In reversal, DOD to exhume USS Oklahoma unknowns

The Department of Defense announced Tuesday that the remains of an estimated 388 sailors and Marines buried in a Honolulu cemetery as unknowns will be exhumed and identified by the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency’s lab in Hawaii.

The sailors and Marines died on the USS Oklahoma during the Japanese surprise attack on Oahu on Dec. 7, 1941, but the commingled remains were unidentifiable at the time and buried in numerous caskets.

The disinterment process at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific — also called the Punchbowl cemetery — is expected to begin in three to six weeks, said DPAA spokesperson Lt. Col. Melinda Morgan.

The DOD has required that the identifications be made within five years of exhumation, she said.

The move to exhume the Oklahoma remains is somewhat of an about-face for the DOD, which last year sent a letter to family members saying that the Navy opposed disinterment and advocated reburying the remains that were as yet unidentified.

The task is the first major undertaking by the newly formed DPAA. Former Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel last year ordered the merger of several MIA accounting agencies into a new single entity after an Inspector General’s report described mismanagement and waste.

At the same time Tuesday, Deputy Secretary of Defense Robert Work announced a “broader” DOD disinterment policy that will apply to all unidentified human remains from the Punchbowl cemetery and other U.S. military cemeteries.

The new policy calls for the following thresholds to be met before proceeding with disinterment:

• In cases where remains are commingled, research must indicate that at least 60 percent of the servicemembers associated with the group can be individually identified.


• For individual unknowns, at least a 50-percent likelihood of making an identification must be determined before disinterment.

The new policy calls for the DOD to meet those thresholds by conducting the necessary research to determine the list of possible missing servicemembers who could be among the unknowns, collecting family DNA for comparison to the remains, obtaining servicemembers’ medical and dental records, and possessing and using “the scientific and technological ability and capacity to identify the personnel in a timely manner.”

The DPAA will coordinate the Oklahoma disinterments with the Department of Veterans Affairs, which administers the Punchbowl, where 2,760 unknown servicemembers are buried. Of that number, 1,988 unknowns are from World War II and 772 are from the Korean War.

Just more than 1,000 of the World War II unknowns are associated with ship losses and were buried commingled in groups of caskets, Work said in the policy memo.

The 388 USS Oklahoma unknowns are buried in 61 caskets at 45 grave sites, Work said.

Several attempts have been made to identify at least some of the Oklahoma unknowns in the Punchbowl, during which 35 of them were identified, according to a DOD statement released Tuesday.

The remains were originally buried in Nuuanu and Halawa cemeteries in Hawaii but were disinterred in 1947 for attempted identification. Twenty-seven remains were proposed for identification based on dental records but ultimately remained unidentified.

By 1950, all Oklahoma unknowns were re-interred at the Punchbowl cemetery.

Based on historical evidence provided by Ray Emory, a Pearl Harbor survivor, in 2003, the DOD laboratory in Hawaii disinterred one casket containing Oklahoma remains, which helped establish the identification of five servicemembers, the DOD statement said.

That casket held the remains of possibly up to 100 other men, none of whom have been identified at this point.

During the past 12 years, the DOD has contacted family members, collecting and analyzing DNA from 84 percent of applicable USS Oklahoma family members, Work said in the policy memo. The DOD has collected 90 percent of medical and dental records from the ship’s crew.

“Analysis of all available evidence indicates that most Oklahoma crew members could be identified individually if the caskets associated with the ship were disinterred,” Work said.

“I make this decision knowing that not all families will receive an individual identification as a result of these efforts,” Work said. “But I accept as a matter of principle that DOD must strive to provide resolution through individual identification to as many families as possible and to the reasonable limits of our scientific abilities.”

olson.wyatt@stripes.com

Twitter: @WyattWOlson

Afghan military prepares for major counterinsurgency operation in north

KABUL, Afghanistan — Afghanistan’s top military leaders are poised to launch a major counterinsurgency operation in the country’s north, days after Taliban and other affiliated insurgent groups mounted a series of attacks on security forces in the region.

Acting Defense Minister Sher Mohammed Karimi told Afghan lawmakers on Tuesday that government forces were making plans to retake Afghan army and police outposts in Badakhshan province, in northeastern Afghanistan, from the guerrillas.

Karimi did not provide details on the coming operation to lawmakers, who demanded Kabul’s military leaders take quick action against insurgents responsible for the attacks.

Nearly 250 Taliban and other fighters descended on several army and police positions in Badakhshan on Friday, Defense Ministry officials said. They carried out a string of coordinated attacks in Jurm and Warduj districts in Badakhshan, focusing on the Afghan army’s base in Jurm district.

More than 30 Afghan soldiers were killed, wounded or went missing in the attacks, officials say. However, eyewitness accounts put the number of army wounded or dead closer to 70.

Several Afghan police outposts in Warduj district remained surrounded by insurgent forces on Tuesday, completely cut off from security reinforcements in the area, said Fawzia Kofi, a lawmaker from Badakhshan.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid claimed Monday the group had captured a large number of weapons, ammunition and military vehicles from the army and police stations in Badakhshan.

The security forces are already carrying out smaller operations across Badakhshan to reclaim lost ground, Deputy Defense Ministry spokesman Gen. Dawlat Waziri said Tuesday.

“But we are thinking of a general operation in Jurm and our forces are busy with planning it,” he said, regarding the upcoming operation in Badakhshan. The operation will be coordinated from Kabul and involve army, police and intelligence units based in the north.

The insurgent attacks in the north, regarded as one of Afghanistan’s more secure regions, mark the opening salvos of what promises to be an intense fighting season across the country.

Analysts say problems within the government’s national security apparatus could leave Afghan forces unprepared for increased insurgent activity.

The failure by President Ashraf Ghani’s administration to name a permanent defense minister has created turmoil among the Afghan military’s leadership, Karimi told lawmakers on Tuesday.

That, combined with the shrinking role of U.S. and coalition forces in the country, has caused serious capability gaps in the government’s security forces that Taliban and other groups will use to their advantage, analysts said.

“Sooner or later there will be more attacks targeting people in Badakhshan,” Fawzia told Stars and Stripes on Tuesday. “The Taliban know these weaknesses and will take advantage of them” as the fighting season progresses.

Reports of the growing influence of the Islamic State group in northern Afghanistan only highlight those concerns.

Local news reports from Jurm claim that Islamic State fighters accompanied Taliban units during the assaults on Afghan military and police outposts, with eyewitnesses claiming insurgent fighters raised the Islamic State’s black flag over the ANA compound in Jurm after taking it from government forces.

Certain areas in Jurm and Warduj have already shifted loyalties to Taliban, Islamic State and other insurgent groups in the wake of the attacks, Karimi told Afghan parliamentarians Tuesday.

Kofi said sympathy toward the Taliban in some parts of Badakhshan province are driven more by a lack of faith in government forces than a desire for Taliban control.

“The people are just afraid [because] there is no alternative ... as soon as Taliban or [The Islamic State] come to their home,” she said. She added that “[things] will only get worse” in northern Afghanistan as the fighting season starts to heat up in the coming months.

Zubair Babakarkhail contributed to this report.

munoz.carlo@stripes.com

Twitter: @NatSecCarlo

Notebook of WWII codebreaker Alan Turing sells for $1M at auction

NEW YORK — A handwritten notebook by British World War II code-breaking genius Alan Turing, who was the subject of the 2014 Oscar-winning film "The Imitation Game," brought more than $1 million at auction on Monday.

The 56-page manuscript was written at the time the mathematician and computer science pioneer was working to break the seemingly unbreakable Enigma codes used by the Germans throughout the war. It contains his complex mathematical and computer science notations and is thought to be the only extensive Turing manuscript known to exist, Bonhams auction house said.

The sale price was $1,025,000.

"The Imitation Game," starring Benedict Cumberbatch in the role of Turing, won Best Adapted Screenplay at this year's Academy Awards.

Turing's notebook dates from 1942, when he and his team of cryptanalysts were at Britain's World War II code and cypher school Bletchley Park. In one entry, Turing wrote about a complex calculus notation.

"The Leibniz notation I find extremely difficult to understand in spite of it having been the one I understood the best once!" he wrote. "It certainly implies that some relation between x and y has been laid down eg, y=x2+3x."

The sale also included a working German Enigma enciphering machine. The three-rotor device, manufactured for the German military in July 1944, sold for $269,000.

Turing was prosecuted for being gay at a time when it was illegal in Britain. He was convicted of indecency in 1952 and agreed to undergo hormone treatment in a bid to eliminate his homosexuality as an alternative to imprisonment.

He died in 1954 of cyanide poisoning. His death was ruled a suicide although his family and friends believed it might have been accidental. The notebook was among the papers he left in his will to friend and fellow mathematician Robin Gandy.

Gandy gave the papers to The Archive Centre at King's College in Cambridge in 1977. But he kept the notebook, using its blank pages for writing down his dreams at the request of his psychiatrist.

The notebook remained in Gandy's possession until he died in 1995, and Bonhams describes his entries as highly personal.

At the beginning of his journal, Gandy writes: "It seems a suitable disguise to write in between these notes of Alan's on notation, but possibly a little sinister; a dead father figure, some of whose thoughts I most completely inherited."

Turing scholar Andrew Hodges, in a statement through Bonhams, said the notebook sheds more light on how Turing "remained committed to free-thinking work in pure mathematics."

"The Imitation Game," which also stars Keira Knightley, is based on Hodges' book "Alan Turing: The Enigma."

Bonhams said the buyer wished to remain anonymous. Part of the proceeds will be donated to charity.

Veteran killed in officer shooting, but not missing vet with same name

SUNNYVALE (Tribune News Service) —The man shot and killed by police after allegedly wielding a knife during a liquor-store robbery last week was an Army veteran reportedly dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder, authorities said.

But the suspect Joseph Jeremy Weber, 28, is not to be confused with missing Joseph George Weber IV -- also 28, also a 2004 alum of Fremont High School, and also an Army vet reportedly battling PTSD -- who disappeared last fall.

Both Joseph Webers knew of the other while attending Fremont, but otherwise had no significant overlap besides the occasional confusing of the two.

It was strong enough that when Weber the suspect was seen at the VA Palo Alto Health Care System about three weeks ago, Sunnyvale police contacted the family of Weber the missing person -- who also visited the same VA hospital -- to let them know it wasn't their son. They made a similar call Wednesday after the fatal afternoon shooting in an alleyway off Tasman Drive.

That's where police say the suspect moved toward Officer Benjamin Kroutil while holding a knife, prompting the 13-year police veteran to open fire, striking and wounding him. Joseph Jeremy Weber later died at the hospital.

The confrontation was preceded by a 911 call around 11 a.m. reporting a robbery where he allegedly took a pack of cigarettes a knifepoint from a clerk at Grewalz Liquor & Groceries at 1125 Tasman Drive. Kroutil was the first officer on scene, and confronted the suspect in the alley.

Police radio recordings recount the officer reporting to dispatchers that the suspect was about 50 feet away from him and refusing to drop the knife. Moments later, the officers reported shots were fired and the suspect was down.

Both the Sunnyvale Department of Public Safety and Kroutil's attorney contend the suspect closed the distance during the gap in transmissions.

"Even when (the suspect) was advancing, Officer Kroutil was still giving commands," attorney Zachery Lopes said. "The suspect was within range to inflict death or great bodily injury. There's no question."

Sunnyvale Capt. Jeffrey Hunter said investigators collected several cellphone videos recorded by witnesses, including at least one that reportedly captured the entire encounter, which Hunter said corroborates the police version of events. The department says the video has been shared with prosecutors, but that there are no plans for public release.

Kroutil was placed on paid administrative leave, which is routine in all officer-involved shootings.

In the wake of the shooting, court records surfaced of a 2012 federal civil suit that named Kroutil as one of several defendants in a 2011 encounter in Modesto when Kroutil was an officer in that city. According to the lawsuit, a Modesto woman alleged her civil rights were violated by the officers when they tried to enforce a car repossession with what she claimed were heavy-handed tactics like drawing their weapons and threatening her family and pets. The suit was dismissed after the city reached a $120,000 settlement with the plaintiff.

Lopes said the suit amounts to an assembly of claims that were never proven in court.

"That lawsuit is simply allegations," he said. "I don't think that any bearing on Ben's actions."

Joseph George Weber III, the father of the missing veteran, took to his family's social-media and web pages to tell supporters that his son was not the one killed by police and is still not accounted for.

The elder Weber said his family has come to grips with the likelihood that his son, is dead since there has been no sighting or trace of him detected since disappeared Nov. 24. Joseph George Weber IV was a military police officer in the Army, serving two tours in Iraq starting in 2007. Family members believe he had PTSD, one of the signature ailments for service members in the post-9/11 era, and may have been suicidal.

He was last seen, on surveillance video, walking in the area of the Golden Gate Bridge. His family said he was having marital struggles and had been suffering headaches for which he sought treatment at a VA facility on the Peninsula. PTSD often exhibits itself following physical harm or after seeing others endure harm. Veterans exposed to combat are at high risk and symptoms often are linked to traumatic brain injury. It can be accompanied by depression, other anxiety disorders and substance abuse.

His family keeps vigil on him, on the outer edge of hope, even as all avenues to find him appear exhausted.

"We're a family suffering from an ambiguous loss," the father said.

Much less is known about Joseph Jeremy Weber, who a VA official said visited the same facilities as his like-named high-school classmate, and what led him to the fateful encounter last week that ended with his death. Attempts to reach friends and relatives were unsuccessful Monday.

Staff writer Mark Emmons contributed to this report.

———

©2015 the San Jose Mercury News (San Jose, Calif.)

Visit the San Jose Mercury News (San Jose, Calif.) at www.mercurynews.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC

US vets return to Mideast to battle past and present demons

BAGHDAD (AP) — A decade after his first Iraq tour, former U.S. Marine Jamie Lane has returned to the battlefields of the Middle East to fight a still unvanquished enemy and wrestle with the demons of his past.

The 29-year old from Mt. Pleasant, Mich., served as a machine gunner from 2004 to 2008, mainly in western Anbar province, where he saw fierce fighting against al-Qaida in Iraq. Now, as a private citizen suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, he is back in the region to battle its successor, the Islamic State group.

"In order to aid my recovery from PTSD, I have taken it upon myself to fight on my terms, against an enemy I know is evil," said Lane, who joined Kurdish militiamen in Syria. "It is redemption, in a sense."

He is one of a small but growing number of Iraq War veterans who are making their way back to the Middle East, not as uniformed soldiers, but as individuals waging their own personal battles.

Many describe feeling a sense of unfinished business as they watched the Islamic State group rampage across the country last summer, seizing territory they had fought and bled for during the U.S.-led intervention. Some express remorse for taking part in that war, while others say they are driven by the same sense of moral obligation that brought them here in the first place, joining their fate to that of a deeply troubled country.

Scott Curley, another U.S veteran of the Iraq War, returned to join the Kurdish peshmerga fighters after Islamic State militants in Syria beheaded Peter Kassig, a former U.S. Army Ranger who had returned to the region to provide humanitarian aid to Syrian civilians.

"I'm just a man with a gun, but whatever little difference I can do," he said. 'There weren't many Western volunteers (with the peshmerga), so I figured I could help here."

A U.S.-led air campaign began targeting the Islamic State group in Iraq in August, helping Iraqi and Kurdish forces to halt the extremists' advance and begin rolling them back. The Pentagon plans to supply some $1.6 billion worth of arms and training to Kurdish and Iraqi forces.

But after more than a decade of inconclusive wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the United States has no interest in sending ground troops back to the Middle East. And as the vets learned at great cost on their various deployments, territory cannot be won and held by airstrikes and arms deliveries alone.

"I'm not a mercenary or in love with killing people," said Bruce Windorski, a former Army Ranger and ex-police officer now training Kurdish fighters with the Syria-based People's Protection Units (YPG). The Green Bay, Wis., native says he would rather see a "random Westerner" fighting alongside the Kurds than another full-scale invasion.

"I wouldn't want our American servicemen and women to have to fight a third war in two decades," Windorski said. "I've lived through the loss of loved ones fighting on foreign soil. I have seen families with deployed loved ones. It's hell on everyone involved."

Most of the U.S. vets are fighting alongside Kurdish forces, who have invited foreigners with military experience to join their ranks. A Facebook page called "The Lions of Rojava" offers the chance to "send terrorists to hell and save humanity," and features portraits of smiling Kurdish female fighters.

Iraq's Kurdish forces, known as the peshmerga, once strictly banned non-Kurdish fighters from joining. But when Islamic State militants came within 30 kilometers (20 miles) of their regional capital, Irbil, last summer, they began bending the rules in an act of desperation.

"During wartime, necessity imposed itself," said peshmerga spokesman Halgurd Hekmat. "It's an extraordinary situation and it's not a secret that the peshmerga wasn't prepared for this battle," he said.

So far, the U.S. hasn't banned Americans from fighting with militias against the Islamic State group, though it considers the Turkey-based Kurdistan Workers' Party, commonly known as the PKK, a terrorist organization. The PKK has been fighting alongside the YPG in northern Iraq and northern Syria.

The American vets say the Kurds need all the help they can get, but that potential volunteers should come with military experience and knowledge of the region.

"Don't show up and look stupid not knowing what you're doing," said Matthew Van Dyke, 35, a Baltimore native who fought alongside Libyan rebels in 2011 and now fights with the Kurds. "It will get you killed. It's more important to have knowledge of the region than to have military training."

Even for seasoned American soldiers, this battle is different. Gone are the sprawling, heavily guarded U.S. bases, the state-of-the-art surveillance and communications equipment, the helicopters that once ferried them across hostile territory and the direct air support they could once call upon during intense fighting. A number of foreign fighters have been killed, including an Australian man, a British man, and a German woman.

Lane, who had recently returned from the front line with the YPG, said "fighting with them is certain, 100 percent death."

"I am shaken by my last battle," he said. "The YPG is a very young, new military, and they need all the help they can get against the bastards in ISIS who are well-trained and well-equipped. It is a miracle we aren't all dead."

Janssen reported from Irbil, Iraq. Associated Press writer Zeina Karam in Beirut contributed to this report.

Marine shot in back in training accident has 'a long way to go' in recovery

(Tribune Content Agency) — The 19-year-old Gloucester, Mass., Marine recovering after being shot with an M16 on a base in Georgia last month has returned home to Cape Ann to continue his recovery.

Lance Cpl. Dan Cary flew with his family Friday from Jacksonville, Fla., where he had been hospitalized since the March 24 accidental shooting that occurred while he and fellow Marines were preparing for a security drill at the Kings Bay (Ga.) Naval Submarine Base.

Cary was met by a USO representative at Logan International Airport in Boston on Friday night, and his family was able to drive home to Gloucester through arrangements coordinated by Gloucester Veterans Services Director Adam Curcuru, according to his mother, Josie Cary.

“It feels great to be home — I feel good just to be out of the hospital,” Cary said in a brief telephone interview Sunday. “It’s good to back home where I know everybody — and I know a lot of people have been supporting me. I felt very far away — it feels good to be back.”

Josie Cary said her son received a few visitors Saturday but that he continues to tire easily in the aftermath of the shooting and his extended recovery.

“I’m just glad he’s home. I know we all feel better,” she said, adding that her son, who is still connected to medical devices as he tries to walk, has “a long way to go.”

According to his family, Cary was accidentally shot in the back when one Marine was handing the M16 to another, and the weapon discharged. Cary suffered extensive internal injuries and damage to his spleen. He underwent three surgeries in the three days that followed at Shands Medical Center in Jacksonville.

U.S. Marine Corps spokesman Stewart Coles confirmed that Cary was shot “while preparing for a security drill.” But the Marines have not provided further details regarding the incident other than to say that it remains under investigation.

In Sunday’s phone interview, Cary said he holds no hard feelings against the fellow Marine who shot him, reiterating that the shooting was an accident.

“I’m not a guy who holds a grudge,” Cary said. “(The shooter) needs to be punished in some way, but he’s got a wife and a kid — I’d hate to see them suffer (over a long sentence or other penalty) because he basically made a stupid mistake.”

Cary is home on a 30-day convalescent leave and will be treated locally at Lahey Medical Center in Burlington, he and his mother said. Neither had any sense Sunday that the 30 days will be sufficient for him to get fully back on his feet.

Dan Cary said he’s been told that the leave will be extended “as long as it needs to be” as he continues his recovery.

Meanwhile, Cary’s family members and friends are continuing to coordinate a GoFundMe account aimed at raising money to cover his and his family’s travel expenses and some medical supply costs. And The Gloucester Fund has an account for anyone seeking to contribute through a tax-deductible donation.

The GoFundMe account can be accessed through http://bit.ly/1aMTaqY, while anyone seeking to contribute through The Gloucester Fund account may do so by sending a check to The Gloucester Fund, 45 Middle St., Gloucester, MA 01930. Contributors must include the name “Dan Cary” in the memo section to ensure that funds get directed to the proper account, said Gloucester Fund chief Barry Pett. All of the proceeds received will be forwarded directly to the Cary family, Pett has said.

Cary’s aunt, Tina Russell of Rockport, who is Josie Cary’s sister, said plans are also in the works to host a local fundraiser that would also give the wounded Marine the chance to thank some of the Cape Ann residents who have extended him their support since new first broke of the shooting.

“He’s one lucky kid in terms of having a lot of people reaching out to help and praying for him,” Josie Cary said. “We’re all very lucky.”

©2015 the Gloucester (Mass.) Daily Times. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Army ordered to pay damages to transgender worker for discrimination

WASHINGTON — The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has ordered the Department of the Army to pay damages to a transgender employee whom it barred from a restroom matching her new identity and referred to her by her previous gender.

In an April 1 ruling, the commission said the agency violated a federal sexual-discrimination law with its actions against Tamara Lusardi, a military veteran and civilian software specialist in Alabama who transitioned from male to female.

The decision comes about six months after the U.S. Office of Special Counsel (OSC) reached the same conclusion in a landmark case involving the same employee. The OSC, a federal investigative and prosecutorial agency, ordered the Army to provide sensitivity training but did not address monetary damages.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission did not specify how much money the Army should pay to Lusardi, leaving the matter for the two parties to determine together.

The ruling also orders the department to provide discrimination training for all workers and supervisors in the office where the transgender employee works.

"From the start, this has been about getting a fair shake to work hard at a job I love," Lusardi said in a statement Wednesday. "This decision makes it clear that, like everybody else in the workplace, transgender employees should be judged by the quality of the work we do, not by who we are."

Army spokesman Wayne Hall said in a statement on Wednesday that the department will comply with this month's ruling.

"The U.S. Army remains committed to the diverse make-up of our Army, and the Army Values where we pledge to treat others with dignity and respect," Hall said. "That commitment is bolstered by repetitive training ensuring awareness is paramount throughout our formations."

Lusardi, who served in the Army from 1986 to 1993, said the Army required her to use a single-person, gender-neutral restroom out of concerns that other employees might feel "uncomfortable" sharing a restroom with her.

She also alleged that management and co-workers aa the Aviation and Missile Research, Development and Engineering Center at Redstone Arsenal near Huntsville, Ala., called her "sir" and "it" after she began dressing as a woman and legally changed her name, driver's license and security clearance.

The Army argued that it provided legitimate and non-discriminatory reasons for requiring the employee to use the single-user restroom and that management was supportive of her transition. But the commission determined that federal law prohibits the department's actions.

"We recognize that certain employees may object — some vigorously — to allowing a transgender individual to use the restroom consistent with his or her gender identity," the ruling said. "But supervisory or co-worker confusion or anxiety cannot justify discriminatory terms and conditions of employment.

Lusardi's case was part of a broader push by the government to protect lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender employees in the federal workforce.

The Justice Department issued a memo in December recognizing that transgender individuals are protected from discrimination under federal law.

Additionally, President Barack Obama signed an executive order last year banning workplace discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender employees of federal contractors and the federal government. The directive, which officially took effect on Wednesday, prohibits firing or harassment of federal contractors based on sexual orientation or gender identity, and it bans discrimination against transgender federal employees.

A recent study by the National Center for Transgender Equality and the National LGBTQ Task Force found that 90 percent of transgender individuals report mistreatment or discrimination in the workplace, forcing many to hide their gender identity.

Washington Post staff writer Emily Wax-Thibodeaux contributed to this report