Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America ask for your help

Please read this request for you to sign a petition and get the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to do the job that they are well paid to perform.  That wounded Veterans have to wait up to 2 yrs to get the help they need is unacceptable.

Congress, the President and their staff don't have to wait for anything.  It is about time that Veterans who defended our country get the same consideration.  Really.

A shocking report just came out about the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) disability benefits backlog. It says that delays for new vets to receive disability compensation from the VA are much longer than originally reported, which is saying a lot. (If you’ve had a loved one file a claim, you know what I mean.) We must end this backlog now. Sign a petition to call for action with IAVA. According to the report, more than 900,000 veteran’s benefits claims are currently in the system, a number that VA expects to grow to over a million by the end of this month. Of the 600,000 backlogged, VA has said that the average wait time was 273 days, but this report reveals that veterans are waiting between 316 and 327 days after filing. Furthermore, despite spending hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars on developing a digital claims process, 97% of claims are still on paper. The wait is 490 days in New Orleans. 619 in Los Angeles. 612 in Indianapolis. 586 in Houston. 642 in New York. And 681 in Reno. That’s 681 days to get benefits for injuries received while at war. 681 days. That’s just ridiculous. And it’s gone on for long enough. The men and women who have sacrificed so much deserve better than that. Sign the petition today to call on President Obama to establish a Presidential Commission to end the backlog.  Next week at Storm the Hill, IAVA’s membership will bring the petition with your name to the White House. We’ll also gather IAVA members from across the nation on the steps of the Capitol to demand the President fix this ongoing problem once and for all. We’ll keep the pressure up – and we won’t stop fighting until it's done. Paul Paul Rieckhoff Founder and CEO Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA)

Learning a lesson

Many times, the lessons we learn are not all in textbooks

Today, I was heading back to our office at lunch time...I was walking across the area that is in between our villa and the offices....

I had a bag of sodas for the guards. On a regular basis, I bring cold water/sodas with me for the security gurds as it is hot ( today it was 112 F in the shade) and they stand out in the heat all day, keeping us safe.

There was a young man (age 11-12) walking by heading home from school.  He spoke great english and he asked me for a soda, seeing that I had a bag full of them.

I said sure and gave him a soda.

He asked for another with a big smile - I said why ?? 

He said " For my brother "

So I asked him - " Where's your brother??" as he was alone - I gave him a kidding and asked him " Is he in your back pack??"

He looked at me and said, " At home...." - I asked him if he really had a brother at home and he said he did.

So I gave him two sodas......he was smiling like you wouldn't believe. He was so happy over something so easy for me to do - sharing sodas that are plentiful for us, and likely not as easy for him to get on a regular basis.

 This was another one of the encounters I have had here in Afghanistan that demonstrate why we are here.  Here was a young man from Kandahar and an Old Seabee like me, meeting for a few minutes, sharing friendship and being able to share a laugh and a smile.


As it was written, " And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Since you have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, you have done it unto me." - Matthew 25:40

Afghan men, hungry for work, learn how to respond to Americans

I have spent time working with Afghan Nationals while overseas and they are good people who want to provide for their families, just like the rest of us. Family means a lot in their culture.

While there are differences, I found the people I met to be warm and curious of the difference between America and Afghanistan. Here is a good insight into how we are helping the people of Afghanistan learn to be more independent and gain the insights they will need to work with those who are there to help.


Afghan men, hungry for work, learn how to respond to Americans

5:27 AM, Mar 29, 2011 by Tony Leys Desmoins Register

Bagram Airfield, Afghanistan – The bearded teacher stood in front of his 20 pupils, going through basic English questions and commands that they should understand if they’re working for the Americans here.

“What does ‘Do not enter’ mean?” the teacher, whose name is Ahmadullah, asked one of the local men seated before him. Teacher Ahmadullah, standing at left, leads a basic English class for workers at Bagram Airfield Tuesday. (

“You cannot go inside,” the man replied in heavily accented English.

“If you are stopped at a roadblock and told to get out immediately, what do you do?” Ahmadullah asked another man. “I turn back,” the man replied.

The teacher corrected him. “You get out immediately,” he said.

Ahmadullah asked a third man to stand. Then he said, “Put your hands on your head.” The man put his hands on his head. “Turn around.” The man turned around. “Get on the ground.” The man got on the ground, face down. Staff Sgt. Paul Brisbois, an Iowa National Guardsman from Des Moines, watched from off to the side. “That’s a really important one to know,” he said of the set of commands American soldiers give when they want to search an Afghan man.

Brisbois helps oversee the vetting of local workers for Bagram Airfield. About 5,000 Afghan men work on the giant base, which houses about 30,000 military members and civilians from the United States and allied countries. Most of the Afghan employees make $5 per day performing menial tasks, such as cleaning bathrooms, serving food or collecting trash.

Ahmadullah, who uses just one name, gives his hour-long daily lessons in a classroom just inside the gate where local men come into the base. The men in his class already hold entry-level jobs on the base, but they want to become certified as “escorts.” Locals with that designation can make $15 per day for overseeing up to five other Afghan workers. Brisbois is impressed by how quickly many of the Afghan men pick up basic English.

Many of them can’t read or write in any language, but they speak proficiently in two: Pashto and Dari. That’s one more than most Americans can speak, the staff sergeant noted. The men walk or bike to the base, sometimes from 10 or more miles away. Most of them are employed by private contractors. “They’re definitely willing to work,” Brisbois said. “Most people in the area want the same things Americans want. They want to have a good job, they want to make some money, and they want their families to be safe.”

Brisbois, 45, said each potential worker faces several levels of vetting, including extensive interviews by U.S. officials, such as former FBI or CIA agents. Because of security concerns, Afghan workers may not use cell phones or take pictures on base, and they are only allowed into areas where they work. Their work permits can be suspended if they break the rules.

After Ahmadullah’s class, his students said the military base offers much better opportunities than they’d find anywhere else in the area. The men said they worry that insurgents will harm them or their families for helping the Americans, though they said such retribution rarely happens. They also worry that the Americans will leave, and the jobs will disappear. “Right now, there is freedom,” Aqa Gul, 38, said through an interpreter. “If the Americans leave, it will be very bad.”

A Massachusetts Soldiers' Father on his son's dedication to duty, “He wanted to go over there and help those people,’’

Yesterday, on Christmas Eve, 420 Massachusetts National Guardsmen came home to the Baystate and were welcomed by family & friends to thunderous applause.....

At the same time, dedicated Massachusetts Guardsmen were at their duty stations at Camp Phoenix, assisting the people of Afghanistan.....While you enjoy your day, think about those in harm's way.

I salute them and understand, fully, the sacrifice they make each day to allow us the freedoms we enjoy...Thanks Guys (and ladies).....you have this retired Seabees humble thanks as I know what it's like to be out there, especially at this time of year.



Afghanistan duty, Christmas spirit
Bay State guardsmen, residents hope to win hearts
Boston Globe - 12/25/10

CAMP PHOENIX, Afghanistan — The Afghan driver of an oil tanker truck squints nervously through the dust as soldiers frisk him. Then they search inside his vehicle.

“What’s this?’’ asks First Lieutenant Alan Molin Jr. of Hardwick, pulling out a rusty canister of white powder.

“Sugar,’’ his translator replies.

“Taste it,’’ Molin tells the driver.

Here at Camp Phoenix, a sprawling, razor-wire-wrapped compound on the outskirts of Kabul that is home to some 2,500 US and NATO soldiers, Molin is one of 170 members of the Massachusetts National Guard, part of the largest deployment of Bay State guardsmen since World War II. Inside the dusty base, it is Christmas. A decorated tree stands on the porch of the chapel. American soldiers sing “Silent Night’’ outside the mess hall. Santa poses for pictures. As their families back home mark the holidays without them, the soldiers try to find small ways to acknowledge Christmas while doing their job.

But the tension is always evident. The Massachusetts soldiers are warned the enemy might like nothing better than to strike Americans on the Christian holiday. The base has been on high alert since last week, when a suicide bomber struck an Afghan National Army convoy nearby. The explosion shook the guard towers and sent up plumes of black smoke. Local children have told soldiers a new suicide bomber might be lurking.

Following Molin’s instruction, the tanker truck driver scoops the white substance into his mouth. He smiles. A crowd of Afghan men in woolen shawls watch from a nearby earthen doorway, murmuring in a language the soldiers don’t understand.

Molin lets the driver and his precious cargo inside the camp.

Across Afghanistan, 689 soldiers from the First Battalion of the 181st Infantry Regiment, including those in the Massachusetts National Guard, man the first line of defense on a dozen bases.

They inspect fuel trucks that arrive each morning, take foot patrols each afternoon, and man the towers 24 hours a day. The war has lasted nine years, and it is easy to forget the everyday mission of thousands of soldiers. A Christmastime view, seen through the eyes of Molin and his fellow soldiers, brings the experience more closely into focus.

It is a view not just of soldiers and guns, but of a gift — many gifts, really — from people across Massachusetts.

Here to help

One day earlier this week, Molin wakes before dawn, as he always does to head down to the fuel depot to inspect the trucks. Half a dozen soldiers are already there.

Specialist Stephen Leon of Chelsea jokes that he would rather be watching his favorite soap opera. He hardly gets a laugh out of Molin, who grabs his clipboard as the squad fans out into the street with their weapons, ready to inspect the first truck.

Molin, a lean, serious 26-year-old, is used to early mornings. He grew up on his family farm in the small town of Hardwick in Western Massachusetts, where his parents still sell fresh meat and eggs out of the front door of the country home that his father built by hand.

Molin commanded his high school Junior ROTC program and received a bachelor’s degree and his officer’s commission at the Massachusetts Maritime Academy. He grew up with a belief that the military should help people, said his mother, Diane Molin. When his unit was deployed during an ice storm two years ago, he threw himself into rescuing the elderly who had no heat. As for Afghanistan, she said, her son expressed bitterness at the Sept. 11 attackers, who were directed by Al Qaeda leaders who used the country as their base. But he felt empathy for typical Afghans. “He wanted to go over there and help those people,’’ she said.

This year, at Easter dinner, Molin told his mother he was going to Afghanistan. She burst into tears.

“Just remember when you are over there that you don’t have to be a hero,’’ his father Alan Molin told him. “The cemetery is full of heroes.’’

Molin, who works as facilities engineer at Equity Office Properties, a Boston-based firm, embraced the mission. He arrived here in October with the rest of his battalion, in his first deployment to Afghanistan.

At Camp Phoenix, he is the company’s executive officer, organizing translators, logistics, and fuel contracts. He also volunteers to help other soldiers collect used clothes from the United States for Operation Outreach Afghanistan, a soldier-run program that distributes hats, sweaters, and mittens to Afghan communities around the base.

A month ago, when his parents were wondering what to send him for Christmas, Molin asked them to send used clothing for Afghans. He sent letters to his friends and colleagues back in Massachusetts with the same request.

At first, the response was slow, his father said. But, more recently, boxes have started pouring in. One from a local elementary school in Hardwick, another from Massachusetts Maritime Academy. Then his mother, a part-time mail carrier, set up a drop-off at a Hardwick post office. Soon, boxes started pouring into Camp Phoenix, helping to fill four 20-foot metal storage containers with some 5,000 pounds of clothes, more than Molin imagined he would muster.

Such humanitarian efforts can be humbling, with success hard to quantify, and far removed from the victory in combat that so many infantrymen dream about.

But Molin thinks efforts like Operation Outreach could make the difference in the long, hard battle for allegiances in Afghanistan.

“You help them, first, because you are human,’’ he says. “But you are also trying to win the war, and the best way to do that is to earn their trust. I feel good, because it shows that people back home care. Let’s be honest: How often does the average person back home think about the war?


Yanks meet Yankees fan

After finishing his duty at the fuel depot, Molin heads out with eight other soldiers to walk the perimeter of the base and ask villagers about rumors of a suicide bomber.

The soldiers fan out, two walking backward to protect their flank. Molin waves to two men washing their hands outside a mosque. One waves back. The other just stares. A little girl in a purple scarf with a baby on her hip runs up to them with her hand out. “Dollar,’’ she says, and then adds: “Chocolate.’’ But none of the soldiers brought chocolate with them because village elders have asked them to stop handing out goods to the children in the street.

Giving gifts in a war-torn nation can cause fights and even riots, so the soldiers have planned more formal missions to give away the donated clothes through schools. This week, Molin has been trying to arrange a clothing delivery to a school for autistic children that a carpet salesman told him about on one of his patrols.

But that project is on hold, because the base is on high alert, so he hasn’t been given permission to do reconnaissance on the school to make sure the soldiers can’t be ambushed when they bring the clothes.

So for now, Molin focuses on the children tagging along in the road behind him, some of whom have been given hats and gloves by previous patrols.

A 14-year-old boy who introduces himself as Johnny Troublemaker wears a black puffy coat that soldiers have given, along with his nickname.

“Happy day to you, guys,’’ he says, giving high-fives all around.

Johnny says he wants to be a US military interpreter when he grows up, a lucrative job in this knot of poor villages.

An old man in a white turban approaches, carrying a sick child on his back. The soldiers try to arrange for a medic. Villagers swarm around them. There is nothing to the rumors of a suicide bomber, they say.

The soldiers walk on, like Pied Pipers, collecting some 50 children who followed behind, who all demand pens, chocolate, money, and attention. Some pick up rocks to throw at the Americans when they are told they won’t receive more gifts. But Johnny Troublemaker shoos them away.

Around a corner, in a desolate industrial area where dust from a marble tile factory covers the streets, the soldiers find an Afghan man sitting alone on a lawn chair, wearing traditional billowy pants and shirt and a black ski hat embroidered with a Yankees logo.

Sergeant Ron Dennison of Waltham stares in disbelief.

“I like New York,’’ the man says, pumping his fists in the air.

“The Red Sox,’’ Dennison barks, and then moves on.

The soldiers return to the base in good spirits. Maybe there was no big threat after all. But the towers still had to be manned at all times, even on Christmas Eve. After all, the Pentagon said 34 soldiers from Massachusetts have died in Afghanistan in hostile and nonhostile circumstances since the war began in 2001. Three Massachusetts men have died in Afghanistan this month.

So Molin bypasses the mess hall, where Santa is giving out hot chocolate and hugs, and doesn’t linger long at the Christmas carols. Instead, he heads to Tower 12, to see Sergeant Gregory McAvoy, a sniper from Ware, who is working a double shift.

Several times a week, McAvoy stares down at the Afghans who occupy the fields beyond Camp Phoenix’s walls. He has never exchanged a word with them, but he has memorized the rhythm of their daily lives. The youth who congregate at the pool hall. The children who play cricket. The farmers who come to pull up their carrots. The old man who relieves himself every day against the walls of the US military base.

Tonight is no different. McAvoy will eat turkey from a foam plate and sit for 16 hours without a radio or a book, waiting for an enemy that might never come. “It’s just a normal night,’’ he said.

But on Christmas Day, when his shift is over, he will return to the barracks, which are decorated with letters that his mother, Bobbie McAvoy, sent in giant care packages from home. She organized 130 neighbors from Ware and other friends to send the missives, Christmas cards, and finger-painted wreaths to the soldiers from Massachusetts. Alongside the letters on the plywood walls are stockings, colored lights, two tiny Christmas trees bulging with ornaments, and a snowman hat.

Soon, the squad will have time to share a meal, open gifts, and celebrate for a short while, before it is time to go back to work.

For now, Molin nods at McAvoy and checks his watch. Molin goes back to his office and turns on a computer. An e-mail crosses the screen. People across Massachusetts are sending another dozen boxes of clothing, for the people of Afghanistan.

Farah Stockman can be reached at fstockman@globe.com.

© Copyright 2010 Globe Newspaper Company.