Army Secretary Pete Geren has ordered a stand-down of the Army’s entire recruiting force and a review of almost every aspect of the job is underway in the wake of a wide-ranging investigation of four suicides in the Houston Recruiting Battalion.
Poor command climate, failing personal relationships and long, stressful work days were factors in the suicides, the investigation found. The investigating officer noted a “threatening” environment in the battalion and that leaders may have tried to influence statements from witnesses.
I'm not going to add to this, they list a few of the problems, already found, in the report.
But a 'Stand Down', across the whole Recruiting Force means this is Big and possibly wider, in other area's, than just what happened in the Houston Battalion!!
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Purple Heart, Purple Haze
On October 22, 1967, General William C. Westmoreland paid a surprise visit to the 93rd Evacuation Hospital near Long Binh, South Vietnam. He had come to distribute Purple Hearts. To his chagrin, he arrived first at a medical ward where soldiers were convalescing from various tropical diseases and infections. "Medical wards!" the General yelled. "I don't want to see medical wards. I don't want to see those fakers." Westmoreland's classless quote is recalled by doctors and nurses at the 93rd who were then treating those "fakers" and was recorded for posterity in David Maraniss's Vietnam epic, They Marched Into Sunlight. The message was simple: When it came to the suffering of US soldiers, bombs and bullets were honorable; mosquitoes and microbes were not.
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"America Supports You"
Investigation Begins
Defense officials have launched a preliminary investigation into how Stars and Stripes and its former parent organization, American Forces Information Service, handled money for the America Supports You program, a Defense Department spokesman said.
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