges argue that they provide educational programs to students who have historically been left out of higher education and that the regulations would reduce the educational opportunities for students most in need of training programs. They say it’s unfair to target just career-oriented programs because poor outcomes can be found in other areas of higher education.

In the proposed regulation released earlier this year, another measurement recommended to judge these programs was the default rate of student loans. But that was removed in the final regulations because the Education Department said that doing so would create more streamlined regulations. The for-profit sector says that was done to appease publicly funded community colleges that would have gotten snared under that metric.

“We will vigorously contest all these issues to help ensure that students, employers and communities are not harmed by such an arbitrary and biased regulation,” Gunderson said.

Q. Are advocates for tougher regulations now happy?

A. Not necessarily. Some of them say the regulations don’t go far enough.

Rory O’Sullivan, deputy director of the advocacy group Young Invincibles, said the administration caved by scrapping the student loan default rate component.

“By failing to include a default rate standard, the administration ignores the most vulnerable students: those who withdraw from failing programs with debt but no degree,” O’Sullivan said.

Routine pet surgery canceled at military veterinary clinics

The U.S. Army Public Health Command has temporarily suspended routine surgeries on pets at all military veterinary clinics in a move designed to increase revenue and return the clinics to their main function of providing basic physicals and sick call hours for privately owned animals.

The command, which assumed responsibility two years ago for all military veterinary clinics on Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps installations, informed facility chiefs Oct. 15 of the decision to temporarily halt surgical care such as spaying, neutering, dental work, tumor removals and other surgeries as of Nov. 1.

Army Lt. Col. Matt Takara, USAPHC animal medicine program manager, said veterinary offerings on many military bases have grown in the last several years from basic medical care like vaccinations and routine appointments to nearly full-service hospitals.

The expansion has forced clinics to hire more civilian providers and reduce the number of routine appointments available, since surgeries take more time to conduct.

The change has cut into the clinics’ bottom line, Takara said. As nonappropriated fund facilities that do not receive taxpayer support, the clinics rely on revenues from routine exams to cover basic operating expenses, and in the time that most clinics perform surgeries, they could provide appointments to 50 or 60 animals.

On the other hand, surgeries have been done at cost.

“[This will] greatly increase the number of service members and families we provide support to within our military communities and generate the profits required to cover our basic operating expenses,” Takara said.

The surgery ban is expected to stay in effect for several months; Takara declined to provide a date for when they might resume.

About 100 of roughly 150 clinics perform surgical procedures, officials said.

Also effective Nov. 1, clinics raised their prices to $35 from $25 for a basic exam and increased prices for over-the-counter products such as flea and tick medications and heartworm pills.

Even with those increases, most veterinary clinics on base will remain a relative bargain compared with civilian veterinary hospitals, which charge from $50 upward to $300 for annual checkups, depending on location.

“It’s important to remember that ... our prices for care are lower than the civilian sector in many locations,” Takara said.

USAPHC has not tracked the number of surgeries performed on pets at on-base veterinary clinics but has recently started using electronic medical records that will allow the command to monitor treatment and care at facilities.

Military veterinarians have a dual mission — to provide veterinary care to military working animals and protect military bases from animal-borne illnesses, and oversee food safety and inspection at on-base dining facilities and commissaries.

According to Takara, USAPHC has hired 100 new personnel in the past year for the veterinary mission and has roughly 700 nonappropriated employees, including health technicians, veterinarians, operations assistants and clerks.

Takara said the changes are designed to ensure that on-base veterinary clinics can continue to provide the valuable care military families have come to expect.

“While we strive to keep our prices as low as possible, we must generate enough revenue to cover our operating costs. These changes are occurring globally, but our goal is to increase access to care and provide more wellness and sick call appointments to our military families’ pets,” he said.

Bruce Springsteen among those receiving first-ever awards for supporting veterans

Bruce Springsteen tops an eclectic group honored with first-ever awards for those striving to improve the lives of veterans and their families.

Ten recipients of what are being called the Lincoln Awards were announced Tuesday by the Friars Club and its charitable arm, the Friars Foundation.

They are sponsoring an awards program Jan. 6 at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, followed the next day by a celebrity-studded concert.

The event is being held on the 150th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s Second Inaugural address where he pledged the nation “to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan.”

Springsteen is being singled with an Entertainer Award for “several decades” of performing his music in support of veterans and military families,, according to the Friars Club. Themes about the plight of veterans run though much of his music, songs like The Long Walk Home, Lost in the Flood, Devils and Dust and Born in the USA.

Other honorees will include:

■ Ken Fisher, a New York real estate magnate and chief executive of the Fisher House Foundation, a non-profit organization founded by his uncle, Zachary Fisher. The foundation builds the Fisher House homes on military campuses where the families of wounded veterans reside while caring for their loved ones. Ken Fisher is receiving the Citizen Award.

■ Segway inventor Dean Kamen, who will receive the Medical and Science Award for improving on the science of bionic arms for wounded veterans.

■ Walmart, receiving the Corporate Citizen Award for outstanding providing job opportunities, hiring 100,000 veterans and 150,000 of their family members.

■ Retired Rear Adm. Dick Young, honored with the Standard Bearer Award for lifetime achievement in service to other veterans.

■ Kayla Williams, a former intelligence specialist with the U.S. Army and now a RAND Corp. researcher, receiving the Artistic Award for two memoirs, Love My Rifle More Than You: Young and Female in the U.S. Army and Plenty of Time When We Get Home: Love and Recovery in the Aftermath of War.

Air Force beats Army 23-6 to win CIC Trophy

WEST POINT, N.Y. — Kale Pearson hit tight end Garrett Griffin for a 54-yard touchdown early in the third quarter to break open a tense game, Will Conant kicked three field goals, and Air Force beat Army 23-6 on Saturday to win the Commander-in-Chief's Trophy for a record 19th time.

Air Force (6-2) has won five of six, including a triumph over Navy, which put the Falcons in position to capture the trophy on Saturday. The Falcons beat Navy 30-21 a month ago.

Army (2-6) hasn't captured the coveted hardware, emblematic of supremacy among the three service academies, since it won its sixth in 1996.

It was the 49th meeting between the service-academy rivals, who rely on the run game. The Falcons lead the series against Army 34-14-1 and have won 16 of the last 18 in the series. The Falcons are 31-12 in Commander-in-Chief's Trophy games against Army dating to the beginning of the round-robin competition in 1972 and have a series-best 56-30 overall record against Army and Navy.

The teams had split the last two meetings, high-scoring affairs with the home team winning. Two years ago, Army won 41-21 at Michie Stadium, and last season Air Force topped the Black Knights 42-28 at Falcon Stadium.

This one was a defensive struggle.

Leading by just a field goal at halftime, Pearson hit Griffin over the middle on Air Force's first possession of the second half, and he raced untouched into the end zone for a 13-3 lead. Stymied the entire first half, the Falcons had struck in just three plays that took 48 seconds after forcing Army into a three-and-out.

Pearson secured the victory with a 2-yard touchdown pass to Griffin midway through the fourth quarter. Pearson, who finished 8 of 12 for 141 yards and gained 41 yards rushing, also hit Colton Huntsman for 17 yards and Jalen Robinette for 29 on consecutive plays to set up Conant's 26-yard field goal with 5:13 left on the clock before halftime.

Conant boosted the Air Force lead to 16-3 when he nailed a 50-yard field goal midway through the third.

Army managed just two field goals by Daniel Grochowski, 42 yards in the first quarter for a 3-0 lead and 46 yards in the third.

Air Force banks more on the pass than Army, and that edge was critical as neither team managed much on the ground. Army entered the game averaging nearly 320 yards, fourth in the nation, and finished with 122 yards on 38 carries.

Air Force wasn't any better with 145 yards on 46 tries through three quarters, including 101 from Jacobi Owens, who finished with 118. The Falcons finished with 242 yards rushing on 62 carries.

Army's Larry Dixon, averaging 97.6 yards per game and closing in on 3,000 career yards, finished with 13 yards on 10 carries. Quarterback Angel Santiago led the Black Knights with 33 yards on 14 carries and was just 2 of 11 for 20 yards passing.

Both teams were coming off a bye week, but the extra time to prepare didn't help the offenses on a cold, raw day at Michie Stadium.

Army scored first, taking advantage of an Air Force turnover on the first possession of the game. Josh Jenkins intercepted Pearson near midfield on a third-and-8 play and returned it 31 yards to the Air Force 28 to set up Grochowski's 42-yard field goal.

Air Force turned the ball over on downs on its next possession, failing on fourth down for just the sixth time in 14 tries this season.

After Santiago reversed field on a keeper and gained 32 yards deep into Air Force territory, the Falcons escaped further damage when Grochowski's 41-yard field goal attempt sailed wide left.

The game was played a week after the Gazette of Colorado Springs, a stone's throw from the Air Force Academy, published a story about an Army recruiting excursion in January that featured underage drinking and led to minor NCAA infractions and the disciplining of 20 cadets, two officers and two coaches. Army coach Jeff Monken said it wasn't a distraction.

Little green army men make Toy Hall of Fame

ROCHESTER, N.Y. — It’s mission accomplished for little green army men.

The molded plastic must-haves for generations of pretend soldiers were inducted into the National Toy Hall of Fame on Thursday, along with the 1980s stumper Rubik’s Cube, and bubbles.

The trio of toys takes its place alongside other classics including Barbie, G.I. Joe, Scrabble and the hula hoop after beating out nine other finalists including Fisher-Price Little People, American Girl dolls and My Little Pony.

The tiny monochromatic heroes have been around since 1938, with ups and downs along the way. Their popularity waned during the Vietnam War but they became big-screen stars with the 1995 Pixar movie “Toy Story” and several manufacturers continue to produce millions of them every year.

The army men were finalists two other years before making the cut this time around, offering hope to this year’s also-rans, which also included Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Slip ‘N Slide, the skill game Operation, paper airplanes, pots and pans, and the toy trucks sold annually since 1964 by the Hess gas station chain.

The brain-teasing Rubik’s Cube was invented by Hungarian architect Erno Rubik in the 1970s, but took off in the United States in 1980 after being imported by Ideal Toy Corp. More than 100 million of the six-color cubes were sold between 1980 and 1982, dividing an obsessively twisting populace between those who could solve it and those who could not.

The cubes, with nine colored squares on each side, can be arranged 43 quintillion ways, according to the Toy Hall of Fame, and have inspired organized competitions in more than 50 countries, along with contests to solve it blindfolded, one-handed and under water. Mats Valk of the Netherlands holds the speed record for re-aligning the colors in 5.55 seconds.

Children have played with soap bubbles since at least the 17th century, according to the toy hall, when paintings depicting the play appeared in what is now modern-day Belgium. More than 200 million bottles of bubble liquid are sold annually.

Bubbles got the nod as a toy of the imagination, spokesman Shane Rhinewald said, listing it alongside similar previous inductees including the stick and blanket.

A national selection committee made up of 24 experts, including toy collectors, designers and psychologists vote the winners in to the hall each year. Anyone can nominate a toy, but to make it through the preliminary selection process and become a finalist a toy must have achieved icon status, survived through generations, foster learning, creativity or discovery and have profoundly changed play or toy design.

The toy hall is located inside The Strong museum in Rochester.

Springsteen auctions guitars, lasagna for veterans

NEW YORK — How much for a guitar played by Bruce Springsteen, an hour lesson on how to play it, a lasagna dinner at his house and a ride in the side car of his motorcycle? $300,000.

Springsteen auctioned off two such packages Wednesday night at Stand Up For Heroes, a mashup of comedy and music involving this week’s New York Comedy Festival and the Bob Woodruff Foundation, which helps military service members and their families after they return home. The foundation is named for the ABC news anchor injured while working in Iraq in 2006.

Springsteen played a five-song solo acoustic set that included “Growin’ Up,” ‘’Dancing in the Dark” and “Born in the U.S.A” to a crowd of fans, military leaders, service men and women and corporate executives at the Theater at Madison Square Garden. Springsteen’s opening acts were big names themselves: comedians John Oliver, Jon Stewart, Louis C.K. and Jim Gaffigan.

“I should not be alive right now,” Woodruff said in opening the show, noting the military personnel who helped save his life in a war zone. Woodruff also led a moment of silence for Robin Williams, the comic who died over the summer and had previously participated in the fundraiser, now in its eighth year.

The night raised more than $1 million, with Springsteen’s packages making up more than half of the contributions. The night also included a surprise performance by Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who sang “New York, New York.”

Stewart, host of “The Daily Show,” touched on Tuesday’s elections and the GOP wins: “What happened to Obama?”

Meanwhile, Oliver, host of “Last Week Tonight,” spoke to veterans of his fear when Hurricane Sandy was bearing down on New York.

“I’m not sure many people in this room will identify with that level of cowardice,” he quipped.

LeBron James invites deployed troops to join Veterans Day salute

Serving overseas? The Cleveland Cavaliers want to get you in the house!

LeBron, Kyrie, K-Love and the Cavs will honor the troops on Nov. 10, when they take on the New Orleans Pelicans at Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland.

As part of the “Hoops for Troops” salute on the eve of Veterans Day, the Cavs will feature video shout-outs from fans serving in uniform around the globe.

If you’re serving overseas and want to participate, send your photos via Twitter or Instagram using the #CavsSalute and #HoopsForTroops hashtags. Want to submit a 10- to 15-second video message? Please send directly to webmaster@cavs.com.

Selected photos and videos will be played for the crowd on the Cavs’ massive HD “Humongatron,” the largest of its kind in any arena.

New Army policy restricts access to Fort Jackson

FORT JACKSON, SC (MCT) — Visitors to Fort Jackson now will have to be escorted or be vetted by the FBI and receive credentials to have access to the post, although the rules allow flexibility for some large events, according to the garrison commander.

Previously, visitors simply had to show their driver’s licenses to visit the fort’s water park, museums, golf course and other destinations. The restricted access is to comply with new Army regulations intended to protect soldiers and their families from attacks such as the one in Ottawa, Canada, last month in which a lone gunman killed a soldier guarding that country’s National War Memorial, Col. Mike Graese said.

“We’re taking prudent measures to ensure that soldiers and family members have proper protection,” he said.

However, Graese said the new rules allow flexibility for some large public events on installations, such as Fort Jackson family days on Wednesdays and graduations on Thursdays. Those events draw about 6,000 people to the post each week.

For now, the commander said, visitors to those events can continue to enter with only a driver’s license as the installation tries to develop measures to meet the new Army regulations.

“This policy is still being developed,” Graese said.

On other days of the week, visitors will be required to be screened, he said. Temporary credentials can be issued on the spot through the Physical Security Office at the fort’s main gate on Forest Drive and Interstate 77, after visitors’ names are checked through the FBI National Crime Database.

The lightly traveled and well maintained roads in the fort are popular with cyclists, who flock there by the hundreds on after-work or weekend rides. Many were surprised when soldiers at the main gate began refusing them access without a Department of Defense ID last week.

Brian Curran, owner of Outspokin Bicycles on Devine Street, said most of the cyclists he has spoken with on the issue “will do whatever we need to do to be able to ride there. ... It’s hard to imagine a better place to ride in an urban area.”

Curran said he was given a 60-day pass last week after passing a background check. Some others got five-day passes last week, as fort officials worked to come up with a formal new policy.

Some local high schools also use the fort’s golf course for practice and tournaments. Richland Northeast athletics director Gary Fulmer said he was not aware of the new policy, but because men’s golf doesn’t start until spring, applying for and receiving credentials shouldn’t be a problem.

For now there is no charge for the background checks, Graese said. However, the commander urged visitors to be patient as wrinkles in the new policy are ironed out.

“Expect delays,” he said.

Those who frequent the fort can apply for an extended pass for up to a year. For instance, families who use the water park could be issued credentials during the season the park is open.

Once vetted and cleared, individuals will be issued credentials allowing them access. The credentials must be carried by the visitor at all times while they are on the fort.

Military contractors should visit Physical Security at Building 4394 along Strom Thurmond Boulevard from 7:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday for credentials.

“We apologize for the delay as we process the surge of requests within our limited resources,” the fort said in a news release Wednesday. “Thank you in advance for your understanding and cooperation.”

Staff writer Joey Holleman contributed to this report.

———

©2014 The State (Columbia, S.C.). Distributed by MCT Information Services

Springsteen auctions guitars, lasagna for veterans

NEW YORK — How much for a guitar played by Bruce Springsteen, an hour lesson on how to play it, a lasagna dinner at his house and a ride in the side car of his motorcycle? $300,000.

Springsteen auctioned off two such packages Wednesday night at Stand Up For Heroes, a mashup of comedy and music involving this week’s New York Comedy Festival and the Bob Woodruff Foundation, which helps military service members and their families after they return home. The foundation is named for the ABC news anchor injured while working in Iraq in 2006.

Springsteen played a five-song solo acoustic set that included “Growin’ Up,” ‘’Dancing in the Dark” and “Born in the U.S.A” to a crowd of fans, military leaders, service men and women and corporate executives at the Theater at Madison Square Garden. Springsteen’s opening acts were big names themselves: comedians John Oliver, Jon Stewart, Louis C.K. and Jim Gaffigan.

“I should not be alive right now,” Woodruff said in opening the show, noting the military personnel who helped save his life in a war zone. Woodruff also led a moment of silence for Robin Williams, the comic who died over the summer and had previously participated in the fundraiser, now in its eighth year.

The night raised more than $1 million, with Springsteen’s packages making up more than half of the contributions. The night also included a surprise performance by Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who sang “New York, New York.”

Stewart, host of “The Daily Show,” touched on Tuesday’s elections and the GOP wins: “What happened to Obama?”

Meanwhile, Oliver, host of “Last Week Tonight,” spoke to veterans of his fear when Hurricane Sandy was bearing down on New York.

“I’m not sure many people in this room will identify with that level of cowardice,” he quipped.

Stand Up For Heroes: Springsteen auctions guitars, lasagna for veterans

NEW YORK — How much for a guitar played by Bruce Springsteen, an hour lesson on how to play it, a lasagna dinner at his house and a ride in the side car of his motorcycle? $300,000.

Springsteen auctioned off two such packages Wednesday night at Stand Up For Heroes, a mashup of comedy and music involving this week's New York Comedy Festival and the Bob Woodruff Foundation, which helps military servicemembers and their families after they return home. The foundation is named for the ABC news anchor injured while working in Iraq in 2006.

Springsteen played a five-song solo acoustic set that included "Growin' Up," ''Dancing in the Dark" and "Born in the U.S.A" to a crowd of fans, military leaders, servicemen and women and corporate executives at the Theater at Madison Square Garden. Springsteen's opening acts were big names themselves: comedians John Oliver, Jon Stewart, Louis C.K. and Jim Gaffigan.

"I should not be alive right now," Woodruff said in opening the show, noting the military personnel who helped save his life in a war zone. Woodruff also led a moment of silence for Robin Williams, the comic who died over the summer and had previously participated in the fundraiser, now in its eighth year.

The night raised more than $1 million, with Springsteen's packages making up more than half of the contributions. The night also included a surprise performance by Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who sang "New York, New York."

Stewart, host of "The Daily Show," touched on Tuesday's elections and the GOP wins: "What happened to Obama?"

Meanwhile, Oliver, host of "Last Week Tonight," spoke to veterans of his fear when Hurricane Sandy was bearing down on New York.

"I'm not sure many people in this room will identify with that level of cowardice," he quipped.

Soldier in Korea gets helmet that saved his life in Afghanistan

SEOUL, South Korea — The hit-and-run attack in an Afghan town left Staff Sgt. Ryan Frye with a concussion, a scratch on the left side of his head, and a helmet so dented he couldn’t fit his hand inside it when he finally realized he’d been hit.

But inexplicably, he was alive.

“The helmet wasn’t supposed to stop the round,” the combat engineer said. “I think I was just lucky.”

After the attack, Frye reluctantly handed over his helmet to the military for evaluation and was told he’d get it back in six to eight months. But the months stretched into years, and well into Frye’s next deployment, to South Korea, where he was stationed near the Demilitarized Zone with the 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division.

Last week, more than 2 1/2 years after the attack that took a fellow soldier’s life, Frye was given back his helmet, paint still chipped from the bullet, during a ceremony at Camp Hovey, courtesy of Program Executive Officer Soldier.

The group develops military equipment and studies battle-damaged gear, collecting more than 25,000 items since 2007, with an eye toward developing better protection. When possible, PEO Soldier returns items to troops as souvenirs.

“When I came to Korea, I was like, yeah, I’m not going to get it back,” the 25-year-old said. “Getting it back was great.”

Frye was taking part in a dismount operation on April 6, 2012, in Ghanzi province, along with his squad leader and their gunner, Spc. Antonio Burnside. They were about halfway through the town of Mushaki when they stopped briefly behind a wall so Burnside could rest.

When they started moving again, they were assaulted by four Afghans as they crossed an open field. Their squad leader made it to safety, but Frye and Burnside were exposed.

Burnside, who was just 70 meters away from the enemy, was hit. With the squad leader providing support fire, Frye kept shooting.

Suddenly, he was dazed – a brief numbness followed by a deafening silence for about 30 seconds. When his hearing started to return, he could hear his squad leader radioing for help.

The attack was quick, maybe two minutes from start to finish, but it felt like an eternity. He thought about his wife and their unborn baby, and Burnside’s family – three children and one on the way.

As it turned out, Frye had been hit on the left side of his head. There was blood, but when he tried to reach inside his helmet, he couldn’t because the Kevlar had been pushed in so far.

Though the only visible wound was a scratch, Frye was dazed for hours. He believes he was hit by a 7.62 mm round from an AK-47. Kevlar helmets are designed to stop only the sort of 9 mm rounds typically fired by handguns and fragmentation from explosions.

“It looked like it went in, wrapped a little bit toward the back and popped out,” he said of the helmet.

For now, the helmet, mounted on a stand, is packed for shipment to his next assignment in Vicenza, Italy. He hopes to someday display it in his office.

But Frye said the best part of getting the equipment back is getting a chance to tell others about Burnside, who died from his injuries and never got to see his fourth child, who was named in his honor.

“It’s not about receiving a helmet. He can’t be here and I want people to remember what he did for his country,” he said. “I try to have everybody I talk to remember that it’s all about him.”

Frye’s daughter also was born after the shooting.

“Right when I got released from the hospital, they told me I was a father,” he said, adding that he wants her to eventually have the helmet.

“It was just really special to me. I want to pass it down to my family, the next generation. It gives them the sense that there’s a lot of fighting in the world, and you’ve got to keep going, and that I’m doing my part.”

rowland.ashley@stripes.com

Would-be atheist chaplain files suit over Navy's rejection of application

WASHINGTON — An atheist Navy chaplain candidate is going to court over the service’s rejection of his application.

Religion scholar and former youth minister Jason Heap filed suit Wednesday along with the organization backing him, the Humanist Society, alleging that the military unfairly rejected him earlier this year because he doesn’t believe in a deity, according to a news release issued late Wednesday from the Washington-based humanist organization.

The lawsuit, which the release says was filed in the U.S. District Court of the eastern District of Virginia, names Navy Secretary Ray Mabus, Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel and a number of other Defense Department and Navy personnel, including the current and former top Navy chaplains.

In addition to asking the court to recognize that Heap’s religious rights were violated, it asks for his instatement as a Navy chaplain and the designation of the Humanist Society as the official endorsing agent for humanist chaplains.

Heap applied to become a chaplain in July 2013 and learned the following June that the Navy had declined his application without explanation.

According to the filing, Navy officials were eager to enroll a chaplain with Heap’s educational background, which includes degrees from Texas Christian University and Oxford University. But when they discovered he was seeking to enter the chaplaincy as a humanist who believes in a system of ethics unrelated to a god or supernatural beliefs, his application went off track amid political protests from those who insist chaplains must follow traditional religions, the suit alleges.

Heap’s opponents ridicule the idea of an atheist military chaplain. “The notion of an atheist chaplain is nonsensical; it’s an oxymoron,” said Rep. John Fleming, R-La., sponsor of a 2013 amendment to block atheist chaplains.

But supporters say that humanist beliefs are constitutionally equal to religious faith and that chaplains are key contacts for troops on a variety of personnel and quality-of-life matters, ranging from recreational activities to suicide prevention programs. They’re also among the only counselors who can speak to troops confidentially.

According to the lawsuit, 3.6 percent of the military identify themselves as humanists.

“As a result of the Navy’s decision to deny Dr. Heap’s application, there are no Humanist chaplains in the U.S. Navy or in any branch of the armed services,” the lawsuit said. “The absence of even a single Humanist chaplain impairs the religious exercise of Humanists in the Navy.”

carroll.chris@stripes.com

Twitter: @ChrisCarroll_

Obama, GOP's McConnell pledge to cooperate — when they can

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama and the likely new leader of the Senate, Mitch McConnell, pledged Wednesday to work together to govern the nation in a bipartisan way a day after Republicans secured control of both chambers of Congress for the first time since Democrats won the White House in 2008.

But the goal could prove daunting after years of political dysfunction that left Congress and the White House unable to compromise, as well as a pledge by Obama to issue an executive order this year that would provide temporary legal status to some of the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants. It’s a move sure to anger Republicans.

“The American people sent a message, one that they’ve sent for several elections now,” Obama said in a lengthy news conference in the East Room of the White House. “They expect the people they elect to work as hard as they do. They expect us to focus on their ambitions and not ours. They want us to get the job done. All of us in both parties have a responsibility to address that sentiment.”

McConnell, the Kentucky Republican who expects to become Senate majority leader next week, acknowledged that he needs to cooperate with Obama because the president has the power to veto legislation.

“I want to first look for areas that we can agree on, and there probably are some,” McConnell said at a news conference in Louisville, Ky. “That’s what we’re going to be talking about in the next few weeks.”

Obama said he would talk to Republican leaders about investing in infrastructure, such as roads and bridges; boosting exports; expanding early childhood education; helping students afford college; and increasing the minimum wage.

He also said he will ask the current Congress to spend $6.2 billion in emergency funds to fight the Ebola outbreak both in West Africa and the United States, pass a new authorization for military force against the Islamic State militant group and agree on a spending plan for the government.

McConnell said Republicans might be able to find common ground with Obama on changes to the tax code and international trade agreements, although he gave no specifics. But he said he would confront Obama on key issues and suggested Republicans would attempt to use spending bills to prevent money from being spent on rules that limit climate-warming gases from power plants that burn coal.

McConnell doesn’t have the 60 Senate votes to overcome a Democratic filibuster of major legislation. But he appeared dismissive of the need to give concessions to Democrats in Congress, saying, “There is only one Democrat who counts, the president. … Democrats in Congress will support whatever he agrees to do.”

McConnell said Republicans will attempt to roll back the federal health care law known as Obamacare. But Obama said he would draw a line at repeal or significant changes.

The two men have long had a rocky relationship, in part because of their different governing styles. The president has never been one to socialize or lobby lawmakers as he tries to push an agenda. Instead, he had tried to pressure Congress by rallying the public at campaign-style events across the nation or bypassing lawmakers altogether with executive actions.

McConnell is a veteran lawmaker with a history as a dealmaker, and he has kept his Senate caucus largely united. More recently he’s been known for his bitter partisan feuds with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., that have helped define a Senate paralyzed by gridlock and dysfunction.

Obama and McConnell have not spent much time alone together. Once Tuesday’s election results were clear, Obama called McConnell and House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, as well as two dozen winners and losers of House, Senate and governors’ races from both parties. He invited the Democratic and Republican congressional leaders to the White House on Friday.

Obama declined to offer any specific changes in how he will approach the new Congress, or whether he will shuffle his staff. But he told reporters that he would be “spending a lot more time” with McConnell and Boehner, even joking he would have some Kentucky bourbon with McConnell and play another round of golf with Boehner.

“That’s the only way that we’re going to be able to get some stuff done,” he said. “And I take them at their word, that they want to produce. They’re the majority. They need to present their agenda. I need to put forward my best ideas.”

McConnell and Boehner have vowed to push the Republican agenda quickly and aggressively when the new Congress convenes in January.

Boehner, who has watched Republican bill after bill die for years in the Democratic-led Senate, pledged to hold votes on “common sense jobs and energy bills that passed the Republican-led House in recent years with bipartisan support, but were never even brought to a vote by the outgoing Senate majority.”

It’s the first time since Obama took office that he’s faced both chambers of Congress under Republican control.

When he came into office in 2009, Democrats controlled both the Senate and the House of Representatives. Republicans gained control of the House in 2010, picking up a net total of 63 seats in what Obama famously called a “shellacking.” Republicans have maintained the majority there and won the Senate on Tuesday.

Obama acknowledged that Republicans had a “good night” on Tuesday, but he did not offer any reasons for the Democrats’ massive losses in Congress or governor’s races, even in states he campaigned in. But he praised the democratic process.

“It doesn’t make me mopey,” he said. “It energizes me.”

©2014 McClatchy Washington Bureau. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.

Justice Department undercuts VA explanations on not firing executives

WASHINGTON — The VA says it has held off for months on firing top management linked to a nationwide health care scandal because of ongoing criminal probes by the Department of Justice.

But the DOJ this week told House investigators it takes no position on the VA firing disgraced Phoenix hospital director Sharon Helman and others who were in charge while hundreds of veteran hospitals and clinics manipulated patient data.

House and Senate lawmakers have hammered the Department of Veterans Affairs on the lack of firings three months after Congress passed a $16.3-billion overhaul law, which included a provision allowing Secretary Bob McDonald to fire senior executives at will, replacing a process that often took months with one that takes just four weeks.

The VA told the House Veterans Affairs Committee it was asked by the DOJ to wait on terminations until criminal probes were completed. But the DOJ denied that when questioned by the committee in the run-up to a Capitol Hill hearing on the issue.

“The Department of Justice takes no position concerning whether the employment matters … should proceed or be stayed,” according to a Nov. 3 DOJ email to the House committee, obtained by Stars and Stripes.

The VA declined to answer questions about its reasons for delaying employee terminations in light of the DOJ statement or provide any example of an executive who has been fired using the new law.

The DOJ and the FBI, along with the U.S. Office of Special Counsel and the VA inspector general, are conducting more than 100 criminal and administrative investigations, according to the VA.

“When evidence of wrongdoing is discovered, VA will hold employees accountable and take action as quickly as law and due process allows,” department spokeswoman Linda West wrote in an email.

West said the agency has “proposed disciplinary action” against more than 40 of its employees for data manipulation and patient care since June.

The VA made a string of announcements in September and October about managers it recommended for termination but it remains unclear how many have actually been fired.

Helman remains on paid administrative leave six months after she was found at the epicenter of the nationwide scandal over VA doctoring electronic wait-time records to mask long and sometimes dangerous treatment delays, according to Senate and House lawmakers who have complained. Agency audits have substantiated the data manipulation in Phoenix but were unable to determine whether it was indeed responsible for veteran deaths — a conclusion that has drawn controversy since.

Rep. Jeff Miller, R-Fla., the chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee, said the agency has the evidence needed to fire Helman and that keeping her and other executives connected to wrongdoing on the payroll is a waste of taxpayer money.

“The Department of Justice has already said it doesn’t mind if Helman is fired, so VA’s excuses as to why taxpayers must continue to pay her nearly $170,000 a year for doing nothing are simply hot air,” he said in a written statement.

The VA would not say whether it still employs Terry Gerigk Wolf, the former director of the VA health care system in Pittsburgh who oversaw a deadly outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease that killed at least six patients and sickened many others.

The agency’s Office of Accountability Review, which was created by McDonald to root out a culture of corruption, determined Wolf should be fired on Oct. 3 — a process that could be completed by now under the new VA termination law — but the VA appears to have given her more time to appeal, according to the Tribune-Review newspaper.

tritten.travis@stripes.com

Twitter: @Travis_Tritten

U.S. commander: Afghan casualties ‘not sustainable’

WASHINGTON — At the current casualty rate, the Afghanistan National Security Forces cannot be sustained, according to a top officer within the international coalition.

Since the beginning of 2013, the ANSF have suffered nearly 9,000 fatalities, U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Joseph Anderson, the commander of the International Security Assistance Force Joint Command, told reporters at the Pentagon on Wednesday.

In comparison, the U.S. has lost 2,346 troops in Operation Enduring Freedom since the war began in 2001.

The ANSF “have to also work everything fundamentally, particularly on the police side, with tactics, techniques, procedures for how they protect themselves … to make sure they have less casualties,” Anderson said.

In addition, they need to replace their losses and lower the number of troops going AWOL. Only 89 percent of Afghan police and 81 percent of Afghan army slots are currently filled, according to Anderson.

“Their first priority right now is to get their recruiting back up,” he said.

He also mentioned counter-IED, medevac, and medical treatment as areas where the ANSF need to get better.

“All those things have to continue to improve to reduce those [casualty] numbers, because those numbers are not sustainable in the long term,” he said.

Concerns about casualty rates come at a time when U.S. and coalition forces are withdrawing from Afghanistan and handing over security to the Afghans. There are about 20,000 American troops there, but that number is slated to drop to 9,800 by the end of this year. Only 2,500 NATO troops are expected to remain. The international troops will be there to advise, train and assist the ANSF, as well as perform some counterterrorism missions.

By the end of 2016, nearly all U.S. troops are slated to pull out.

Some officials and outside experts have raised concerns about the ANSF’s ability to remain an effective fighting force capable of holding off the Taliban without a large American contingent to assist them. The high casualty rates among the ANSF are sure to fuel arguments for slowing down the U.S. troop withdrawal.

Anderson said the ANSF are performing well, despite facing a resilient foe.

“The Afghan National Security Forces are winning. And this is a hugely capable fighting force who have been holding their ground against the enemy,” he told reporters, citing tactical and operational successes in contested parts of the country.

But earlier this week, the commander of ISAF indicated that he might ask for more international troops to remain.

“Do I come back and do I alert my leadership and say we are coming down to this number, we need to hold a little bit longer … and we need more NATO forces in certain locations for longer?” Gen. John Campbell said in a phone interview with Foreign Policy magazine. “I’ve got to do that analysis, and we’re just starting that now.”

harper.jon@stripes.com

Twitter: @JHarperStripes

Bruce Springsteen among those receiving first-ever awards for supporting veterans

Bruce Springsteen tops an eclectic group honored with first-ever awards for those striving to improve the lives of veterans and their families.

Ten recipients of what are being called the Lincoln Awards were announced Tuesday by the Friars Club and its charitable arm, the Friars Foundation.

They are sponsoring an awards program Jan. 6 at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, followed the next day by a celebrity-studded concert.

The event is being held on the 150th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's Second Inaugural address where he pledged the nation "to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan."

Springsteen is being singled with an Entertainer Award for "several decades" of performing his music in support of veterans and military families,, according to the Friars Club. Themes about the plight of veterans run though much of his music, songs like The Long Walk Home, Lost in the Flood, Devils and Dust and Born in the USA.

Other honorees will include:

• Ken Fisher, a New York real estate magnate and chief executive of the Fisher House Foundation, a non-profit organization founded by his uncle, Zachary Fisher. The foundation builds the Fisher House homes on military campuses where the families of wounded veterans reside while caring for their loved ones. Ken Fisher is receiving the Citizen Award.

• Segway inventor Dean Kamen, who will receive the Medical and Science Award for improving on the science of bionic arms for wounded veterans.

• Walmart, receiving the Corporate Citizen Award for outstanding providing job opportunities, hiring 100,000 veterans and 150,000 of their family members.

• Retired Rear Adm. Dick Young, honored with the Standard Bearer Award for lifetime achievement in service to other veterans.

• Kayla Williams, a former intelligence specialist with the U.S. Army and now a RAND Corp. researcher, receiving the Artistic Award for two memoirs, Love My Rifle More Than You: Young and Female in the U.S. Army and Plenty of Time When We Get Home: Love and Recovery in the Aftermath of War.

Morning after: Obama, GOP in new political dynamic

WASHINGTON — America awoke Wednesday to sharper dividing lines in an already divided government, forcing President Barack Obama to recalibrate his approach and giving Republican leaders in Congress new muscle to check him.

The president scheduled an afternoon news conference to offer his take on an Election Day thumping of Democrats that gave Republicans control of the Senate, strengthened the GOP hold on the House and put a series of Democratic-leaning states under control of new Republican governors.

One of Obama's first post-election calls was to Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, positioned to become the new Senate majority leader and confront the president over his signature health care law and on other issues. The two didn't connect, but Obama left a message for the senator.

The election results alter the political dynamic on immigration reform, budget matters, presidential nominations and much more. With lawmakers planning to return to Washington next week for a post-election session, Obama invited congressional leaders to a meeting Friday.

"We are humbled by the responsibility the American people have placed with us, but this is not a time for celebration," said House Speaker John Boehner, who will preside over a larger caucus come January. "It's time for government to start getting results and implementing solutions to the challenges facing our country, starting with our still-struggling economy."

Republicans took over formerly Democratic Senate seats in seven states, including GOP-leaning Arkansas, Montana, South Dakota and West Virginia. That number also included three states that figured prominently in Obama's two victorious presidential campaigns: Iowa and Colorado, where he won twice, and North Carolina, where he won in 2008. Republicans needed a net gain of six seats in all to win back the majority for the first time since 2006.

"Thanks to you, Iowa, we are headed to Washington, and we are going to make them squeal," declared Iowa Republican Joni Ernst, who vowed to cut pork in Washington in television ads that memorably cited her growing up castrating hogs.

In the House, Republicans were on track to meet or exceed the 246 seats they held during President Harry S. Truman's administration more than 60 years ago.

In state capitols, Republicans were poised to leave their imprint, picking up governors' seats in reliably Democratic states like Illinois, Maryland and Massachusetts. With Congress grappling with gridlock, states have been at the forefront of efforts to raise the minimum wage and implement Obama's health care law.

Many Republican governors seeking re-election had struggled with poor approval ratings but prevailed, including Florida Gov. Rick Scott, who defeated Democrat Charlie Crist, a former Republican governor; Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback; and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, a potential GOP presidential candidate in 2016.

Voters expressed bitterness with a sluggish economic recovery and the nation's handling of foreign crises. Nearly two-thirds of voters interviewed after casting ballots said the country was seriously on the wrong track. Only about 30 percent said the nation was headed in the right direction.

More than 4 in 10 voters disapproved of both Obama and Congress, according to the exit polls conducted for The Associated Press and the television networks.

Obama's poor approval ratings turned him into a liability for Democrats seeking re-election. The outcome offered parallels to the sixth year of Republican George W. Bush's presidency, when Democrats won sweeping victories amid voter discontent with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Democrats had few bright spots. New Hampshire Sen. Jeanne Shaheen and Gov. Maggie Hassan, who campaigned with potential 2016 candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton last weekend, both won re-election. In Pennsylvania, businessman Tom Wolf dispatched GOP Gov. Tom Corbett.

Here's a look at some of the results:

Senate

Senate Republicans tagged their Democratic opponents with voting in lockstep with Obama and it worked. The GOP prevailed in Colorado, where Rep. Cory Gardner ousted first-term Democrat Mark Udall, and Iowa, where state Sen. Joni Ernst defeated Rep. Bruce Braley. In North Carolina, state House speaker Thom Tillis defeated Democratic Sen. Kay Hagan. In Arkansas, freshman Rep. Tom Cotton knocked off two-term Democratic Sen. Mark Pryor. Republicans secured wins in South Dakota (former Gov. Mike Rounds), Montana (Rep. Steve Daines) and West Virginia (Rep. Shelley Moore Capito). In Alaska, first-term Democratic Sen. Mark Begich faced Republican Dan Sullivan, while Louisiana was headed for a Dec. 6 runoff between three-term Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu and Republican Rep. Bill Cassidy.

Governors

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who leads the Republican Governors Association, was one of the night's biggest winners after campaigning for dozens of candidates. Republicans scored victories with Bruce Rauner in Illinois, Larry Hogan in Maryland and Charlie Baker in Massachusetts. Potential presidential candidates like Walker in Wisconsin, John Kasich in Ohio and Rick Snyder in Michigan won re-election.

House

House Republicans defeated 19-term Democratic Rep. Nick Rahall in West Virginia and Rep. John Barrow in Georgia while defending the seat of Rep. Michael Grimm, a New York Republican who faces a 20-count indictment on tax fraud and other charges. College professor Dave Brat won a House seat in Virginia, several months after he stunned Majority Leader Eric Cantor in a Republican primary.

Ballot initiatives:

Voters in Oregon and the District of Columbia approved ballot measures allowing the recreational use of marijuana by adults. Oregon will join the ranks of Colorado and Washington state, where voters approved the recreational use of pot two years ago. The District of Columbia could move in that direction unless Congress, which has review power, blocks the move. Alaska voters were also considering marijuana-legalization measures on its ballot.

Soldiers lost a lot of sleep in Iraq, Afghanistan

SAN ANTONIO (MCT) — A new medical study has determined that the Army had the highest rate of chronic insomnia among the armed services over a long decade of war.

The study showed a sharp increase among men and women as the U.S. fought in Iraq and Afghanistan from 2005 to 2013 and found those veterans were more likely to have high blood pressure and Type 2 diabetes.

“Insomnia is a common complaint in active-duty service members,” the authors of the study wrote in a report issued by the Armed Forces Health Surveillance Center. “Of those returning from deployment in Iraq and Afghanistan, 41 percent reported problems sleeping.”

The problem is well known among troops who've served in the war zone since 9/11. But the study found chronic insomnia, diagnosed when symptoms occur at least three times a week for three months or more, rose sharply from 2004 through 2012.

The rate began to fall last year.

Researchers pored over more than a decade's worth of medical data to reach their findings, published late last week in the Medical Surveillance Monthly Report.

Both men and women slept poorly in many cases. The Army — which bore the heaviest burden of fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq, sending soldiers to the war zone on multiple occasions — had the highest rate of chronic insomnia.

Soldiers were 2½ times more likely to suffer from chronic insomnia than their counterparts in any other service branch. The sharpest increase came for soldiers in infantry, artillery and armor/motor transport.

Strikingly, women were 57 percent more likely than men to suffer from chronic insomnia. The report did not explain why, but it noted that insomnia impacts work performance, the ability to function in social settings and a person's quality of life.

It also said that recent studies have probed the idea that insomnia may play a role in the onset of common chronic diseases that include diabetes, hypertension, obesity and coronary artery disease.

The Army's office of the surgeon general has launched a campaign to raise awareness about the need for better sleep, exercise and nutrition called the Performance Triad. An officer involved in that program, Lt. Col. Ingrid Lim, cautioned Tuesday that war can impact health but that other factors could be in play as well.

“War, among other stressful environments and situations, can have an impact on one's overall health,” said Lim, a clinical psychologist.

“We also understand that multiple factors can be at work regarding someone's sleep and sleep habits such as being separated from one's family or financial stressors,” she continued. “War can be a factor, but it could only be one factor and not necessarily have a direct correlate to insomnia.”

sigc@express-news.net

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©2014 the San Antonio Express-News. Distributed by MCT Information Services

Alaska soldier guilty of premeditated murder in 3-year-old son's death

An Alaska-based soldier was found guilty Monday of the premeditated murder of his 3-year-old son in April during a court martial at Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington, according to a news release from the U.S. Army.

Sgt. Nathaniel E. Ulroan, 24, 1st Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division, was also found guilty of kidnapping, two specifications of rape, one specification of sexual assault, eight specifications of assault, and communicating a threat.

The additional offenses stemmed from Ulroan’s April 3 murder of his son and physical and sexual abuse of his wife during their marriage. The Army did not provide the names of Ulroan’s son or wife.

During the proceedings, Ulroan pleaded guilty to striking his wife in the face with his fist and throwing her to the ground, threatening her with a knife, holding her against her will, strangling her and later stabbing his son to death. His wife was not at the home at the time of the assault on his son.

Ulroan also pleaded guilty to physically and sexually assaulting his wife in earlier incidents between 2011 and 2014.

The military judge sentenced Ulroan to life without possibility of parole, total forfeitures of all pay and allowances, a dishonorable discharge and reduction to E-1.

A pre-trial agreement, however, limits Ulroan’s confinement to life with the eligibility of parole, the news release said.

Ulroan, a native of Chevak, Alaska, had been stationed at Fort Wainwright in Fairbanks. He is currently being held at the Northwest Joint Regional Confinement Facility at Lewis-McChord.

Ulroan joined the Army in October 2008. After completing Basic Training and Advanced Individual Training at Fort Leonard Wood, Mo., he was stationed at Lewis-McChord before being assigned to Fort Wainwright in December 2012 as a combat engineer.

While at JBLM, Ulroan deployed to Iraq for three months and Afghanistan for 11 months in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom.

news@stripes.com

Air Force officers' firings, disciplinings reflect turmoil in nuclear mission

WASHINGTON — The Air Force has fired or disciplined at least 16 nuclear missile commanders or senior officers for misconduct and other failings over the past year and a half, reflecting turmoil in arguably the military's most sensitive mission.

Another who quit of his own accord lamented upon leaving, "We let the American people down on my watch."

The latest to be dismissed this week: a colonel accused of "cruelty and maltreatment" of a subordinate and a missile squadron commander found to have illegally discriminated against women under his command. In addition to those actions Monday, another senior officer was administratively disciplined but not removed from command.

This string of leadership lapses has beset a force that remains central to American defense strategy but in some respects has been neglected. The force of 450 Minuteman 3 nuclear missiles is primed to unleash nuclear devastation on a moment's notice.

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel is expected soon to announce the results of an independent review of problems in the nuclear force. In ordering the review last winter, Hagel said, "Personnel failures within this force threaten to jeopardize the trust the American people have placed in us to keep our nuclear weapons safe and secure."

On Monday, the Air Force confirmed to The Associated Press that it had removed Col. Carl Jones as vice commander of the 90th Missile Wing at F.E. Warren Air Force Base, Wyo., in charge of 150 Minuteman 3 missiles. He was dismissed "for a loss of trust and confidence in his leadership abilities," and has been reassigned as a special assistant to the wing commander.

The actions were disclosed in response to an AP inquiry about an internal Air Force investigation of two commanders at the 91st Missile Wing at Minot Air Force Base, N.D., which also is responsible for 150 Minuteman 3 missiles.

Lt. Col. John Sheets, spokesman for Air Force Global Strike Command, said that as a result of the Minot investigation, a missile squadron commander, Lt. Col. Jimmy "Keith" Brown, was relieved of command Monday "because of a loss of confidence in Brown's ability to lead his squadron."

Sheets said the investigation was directed by Maj. Gen. Jack Weinstein, commander of the 20th Air Force, and "substantiated that Brown engaged in unlawful discrimination or harassment." The probe found that Brown "made statements to subordinates that created a perception within his squadron that pregnancy would negatively affect a woman's career."

The probe also said Brown had failed to ensure the well-being of his troops. In March a two-person crew operating a Minuteman 3 launch control center at Minot felt ill from fumes created by a refurbishment project, but the crew remained at their post because they believed Brown would have taken action against them had they left. They later were hospitalized, Sheets said.

Col. Richard Pagliuco, commander of the 91st Operations Group, in charge of the three missile squadrons at Minot, including Brown's, "failed to promote and safeguard the morale, well-being and welfare of the airmen under his command," Sheets said. Pagliuco received a letter in his personnel file, but Sheets said he could not be more specific about the punishment.

The complaints against Jones, the vice commander of the 90th Missile Wing at F.E. Warren, were the most extensive, according to Sheets.

Sheets said Jones' immediate superior, Col. Tracey Hayes, commander of the 90th, removed him following an internal investigation that substantiated allegations of conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman, and cruelty and maltreatment of a subordinate.

The most recent incident was one in which Jones went to a thrift store operated on F.E. Warren by volunteers — Airman's Attic — to discuss the store's hours.

"He hit the sign on the Airman's Attic door and repeatedly hit the shop's front counter while raising his voice, using profanity" and threatening to shut down the place, Sheets said.

Three other incidents of allegedly inappropriate behavior on base by Jones were substantiated in the investigation, including one in May in which Jones berated a first lieutenant in front of others at the Trail's End Club, a dining and lounge facility on F.E. Warren. The lieutenant and another witness "found the interaction inappropriate and were in disbelief and shocked by Jones' behavior," Sheets said.

These were the latest in a string of at least 16 firings or disciplinary actions against senior nuclear officers.

They began with the dismissal in June 2013 of Lt. Col. Randy Olson as commander of the 91st Operations Support Squadron, in charge of the training and proficiency of missile launch control officers at Minot. His firing followed an AP story disclosing that 19 launch officers had been taken off the job after a poor inspection result and attitude problems.

In August 2013, just days after the 341st Missile Wing failed a nuclear inspection, the commander of security forces there, Col. David Lynch, was fired.

Last March, nine officers were fired at Malmstrom Air Force Base, Mont., home of the 341st Missile Wing, in response to an exam-cheating scandal. The wing commander, Col. Robert Stanley, resigned and wrote in a goodbye message that he regretted having let down the American people. On the same day, the 90th Missile Wing at F.E. Warren disclosed that it had fired Col. David Holloway, the officer in charge of the three missile squadrons there. It has never fully explained that action.

Last year, Maj. Gen. Michael Carey, commander of the entire ICBM force, was fired after an investigation into a drinking binge and other misconduct while he was visiting Russia.