EDITORIAL: Army Times calls on Fox to give 'Enlisted' better time slot

The Fox network’s new military comedy, “Enlisted,” appears to have hit its stride, but stagnant ratings after the show’s disappointing pilot episode threaten to torpedo its chances of being picked up for a second season.

That would be unfortunate. The show’s creators have demonstrated a sincere effort to normalize America’s view of its service members. In doing so, they’re forging a better, broader understanding of military life and its most challenging aspects, including difficult topics such as post-traumatic stress.

That’s all too rare in popular culture — which makes such endeavors all the more valuable.

“Enlisted” chronicles the goofball antics of three brothers assigned to a “rear D” unit at a fictional Army post in Florida. “M*A*S*H” it is not, though there is at least one important similarity between the two: Both suffered from a low-performing initial run. And things turned out OK for “M*A*S*H.”

Yes, the “Enlisted” pilot was poorly executed. But the show has come a very long way since then. The writers have doubled down on their commitment to accuracy and relevant jokes.

Frankly, it’s hard not to root for these TV troops.

Now it’s Fox’s turn to step up. “Enlisted” airs at a dreadful time: 9 p.m. Fridays. If the show is to survive, it must have better visibility. Fox can — and should — make that happen immediately.

One of world's remotest areas being swept for missing Malaysian jet

The U.S. Navy dispatched its most technologically advanced search aircraft to an empty quarter of the Indian Ocean on Thursday to look for two large pieces of debris that may provide the first physical evidence in the investigation of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370.

Experts were hopeful that the debris would not turn out to be another of the false leads and misinterpreted data that have dogged the investigation into why the Boeing 777 carrying 239 passengers and crew turned from its Beijing trajectory March 8 and then vanished.

Even if the floating objects photographed in the southern Indian Ocean on Sunday by a commercial satellite prove to be from the aircraft, the remainder could lie thousands of feet below the ocean surface and possibly hundreds of miles away.

“It is the beginning of a very long saga,” said David Gallo, who managed search expeditions for Air France Flight 447, which crashed into the Atlantic Ocean off Brazil in 2009. “The search teams are already physically and emotionally drained.”

Hishammuddin Hussein, Malaysia’s defense minister and chief government spokesman, said Friday that he remained cautious about the debris report, even as officials there were gearing up for a multinational operation to recover the plane’s black boxes, with lessons learned from the Air France recovery effort.

In the time since the debris was photographed, about 1,500 miles southwest of Perth, Australia, it could have drifted 70 miles, complicating efforts to get a closer look, experts said. Its drift from the impact area would be far greater, they added.

Although currents and winds in that part of the Indian Ocean are not considered particularly strong, predicting how a piece of debris can drift over many days is an inexact science. Calculating where the main body of wreckage may have settled after sinking several thousand feet could be even harder, oceanographers and accident investigators say.

Search aircraft spent very little time over the area Thursday before the mission had to be called off at nightfall. Expectations were not much greater for coming days. Even the most capable long-range aircraft, including the U.S. Navy’s P-8 Poseidon, would get only three hours to comb the area before having to return to a distant base in Perth.

“As oceans go, this is probably one of the most remote areas on the planet,” Gallo said. “It’s a long way from any place.”

The larger of the two photographed pieces was estimated to be 79 feet long, according to an analysis by the Australian navy. Only two parts of a 777 — the fuselage or a wing — are as extensive. Although a wing, empty of its fuel after a long flight, might float for a while, the fuselage probably would sink soon, experts said. A number of experts also cautioned that the debris could be nothing more than the normal junk that floats in much of the world’s oceans.

If the debris is verified, however, scientists will create computer models based on factors such as ocean currents and wind speed to predict where the impact zone and underwater debris field lie, said Gallo, director of special operations at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts.

Even the smallest detail about the floating objects, such as whether they might catch wind like a sail, can affect their movements, experts said.

“The ocean is full of surprises,” said Luca Centurioni, a researcher at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla. “The ocean could be moving in one direction, and the wind can make it go a different way.”

Centurioni said the ocean currents in the area move easterly at about half a mile per hour.

The area is known as the Mid-Indian Ridge, with water depths of 10,000 feet to 13,000 feet that create pressures so intense that retrieving debris would require the use of remotely controlled submersible research vessels.

In the meantime, navy aircraft will probably follow traditional search patterns, flying back and forth along rows, like mowing a lawn. Even at low altitude with radar and infrared sensors that detect variations in temperature, debris can be difficult to find, said Robert Ditchey, a commercial airline executive and former Navy pilot who flew a submarine-hunting P-3 Orion.

Even a whale breaching the surface may be invisible from an overhead search aircraft, depending on sunlight, water clarity and wave height, he said.

“Waves reflect radar and water alters the optical capability of infrared,” Ditchey said. “You can have something a few inches below the surface and you can’t see it.”

After they narrow their search area, investigators will lower listening devices and attempt to pick up signals from a device attached to the plane’s two black boxes. Battery life of the “pinger” devices is about 30 days.

Although it took searchers five days to find wreckage of the Air France flight, it took two years to retrieve its voice and data recorders from a depth of about 13,000 feet. Information they revealed help clarify the cause of that crash.

Experts remain hopeful that they will catch a similar break in the Malaysia Airlines mystery.

“This has been a roller coaster,” said Michael Barr, an accident investigation expert and former military pilot. “Everything has been unlucky so far, so maybe this time we will get lucky.”

US, Russia impose dueling travel bans; Obama opens door to energy sanctions

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration on Thursday sanctioned several top Russian politicians and key business oligarchs with ties to Vladimir Putin, raising the stakes in a blossoming international crisis and opening the door for targeting Russia’s vital energy sector.

Three days after targeting 11 of Putin’s ideological allies in response to his plans to annex the Crimean peninsula, the White House responded with a new executive order that delegated to the Treasury Department the ability to blacklist individuals and companies in Russia’s financial services, energy, metals and mining, engineering and defense sectors.

“In addition, we are today sanctioning a number of other individuals with substantial resources and influence who provide material support to the Russian leadership, as well as a bank that provides material support to these individuals,” President Barack Obama said in a statement to reporters.

The Treasury Department unveiled visa bans and a financial blacklisting of 16 high-profile political officials, four important business leaders and a Russian bank in St. Petersburg. They’d be denied entry to the United States or access to dollar transactions in the U.S. banking system. Any U.S. assets they might own will be frozen.

Significantly, the president’s executive order was broad enough to potentially target the heads of natural gas giant Gazprom and oil conglomerates Rosneft and Lukoil. Some of the sanctioned Thursday had close business relations with these state-affiliated energy companies. Russia and the United States are jockeying to be the world’s largest oil producer this year.

Putin responded Thursday with tit-for-tat sanctions of his own, banning travel to Russia for nine congressional leaders and critics, including three senior advisers to Obama.

“I guess this means my spring break in Siberia is off, Gazprom stock is lost & secret bank account in Moscow is frozen,” Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., one of the nine sanctioned, tweeted in glee.

Obama’s executive order allows actions against companies or persons found “to have materially assisted, sponsored, or provided financial, material, or technological support for, or goods or services to or in support of, any person whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to the order.”

That’s a legalistic way of warning away all sorts of companies that now do business, or are considering doing business, with the targeted oligarchs and the cited bank, Bank Rossiya. It potentially makes them financial pariahs and also puts the energy sector on notice.

For the sanctions to be effective, the Obama administration needs similar action from the European Union, whose member states all have companies operating in Russia and who collectively count Russia as their third largest trading partner after the United States and China. U.S. exporters of oilfield equipment and British banks also face potential retaliation from Russia.

The administration expected new European sanctions on Russia as early as Friday, the deadline Russia has given for Ukrainian military personnel in Crimea to withdraw or defect to Russian ranks.

The Ukrainian Parliament on Thursday passed a defiant resolution, saying the country would resist any further incursion by Russia.

But many lawmakers there also had accepted that Crimea, at least for now, was lost, and they waited to see how many, if any, Ukrainian soldiers would follow the government’s order to withdraw. Russia has told Ukrainian soldiers and sailors in Crimea that they are welcomed to join the Russian military, with a substantial increase in pay and pension benefits and a pledge that they can remain in Crimea. The deadline for accepting the offer is Friday.

Outside the Ukraine Parliament, about 50 Ukrainian navy and paratroop veterans rallied, urging that something be done to prevent the Russian land grab. But most knew that there was really nothing to be done, with Russia and its sympathizers in Crimea holding the numerical edge.

“We’re here because we are preparing for the worst,” said Vladimir Voloshyn, one of the veterans.

The highest-profile tycoon targeted by the White House on Thursday was Gennady Timchenko, co-owner of the private global commodity giant Gunvor, which boasts revenues in the range of $80 billion and owns oil refineries in Belgium and Germany.

“Timchenko’s activities in the energy sector have been directly linked to Putin,” the Treasury statement said. “Putin has investments in Gunvor and may have access to Gunvor funds.”

Holding dual Russian-Finnish citizenship, Timchenko lives in Geneva and has long been rumored to have cashed in on ties to Putin.

“He’s one of the five biggest commodity traders in the world. This is really making their business impossible,” said Anders Aslund, a Russia expert and senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. “You can’t be a big commodity trader without dealing with the U.S. and U.S. companies.”

Brothers Arkady and Boris Rotenberg were also targeted by Treasury. They’ve grown rich under Putin, enjoying lucrative contracts with Gazprom, the agency said, and during the recently concluded Winter Olympics in Sochi. Boris Rotenberg is known to ordinary Russians as a judo partner of the oft bare-chested Russian president.

Thursday’s move by Obama “clearly upped the ante because he’s gone after people who are much closer to President Putin, and they are much more likely to have major holdings in Western banks,” said Will Pomeranz, deputy director of the Kennan Institute for Advanced Russian Studies at the Woodrow Wilson Center, a think tank. “Clearly that is an important step.”

Yuri Kovalchuk, who the administration said was a personal banker to senior Russian officials and is the largest single shareholder in Bank Rossiya, Russia’s 17th largest bank, was also targeted.

Political figures sanctioned included Sergei Naryshkin, chairman of the Duma, Russia’s parliament; Igor Sergun, head of Russia’s military intelligence service; Sergei Ivanov, chief of staff of Russia’s presidential executive office; and Vladimir Yakunin, chairman of Russia’s state-owned railways.

In response, Russia on Thursday placed travel bans and financial sanctions on House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and several other lawmakers. The Russian sanctions also prevent two top national security advisers and Dan Pfeiffer, a senior White House adviser, from traveling in Russia.

That effectively slams the door on U.S. involvement in a G-8 summit of industrialized nations that had been planned for June in Russia. German Chancellor Angela Merkel told her parliament Thursday that the G-8 process has ceased to exist for now and raised prospects for expelling Russia.

The seven members, minus Russia, will meet in The Hague next week to discuss further responses to Russia’s aggressive stance against Ukraine and its ongoing annexation of Crimea.

Lesley Clark and Hannah Allam contributed from Washington, Matthew Schofield contributed from Kiev.

Naval Academy midshipman found not guilty of sexual assault

WASHINGTON — A former Navy football player was found not guilty Thursday of sexually assaulting a fellow midshipman at an off-campus party in Annapolis, Md., two years ago in a case that has drawn national scrutiny to the elite training ground for future officers of the Navy and Marine Corps.

Allegations that Midshipman Joshua Tate and two teammates had sexual contact with the woman while she was too intoxicated to consent have helped fuel the debate over the prosecution of sexual assaults in the military. Her experience at a preliminary hearing last summer, during which she was called to testify for more than 20 hours over several days, led Congress to change the rules for such proceedings.

Advocates for further changes said the verdict Thursday showed that commanders are incapable of prosecuting sexual assaults and an attorney for Tate agreed that the system is “broken.”

In another closely watched case Thursday, an Army general who had been investigated for an alleged sexual assault was reprimanded and fined for mistreating a subordinate with whom he had an adulterous affair.

In the Naval Academy case, Tate, a junior from Nashville, Tenn., could have been sentenced to 30 years in a military prison if convicted of sexual assault. Marine Corps Col. Daniel Daugherty, who presided over the three-day court-martial at the Washington Navy Yard, found Tate not guilty on that charge, but referred three counts accusing the midshipman of having made false statements back to Vice Adm. Michael H. Miller, the academy superintendent.

Miller declined to pursue those charges in exchange for Tate’s resignation from the academy. An academy spokesman said late Thursday that Tate was in the process of withdrawing.

Tate, who left the courtroom smiling with supporters, did not speak publicly after the verdict. An attorney for Tate said the case against his client was weak, but effectively ended his military career.

“It’s a shame he had to go through this,” attorney Jason Ehrenberg said outside the courtroom.

The alleged victim, now a senior at the academy, was not in the courtroom when Daugherty read the verdict.

The woman testified this week that she drank heavily before and during the April 2012 party at the so-called football house in Annapolis. She said she did not remember having sex with Tate in a car parked outside, but learned of it through academy rumors and comments on social media.

When she confronted Tate, she testified, he confirmed that they had had sex.

Prosecutors argued that she was too drunk to give consent. After the verdict, an attorney for the woman said his client was “beyond disappointed.”

She “is appalled by the lack of accountability,” Ryan Guilds said. “Fundamentally, this case is the result of a flawed military system.”

The Baltimore Sun does not identify alleged victims of sexual assault.

The allegations became public last year amid growing scrutiny of commanders’ efforts to confront the long-standing problem of sexual assault within the ranks. President Barack Obama raised the subject during his graduation address at the academy last spring, saying that sexual assault has “no place in the greatest military on Earth.”

The Pentagon, using confidential surveys, estimated last year that up to 26,000 service members had suffered unwanted sexual contact during the previous 12 months. But only 3,374 assaults were reported, and only 594 suspects were sent to courts-martial.

Critics say the way to improve those numbers is to take prosecutions out of the chain of command — taking the authority to order a court-martial away from military commanders, who might have conflicts of interest when weighing allegations between subordinates, and giving it to trained lawyers.

Military leaders and their allies in Congress oppose such a change. They say a commander’s authority to refer troops for court-martial is an essential tool for maintaining order and discipline — and for holding officers accountable for their units.

Rep. Jackie Speier, who has championed legislation to overhaul the military justice system, said the verdict in the Naval Academy case showed that “the military cannot competently investigate and prosecute serious crimes.”

“This case was botched from the beginning by an incompetent investigation overseen by a commander that never wanted to bring these charges forward,” the California Democrat said. “The military justice system is broken as long as legal decisions are left up to commanders with no legal expertise and a bias to protect the assailant.”

Ehrenberg said he agrees with “those on Capitol Hill who say the system is broken.”

“But it’s broken in many directions,” he said. He said the prosecution of Tate was motivated more by political pressure than by the evidence.

“Don’t use my client to advocate for your cause when you don’t have a case,” he said.

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, another lawmaker who has pushed to take prosecutions out of the chain of command, said the academy case showed “a military justice system in dire need of independence.”

“When survivors and defense attorneys both agree we need to reform the system — it should tell us the system needs reform,” the New York Democrat said.

Critics also condemned the sentence handed Thursday to Brig. Gen. Jeffrey A. Sinclair.

A veteran of more than 27 years and five combat tours, Sinclair was accused of threatening to kill an Army captain and her family if she exposed their three-year affair, forcing her to perform oral sex, and engaging in “open and notorious” sex in a parked car and on a hotel balcony.

If convicted of the most serious charges, he could have been sentenced to life in prison and would have had to register as a sex offender. In a deal with prosecutors, he pleaded guilty to improper relationships with two female Army officers, violating orders and conduct unbecoming an officer. He received a reprimand and was fined $20,000. He will be allowed to retire and receive a pension.

Nancy Parrish, president of the advocacy group Protect Our Defenders, said the sentence “sends one more chilling message to victims that are thinking about coming forward.”

“It provides a clear example of why nine out of 10 sexual assault victims never report their attacks,” she said. “The military’s promises of ‘zero tolerance’ for sexual offenses continues to ring hollow as yet another high-ranking official is let off the hook.”

In the Naval Academy case, Daugherty said he was unable to determine from the evidence whether the woman was too intoxicated to consent to sex or if she was so traumatized by “rude, disgusting and vulgar” social media postings that her recollection of the events was colored.

Daugherty said that amounted to reasonable doubt that prevented a conviction.

He said the case presented difficult questions such as “how drunk is too drunk” to consent, and whether one person can tell when another has crossed that threshold.

Daugherty said the investigation by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service was hampered by the unwillingness of the alleged victim to cooperate and by lies told by midshipmen who were interviewed.

In testimony this week, the woman acknowledged that she had initially urged Tate to lie to investigators. But after an encounter with a sexual assault victim, she said, she had a change of heart. She said she decided to pursue charges in part to find out what happened.

Baltimore attorney Susan Burke, who has represented the woman, said the midshipman had “done her patriotic duty.”

“Her courage has led to the reform of the Article 32 process,” said Burke, who has represented hundreds of service members in sexual assault claims against the military. “That’s a pivotal piece of getting this broken system fixed.”

The Article 32 hearing, sometimes compared to a civilian grand jury, is used by the military to investigate charges and help commanders determine whether to refer a suspect for court-martial.

After the woman in the Naval Academy case was subjected to a broad range of questions by three defense teams over five days, Speier introduced a bill to change the rules.

Her legislation limits the scope of the proceeding to determining probable cause and allows alleged victims to decline to testify. Congress approved the measure in December.

With the verdict Thursday, the Navy failed to secure a conviction against any of the three former football players who were initially investigated in the alleged assault.

Miller declined to pursue charges against Midshipman Tra’ves Bush after a preliminary hearing last year. Bush has since graduated and been commissioned as an ensign in the Navy.

Midshipman Eric Graham was charged with abusive sexual contact and making false statements, but the case was dropped when statements he made to NCIS investigators were deemed inadmissible in court. His case was sent back to the academy’s conduct system and an academy spokesman declined to comment on the outcome, citing student privacy laws.

Graham’s attorney, Ronald “Chip” Herrington, said his client has agreed to withdraw from the academy as a result of the case. He is hoping for an honorable discharge and to not be required to pay back the cost of his education.

The cost of a full academy education is $186,000, but midshipmen who leave early might not be required to repay the full amount, said Cmdr. John Schofield, an academy spokesman.

Graham’s departure from the academy was held up while he testified in Tate’s case under a grant of immunity from prosecutors, Herrington said.

It will be up to an assistant secretary of the Navy to decide whether Tate must repay the cost of his education. Midshipmen attend the Naval Academy free of charge in exchange for five years of service in the military after graduation.

David Zucchino of the Los Angeles Times contributed to this article.

Navy: Radar hits on P-8A Poseidon in MH370 search were 'routine'

Navy officials downplayed reports of significant radar hits on board the P-8A Poseidon searching for a missing Malaysian passenger jet and said comments from Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott about possible debris being found in the southern Indian Ocean were just a coincidence.

Cmdr. William Marks, a spokesman for the Navy’s 7th Fleet, said the Poseidon has not had “any indication of debris from the MH370 wreckage.” Thursday’s reports, from an ABC News correspondent on board the submarine-hunting patrol aircraft, described “typical radar returns that the air crews sees on a routine basis.”

“We are working closely in support of the Australian led effort in this sector,” Marks said.

Navy officials said the Poseidon would fly approximately 1,400 nautical miles Friday from Perth, Australia, to search for possible debris as coordinated by the Australian-led efforts in one of the remotest parts of the world.

The Poseidon arrived in Perth late Tuesday night after the Malaysian government shifted west in the search that began almost two weeks ago in the South China Sea, then was expanded to a broad swath covering 2.24 million square nautical miles from the southern Indian Ocean north to Kazakhstan.

The Navy’s other asset in the multinational search is the P-3C Orion, a Cold War-era anti-submarine patrol aircraft using radar, infrared and night-vision cameras. It has focused south near the Cocos Islands but will undergo routine maintenance Friday in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Marks recently told The Associated Press that finding the plane was like trying to locate a few people somewhere between New York and California.

“The search has expanded to the southern portions of the Indian Ocean, and the P-8A has the range required to reach those waters,” said Lt. Clayton Hunt, the search-and-rescue detachment mission commander. “We will be most effective operating out of Perth.”

Touted as the world’s most advanced long-range anti-submarine and anti-surface warfare aircraft, the Poseidon can search on and under water simultaneously.

Built from a Boeing 737 airframe, the Poseidon has a maximum speed about 565 mph, can fly up to 41,000 feet and can cover more than 1,200 nautical miles in a four-hour shift, according to Marks.

For the MH370 search, Navy officials said the Poseidon will fly at 5,000 feet between 280 and 300 mph for about eight or nine hours, dipping as low as 1,000 feet for visual inspections.

The Poseidon arrived in Kuala Lumpur last weekend to assist the Navy’s P-3C Orion already on station in the search efforts. The two patrol aircraft can search as much as 15,000 square miles combined in nine hours.

The Malaysian jet disappeared early March 8 with 239 people aboard en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. The United States is among 26 countries aiding in the search.

The destroyer USS Kidd was pulled from the search effort Monday “for follow-on operational tasking as they were when the search operation started,” Navy officials announced, bringing with it two MH-60R Seahawk helicopters. Late last week, the Navy redirected its first ship on scene, USS Pinckney, to sail to Singapore for pre-scheduled maintenance but hasn’t ruled out its return to the search area.

kimber.james@stripes.com

Twitter: @james_kimber

Pastor Fred Phelps Sr., founder of Westboro Baptist Church, dies at 84

Fred Phelps, a publicity-hungry Kansas pastor who picketed hundreds of military funerals because he believed America was too sympathetic to gays, died early Thursday in Topeka, Kan. He was 84.

His daughter, Margie Phelps, confirmed his death to the Associated Press but did not give the cause.

With his small Topeka congregation, Phelps also demonstrated at funerals and memorials for Frank Sinatra, Michael Jackson, former Mormon leader Gordon B. Hinckley and heavy metal singer Ronnie James Dio -- any observance, regardless of any connection to gay issues, where cameras might be rolling.

Convinced that the deaths of U.S. soldiers were divine retribution for the nation's increasing acceptance of homosexuality, Phelps and his followers carried signs like: "Thank God for Dead Soldiers" and "God Hates the USA/Thank God for 9/11." A disbarred attorney, Phelps and his Westboro Baptist Church were sued numerous times but won a landmark freedom of speech case in the U.S. Supreme Court.

Despite its name, his church is unaffiliated with any denomination. Its Web address, more reflective of its founder's theology, contains an anti-gay slur. The congregation is heavily composed of his relatives, including many of his 13 children and 54 grandchildren.

Two of his estranged sons, Nate and Mark, have said that Phelps' clan "excommunicated" him last year. The church declined to comment.

Phelps came to national attention in 1998 leading anti-gay pickets at the Casper, Wyo., funeral of Matthew Shepard, a gay 21-year-old who had been lashed to a fence post and beaten to death. Five years after the funeral, Phelps returned to Casper with plans to erect a granite monument inscribed: "Matthew Shepard Entered Hell Oct. 12, 1998."

Phelps was denounced by many conservative Christian leaders, including the Rev. Jerry Falwell, who called him a "hatemonger" and "emotionally unbalanced."

Phelps jubilantly acknowledged spreading the message of hate.

"He's saying I preach hate? You can't preach the Bible without preaching hate!" Phelps told The Times in 1999.

"Looky here, the hatred of God is an attribute of the Almighty," he said. "It means he's determined to punish the wicked for their sins!"

An attorney for many years, Phelps handled civil rights cases in Kansas and elsewhere in the Midwest. In Topeka, he worked on behalf of black students claiming school discrimination and black bar patrons who accused police of abusive tactics during a 1979 drug raid. In 1987, he was honored by the Bonner Springs, Kan., branch of the NAACP for his "steely determination for justice during his tenure as a civil rights attorney."

Privately, however, he was intensely prejudiced against African Americans, his estranged son Nate Phelps told the Telegraph, a British newspaper, in 2013. When Coretta Scott King died in 2006, Phelps picketed her funeral, condemning civil rights leaders for "giving away the movement" to homosexuals.

Phelps' funeral protests were intensely contested in court. In 2006, Phelps and six of his followers picketed a funeral for Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder, a Marine killed in Iraq. Considering the case in 2011, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that such demonstrations, no matter how odious, were legal as long as protesters obeyed state and local laws setting a minimum distance between themselves and mourners.

In his dissenting opinion, Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. wrote that the nation's commitment to free speech is not a license for "vicious verbal assault."

Eleven of Phelps' children are said to be attorneys, including Margie Phelps, who represented the church before the Supreme Court.

Born in Meridian, Miss., on Nov. 13, 1929, Phelps was the son of a railroad detective. An Eagle Scout, he was bound for the U.S. Military Academy at West Point when he attended a revival meeting and felt a calling to preach. In 1947, he was ordained a Southern Baptist minister.

He graduated from John Muir College in Pasadena, a forerunner of Pasadena City College, where he led a 1951 campaign against "promiscuous petting" and "evil language." He also attended Arizona Bible Institute, where he met his wife, Margie Simms, whom he married in 1952.

In 1964, he received a law degree from Washburn University in Topeka. He was disbarred by Kansas in 1979 after suing a court reporter, bullying her on the witness stand and calling her a "slut." Ten years later, after federal judges complained that he had made false accusations against them, he agreed to stop practicing in federal courts.

For Phelps and his followers, public condemnation by powerful opponents was a healthy sign; it proved that the voices of Westboro Baptist Church were the only righteous ones in a world clamoring with sinners.

When the BBC released a 2007 documentary about the Phelps clan called "The Most Hated Family in America," Fred's daughter Shirley saw only one failing, according to the Telegraph: "She wished it had been called 'The Most Hated Family in the World.' "

Veterans learn organic farming in Pa. program

With his burly physique and woolly beard, Brandon Barnhart looks every inch the laid-back country kid from tiny West College Corner, Ind.

But don’t be fooled. This guy is driven.

After eight years in the Air Force working on nuclear cruise missiles, Barnhart returned to civilian life in 2010 and immediately re-enrolled at Indiana University to finish his undergraduate degree in general studies and history.

And while he grew up around conventionally grown sweet corn, soybeans and hay on his family’s farm, he intends to do things his way — as an organic farmer.

“I enjoy the idea of working with nature as opposed to against it, of producing my own food, and leaving the environment better than I found it,” says Barnhart, now a student in the Veteran Organic Farming Program, an unusual partnership between Delaware Valley College in Doylestown, Pa., and the Rodale Institute in Kutztown, a little more than an hour away.

Come May, Barnhart, 30, will have three semesters and 36 credits of classroom work and hands-on experience under his belt, as well as an academic certificate and a business plan to launch his new career back home, where he has purchased a three-acre farm.

“There’s a lot of organic stuff on the East Coast and the West Coast, but in the Midwest, it’s still pretty new,” he explains, while watering tiny seedlings of lettuce, beets, chard and Asian greens inside a 68-degree greenhouse at the college.

There are two other vets in the program, which started in the spring and is now open to nonveterans. Thanks to GI Bill benefits and Delaware Valley, which offers stipends for books and housing, the veterans pay nothing.

The program may be unique in the country, according to Jeff Macloud, chief operations officer of the Farmer Veteran Coalition, a nonprofit in Davis, Calif., that promotes partnerships between veterans and farmers nationwide.

“There are plenty of programs that are inviting veterans to join, but the vast majority are not certificate- or degree- or credit-granting,” says Macloud, a retired Air Force colonel who served in Iraq.

The Pennsylvania program was the brainchild of Mark Smallwood, Rodale’s executive director, who met coalition representatives three years ago at a trade show in Wisconsin.

“I basically said, ‘I don’t know what we’re going to do to help our vets, but we’re going to figure it out and get involved,’ ” recalls Smallwood, a longtime organic farmer known as “Coach” for his 20-year career as a teacher and basketball coach in Ohio and Connecticut.

Smallwood notes that the Delaware Valley-Rodale partnership doesn’t work only for veterans. American farmers, who average 57 years old, and consumers, whom the Organic Trade Association estimates bought $31.5 billion worth of organic food in 2012, will benefit, too.

Students in the Veteran Organic Farming Program take courses such as soil biology, animal science, integrated pest management, principles of sustainable agriculture and commercial vegetable production. They also participate in three practicums at Rodale’s 333-acre organic farm, which has grain crops, an orchard, greenhouses, and heritage-breed hogs, goats, cows and oxen.

Jacqueline Ricotta, associate professor of horticulture and the program’s primary instructor, describes the vets this way: “They have a certain maturity, a calm. They’re able to listen intently and absorb what they’re being taught.”

Ricotta also makes the case that farming and the military have a natural affinity.

“Farming can be unpredictable. You’re dealing with nature. It’s basically out of your control,” she says. “It’s similar to the military, where you’re just following orders.”

And while farming can be stressful, working with plants has been proven to be therapeutic, something that strongly appeals to Ricotta’s student veterans.

“I needed to change careers for my sanity and my health,” says Ian Woods, 48, a Coast Guard veteran with 23 years of emergency management experience with oil spills and other disasters.

“The culture we’re in ... everything’s an emergency. You can’t catch a break. This is it,” he says, smiling and pointing to the raised beds in Delaware Valley’s greenhouse.

After finishing the program, Woods plans to segue into the college’s four-year degree program in horticulture and environmental science. Then he wants to own an organic herb farm.

Kyle Maio, 28, a Doylestown native and Marine veteran is the newest enrollee in the program. He has grown vegetables organically for a long time, and after leaving Delaware Valley, he wants to share his experience with — and take the organic gospel to — the public.

“I want to teach people to be self-sufficient,” he says.

The vets have a role model in Dennis Riling, 31, another Marine veteran who was a satellite communications operator in Fallujah. “I was there when we took the city back. It was not pretty,” he recalls.

Homecoming, too, was difficult. Riling was dealing with the psychological aftermath of his Iraq tour and, because of the recession, had trouble finding a good job.

He worked as a janitor. He delivered pizza. He and his wife sold their furniture to pay bills. Finally, he went to work at a community-supported agriculture site that paid him in fresh produce.

“A grocery store is not going to let you stock shelves for food, but a farmer can. That’s what really turned me on to agriculture,” says Riling, a 2012 Delaware Valley graduate who owns two hydroponic gardening businesses in Doylestown: Veg-e Systems and Doylestown Fresh.

He got the farm program off the ground and now serves as mentor and inspiration to his fellow veterans.

“These guys are real serious,” he says. “They’ve made a commitment.”

Virginia A. Smith writes for the Philadelphia Inquirer.