The Inquisitr » soldiers

Could dogs help soldiers suffering from PTSD?

Steven Hodson — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 01:27:00 +0000

An interesting study is underway, funded by the Department of Defense, looking into whether or not dogs help sooth soldiers suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. This is only one of the many medical research projects that they are pouring millions into.

The study will be conducted by research psychologist Craig Love through the Walter Reed Army Medical Center along with Joan Esnayra the founder of Psychiatric Service Dog Society. Dogs used by the Society have been assisting people with a variety of mental illnesses since the late 1990’s with about 10,000 dogs in use at this point.

Love and Esnayra surveyed 39 people with PTSD who were teamed with psychiatric service dogs.

Eighty-two percent have reported fewer PTSD symptoms since they have had the dogs, and 40 percent said they were using fewer medications.

“The longer the team had been together, the more likely they were reducing symptoms and medications,” Esnayra said.

But the researchers said they had often faced skepticism from the scientific community about the value of the dogs.

“It’s too touchy-feely,” Esnayra said.

That didn’t deter the Defense Department.

“Sometimes the scientific community is conservative,” said Capt. E. Melissa Kaime, director of the Defense Department’s Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs.

“Where there’s a good idea but not much data, we’re willing to take a risk.”

Source: KansasCity.com – Defense Department finances study that pairs dogs with troops suffering PTSD

picture courtesy of Garvey Scott

All those G.I. Joe cool weapons aren’t so futuristic

Steven Hodson — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 20:38:00 +0000

With the G.I. Joe movie hitting the theaters this weekend we will probably be treated to all kinds of really cool weaponry that might seem more sci-fi than real but you would be wrong. Even though the U.S. military might have some of the coolest toys around they aren’t resting on their laurels as they are working hard to turn what might be science fiction into hard core reality.

Here’s just a few items that are either in the testing phase or on the drawing board.

The XM-25 Rifle – designed to replace the standard issue Colt M4 rifles the XM-25 is designed to use smart bullets that would let soldiers fire around corners or into trenches. The new rifles are expected to be deployed by 2012.

Aurora Excalibur – the next generation drones are planned to take over for the current flock of Predator drones that are seeing extensive action around the world. The Aurora is supposed to have a top speed of 460 mph, be able to take off and land vertically and carry 4 hellfire missiles – all by remote control.

100kW Laser Cannon – obviously meant to replace tradition guns on battleships this free electron laser uses a superconducting electron accelerator to focus its beam in order to take down cruise missiles, planes or ships.

F-35 Lightening II – meant to replace much of the current line-up of the military’s aging air fleet. At only $83 million per plane this is consider the cheaper alternative but also the most versatile. The F-35 is three designs rolled into one: takes off normally, short runway take-off with vertical landing, and finally launchable from aircraft carriers.

Battlesuits – this is probably one of the most sought after battle tech items but Lockheed-Martin is already hard at work on the Human Universal Load Carrier (HULC) which is basically a wearable computer that senses the direction the wearer wants to go and then accelerating that movement using its battery powered titanium frame.

hat tip to DVICE

Could blogging soldiers be the military’s secret weapon

Steven Hodson — Thu, 14 May 2009 23:00:57 +0000

To say the the American armed forces use of social media and blogging has been schizophrenic is at least a bit of an understatement. While the Generals are encourage to take up the blogging mantle for the Armed Forces the men and women in the trenches have been muffled at the best of times. This could change though if a suggestion from former Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne gains any traction.

Wynne thinks its time to let military bloggers have a freer hand. “This thing of letting the Taliban, letting Al Jazeera, letting the enemy public affairs unit get a hold of 24 to 48 hours of news cycle and then you announce that you’re forming an investigative team — what is that?” he adds. “The sad part is, that when [the military] forms an investigative team, it looks like it’s only for one reason: to cover it up.”

“I mean, it’s not like a soldier blog,” Wynne continues. “If [that soldier] walked into a hut and blogged that there were 20 bad guys, they had 15 computers, 20 AK-47s — if he blogged that right away, even if it went to a command center — you’d be far better off that what we’re doing now.”

Source: Wired: Danger Room

The idea the Taliban and other insurgents in the areas of conflict have been quick to get their side of the story out as quickly as possible using things like video and blogging. For the Americans to do the same means trying to fight their way through miles of read tape by which time their message is of no use.

But if the Taliban are manipulating the information environment to make American attacks looks worse than they actually are, then the bloggers and photographers might be able to help.

“If you take down a place in Afghanistan, you’ve got to be in there with your cameras before the bad guys unload the truck of bodies (if that’s what they’re doing). Or, if they’ve put a bunch of women and children in there so you can blow them up — you need to be in there first to know that,” Wynne says.

“We’re saddened when… the President has to go on the record and say, ‘we hate it when any casualties occur.’” Wynne adds. But the President “might not know — because nobody blogged it.”

I have never really understood the over all reluctance of the Armed Forces to put as many roadblocks in the way of getting their message out as quickly as possible and there is no denying that blogging would be one of the quickest. It would also carry the weight of the soldier’s own words rather than regurgitate propaganda from field headquarters. I understand the need to make sure that no secrets or battle plans are given away but I think we can give our soldiers enough credit to make sure that doesn’t happen. After all they are over there willing to give up their lives.

Soldier’s Pillow Talk Getting NSA Hot

Steven Hodson — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 21:18:38 +0000

Even though I might not be an American and my point of view just a tad bias I have never believed that the Patriot Act would do anything to really make the country – or its people – any safer. The ability to basically do anything you wanted to people’s freedoms; and supposed constitutional rights, under the guise of protecting them from terrorists only ends up putting too much power in the hands of people who will abuse it.

One of the areas where this is easily abused is in the ability of government agencies to spy on our daily lives and our communication with others. Whether it be making deals with telecommunication companies like AT&T or place people with opposing political beliefs on watch lists we will find abuses. One such case has come to light and as usual it involves a government agency operating outside of its mandate.

According to a report coming out of ABC the NSA has been routinely listening in on Americans’ phone calls in Iraq as they call back to the US. The people being targeted include government officials, journalists, aid workers and the soldiers who are putting their lives on the line every day to supposedly keep their country safe. The problem with this is twofold with the first being that the NSA isn’t suppose to listen in on any American in any fashion unless they get clearance from high ranking officials. The second problem is that Congress has continually been reassured that the NSA was not spying on Americans when the opposite seems to be the rule of thumb.

As bad as this is what is even more disgusting is that according the ABC it is a regular thing for NSA monitors to share the more private moments between the Americans they are spying on

Faulk says he and others in his section of the NSA facility at Fort Gordon routinely shared salacious or tantalizing phone calls that had been intercepted, alerting office mates to certain time codes of “cuts” that were available on each operator’s computer.

“Hey, check this out,” Faulk says he would be told, “there’s good phone sex or there’s some pillow talk, pull up this call, it’s really funny, go check it out. It would be some colonel making pillow talk and we would say, ‘Wow, this was crazy’,” Faulk told ABC News.

I find this kind of thing totally repugnant and as Ryan Singel from the Threat Level blog says in a post about this

If the allegations are true, they show that when the government secretly tossed aside the decades-old credo that the NSA doesn’t spy on Americans, it did not simply make one or two exceptions — it shredded the it.

Yup that good ol’ Patriot Act has done a lot good eh.