Feral Jundi

Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Military News: 30% of South African National Defense Force is Infected With the AIDS Virus

Filed under: Medical,Military News,South Africa — Tags: , , , — Matt @ 7:32 AM

   Boy, I would not want to be in a military where 30% of it’s soldiers had AIDS.  These men and women could potentially infect others, both through sexual activity, but also through the gruesomeness of warfare. An IED will take one man’s fluids, and inject them into another’s body, through the means of an explosion.  Bone, blood, body parts, fragments with blood and body parts on it, will be part of the fragmentation of a weapon system like a mine or IED, and everyone within that blast radius could be infected.  That is why you must have healthy troops in your forces, because disease or a virus like this, only adds more complexity to an already complex environment like warfare.

   Now I realize that maybe there are recruitment issues in the forces there, but to actually allow these infected troops to intermingle with the healthy troops, and not expect unintended infections, is pretty stupid.  I also understand there might be a bit of a political component to this as well.  If your populations are all infected, they actually might have some sympathy for a policy in their military that allows AIDS infected troops to serve.  Who knows, but to me, this just doesn’t make sense from a war fighter’s point of view, and I fear for the lives of the healthy troops that have to serve alongside these folks.-Matt

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South African troops with HIV win biggest battle

December 1, 2009

By Karen Allen

BBC News, Durban

On a blustery beach in South Africa’s coastal city of Durban, Dumisani Gumbi is going through a tough fitness programme. He is a platoon sergeant with the South African army. He also has the Aids virus.

Since 2001 when he was first diagnosed with the disease, his career prospects and chances of being sent overseas have floundered.

For years tens of thousands of HIV-positive military men and women like him have faced a blanket ban.

A staggering 30% of South African soldiers are infected with the Aids virus. This reality plus a recent test case have forced the South African government to review its policy.

“When we are fighting or when we are doing peacekeeping work, we are not biting the people. We’re just being peacekeepers like anyone else,” Mr Gumbi argues, dismissing fears that deploying soldiers with HIV is likely to increase the spread of the disease.

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Monday, November 2, 2009

Medical: Resiliency As Positive Deviance–Rethinking Counseling and the Military, by Angela Benedict

Filed under: Industry Talk,Medical,Military News — Tags: , , , , , , , — Matt @ 1:10 PM

   This is a treat.  Angela has been an active reader of FJ and of PMH, and definitely has done a lot of work on PTSD issues at her Military Healing Center. She is one of the few out there in her industry that actually care about the mental health of not only soldiers in the war, but of contractors as well. So it is a pleasure to showcase some of her work as a guest author on FJ.

   You can see the theme with today’s posts, and we really need to be thinking about the mental health aspects of this industry.  In order to continue doing this kind of work, you need to arm yourself with the mental tools for longevity. Angela is a great person to talk to, if you want to assemble that mental tool kit. –Matt

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RESILIENCY AS POSITIVE DEVIANCE: Rethinking Counseling and the Military

By Angela Benedict

We live in a world that functions in a myriad of negative deviances. Child abuse and sexual trafficking, domestic violence and condoned incest, corruption and extortion, rewarded dishonesty and extreme poverty, torture of war criminals and sexual partners, embedded violence and jealousy, materialism and isolation.    We live in fear of our neighbours, foreigners, family members and ourselves.  We are on guard, awaiting the next attack from our boss, our co-worker, our spouse, to be projected at us by the news, the internet.  We often see power misused.  Most of us feel powerless.

It is not surprising that over the last 30 years there has been a steep incline in the cases of mental illness.  Depression is ranked highest followed by spikes in schizophrenia, mood disorders, anxiety disorders, and other psychotic illness.  Stress is cited as the cause.

Out of this incline another trend has appeared, that of the trauma counselor.  Trauma has begun to define us.  We are not our accomplishments as much as we are a society identified by our ailments.  We are a depressed society living in disastrous times where our expectations are that things will only get worse.  This is a tough perception.

Currently, the field of trauma counseling is receiving harsh criticism from within the ranks of psychology where it is being viewed as a reinforcement to not only illness, but to negative deviant behaviours.  Given the high stakes of the epidemic status of post traumatic stress, a solution must be found soon. Resiliency training can become the counter to the negative and be used to reinforce positive deviance.

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Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Industry Talk: ‘They Are The Unappreciated Patriots’, by T. Christian Miller

Filed under: Afghanistan,Industry Talk,Iraq,Medical — Tags: , , , , , — Matt @ 9:15 AM

 

     This series is just heart wrenching to read, and it certainly cuts to the bone.  Contractors are the unappreciated patriots, and we have certainly sacrificed in this war.  T. Christian Miller has done a fantastic job of showing that sacrifice, and informing the public on what exactly is going on with our injured contractors/patriots.

  He is also showing some courage by actually calling us ‘unappreciated patriots’. To most journalists out there, we are less than human and less than a patriot, and their opinions scream throughout their reportage. I am sure his peers are thumbing their nose at him.

     This particular story is also a reminder about what is at stake when you enter this profession.  Everyone thinks about these types of injuries from time to time, but when you read through this story, you put a picture to the ‘what if’s’ of this job.  That is good though, because it is these gut checks that actually snap folks into the mindset of doing things right.(you would think…) Because if you do get it wrong, you stand to lose a lot….

     Hell, fate has it’s own plan, and you could do everything right and still lose a lot.  That is the job and that is war. Anyhoo, check out the story and at the end of this post, there is a link to a audio slide show of what Grizzly went through. –Matt

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‘They are the unappreciated patriots’

In Iraq and Afghanistan, contractors like Reggie Lane often face the same dangers as U.S. troops. And make the same terrible sacrifices.

By T. Christian Miller

October 6, 2009

Reporting from Central Point, Ore.

A nurse rocked him awake as pale dawn light crept into the room. “C’mon now, c’mon,” the nurse murmured. “Time to get up.”Reggie Lane was once a hulking man of 260 pounds. Friends called him “Big Dad.” Now, he weighed less than 200 pounds and his brain was severely damaged. He groaned angry, wordless cries.The nurse moved fast. Two bursts of deodorant spray under each useless arm. Then he dressed Lane and used a mechanical arm to hoist him into a wheelchair.He wheeled Big Dad down a hallway and parked the chair in a beige dining room, in front of a picture window. Outside stretched a green valley of pear trees filled with white blossoms.Lane’s head fell forward, his chin buried in his chest. His legs crossed and uncrossed involuntarily. His left index finger was rigid and pointed, as if frozen in permanent accusation.In 2004, Lane was driving a fuel truck in Iraq for a defense contractor when insurgents attacked his convoy with rocket-propelled grenades. For most of the five years since, Lane, now 60, has spent his days in silence — a reminder of the hidden costs of relying on civilian contract workers to support the U.S. war effort. (more…)

Tuesday, September 8, 2009

Medical: DoD to Require H1N1 Flu Vaccinations for All Active Duty, But What About the 243,735 Contractors?

Filed under: Medical,Military News — Tags: , , , , , , — Matt @ 12:09 AM

Hachey said he expects DOD to begin administering the vaccine in the first half of October. The department has purchased 2.7 million doses, according to Hachey.

He said the vaccine will also be available to DOD civilians and military family members who want it.

***** 

   Interesting news, but I kind of would like to hear how the DoD plans to vaccinate all the contractors in the war as well?  Because after all, there are now more contractors than troops in places like Afghanistan, and each one of those contractors could easily pick up the flu at home and bring it back to the war zone they are working at and infect others.

   Now the DoD did mention they would offer the vaccine to ‘DoD civilians’, but what does that mean?  Is that all contractors, or just the ones that directly work for DoD at the PX’s and stuff?  I think this needs to be clarified, if H1N1 is truly a concern to the government?  I would like to hear a separate statement about what the DoD plans are for contractors.

   This flu could also impact the war effort, because if a bunch of contractors pick up H1N1 because they were not protected, and then took it back to a war zone and passed it on to the local populations, then that could be bad.  Especially if it got out that the foreigners ‘killed my brother’ by infecting him with H1N1. The Taliban or Al Qaeda could have a field day with this kind of stuff for propaganda purposes.  It is something to think about for the war planners out there, that’s if H1N1 is really a concern to the DoD. –Matt

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DOD to require H1N1 flu vaccinations for all active-duty personnel

By Jennifer H. Svan, Stars and StripesFriday, September 4, 2009

Starting this fall, all active-duty personnel will be required to get vaccinated against the H1N1 flu virus, Defense Department officials announced this week.

Health care workers, deploying troops, those serving on ships and submarines, and enlistees are among those who will get the vaccination first, said Army Dr. (Lt. Col.) Wayne Hachey, director of preventive medicine for Defense Department health affairs.

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Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Industry Talk: Justice in Iraq, Contractors with PTSD and Taking Care of Our People

Filed under: Industry Talk,Iraq,Legal News,Medical — Tags: , , , , , , , , — Matt @ 2:40 AM

     Mr Fitzsimons posted details about his military past on a Facebook page set up to honour fallen service personnel. He tells of his time in 2 Para and his 3½ years in private security work. He advises soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan: “Stay safe and to those who will return to fight a different battle … A war inside your head.” 

   Ever since this story came out in regards to the Armor Group shootings and this Fitzsimons guy, I have been thinking about the FJ point of view on this.  More specifically, the Jundism point of view.  The one thing I keep coming back to as far as the correct point of view, is ‘have the courage to do what is right’ or in the case of this story, have the courage to say what is right.

   Even though this guy killed two of his comrades in cold blood, as well as wounding an Iraqi, I think what is even more important out of all of this, is that Mr. Fitzsimons gets a fair trial in Iraq.  And if he cannot get a fair trial there, then I think it would be better to get him back to the UK to try him.  I want justice, as do most, but I do not want to witness something that is even more ‘ugly’ and vile.  So the question is, would he get a fair trial in Iraq?

   Undoubtedly, contractors are not liked in Iraq, and it would not surprise me that he would be given a death sentence in Iraq.  And you know, the death sentence is a part of the Iraqi justice system (they have hanged quite a few guys, to include Saddam).  It’s just that in this case, Fitzsimons killed an Australian and a Briton, and wounded an Iraqi, while in Iraq.  I guess he would fall under the laws of Iraq, based on the SOFA agreement, but there is an argument that he should fall under British law or even UCMJ, if he was under contract through a DoD gig.  I don’t know, but I do know that the imagery of a contractor hanging from the gallows of Iraq would be quite the message.  Not only to the industry but to the public and especially to Iraqis.  That message is another area we need to go over.

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