40 years later, former sailor still searching for lost daughter in Japan

YOKOTA AIR BASE, Japan — It’s been 45 years since James Walker went to war in Vietnam, leaving behind his daughter and her mother in Japan.

The young sailor thought they’d be reunited once he got back from deployment on the aircraft carrier USS Oriskany. When the letters he wrote to his young family were returned marked “wrong address” Walker realized something was wrong. Almost four decades later, he’s still searching for them.

In 1967, when he arrived at Naval Air Facility Atsugi, Walker was 18 and fresh out of basic training. He started work as a mechanic with VR-21 – a squadron that flew Grumman C-1A transport planes delivering mail, supplies and personnel to the fleet.

The bright lights of nearby Tokyo were a world away from his hometown of Harrisburg, Ark., a close-knit farming community where his father worked as a carpenter. Back then, Atsugi was surrounded by fields, soon to be covered in houses, shops, factories and schools sprawling from the Japanese capital.

Tomie Hashimoto was wearing a kimono when Walker approached her in a Yokohama street. He was surprised when she answered him in English and gave him her phone number, and after a few dates, the pair fell in love. He visited her parents’ home near Yokohama several times and got on well with them despite the language barrier.

“They cooked for me,” he said. “You could tell they weren’t wealthy, but they seemed like hard-working people.”

It wasn’t long before the couple had moved into an apartment, about 1 1/2 miles from the Atsugi gate and were expecting a child.

Sailors needed permission from their command to marry, so Walker filed a request. The officer who received it told him that he’d need to re-enlist to get it approved, so he filed that paperwork, too.

“When I went back two weeks later he said it had been denied and there was nothing I could do,” he recalled. “At age 18 or 19, you don’t argue with an officer, so we were stuck.”

Soon afterward the couple went to a clinic near the base where their child was born. Walker said he helped the young mother breath and push while a Japanese doctor supervised the birth. His daughter was born around midnight on New Year’s Eve 1967, although it’s possible that the birth is registered as Jan. 1, 1968, he said.

Walker named his daughter Kim, but said it’s possible that she was registered under another Japanese name in either Yamato in Kanagawa prefecture or Yokohama, he said.

Father and daughter formed a strong bond, he said.

“I remember teaching her about her eyes, nose, mouth and ears,” Walker said “I remember her little laugh, and she was always waiting on me when I got home.”

Life involved shopping trips and outings to the beach and an amusement park near Atsugi.

“We were just a typical family,” he recalled.

One day orders came for Walker, now a petty officer 3rd class, to report to VA-195 — an A-4 Skyhawk squadron in Lemoore, Calif. He reluctantly boarded a train, riding with his daughter in his lap, to Tachikawa Air Base for his flight.

“Her mother and I were both crying all the way,” he said.

In California, he was told not to unpack; he was headed to Vietnam on the Oriskany. As he waited for the ship to depart, he wrote letters to his family, who he hoped to bring to the U.S.

All were returned marked “wrong address.”

When the carrier pulled into Osaka part-way through the deployment, he took leave and rode the train back to Atsugi but found his apartment empty. The neighbors didn’t know where the family had gone, and Walker couldn’t find his way back to her parents’ house. He came back again after he returned from the war. Nothing.

Back in the states, he wrote letters to the Japanese Embassy and the Japanese prime minister’s office but didn’t get a reply.

After he left the Navy, he became a commercial pilot, flying out of Memphis, Tenn. He eventually married and, when his wife gave birth to a daughter in 1972, they named her Kim, after her Japanese half-sister.

But Walker, who now lives in Arkansas, said he never stopped looking for his lost family.

Now 68 and retired, he recently set up a Japanese Facebook page and posted a photo of himself with his Japanese family that has been shared more than 2,000 times.

Walker has the support of his wife and American daughter who, he said, is eager to meet her Japanese sister.

He obtained his military records in hopes that his marriage request, listing the names of his daughter’s Japanese grandparents, would be there. They weren’t; he thinks it was never filed by the officer he gave it to.

Jim Auckland, another former sailor who worked alongside Walker at Atsugi, said the Navy was eager for sailors to re-enlist during the Vietnam War.

“Every time I was promised something there was always the proviso that my enlistment would be extended,” he recalled of his days at Atsugi.

Auckland said he remembered his friend and others dating Japanese girls. It was common for officers to make parental decisions about young sailors and it wouldn’t have been unusual for a marriage request to be denied, he said.

“They tell you: If the Navy wanted you to have a family they would have issued you a family,’” he said.

Yoshihisa Sawai, who worked as a civilian mechanic at Atsugi in the 1980s, has been helping with the search. He recently spoke about the case on a Kanagawa radio station and hopes to persuade a television station to produce a show about it.

“I have been searching for two years but it’s difficult,” Sawai said. “He only has a little information.”

Eric Kalmus helps run the Japan Children’s Rights Network — a group that aims to reunite children in Japan with foreign parents, often servicemembers. Strict privacy laws make it hard to track people down in Japan if they don’t want to be found, he said.

“It is like looking for a needle in a haystack,” he said.

Kanagawa police say people can file missing person reports but that they won’t actively search unless a crime is suspected. Several non-profit organizations, such as Missing Person Search, can help track down people in Japan and put the seekers in touch with private detectives, officials say.

It may be a long shot, but Walker isn’t giving up. He said he still prays daily for the family he left behind.

“Tomie was a wonderful woman,” he said. “I pray that they are doing OK and, if I have any grandchildren, that they are safe and well.”

Walker said if he found out where his daughter was living, he would leave for Japan the next day.

“A team of wild horses couldn’t keep me back here,” he said.

robson.seth@stripes.com

Twitter: @SethRobson1

Kendrick Lamar’s new album distances him from the hip-hop pack

Before the March 15 surprise leak — or, more likely, intentional drop — of his career-defining, genre-realigning latest album, “To Pimp a Butterfly,” Kendrick Lamar was one hip-hop heir apparent among several.

By that night, there was only one: It’s hard to imagine there will be a smarter or more ambitious rap album this year than “Butterfly.” It’s a dizzying deep-dive examination of race, capitalism, religion, relationships, post-Ferguson America, and fame and its discontents. At almost 80 minutes long, it never flags.

The album has made Lamar, who had already released a promising 2012 major-label debut, “good kid, m.A.A.d city,” and a gauntlet-throwing verse on Big Sean’s hit “Control,” into the kind of overnight sensation that rarely happens anymore. It has made chart rivals like Macklemore and Iggy Azalea instantly appear even less serious and more obsolete. It even threatened the hegemony of Kanye West, who spent most of March 16 tweeting nude pictures of Kim Kardashian in what seemed an unusually clumsy act of deflection.

“Anybody can get” fame, counsels Lamar’s mentor Dr. Dre, who is a guest star on the opening song “Wesley’s Theory” and is godfather to the G-funk threaded through the album. “The hard part is keeping it.”

“Wesley’s Theory,” a retro-minded thesis on the dangers of selling out, contains unshowy features from George Clinton and wunderkind bassist Thundercat and a bedrock sample of Boris Gardiner’s gentle 1973 funk track “Eve-ry N----- Is a Star.” It serves as a warning: This is not an album of bangers. Cerebral, doubtful, peevish, full of self-loathing and bordering on brilliant, “Butterfly” is overloaded with samples, symbolism and questionable coffee-house poetry and is deeply influenced by free jazz, soul, and, most particularly, ’70s-centric sounds such as disco and funk.

Even its metaphors have a ’70s vibe: The “Roots”-invoking “King Kunta” is a profoundly strange, talk-box-happy funk explosion, one of many tracks detailing Lamar’s journey “Straight from the bottom / ... From a peasant to a prince to a ... king.”

“To Pimp a Butterfly” is a loosely knit concept album that charts the rapper’s rise from a little-traveled Compton, Calif., kid to a superstar with survivor’s guilt, struggling to resist the material temptations of fame. On the harrowing “u,” Lamar, in the middle of a hotel-room breakdown, grapples with self-loathing (“I never liked you”) and regret over leaving his friends behind.

It’s a fearless and insular set piece, characteristic of an album more interested in looking inward at the thorny intricacies of the black experience than in interpreting that experience for whites. “Butterfly” lacks the sort of obvious banger that might attract mainstream (read: mostly white) fans. It comes closest to the mainstream with “i,” a tepid single built around an Isley Brothers sample that feels halfhearted, like a politician pandering to a constituency he isn’t sure he wants.

“I can truly tell you that there’s nothing but turmoil going on,” Lamar tells the ghost of his idol Tupac Shakur on the 12-minute closer, “Mortal Man.” The track ends with the rapper asking Tupac questions about his life and work, with Tupac’s posthumous replies drawn from a 1994 radio interview. Twenty years on, Tupac seems less like a flesh-and-blood person and more like a symbol of outsider cool co-opted by the mainstream, as Che Guevara was. Lamar leaves no doubt that he, more than anyone else, has earned his place as Tupac’s heir, “your offspring of the legacy you left behind.”

The hard part will be keeping it.

In fight for Tikrit, US finds enemies on both sides of the battle lines

BAGHDAD — As the United States opens another front of battle in Iraq, it finds itself on the same side as an array of armed groups that not only consider the United States an old enemy but also accuse it of actively supporting Islamic State militants they are fighting on the battlefield.

After the U.S.-led coalition against the Islamic State launched its first airstrikes in the city of Tikrit on Wednesday night, Kitaeb Hezbollah, which was responsible for numerous bombings and rocket attacks against U.S. soldiers during the Gulf War, was quick to say it would treat their planes as targets.

Since then, the threats have grown. Several Shiite militias accused coalition planes of bombing a headquarters for pro-government fighters at Tikrit University on Friday, promising retribution. The U.S. Embassy in Baghdad released a statement rebutting the charge, saying no coalition airstrikes took place in the vicinity at the time. The Iraqi government also said no such attack to place.

However baseless, the accusations highlight the United States’ precarious position of being considered an unwelcome guest for many groups on the ground as it attempts to assist in the battle against Islamic State militants. They feed threats that leave U.S. personnel and planes open to attack from both sides of the battlefield.

"We will respond with force while they are within our firing range," Shibil al-Zaidi, a leader of the Kitaeb Imam Ali militia, said in a statement about the alleged strike. "We have the ability to face these American attacks."

It comes after Kitaeb Hezbollah showed off surface-to-air missiles in a video earlier this month in what analysts said is likely an attempt by Iranian backed-militias to reduce the willingness of the international coalition to participate on the battlefield as the United States and Iran vie for influence.

"If the threats succeed in that goal, it would grant more responsibility and control for Iran and its proxies on the battlefields of Iraq," Philip Smyth, a researcher at the University of Maryland specializing in Shiite militant groups, wrote in an analysis last week.

But while enmity from the Shiite militias that fought the United States may be expected, it is also a view that permeates more widely after being regularly raised in parliament and in the Iraqi media, even reaching the highest ranks of the official armed forces that the United States is aiding.

"Everybody knows that the Americans are dropping supplies to Daesh," said Brig. Abed al-Maliki, a senior Iraqi army commander based in the city of Samarra, 80 miles north of Baghdad, using a term for Islamic State derived for its Arabic acronym.

He goes as far as to claim that in some the fiercest fighting around Samarra last year, U.S. Special Operations forces dropped in behind enemy lines to assist Islamic State militants in the battle.

"They came in with parachutes and they were helping to bomb the city," he said.

U.S. airstrikes against the Islamic State, he contends, are likely just a cover for efforts to support the group.

"It’s just a show," he said, sitting in the city’s army command headquarters. "If the Americans want to finish something, they will finish it. If they wanted to liberate Iraq, they could."

Such accusations regularly appear in the Iraqi media, normally accompanied with an image from Islamic State video from Kobane in Syria last year, showing the militants showing off a load of weapons accidently dropped from a U.S. plane - an incident the U.S. admitted.

Visiting U.S. officials are left to fend off questions about whether they support the group. The topic was the first to be broached in questions when Gen. John Allen, special envoy for the coalition to counter the Islamic State, met with the local press in January.

"The story, I think, is that we’re supplying [the Islamic State]," he said. "And that, in fact, is not correct."

The conspiracy theories are stoked by the U.S. involvement in the wider region, where Sunni states such as Saudi Arabia battle for influence against Shiite Iran. While the United States has backed the same side as Saudi in conflicts in Syria and Yemen, in Iraq it finds itself on the other side of the battle.

A wildly popular television trailer for a show launched last year mocking the Islamic State played off that popular conspiracy - showing the Islamic State leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, hatching out of an egg after a marriage between characters representing Israel and America.

"The information that we have is that Daesh was created by the United States and Israel," Maliki said.

- - - -

Washington Post correspondent Mustafa Salim contributed to this report.

DOD: US military rescues 2 Saudi airmen from water south of Yemen

The Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Sterett, foreground, with USS Dewey, maneuvers into formation Sept. 23, 2014, during the conclusion of Valiant Shield 2014 in the Pacific Ocean.
Declan Barnes/U.S. Navy

By LOU KESTEN

The Associated Press

Published: March 27, 2015

WASHINGTON — A Defense Department official says U.S. forces rescued two Saudi airmen after they ejected from an F-15 fighter jet over waters south of Yemen, where Saudi Arabia is leading airstrikes against Iran-allied Houthi rebels.

The official says a U.S. helicopter flew Thursday from neighboring Djibouti to the Gulf of Aden and rescued the airmen. Initial reports said the rescued airmen were "ambulatory."

The destroyer USS Sterett took lead of the situation after Saudi Arabia requested U.S. assistance Thursday afternoon, coordinating assets from the U.S. naval base in Djibouti and the amphibious transport dock USS New York.

The official, who was not authorized to discuss the operation by name and requested anonymity, had no information on the two airmen's status or why they ejected from their plane.

Marines show off Osprey by landing on South Korean ship for the 1st time

24 minutes ago

VIDEO, PHOTOS

By Armando R. Limon

Stars and Stripes

Published: March 27, 2015

ABOARD THE USS BONHOMME RICHARD — The Marines showed off their most versatile aircraft to the South Koreans this week, landing two MV-22 Ospreys on the deck of the South Korean ship Dokdo.

The MV-22s, from the Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron 262 Reinforced, took off from the amphibious assault ship USS Bonhomme Richard to perform a series of touch-and-go landings on the South Korean vessel.

The deck crew of the Dokdo guided the hybrid aircraft to a safe landing and then tied them down, as members of the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit and South Korean military looked on. Minutes afterward, they were released and the Osprey took off again.

The event was two years in the making, said Maj. Bryon deCastro, a Marine Forces Korea liaison officer.

“The hardest part was getting the schedules matched for the aircraft to land on the Dokdo,” deCastro said.

Now that the MV-22 has proven it can land on the Dokdo, the U.S. and South Korean forces have greater planning flexibility, he said.

The Marines had made a previous MV-22 landing on a Japanese vessel off the California coast on 2013, according to a Marine statement.

The USS Bonhomme Richard is part of Amphibious Squadron 11 and home to the 31st MEU.

limonjr.armando@stripes.com

Twitter: @LimonStripes

A history of bad blood between Iraq's Shiite militias, US troops

WASHINGTON — A long, bloody history of conflict, double-crosses and American blood lies behind the U.S. military’s refusal to cooperate with Iraq’s Shiite militias — even if both sides now face a common enemy in the Islamic State.

Gen. Lloyd Austin, head of the U.S. Central Command, bluntly laid out the reasons why the military was loathe to launch airstrikes to help the stalled Iraqi government offensive against Islamic State fighters in Tikrit until Iranian-backed Shiite militias pulled back from the frontlines.

“Once those conditions were met, which included Shiite militias not being involved, then we were able to proceed,” Austin told the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday. “[After] three tours in Iraq commanding [U.S.] troops who were brutalized by some of these Shiite militias, I will not, and I hope we never will, coordinate or cooperate with Shiite militias.”

Until the U.S. launched airstrikes late Wednesday, critics had accused the Obama administration of sitting on the sidelines, allowing the Iranians and their Shiite militia clients to exploit the campaign against Tikrit to expand their influence in Iraq, where nearly 4,500 American servicemembers died.

Others, including former Iraq commander Gen. David Petraeus, had warned that as long as militias made up the bulk of the pro-government forces besieging Tikrit, a Sunni city, the U.S. ran the risk of being seen by Sunnis as the “Shiite air force.”

Aside from the political risks, cooperation with the Shiite militias would be a bitter pill for Americans who fought many of those same militiamen only a few years ago. Some of those militia leaders rose in stature in the Shiite-dominated Iraq that the U.S. left behind when the last American troops left in December 2011.

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[After] three tours in Iraq commanding [U.S.] troops who were brutalized by some of these Shiite militias, I will not, and I hope we never will, coordinate or cooperate with Shiite militias.

— Gen. Llyod Austin

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For Americans who never served in Iraq, the image of the war promoted in such Hollywood productions as “American Sniper” has focused on the fight against Sunni insurgents from al-Qaida in Iraq, the forerunner of the Islamic State.

But much of the fighting, especially in the Baghdad area, was waged against Iranian-backed Shiite groups, some which are now part of the “popular mobilization units.” Since the Iraqi army collapsed last summer, the government has sent those militiamen to the front lines against the Islamic State, not only in Tikrit but in the old battlefields of Diyala, Salaheddin and Babil provinces where they once fought the Americans.

Those Shiite groups include the “Peace Brigades,” the rebranded Mahdi army of Muqtada al-Sadr, whose followers battled U.S. troops in Sadr City, Najaf, Basra and elsewhere, as well as two other groups — Kataib Hezbollah and Asaib Ahl al-Haq, or League of the Righteous, which were largely seen as proxies for Iran.

During the war, Kataib Hezbollah and the League were often described by the U.S. military as the “Special Groups” — shadowy militants responsible for rocket attacks on the Green Zone, kidnappings and ambushes in mostly Shiite areas of Baghdad and elsewhere.

The “Special Groups’” signature weapon was the notorious EFP, or explosively formed penetrator, a lethal IED that could fire an explosive charge through all but the most heavily armored vehicles. In the last years of the war, EFPs were believed to have accounted for as many as 80 percent of the U.S. casualties.

The EFPs were so well-made that U.S. intelligence was convinced they were manufactured in Iran and smuggled into Iraq by a network controlled by the League.

The League claimed more than 6,000 attacks against U.S. troops, including EFP and rocket attacks. After the U.S. routed al-Qaida in Iraq in 2008, the U.S. military identified the League as the biggest single threat to American forces in the final three years of the war.

Those Special Groups were also was believed responsible for the Jan. 20, 2007, raid on the Joint Security Station in Karbala, which left five American soldiers dead and three wounded. The raid was among the boldest and most sophisticated attacks against American troops during the war.

It was carried out by up to a dozen Shiite militants, dressed in American uniforms and carrying American weapons, who drove to the station in vehicles similar to those used by U.S. civilian convoys. They bluffed their way through Iraqi checkpoints and stormed a building used by the Americans, killing one U.S. soldier and capturing four others before fleeing with their prisoners.

Three of the Americans were found shot to death near the compound. A fourth was found alive but died soon afterward of his wounds.

Two months after the raid, American troops captured the leader of League, Qais al-Khazali. He was released in 2010 under an Iraqi-negotiated deal in exchange for a British computer contractor who had been kidnapped by Shiite militants.

Al-Khazali ended up rehabilitated and elevated to hero status by the government of former Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who needed political support from his fellow Shiites as the Americans were preparing to leave the country. Al-Khazali’s followers are among Shiite militias now fighting the Islamic State.

He wasn’t the only Special Groups leader to escape punishment thanks to Iraq’s murky sectarian politics.

Ali Mussa Daqduq, a Lebanese citizen who was sent by Hezbollah and the Iranians to train Shiite militias, was also captured by the U.S. in March 2007 and accused of a role in the Karbala raid.

With al-Khazali having escaped punishment, the U.S. was determined to see Daqduq held accountable for the five American deaths in Karbala. As with al-Khazali, however, the Iraqi government didn’t want to take the political risk of punishing a popular figure.

To add to the problem, Daqduq became the center of an internal political battle in Washington. The Obama administration wanted to extradite him to the U.S. to stand trial. Republicans in Congress demanded that he be sent to the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay. But the White House wanted to close the Guantanamo prison and refused.

Instead, the administration decided to hand him over to the Iraqis and formally ask them for his extradition. The Iraqis refused the request and put him on trial. But the courts threw out the charges.

After months of high-level wrangling and U.S. pressure, in July 2012 — five months after the last American troops left Iraq — the Iraqi central criminal court ordered his release, signaling that as far as Baghdad was concerned, the case was closed. Daqduq was free.

reid.robert@stripes.com

Twitter: @rhreid

Feds halt enrollment of veterans in helicopter flight program

(Tribune Content Agency) — The federal government, concerned about violations that have cost taxpayers tens of millions of dollars, has barred new enrollment of military veterans in an Arizona flight program and is reviewing the conduct of a second, Utah-based school.

The actions by the Department of Veterans Affairs came less than two weeks after a Los Angeles Times investigation disclosed that helicopter flight companies, aided by public colleges and universities, had exploited a loophole in the latest GI Bill to collect high fees for training — more than $500,000 for a single veteran in some cases — and that the VA enabled some of the spending by not enforcing its own rules.

The two programs cost the government at least $40 million last year, based on enrollments and average cost data.

Most of that money goes to the flight training companies, which rely heavily on the GI Bill because few nonveterans can afford to pay for the training themselves.

In a letter Tuesday, the VA cited Yavapai College in Prescott, Ariz., for failing to comply with a regulation mandating that nonveterans account for at least 15 percent of students in any education program funded by the GI Bill.

The rule is designed to ensure that programs are affordable enough and of sufficient quality that at least some students are willing to invest their own money.

At Yavapai, which contracts with Guidance Aviation, all 90 helicopter students currently enrolled are veterans, according to the letter.

Yavapai officials did not respond to email or phone messages seeking comment.

The VA is also reviewing enrollments in the flight program at Southern Utah University in Cedar City, the university’s president said Thursday.

The Times reported this week that the school, which contracts with Upper Limit Aviation, has just 10 nonveterans in its helicopter program. But the VA is currently paying for the training of 194 veterans — 137 more than should have been allowed under the rule.

VA officials declined to answer questions Thursday about how the programs were allowed to drift so far out of compliance. In general, when the agency suspends a program, students already enrolled are allowed to finish the current term and return only if the school comes back into compliance.

Given the difficulty of finding nonveterans able to afford the training, both schools have long struggled to meet the 15 percent requirement.

Until now, however, the VA has not strictly held them to the requirement.

In June 2011, more than a year after Yavapai started its helicopter program and contracted with Guidance, the VA ordered the college to stop enrolling more veterans in flight training until it complied with the 15 percent rule, federal documents show.

Two months later, the VA lifted the ban. According to a whistle-blower lawsuit, Yavapai had started enrolling Guidance employees in ground school classes toward aviation degrees.

John Stonecipher, the owner of Guidance, said classes at Yavapai were a benefit for his employees. Yavapai has declined to comment on the lawsuit.

In 2013, the college created a degree called aviation technology, which included the helicopter and airplane students but also many nonveterans studying airport management or other aspects of aviation that don’t require flight training.

By calculating the ratio based on all the students in that degree program — not just those seeking to become pilots — the college could meet the 15 percent threshold, John Morgan, who oversees the program at the college, said in an interview last month. He said the VA endorsed that approach.

Similarly, in its calculations, Southern Utah University includes many nonveterans who are not learning to fly but are pursuing the same formal degrees — general studies and interdisciplinary studies — as the helicopter students.

In response to questions from The Times this week, the VA said it was reviewing the methodology its compliance officers have been using. Federal law requires each emphasis within a specific major to meet the 15 percent threshold on its own, the agency said.

Scott Wyatt, the president of Southern Utah University, said that interpretation was an about-face for the VA.

“We designed the program based on advice from the VA,” Wyatt said. “We followed the directions exactly, and now we have a black eye.”

He said he was consulting the Utah state attorney general for help interpreting the 15 percent rule and how student ratios should be calculated.

If only students training to become helicopter pilots are counted, the program has been out of compliance since it started in the fall of 2013, according to data the university provided to The Times. During that first semester, 62 veterans and only two nonveterans were enrolled.

By the following summer the veteran count was up to 119. In January, 76 new veterans started the program, while the nonveteran total dropped by one.

Most of the revenue from the program goes to Upper Limit, which is more expensive than other helicopter training companies tapping into the GI Bill.

Veterans there usually train on sophisticated helicopters that are far costlier to operate than basic models most other students fly. Based on its 2014 prices, typical flight fees for one veteran can top $550,000.

Upper Limit and other contractors avoid spending caps by working as contractors for public colleges and universities, where degree programs are not subject to limits under the latest GI Bill. Without those contracts, the companies would be allowed to collect no more than $11,563 a year for each veteran.

At least 15 helicopter training businesses in 10 states receive GI Bill funding through contracts with public institutions.

The programs at Southern Utah University and Yavapai are two of the biggest and most expensive.

At Southern Utah, the government paid an average of $230,916 in tuition and fees for veterans in flight programs in 2014, according to data provided this week by the VA in response to records requests The Times made in February.

Two dozen students cost the government more than $300,000 each for the year, with the most expensive at $468,853.

At Yavapai the average was $96,176 for one year of training, with four students costing between $205,189 and $232,474.

The training at both schools normally takes two years.

The average costs include unspecified numbers of students who were not enrolled the entire year as well as veterans learning to fly airplanes, a much less expensive — and less popular — track.

At all schools with flight programs, the data show 84 flight students cost the government more than $200,000 each for the year, including 41 who cost more than $300,000.

The most costly flight students are those who fail and repeat helicopter courses or go on to also earn a license to fly airplanes.

©2015 Los Angeles Times. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Navy: No imminent threat to personnel on Islamic State hit list

NAPLES, Italy — There are no imminent threats to Navy personnel and their family members after 36 sailors were identified on an Islamic State list posted online last week, a service official wrote online Thursday.

In a message posted to the Navy’s home page, Navy staff director Vice Adm. S.H. Swift said the service would notify troops if the situation changed. He said current rules on releasing information about operations would remain the same.

“Ongoing intelligence and law enforcement assessments continue to reinforce that sharing information smartly and with due caution remains safe — this includes dealings with vetted U.S. and international media,” Swift wrote.

A group claiming affiliation with the Islamic State group posted the names and personal information of 100 troops it claimed were involved in operations against the militant organization in Iraq and Syria. The group claimed it had hacked defense networks to retrieve the information; Pentagon officials said the group had merely combed open sources, including news articles, social media sites and online public records databases.

Service officials said earlier this week they were working with the FBI to weigh the seriousness of the threats and to consider safety measures. Agents with the Naval Criminal Investigative Service were meeting with the sailors and Marines named in the list, a Navy spokeswoman said Monday.

Defense officials and NCIS agents “ have not found evidence of operational planning or an imminent threat,” Swift wrote in the Thursday message.

While some servicemembers and veterans posting online have responded defiantly to the threat, others have suggested the military reconsider the information it shares about operations and the troops involved in them.

One person quoted anonymously in a Virginian-Pilot article on Wednesday said she and other spouses of sailors who lived in the Norfolk area and were named on the list believed the service’s public affairs arm had been lax in its releases.

The Navy air campaign against the Islamic State group is one of the more visible parts of U.S. military efforts in the region. The Navy has invited media aboard carriers in the Persian Gulf, the USS George H.W. Bush and its successor, the USS Carl Vinson, to observe the strikes.

The Air Force, which is also conducting airstrikes from Middle East bases, has said 58 of its personnel were named on the list. Military advisers with all services are also working with Iraqi security forces, although media have had little access to those efforts.

The military has frequently cautioned servicemembers against sharing too much information on social media sites, such as Facebook, and keeping personal accounts publicly accessible.

The Islamic State group and its supporters have shown themselves especially savvy in using the Internet to threaten troops and their families directly. A group calling itself Cyber Caliphate hacked U.S. Central Command’s Twitter account in January, and it sent threatening messages to several prominent military spouses in February.

beardsley.steven@stripes.com

Twitter: @sjbeardsley

Florida Guard F-15 unit deploying to Europe

KAISERSLAUTERN, Germany — The U.S. is sending another rotation of combat aircraft to Europe to bolster security in response to the ongoing Ukraine crisis.

The Air Force this week will deploy 12 F-15 Eagle fighter jets and about 200 airmen from the 125th Fighter Wing, a Florida Air National Guard unit from Jacksonville, according to information from U.S. Air Forces in Europe-U.S. Air Forces Africa. It’s the first Air National Guard theater security package to deploy to Europe in support of Operation Atlantic Resolve, USAFE officials said.

There were no details on which day the aircraft would depart or make their first stop, but they are expected to be in place and mission-ready by mid-April.

The unit will operate from several locations in Eastern Europe, including Leeuwarden, Netherlands, and Graf Ignatievo, Bulgaria, according to USAFE.

The theater security package “is a strategic capability that allows the Air Force greater flexibility against evolving threats,” Lt. Gen. Darryl Roberson, 3rd Air Force and 17th Expeditionary Air Force commander, said in a USAFE statement. It’s “another way the Air Force presents forces at the right time to the right combatant commander. It reassures our allies and partner nations that our commitment to European security is a priority.”

Operation Atlantic Resolve is a Pentagon effort to show its commitment to peace and stability in the region and reassure NATO allies in the wake of the Ukraine crisis.

In February, the Air Force deployed its first theater security package to Europe — 12 A-10C Thunderbolt aircraft and about 300 airmen from the 355th Fighter Wing at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Ariz. While the unit initially flew to Spangdahlem Air Base, it’s since moved around, training recently at RAF Lakenheath in the United Kingdom.

Theater security package rotations are expected to last about six months, depending on mission and U.S. European Command requirements, USAFE officials said.

The Ukraine ceasefire, signed on Feb. 12, seems to be holding, though international monitors have not yet been given full access to contested zones, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told the Washington Post this week.

svan.jennifer@stripes.com

After Germanwings crash, airlines revamp security, cockpit rules

PARIS (Tribune Content Agency) — The apparently deliberate act of a German pilot that caused the deaths of 150 people in France is leading to a broad re-examination of international airline security rules, which allowed the pilot to lock his more senior crew member out of the cockpit.

The cockpit door-locking system, which was designed after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States, was intended to prevent suicidal terrorists from seizing control of jetliners, but may have had the unintended consequence of allowing a single pilot to do the same.

“We are absolutely headed to a re-evaluation of the system,” said Robert Ditchey, an aviation safety expert and former airline executive. “This is now an issue of how we keep mass murderers out of the cockpit.”

In response to the revelations about the crash of Germanwings Flight 9525, the German Aviation Association announced Thursday that all German carriers had agreed to new procedures, similar to those already in effect in the United States, that would require two people in a plane’s cockpit at all times. Several other carriers — including Air Canada, EasyJet, Norwegian Air Shuttle and Icelandair — announced similar changes in protocol.

French authorities said Andreas Lubitz, the German co-pilot of the flight from Barcelona, Spain, to Duesseldorf, Germany, on Tuesday kept the cockpit door locked after the pilot left, presumably to use the restroom. The pilot could be heard on the cockpit voice recorder pounding on the door after Lubitz purportedly set the aircraft on a deadly descent into the French Alps.

Investigators said Lubitz ignored radio calls and could be heard breathing normally as the aircraft went on a fairly steep descent from its 38,000-foot cruising altitude to about 5,000 feet, while passengers were screaming as they presumably saw the mountains looming and watched the pilot frantically trying to re-enter the cockpit.

European authorities, along with the chief executive of Germanwings parent Lufthansa, said that nothing in Lubitz’s background could explain his behavior. The 27-year-old pilot had no known association with extremist or terrorist groups, German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere said.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said the news had given the tragedy “a new, simply incomprehensible dimension. ... Something like this goes beyond anything we can imagine.”

The dead included three Americans, the last of whom was identified by the State Department on Thursday as Robert Oliver. It provided no further details, but he was described in news reports as a Barcelona resident who worked for Spanish clothing company Desigual.

Half of the victims were German, including 16 students and two teachers from a high school in the northern town of Haltern Am See.

“I am asking myself, when is the nightmare going to end?” the town’s mayor, Bodo Klimpel, said Thursday at a news conference that was broadcast live in Germany. “It is even much, much worse than we had thought.”

In the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks, the aviation industry and U.S. law enforcement officials decided that cockpit doors would have to be hardened and locked securely to thwart a repeat. At the time, experts knew that the system would have to be tamper-proof or it would not ensure an end to hijackings.

“We discussed the unintended consequences of leaving a single pilot in the cockpit and we did an analysis of the greater risk, a suicidal pilot or a terrorist,” said Michael Barr, a U.S. air safety expert and former accident investigation instructor at the University of Southern California. “The decision was a terrorist was the greater risk. We don’t want to reopen that door now.”

But the Germanwings incident was among more than half a dozen documented instances of a crew or crew member suspected of deliberate acts to crash a passenger plane.

In 1999, in one of the most notorious cases, an EgyptAir Boeing 767 jetliner plunged into the Atlantic Ocean shortly after takeoff from New York. U.S. investigators said the co-pilot had sent the jetliner on a dive after the pilot left the cockpit.

“It’s striking that in both instances it sounds like the pilot left the cabin,” said John Pistole, the agent who investigated the accident.

In another case, a Malaysia Airlines jetliner disappeared over the Indian Ocean in 2014 without a trace, and although the crew may have been incapacitated by a loss of cabin pressure, or some other cause, a deliberate act has not been ruled out. And a 1997 crash involving SilkAir in Indonesia was determined by U.S. investigators to be a deliberate act, although Indonesian officials sharply disputed the finding.

Notably, none of those cases involved U.S. pilots or airlines. Though not perfect, the U.S. has by wide agreement the world’s most experienced pilots and tightest safety regulations. Indeed, the Federal Aviation Administration on Thursday emphasized its two-in-the-cockpit rule.

“When one of the pilots exits the cockpit for any reason, another qualified crew member must lock the door and remain on the flight deck until the pilot returns to his or her station,” the FAA said in a written response to questions raised by the French disaster. “A qualified crew member could be a flight attendant or a relief pilot serving as part of the crew.”

Under U.S. security rules, there must be positive visual identification of the person seeking to re-enter the cockpit, including verification that the person is not under duress, a procedure done by looking through a spyhole in the cockpit door, said Brian Schiff, an American Airlines captain. That verification is performed by the other crew member because the lone pilot is not allowed to move from the aircraft controls, he said.

Had a flight attendant been in the cockpit of the Germanwings plane, he or she might have been able to intervene or open the door.

Although the U.S. does not perform mandatory psychological tests on pilots, it has other advantages over foreign carriers, particularly in the experience of its flight crews. Lubitz had logged 630 flight hours, substantially below the U.S. minimum requirement of 1,500 hours for any co-pilot. In practice, the vast majority of U.S. co-pilots have far more than 1,500 hours, Ditchey, the safety expert, said.

And though the cockpit security doors may have assisted Lubitz in taking over the Germanwings flight, an opposite set of circumstances has also occurred. In an unusual March 2012 incident, a JetBlue co-pilot determined that his pilot was acting irrationally and managed to lock him out of the cockpit. While passengers subdued the captain, the co-pilot safely landed the jetliner in Amarillo, Texas.

The pilot, Clayton Osbon, was later found not guilty by reason of insanity of interfering with a flight crew.

Nonetheless, the Germanwings accident is likely to lead to a reconsideration of international rules and whether there could be a system to prevent a deranged pilot from crashing a plane. One possibility is a system that would allow ground controllers to seize the operation of an aircraft’s flight control computers if the crew veers from its planned flight path and refuses to explain its actions.

Such a system might have prevented the Germanwings accident, as well as the Sept. 11 attacks. Pilots and aviation experts say the system would be possible to implement with existing technology, though it could be costly to operate and introduce other issues, such as making a jetliner’s computer system vulnerable to a hacker.

“There will be a large examination of the procedures, but hopefully it will not compromise our existing security,” Schiff said. “We don’t have a problem with it in this country. ... As long as the person in the cockpit does not want you to enter, you are not going to get in. I think it should stay that way.”

Times staff writer Vartabedian reported from Los Angeles and special correspondent Willsher from Paris. Times staff writers Matt Pearce and Hugo Martin in Los Angeles and special correspondent Jabeen Bhatti in Berlin contributed to this report.

©2015 Los Angeles Times. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Congressman: Japan ‘breathtakingly unresponsive’ on US child abduction

A congressman chastised Japan’s efforts to return the abducted children of U.S. citizens and called for more pressure on Tokyo to comply with its international obligations, according to congressional testimony Wednesday.

Cultural and legal obstacles in Japan — where child abduction by one parent isn’t necessarily viewed as a crime — have long prevented U.S. servicemembers and other citizens from gaining custody or even seeing their children.

Japan adopted the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction in April 2014. The accord requires the government to set up processes for legal appeal from foreign parents seeking either visitation or the return of their children to another country.

Japan has since returned one child to a German parent and two others to Canadian parents, while five children have been returned to Japan.

A court ordered the return of a child to the United States last month, said Susan Jacobs, State Department special adviser for children’s issues, at a House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Human Rights hearing Wednesday.

If the ruling moves forward and the child is returned, it would mark the first time in recent history than an American parent was reunited with an abducted child through a Japanese legal verdict.

That bright spot failed to placate Rep. Christopher Smith (R-N.J.), who stated that U.S. parents submitted 30 claims with Japan a year ago, when Japan officially adopted the international accord.

“Since they have signed the Hague [Convention], Japan’s efforts have been breathtakingly unresponsive,” Smith said.

Smith cited 400 cases of children kidnapped to Japan since 1994, a number he called “unconscionable.”

Next month, the State Department is scheduled to issue an annual report on international child abduction, which has been expanded over previous years to include reporting on non-Hague signatories.

Jacobs told Smith that she shared his frustration and is planning to visit India in May and Japan in June, where she and Ambassador Caroline Kennedy will discuss the annual report with Japanese officials.

“I talked to Ambassador Kennedy yesterday, and she is energized and she is ready to launch,” Jacobs said.

After signing on to the Hague Convention, Japan began accepting applications for visitation and child return to its Foreign Ministry, as well as accepting requests through the State Department.

Cases of child return prior to April 2014 fall outside the scope of the agreement, which Smith blasted during testimony. Parents in those situations can still apply to Japan for visitation rights.

However, it remains unclear whether Japan will develop an effective enforcement mechanism for parents in Japan to comply with government efforts, Colin P.A. Jones, a professor at Doshisha Law School in Kyoto, told Stars and Stripes last month.

Joint custody remains a foreign concept in Japan and it has been relatively common since the 1960s for divorced fathers to be largely excluded from their children’s lives.

In recent years, courts have begun to accept that “visitation is good for children,” Jones said, but even court-ordered visitation may only amount to hours per month.

Also on Wednesday, Japan Foreign Ministry officials announced they plan to introduce a revamped system next April for arbitrating custody and visitation disputes.

slavin.erik@stripes.com

Twitter: @eslavin_stripes

Illinois Guard soldier tried to join Islamic State, plotted US attack, feds say

CHICAGO — An Illinois Army National Guard soldier vowed to bring "the flames of war to the heart" of America if he was unable to get to the Middle East to join the Islamic State group, and his cousin bragged he could kill up to 150 people in a terrorist attack in the U.S., federal prosecutors said Thursday in announcing the men's arrests. Both are also accused of hatching a plot to attack a U.S. military facility.

Hasan R. Edmonds, the 22-year-old guardsman, was arrested Wednesday evening at Chicago Midway International Airport trying to board a plane on the first leg of a journey to Egypt. Jonas M. Edmonds, 29, was detained a few hours later at home, the U.S. attorney's office in Chicago said. Both men are U.S. citizens from suburban Aurora, Ill.

An unsealed federal complaint says the plan was for Jonas Edmonds to carry out an attack in the U.S. after Hasan Edmonds left the country, donning Hasan's uniform to gain better access to soldiers. The complaint says they plotted an armed attack against a U.S. military facility in northern Illinois where Hasan Edmonds had trained. The complaint did not name the facility.

A spokesman for the Illinois National Guard, Lt. Col. Brad Leighton, said Hasan Edmonds was member of Golf Company 634th Brigade Support Battalion, based in Joliet.

In Internet messages to an undercover FBI agent in January, Hasan Edmonds said that if he was unable to make it to the Middle East, he would help bring "the flames of war to the heart" of America and "cause as much damage and mayhem as possible," the complaint says.

On Tuesday, the cousins drove to a military installation with an undercover agent to discuss an attack, according to the complaint. Hasan Edmonds described the rooms inside and talked about which ones should be hit.

In other messages, Hasan said his knowledge of the U.S. military and American psychology would prove helpful in terrorizing Americans, prosecutors contend.

"If we can break their spirits, we will win," he said, according to the complaint.

He allegedly spoke admiringly of the terrorist attack in Paris on the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo.

"Honestly, we would love to do something like the brother in Paris did," he allegedly wrote.

Both men face a count of conspiring to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization, the Islamic State. The conspiracy includes their alleged terrorist plots in the U.S. A conviction carries a maximum 15-year prison sentence.

They made initial appearances in a courtroom in Chicago later Thursday. Jonas Edmonds kept swiveling in his chair, stroking his beard and, at one point, yawned loudly. Hasan Edmonds sat still.

Hasan Edmonds' sister, Manchinique Bates, told the Chicago Sun-Times, "They aren't terrorists. ... Just because they choose to worship as Muslims does not make them terrorists."

Jonas Edmonds allegedly communicated to an undercover agent that it may be difficult for him to get travel documents. Therefore, he said he would stage attacks in the U.S. using AK-47s to kill up to 150 people, prosecutors allege.

If he couldn't secure guns, he said he would use anything he could get his hands on, the complaint says.

"I can unleash a lion," he says. "What I would need ... honestly nothing. I am prepared to go even if it's with a rock."

Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner said Thursday he was briefed about the investigation Wednesday. He provided no further details.

Hasan Edmonds wasn't on active duty, so any criminal allegation will be addressed by civilian federal authorities, said Leighton, the Illinois National Guard spokesman.

Leighton said Hasan Edmonds reported to the Joliet base one weekend a month and that he did two weeks of active duty training — typically in the summer. Hasan Edmonds enlisted in 2011, but had never deployed. He worked as a supply specialist that was part of a logistics unit providing supplies and other services to the 33rd Infantry Brigade Combat Team, Leighton said.

Associated Press writers Caryn Rousseau, Don Babwin and Jason Keyser also contributed to this report.

Cockpit safety measures implemented after 9/11 may have allowed lockout of pilot

(Tribune News Service) — A jet plane is a complex piece of machinery built on redundancies; if one system fails, another takes its place.

That holds true in many facets of aircraft design — except, apparently, when it comes to the cockpit door.

“People inside the cockpit can lock the door in such a way that the people on the outside can’t get in,” said Steven J. Meyers, a Chicago-based aviation accident expert.

Investigators of this week’s Germanwings crash in the French Alps that killed 150 people think a rogue co-pilot locked out his more experienced colleague, leaving the frustrated pilot pounding on the cockpit door as the plane was steered straight into a mountain.

“What can he do?” said Pete Gall, a retired airline pilot who teaches aerospace engineering at West Virginia University. “The only thing he can do is knock on the door, which he apparently tried to do. Then he can go to the number pad, type in the code and wait 30 seconds.

The problem is the pilot in the cockpit can override that.

“The pilot in the cockpit can close and lock the door so no one — no one — can get in.”

Aviation safety experts Thursday described U.S. efforts following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks to make the cockpit an impregnable safe haven from hijackers.

But those measures — bulletproof doors, keypad locks, the presence of air marshals, protocols for how the crew can block access to the cockpit — could have deadly side effects if the lockout theory in the French crash holds true.

“With any safety mitigation … there are unintended consequences,” said Thomas Anthony, director of the University of Southern California’s aviation and security program.

Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman Laura J. Brown declined to address questions about the lack of an override system for pilots outside the cockpit, saying, “We don’t generally discuss security issues like this.”

The FAA requires that there be two qualified crew members in the cockpit at all times; when a pilot leaves, a relief pilot or flight attendant enters.

Lufthansa, the parent company of budget carrier Germanwings, and other international carriers do not have the same requirement, The Washington Post reported.

Gall, who has flown a variety of commercial planes, including an Airbus A320 such as the one that went down in the Alps, said all have door mechanisms that function the same way. A switch in the cockpit controls the lock; a numeric keypad outside can open the door, but it cannot override the pilot’s command.

“This system is designed so that if a hijacker wanted to get into the cockpit and take over the airplane, there is no way that they could do it. With mechanical systems, like a hydraulic system, you can have a primary and a backup and secondary backup. But when it comes to something like this, how do you have a backup system?” Gall said.

“Right now, if the pilot wants to lock you out, they’re going to lock you out and you’re not going to get in, and nothing is going to get you through that door unless you have a battering ram. Other than that, you’re stuck.

“Now with this happening, there may be changes.”

Meyers, president and chief technical officer of DVI Aviation, independent accident investigators, predicts the Germanwings crash will trigger a review of cockpit safety and flight-deck protocols.

“In aviation, regulations are written in blood,” Meyers said. “Another term you often hear is ‘tombstone engineering,’ which means once an accident takes place and a new scenario that people haven’t thought about happens, everyone goes back to the drawing board to find preventive measures. I would expect that to be the case here as well.”

Already, some European carriers are changing procedures. The BBC reported that Canadian, German, Norwegian and British airlines have pledged to require two crew members to always be in the cockpit.

Even so, should pilots have a way to override the cockpit door’s locking mechanism?

Gall notes that any terrorist who discovers an override procedure leaves the cockpit vulnerable.

“There’s no completely foolproof system that’s out there,” Meyers said.

©2015 Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Army made right decision to charge Bergdahl, fellow servicemembers say

While some servicemembers’ think the Army made the right call when it decided Wednesday to charge Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl with desertion, others were taking more of a wait-and-see approach.

Army Staff Sgt. Miguel Aponte, assigned to a NATO support unit in Naples, Italy, said Bergdahl deserved to be charged.

“That’s what should’ve happened,” he said. “He deserted.”

Aponte, who deployed four times to Iraq and once to Afghanistan, said he hadn’t heard much talk among fellow soldiers after the news and that he didn’t expect the same uproar that accompanied news of Bergdahl’s recovery last year. But he said he believes Bergdahl wanted to aid insurgents when he walked away from his outpost and that he deserves the maximum punishment.

“I don’t have proof, but I think it was with intent to do harm,” Aponte said.

Staff Sgt. Maurice Luckett, who works at the U.S. Army Contingency Command Post at Grafenwöhr, Germany, focused on the message that Bergdahl’s alleged actions sent to his fellow troops.

“As an NCO, your soldiers look up to you. When you desert, when you leave your soldiers like that, it’s like not just leaving one battle buddy but leaving an entire group of battle buddies behind,” Luckett said. “When you have new soldiers in the Army, and if that’s the first thing they see they might assume, ‘Hey, that’s how all of them are going to be.’ ”

Air Force Tech. Sgt. Renante Ochinang, 43, was working at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center when Bergdahl was released from Taliban captivity in June 2014.

He didn’t directly treat the solider, but Ochinang said he remembers the conflicted feelings he had at the time. The excitement of hearing that a captive soldier had been rescued was tempered by subsequent news reports that he may have intentionally left his post, he said.

“He wouldn’t be in captivity if he didn’t leave his post,” Ochinang said. “He’s suffered” to be sure. But “as far as leaving your post because of misgivings or (being) disgruntled, separating from your unit could put your unit in danger. Is that fair to the other soldiers?”

No, it’s not fair, according to Air Force Maj. Janelle Quick, a health care administrator at Ramstein.

“If he willingly left his place of duty, that’s a problem, because he also put other people at risk, not only himself. Worse things could have happened.”

Quinn said holding Bergdahl accountable also “sends a clear message for everyone serving in uniform of what we need to do. That’s to take care of one another and there will be consequences if you fail to follow the rules and regulations that we are charged with.”

Fort Shafter, Hawaii-based soldiers Spc. Bryce Beauchamp and Sgt. 1st Class Donald Stenger were stronger in their condemnation of Bergdahl.

Sgt. 1st Class Donald Stenger, of the 311th Signal Command at Fort Shafter, said Bergdahl had an obligation to the Army and his fellow troops.

“He knew what he was getting into when he signed up. Since he deserted, yeah, he should get what’s coming to him,” Stenger said.

He said when news of Bergdahl’s return from captivity last year there was plenty of discussion about him among the soldiers with whom he works.

“The general consensus seemed to be, ‘Damn traitor jumped ship. Get rid of him.’ ”

Beauchamp said he’d come to believe Bergdahl was a deserter because of statements made by men from Bergdahl’s platoon.

“And just the way he’s behaved since he got back,” he said. “He won’t even go see his family. He won’t go meet his parents face to face.”

Asked what he thought would be a fair punishment, Beauchamp said without hesitation, “Death penalty.”

Some were more pragmatic.

Lt. Col. Wayne Mingo, a civil affairs officer with the 361st Civil Affairs Brigade in Germany, said he was withholding judgment on Bergdahl.

Soldiers who served with Bergdahl blame the Idaho native for the deaths of other soldiers who they say died looking for him. But the military has said little about Bergdahl’s disappearance, and other soldiers’ thoughts on why he walked off a remote outpost in the middle of the night have been largely speculative.

Mingo said he needs “more than hearsay” to form an opinion.

“The facts will come out. If he’s guilty, he’ll get what’s coming to him.”

Petty Officer 2nd Class Peter Bell in Yokosuka, Japan, also wanted more facts before forming an opinion.

“We don’t know what really happened, whether he had one of those moments downrange and lost it,” Bell said.

But, if Bergdahl put other people’s lives in danger, the charges are probably appropriate, he said.

Stars and Stripes reporters Wyatt Olson, Erik Slavin, Matthew Millham, Jennifer H. Svan, Steven Beardsley and Michael S. Darnell contributed to this report.

news@stripes.com

Bureaucrats block special operations intel requests

WASHINGTON — Military bureaucrats have been trying to force an unpopular government-built intelligence system on special operations units deploying to war zones while blocking soldiers from using the commercial alternative they say they need, according to government records and interviews.

Over the last four months, six Army special operations units about to be deployed into Afghanistan, Iraq and other hostile environments have requested software made by Palantir, a Silicon Valley company that has synthesized data for the CIA, the Navy SEALs and the country's largest banks, among other government and private entities.

But the Army has approved just two of the requests after members of Congress intervened with senior military leaders. Four requests pending with U.S. Army Special Operations Command in Fort Bragg, North Carolina, and Tampa, Florida-based Special Operations Command have not been granted.

Email messages and other military records obtained by The Associated Press show that Army and special operations command bureaucrats have been pressing troops to use an in-house system built and maintained by traditional defense contractors. The Distributed Common Ground System, or DCGS, has consistently failed independent tests and earned the ire of soldiers in the field for its poor performance.

Special operations units have used Palantir since 2009 to store and analyze intelligence on information ranging from cultural trends to roadside bomb data, but has always been seen by top Pentagon officials as an interim solution until their in-house system is fielded. Those who have used the system say DCGS has yet to deliver on its promise of seamlessly integrating intelligence.

Pentagon officials say DCGS, despite its flaws, has broader capabilities than Palantir, and that in some cases it complements Palantir.

Intelligence officers say they use Palantir to analyze and map a variety of intelligence from hundreds of databases. Palantir costs millions, compared to the billions the military has been pouring into DCGS.

Special operations officials, in a statement to AP, said Palantir had been "extremely successful" in Iraq and Afghanistan and they are working to expand access to Palantir for units deployed in the fight against the Islamic State group. But records and interviews show a history of internal pressure against making and approving such requests.

One veteran special operations intel analyst, who is on his seventh deployment in 12 years, said his recent request for Palantir for a unit heading to Iraq had met with "pushback" both from his own headquarters and from bureaucrats who favor DCGS' analytical component at the Pentagon, special operations command headquarters in Tampa, and Army special operations in Fort Bragg. Another special operations officer also used the term "heavy pushback" in an email about his request for Palantir.

Like most active-duty Army personnel interviewed for this story, they declined to be quoted by name because they feared speaking out could put their careers at risk.

In their statement, special operations officials said their questions about Palantir requests should not be interpreted as resistance.

The failings of the Army's version of DCGS has received significant public attention in recent years. The version tailored to special operations troops has even less capability, special operations command acknowledges in its records. Another version being offered to special operations troops working in remote areas, called DCGS-Lite, has received mediocre reviews from intelligence analysts, Army records show.

Intelligence officers say Palantir is easier to use, more stable and more capable than DCGS, which sometimes doesn't work at all.

The Pentagon system is difficult to master, the veteran intelligence analyst said, while it takes him about 30 minutes to train a new analyst on Palantir.

Another officer wrote in an email that with Palantir, his analysts were able to easily mix open-source intelligence gleaned from social media or Web searches with classified reporting. DCGS makes that much harder, he said.

In February, an intelligence officer for the 5th Special Forces Group wrote in an email, "We still want Palantir because we think it is the best tool to meet the needs of our mission," which includes operations against the Islamic State group in Iraq and training rebels in Syria.

The only reason the unit is using DCGS, the officer wrote, was because it came with much-needed laptops. "We do not plan to use any of the DCGS apps or tools for our mission," the officer wrote. The person who provided the email asked that the author not be identified to spare him or her from retaliation.

All the commercial interests in the dispute have political clout. Palantir employs a bevy of lobbyists to press its case in Washington, as do the defense companies behind DCGS, such as Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and Booz Allen Hamilton, which have longstanding relationships with Pentagon buyers.

In addition to the professional lobbying, some members of Congress have been contacted by special operation officers who complained that they were being denied the tools they needed to do their jobs.

One of the lawmakers, Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., grilled Army Chief of Staff Gen. Ray Odierno over the issue at a recent budget hearing. She asked about a request for Palantir by 1st Special Forces Group based at Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington state. Murray's office had been lobbying behind the scenes for months.

"It's been approved," Odierno said, to Murray's surprise.

In December, Rep. Jackie Speier, D-Calif., wrote to Gen. Joseph Votel, the special operations commander, raising concerns that special operations command "has yet to provide tools to the warfighters in Afghanistan and Iraq despite spending six years and nearly $150 million to develop" the special operations version of DCGS.

In January, Votel responded to the congresswoman that the system was delivering "critical" capabilities through "numerous, highly capable components."

Saudi airstrikes target rebel bases in Yemen

SANAA, Yemen — Saudi Arabia bombed key military installations in Yemen on Thursday after announcing a broad regional coalition to oust Shiite rebels that forced the country's embattled president to flee. Some of the strikes hit positions in the country's capital, Sanaa, and flattened a number of homes near the international airport.

The airstrikes, which had the support of nine other countries, drew a strong reaction from Iran, which called the operation an "invasion" and a "dangerous step" that will worsen the crisis in the country.

Iran "condemns the airstrikes against Yemen this morning that left some innocent Yemenis wounded and dead and considers this action a dangerous step," Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Marzieh Afkham said in a statement. She said military action would complicate and worsen the crisis in Yemen.

"This invasion will bear no result but expansion of terrorism and extremism throughout the whole region," she said.

The Saudi airstrikes came hours after President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, a close U.S. ally, fled Yemen by sea after rebels pushed their way toward the southern port city of Aden where he had taken refuge.

The back-and-forth between the regional heavyweights was threatening to turn impoverished Yemen into a proxy battle between the Middle East's Sunni powers and Shiite-led Iran.

Saudi-owned Al-Arabiya News reported that the kingdom had deployed 100 fighter jets, 150,000 soldiers and other navy units in Operation Decisive Storm.

The Shiite rebels, known as Houthis, were calling on their supporters to protest in the streets of Sanaa on Thursday afternoon, Yemen's Houthi-controlled state news agency SABA reported. TV stations affiliated with the rebels and their ally, former President Ali Abdullah Saleh, showed the aftermath of the strikes Thursday morning in what appeared to be a residential area.

Al-Masirah TV, affiliated with the Houthis, quoted the ministry of health as saying that 18 civilians were killed and 24 were injured.

Yemen Today, a TV station affiliated with Saleh, showed hundreds of residents congregating around a number of flattened houses, some chanting "Death to Al-Saud", in reference to the kingdom's royal family. The civilians were sifting through the rubble, pulling out mattresses, bricks and shrapnel.

An Associated Press reporter on the scene in the Sanaa neighborhood near the international airport saw people searching for loved ones in the debris of flattened homes. Residents said at least three bodies were pulled from the rubble. There were traces of blood between the bricks.

Ahmed al-Sumaini said an entire alley close to the airport was wiped out in the strikes overnight. He said people ran out from their homes in the middle of the night. "This was a surprise. I was asleep and I was jolted out of my bed," he said, waving a piece of shrapnel.

In addition to the airport, targets included the camp of U.S.-trained Yemeni special forces, which is controlled by generals loyal to Saleh. Yemeni security officials said the targets also included a missile base in Sanaa that was controlled by the Houthis earlier this year. One of the security officials said the strikes also targeted the fuel depot at the base.

The Houthis said in a statement that Saudi jets hit the military base, known as al-Duleimi, and that they responded with anti-aircraft missiles.

The strikes also hit the al-Annad air base in the southern Lahj province. About 100 U.S. military advisers withdrew over the weekend from base, where they had been leading a drone campaign against al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP.

The crumbling of Hadi's government is a blow to Washington's counterterrorism strategy against al-Qaida's branch in Yemen, considered to be the most powerful in the terrorist network.

The security officials spoke on condition of anonymity, because they were not authorized to brief journalists.

Riad Yassin, Yemen's foreign minister, told Saudi's Al-Hadath TV that the airstrikes were welcomed.

"I hope the Houthis listen to the sound of reason. With what is happening, they forced us into this," he said.

Saudi ambassador to the United States Adel al-Jubeir announced the military operation in a news conference in Washington. He said his government had consulted closely with the U.S. and other allies but that the U.S. military was not involved in the operations.

The White House said in a statement late Wednesday that the U.S. was coordinating military and intelligence support with the Saudis but not taking part directly in the strikes.

Other regional players were involved in the Saudi operation: The United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Qatar and Bahrain joined Saudi Arabia in a statement published by the Saudi Press Agency, saying they would answer a request from Hadi "to protect Yemen and his dear people from the aggression of the Houthi militias which were and are still a tool in the hands of foreign powers that don't stop meddling with the security and stability of brotherly Yemen." Oman, the sixth member of the Gulf Cooperation Council, didn't sign onto the statement.

On a Thursday conference call with foreign ministers from the council, Secretary of State John Kerry commended the work of the coalition's military action against the Houthis, according to a State Department official traveling with Kerry in Lausanne, Switzerland. Kerry noted U.S. support for coalition efforts, including intelligence sharing and logistical support for strikes against Houthi targets, said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a private diplomatic call.

Egypt announced political and military support, saying it is ready to send ground troops if necessary. Jordan confirmed it was participating in the operation. Pakistan, Morocco and Sudan were also taking part, the Saudi Press Agency reported Thursday.

Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies believe the Houthis are tools for Iran to seize control of Yemen and say they intend to stop the takeover. The Houthis deny they are backed by Iran.

Yemen now faces fragmentation, with Houthis controlling much of the north, including the capital of Sanaa, and several southern provinces. In recent days, they took the third-largest city, Taiz, as well as much of the province of Lahj, both just to the north of Aden.

The Houthis are backed by Saleh, the autocrat who ruled Yemen for three decades until he was removed amid a 2011 Arab Spring uprising. Some of the best-equipped and trained military and security units remained loyal to Saleh and they have helped the Houthis in their rapid advance.

Hadi left Sanaa for Aden earlier this month after escaping house arrest under the Houthis, who overran the capital six months ago. In Aden, he had sought to make a last stand, claiming it as the temporary seat of what remained of his government, backed by allied militias and loyal army units.

With Houthis and Saleh forces closing in on multiple fronts, Hadi and his aides left Aden Wednesday on two boats in the Gulf of Aden, security and port officials told AP. The officials would not specify his destination.

Arab leaders are meeting in Egypt this weekend for a pre-planned summit. It is unclear if Hadi will join them.

Iran calls Saudi airstrikes in Yemen 'dangerous step'

SANAA, Yemen — Saudi Arabia launched airstrikes Thursday targeting military installations in Yemen held by Shiite rebels who were taking over a key port city in the country's south and had driven the embattled president to flee by sea, security officials said. Some of the strikes hit positions in the country's capital, Sanaa.

The airstrikes, which had the support of nine other countries, drew a strong reaction from Iran which called the operation an "invasion" and a "dangerous step" that will worsen the crisis in the country.

The back-and-forth between the regional heavyweights was threatening to turn impoverished Yemen into a proxy battle between the Middle East's Sunni powers and Shiite-led Iran.

Saudi-owned Al-Arabiya News reported that the kingdom had deployed 100 fighter jets, 150,000 soldiers and other navy units.

The Shiite rebels, known as Houthis, were calling on their supporters to protest in the streets of Sanaa on Thursday afternoon, Yemen's Houthi-controlled state news agency SABA reported.

On Wednesday President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, a close U.S. ally, fled Yemen by sea as the rebels started taking over the southern port city of Aden where he had taken refuge.

Saudi ambassador to the United States Adel al-Jubeir announced the military operation in a news conference in Washington. He said his government had consulted closely with the U.S. and other allies but that the U.S. military was not involved in the operations.

The White House said in a statement late Wednesday that the U.S. was coordinating military and intelligence support with the Saudis but not taking part directly in the strikes.

Other regional players were involved in the Saudi operation: The United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Qatar and Bahrain joined Saudi Arabia in a statement published by the Saudi Press Agency, saying they would answer a request from Hadi "to protect Yemen and his dear people from the aggression of the Houthi militias which were and are still a tool in the hands of foreign powers that don't stop meddling with the security and stability of brotherly Yemen." Oman, the sixth member of the Gulf Cooperation Council, didn't sign onto the statement.

Egypt also announced political and military support. "There is coordination ongoing now with Saudi Arabia and the brotherly gulf countries about preparations to participate with an Egyptian air and naval forces and ground troops if necessary," it said in a statement carried by the state news agency.

Pakistan, Jordan, Morocco and Sudan were also joining the operation, the Saudi Press Agency reported Thursday.

Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies believe the Houthis are tools for Iran to seize control of Yemen and say they intend to stop the takeover. The Houthis deny they are backed by Iran.

Security officials in Yemen said the Saudi airstrikes targeted a camp for U.S.-trained special forces, which is controlled by generals loyal to former President Ali Abdullah Saleh. The officials said the targets included the missile base in Sanaa that was controlled by the Houthis earlier this year. One of the Yemeni security officials said the strikes also targeted the fuel depot at the base.

The Houthis said in a statement to reporters that Saudi jets hit the military base, known as al-Duleimi, and that they responded with anti-aircraft missiles.

Riad Yassin, Yemen's foreign minister, told Saudi's Al-Hadath TV that the airstrikes were welcomed.

"I hope the Houthis listen to the sound of reason. With what is happening, they forced us into this," he said.

The crumbling of Hadi's government is a blow to Washington's counterterrorism strategy against al-Qaida's branch in Yemen, considered to be the most powerful in the terrorist network. Over the weekend, about 100 U.S. military advisers withdrew from the al-Annad air base where they had been leading a drone campaign against al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP.

Yemen now faces fragmentation, with Houthis controlling much of the north, including the capital of Sanaa, and several southern provinces. In recent days, they took the third-largest city, Taiz, as well as much of the province of Lahj, both just to the north of Aden.

The Houthis are backed by Saleh, the autocrat who ruled Yemen for three decades until he was removed amid a 2011 Arab Spring uprising. Some of the best-equipped and trained military and security units remained loyal to Saleh and they have helped the Houthis in their rapid advance.

Hadi left Sanaa for Aden earlier this month after escaping house arrest under the Houthis, who overran the capital six months ago. In Aden, he had sought to make a last stand, claiming it as the temporary seat of what remained of his government, backed by allied militias and loyal army units.

With Houthis and Saleh forces closing in on multiple fronts, Hadi and his aides left Aden Wednesday on two boats in the Gulf of Aden, security and port officials told The Associated Press. The officials would not specify his destination.

Movies on base through April 2

Japan

Atsugi

THU: The Divergent Series: Insurgent, 6 p.m. FRI: Kingsman: The Secret Service, 6 p.m. (adults only); Get Hard, 10 p.m. (adults only) SAT: Home (3-D), 2 p.m.; Get Hard, 5 p.m. (adults only); The Lazarus Effect, 10 p.m. SUN: Home, 2 p.m.; The Divergent Series: Insurgent, 5 p.m.; Kingsman: The Secret Service, 8 p.m. (adults only) MON: The Lazarus Effect, 6 p.m. THU: Sailors’ Choice Movie (adults only), 7 p.m.

Richard Bong (Misawa)

WED: Seventh Son, 6 p.m. THU: Unfinished Business, 6 p.m. (adults only) FRI: Home, 6 p.m.; Get Hard, 9 p.m. (adults only) SAT: Home (3-D), 2 p.m.; The Divergent Series: Insurgent, 5 p.m.; Get Hard, 8 p.m. (adults only) SUN: Home, 2 p.m.; Cinderella, 5 p.m. MON: Run All Night, 6 p.m. (adults only) TUE: Chappie, 6 p.m. (adults only)

Showboat

WED: Run All Night, 6:30 p.m. (adults only) THU: The Divergent Series: Insurgent, 6:30 p.m. FRI: Home, 6:30 p.m.; Get Hard, 9 p.m. (adults only) SAT: Home (3-D), 2 p.m.; Get Hard, 6:30 p.m. (adults only); Kingsman: The Secret Service, 9 p.m. (adults only); Get Hard, 11:59 p.m. (adults only) (E4 & below free admission) SUN: The Lazarus Effect, 2 p.m.; Get Hard, 6:30 p.m. (adults only) MON: The DUFF, 6:30 p.m. TUE: Kingsman: The Secret Service, 6:30 p.m. (adults only) WED: The Lazarus Effect, 6:30 p.m. THU: Get Hard, 6:30 p.m. (adults only)

Village

THU: The DUFF, 6:30 p.m. FRI: Home (3-D), 6:30 p.m.; The Lazarus Effect, 9 p.m. SAT: McFarland, USA, 2 p.m.; Cinderella, 6:30 p.m.; Get Hard, 9 p.m. (adults only) SUN: Cinderella, 2 p.m.; Home, 6:30 p.m. THU: The Divergent Series: Insurgent, 6:30 p.m.

Benny Decker

WED: The DUFF, 5:30 p.m.; The Divergent Series: Insurgent, 8:30 p.m. THU: Cinderella, 5:30 p.m.; McFarland USA, 8:30 p.m. FRI: Home, 5:30 p.m.; The Lazarus Effect, 8:30 p.m. SAT: Home, 1 p.m.; Cinderella, 5:30 p.m.; The Lazarus Effect, 8:30 p.m. MON: Home, 5:30 p.m.; The Lazarus Effect, 8:30 p.m.

Fleet

WED: Run All Night, 6 p.m. (adults only); Chappie, 9 p.m. (adults only) THU: The Divergent Series: Insurgent, 6 p.m.; Hot Tub Time Machine 2, 9 p.m. (adults only) FRI: Kingsman: The Secret Service, 6 p.m. (adults only); Get Hard, 9 p.m. (adults only) (free admission, hot dog, popcorn, and soda to E1-E4 only); Hot Tub Time Machine 2, midnight, (adults only) (free admission, hot dog, popcorn, and soda to E1-E4 only) SAT: Get Hard, 6 p.m. (adults only); Kingsman: The Secret Service, 9 p.m. (adults only) (free admission, hot dog, popcorn, and soda to E1-E4 only); Chappie, midnight, (adults only) (free admission, hot dog, popcorn, and soda to E1-E4 only) SUN: The Lazarus Effect, 6 p.m.; Get Hard, 9 p.m. (adults only) MON: Kingsman: The Secret Service, 6 p.m. (adults only); Hot Tub Time Machine 2, 9 p.m. (adults only)

Yokota

WED: The Divergent Series: Insurgent, 6 p.m. THU: Run All Night, 6 p.m. (adults only) FRI: Home, 6 p.m.; Get Hard, 9 p.m. (adults only) SAT: Home (3-D), 3 p.m.; The Divergent Series: Insurgent (3-D), 6 p.m.; Get Hard, 9 p.m. (adults only) SUN: Home, 3 p.m.; Get Hard, 6 p.m. (adults only) WED: Get Hard, 6 p.m. (adults only) THU: Unfinished Business, 6 p.m. (adults only)

Zama (Sagamihara)

FRI: Home, 6 p.m.; Get Hard, 9 p.m. (adults only) SAT: Cinderella, 2 p.m.; Home, 6 p.m.; Get Hard, 8 p.m. (adults only) SUN: Home, 2 p.m.; Get Hard, 5 p.m. (adults only); American Sniper, 8 p.m. (adults only)

Okinawa

Foster

WED: Seventh Son, 7 p.m. THU: The Divergent Series: Insurgent (3-D), 7 p.m. FRI: Get Hard, 6 and 9 p.m. (adults only) SAT: Home (3-D), noon and 6 p.m.; Home, 3 p.m.; Get Hard, 9 p.m. (adults only) SUN: Home, 1 p.m.; Home (3-D), 4 p.m.; Get Hard, 7 p.m. (adults only) MON: The Divergent Series: Insurgent, 7 p.m. TUE: Get Hard, 7 p.m. (adults only) WED: The Divergent Series: Insurgent, 7 p.m. THU: Get Hard, 7 p.m. (adults only)

Futenma

FRI: Get Hard, 6:30 p.m. (adults only) SAT: Get Hard, 4 and 7 p.m. (adults only) SUN: The Divergent Series: Insurgent, 4 p.m.; Get Hard, 7 p.m. (adults only) MON: Run All Night, 6:30 p.m. (adults only)

Hansen

WED: Unfinished Business, 7 p.m. (adults only) THU: The Divergent Series: Insurgent, 7 p.m. FRI: Get Hard, 6:30 and 10 p.m. (adults only) SAT: Get Hard, 6 p.m. (adults only); The Divergent Series: Insurgent (3-D), 9:30 p.m. SUN: Run All Night, 3:30 p.m. (adults only); Get Hard, 7 p.m. (adults only) MON: Chappie, 7 p.m. (adults only) TUE: Get Hard, 7 p.m. (adults only) WED: Seventh Son, 7 p.m. THU: The Divergent Series: Insurgent, 7 p.m.

Keystone (Kadena)

WED: Cinderella, 5 p.m.; The Divergent Series: Insurgent, 7:20 and 9:45 p.m. THU: Cinderella, 5 p.m.; The Divergent Series: Insurgent, 7:20 p.m.; Focus, 9:45 p.m. (adults only) FRI: Home, 4:30 p.m.; Get Hard, 6:45 and 23:25 p.m. (adults only); The Divergent Series: Insurgent, 9:05 p.m. SAT: Home, 9 a.m. and 1:45 p.m.; Cinderella, 11:15 a.m.; The Divergent Series: Insurgent, 4 and 8:40 p.m.; Get Hard, 6:20 and 11:05 p.m. (adults only) SUN: Cinderella, 9 a.m.; Home, 11:25 a.m. and 4:10 p.m.; Get Hard, 1:45 and 8:45 p.m. (adults only); The Divergent Series: Insurgent, 6:25 p.m. MON: Home, 5 p.m.; Cinderella, 7:15 p.m.; Get Hard, 9:40 p.m. (adults only) TUE: Cinderella, 5 p.m.; The Divergent Series: Insurgent, 7:25 p.m.; Get Hard, 9:50 p.m. (adults only) WED: Home, 5 p.m.; The Divergent Series: Insurgent, 7:15 p.m.; Get Hard, 9:35 p.m. (adults only) THU: The Divergent Series: Insurgent, 7:10 p.m.; Get Hard, 9:35 p.m. (adults only); Furious 7, 12:05 a.m.

Kinser

WED: The Divergent Series: Insurgent, 6:30 p.m. THU: Seventh Son, 6:30 p.m. FRI: Get Hard, 6:30 p.m. (adults only) SAT: Home (3-D), 3 p.m.; Get Hard, 6:30 p.m. (adults only) SUN: Home, 1 p.m.; Home (3-D), 3:30 p.m.; Get Hard, 6:30 p.m. (adults only) WED: Get Hard, 6:30 p.m. (adults only) THU: The Divergent Series: Insurgent, 6:30 p.m.

Schwab

FRI: The Divergent Series: Insurgent, 6 p.m.; Get Hard, 9 p.m. (adults only) SAT: Chappie, 6 p.m. (adults only); Get Hard, 9 p.m. (adults only) SUN: Focus, 4 p.m. (adults only); Get Hard, 7 p.m. (adults only) MON: The Divergent Series: Insurgent, 7 p.m. TUE: Get Hard, 7 p.m. (adults only)

Courtney

WED: The Divergent Series: Insurgent, 7 p.m. FRI: Home, 6 p.m.; Get Hard, 9 p.m. (adults only) SAT: Home, 3 p.m.; Get Hard, 6 p.m. (adults only) SUN: Home, 3 p.m.; Get Hard, 6 p.m. (adults only) MON: Black or White, 7 p.m. WED: SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water, 7 p.m.

South Korea

Yongsan South Post No. 1

WED: The Divergent Series: Insurgent, 6:30 p.m. THU: The Divergent Series: Insurgent, 6:30 p.m. FRI: Get Hard, 7 and 10 p.m. (adults only) SAT: Home, 1:30 and 4:30 p.m.; Get Hard, 7:30 and 10 p.m. (adults only) SUN: Home (3-D), 1:30 and 4:30 p.m.; Get Hard, 7:30 p.m. (adults only) MON: Get Hard, 6:30 p.m. (adults only) TUE: Get Hard, 6:30 p.m. (adults only) WED: Get Hard, 6:30 p.m. (adults only) THU: Get Hard, 6:30 p.m. (adults only)

Yongsan South Post No. 2

WED: Chappie, 6:30 p.m. (adults only) THU: Chappie, 6:30 p.m. (adults only) FRI: Home (3-D), 5:30 and 8:30 p.m. SAT: Seventh Son, 1:30, 4:30 and 7:30 p.m. SUN: Run All Night, 1:30, 4:30 and 7:30 p.m. (adults only) MON: Run All Night, 7 p.m. (adults only) TUE: Run All Night, 7 p.m. (adults only) WED: Kingsman: The Secret Service, 7 p.m. (adults only) THU: Kingsman: The Secret Service, 7 p.m. (adults only)

Casey

WED: Unfinished Business, 7 p.m. (adults only) FRI: Chappie, 6 p.m. (adults only); Get Hard, 8:30 p.m. (adults only) SAT: Home (3-D), 3:30 p.m.; Get Hard, 6 p.m. (adults only); The Divergent Series: Insurgent, 8 p.m. SUN: Get Hard, 6 p.m. (adults only); The Divergent Series: Insurgent, 8 p.m. MON: Seventh Son, 7 p.m.

Henry

THU: Focus, 7 p.m. (adults only) FRI: Get Hard, 7 p.m. (adults only) SAT: Home, 3 p.m.; Get Hard, 7 p.m. (adults only) SUN: Home, 3 p.m.; Get Hard, 7 p.m. (adults only)

Humphreys

WED: Spare Parts, 7 p.m. THU: The Divergent Series: Insurgent, 7 p.m. FRI: Get Hard, 6 and 9 p.m. (adults only) SAT: Home, 3:30 p.m.; Get Hard, 6 and 9 p.m. (adults only) SUN: Home, 3:30 p.m.; Get Hard, 6 and 9 p.m. (adults only) MON: Seventh Son, 7 p.m. TUE: Get Hard, 7 p.m. (adults only) WED: The Divergent Series: Insurgent, 7 p.m. THU: Kingsman: The Secret Service, 7 p.m. (adults only)

Kunsan

THU: Spare Parts, 6 p.m. FRI: Seventh Son (3-D), 6 p.m.; Get Hard, 8:30 p.m. (adults only) SAT: Get Hard, 4 and 6:30 p.m. (adults only) SUN: Home, 4 p.m.; Get Hard, 6:30 p.m. (adults only)

Osan

WED: Seventh Son (3-D), 3:30 p.m. THU: Kingsman: The Secret Service, 7 p.m. (adults only) FRI: Home, 7 p.m.; Get Hard, 9:30 p.m. (adults only) SAT: Home (3-D), 1 p.m.; Home, 3:30 p.m.; Get Hard, 6 and 8:30 p.m. (adults only) SUN: Home (3-D), 1 p.m.; Home, 3:30 p.m.; Get Hard, 6 and 8:30 p.m. (adults only) MON: Get Hard, 7 p.m. (adults only) TUE: Get Hard, 7 p.m. (adults only) WED: Get Hard, 7 p.m. (adults only) THU: Get Hard, 7 p.m. (adults only)

Carroll

FRI: Get Hard, 7 p.m. (adults only) SAT: Home, 3 p.m.; Get Hard, 7 p.m. (adults only) SUN: Home (3-D), 3 p.m.; Spare Parts, 7 p.m. MON: Get Hard, 7 p.m. (adults only)