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thedrifter
02-09-06, 02:20 AM
Doing Battle for the Grunts
Virginia Group Seeks to Protect U.S. Troops on the Front Lines
By Brigid Schulte
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, February 9, 2006; LZ03

Kids. That's what Roger Charles calls the soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan fighting what the Pentagon calls the Global War on Terrorism, the young grunts on their first tours of duty in combat zones. The green first-term officers who now must put theory into practice to stay alive. The cannon fodder. These kids are the reason that Charles runs an organization called Soldiers for the Truth from his unassuming home in Alexandria's Del Ray area.

For the average American, the name means little. But for many soldiers in the field, the group's Web site ( www.sftt.org ) and online newsletter (DefenseWatch -- The Voice of the Grunt) have been invaluable, giving the world a glimpse of the war from their vantage point. For defense reporters, it has been a source for the unvarnished, unspun truth about what's happening on the ground. And for the Pentagon brass, at times, a thorn in the side.

"We try to short-circuit the barriers to the truth," Charles said.

Soldiers for the Truth helped bring to light the prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib in Iraq. The organization also publicized that Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld had been using a machine-generated signature on condolence letters sent to the families of soldiers killed in action. He now signs them all by hand.

And, most recently, the group has stirred up controversy and debate on the failings of the body armor issued to Marines and soldiers, which led to reports in the mainstream media, including the New York Times, The Washington Post and major networks, and has resulted in congressional hearings.

"Our mission is simple," the soft-spoken Charles said. "We want the best available training, leadership and equipment for our kids. That's all our agenda is, the well-being of the grunts who are on the bloody end of the spear -- the ones kicking in doors in Fallujah, driving convoys from Baghdad to Basra and freezing on the plains in Afghanistan. The kids that do the heavy lifting, the fighting, the bleeding, the dying."

Charles, 60, sat at his family dining table recently to talk about his mission. In another room of the Alexandria house, crammed with computers, an ancient TV set and stacks of boxes and files and books and reports, he does his work for the soldiers.

"When we see abuses, things done that shouldn't be done, we let people know," he said. "The VFW and the Veterans Administration looks after vets once they've left the service. But these kids, no one on K Street represents them. No one's speaking out for them. "

Despite the speeches made by President Bush and Rumsfeld on down and the plethora of yellow "Support the Troops" bumper stickers at the Pentagon, Charles does not mince words on his view of senior officials' loyalty to the troops. "All these high-level people supposedly are looking out for the welfare of the troops," he said. "They're not."

The current debate over body armor is proof enough for him.

As Charles explained it, Nat Helms, a reporter for Soldiers for the Truth based in St. Louis, began getting e-mails from soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan last fall complaining about the standard-issue body armor, the Interceptor Outer Tactical Vest, made by Point Blank Body Armor Inc. of Florida.

The body armor has two rigid ceramic plates, 10 inches by 12 inches, one in the front and one in the back, that are designed to stop a rifle round, such as from an AK-47, the weapon of choice for Iraqi insurgents.

The sides of the vest are made of softer Kevlar and are designed to protect against handgun rounds or low-grade shrapnel, Charles said. Soldiers in their e-mails complained that the ceramic plates shattered too easily and that Iraqi insurgent snipers were beginning to target U.S. soldiers' unprotected necks and sides.

In the meantime, Helms and Charles's investigation led them to another company called Pinnacle Armor, based in California, that manufactures Dragon Skin, an armor with overlapping plates of titanium and ceramic that cover the entire torso and look much like fish scales.

They were informed that nine U.S. generals in Iraq were wearing Dragon Skin armor -- something that Army officials have not confirmed -- and that the U.S. Secret Service uses it.

"If it's good enough for generals, if it's good enough for the Secret Service, is it too good for our grunts?" Charles said.

Although Charles and Helms pounded away on their Web site, the issue didn't take off until they got hold of a damning internal U.S. Marine Corps report, which, Charles said, "the New York Times, with our assistance, obtained."

On Jan. 7, the Times wrote that of a random sample of 93 Marines killed in Iraq between 2003 and 2005 with torso wounds, 74 deaths could have been prevented with more extensive armor coverage. The Times extrapolated that better armor could have saved 300 or more lives.

Other newspapers, TV and radio stations quickly picked up the story. Charles appeared on "The NewsHour With Jim Lehrer" wearing Dragon Skin armor. Outraged members of Congress called for hearings. Pentagon officials said that the Interceptor armor had been improved five times in recent years and that they were ordering new side plates to offer greater protection. They argued that, in any decision about body armor, a military leader must always balance the need for protection -- which can add upwards of 30 pounds to a soldier's already heavy load -- against the need for mobility.

After a closed-door briefing, Sen. John W. Warner (R-Va.), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said he was satisfied that the troops were getting the best.

Charles flatly disagreed.

"We're not saying that [Dragon Skin] is the best out there, but we're saying they ought to test it," he said. "Soldiers should have the best available equipment, and the on-scene commander should make the call on what is the best level of protection for the mission at the time. He makes the decision. I can't make that call from Del Ray."

U.S. Army spokesman Paul Boyce said the Pentagon was willing to test Dragon Skin or any other armor that may be more effective than the Interceptor.

"We are in the process of trying to obtain prototypes from the manufacturer," Boyce said of Dragon Skin. "As soon as the company sends us prototypes, we're willing to send it to our lab and test its ballistic tolerance."

Far from criticizing Soldiers for the Truth, Boyce said that the Pentagon has come to expect a wide range of passionate opinion in today's around-the-clock, blog-heavy continuous news cycle, where soldiers can send e-mails from the Iraqi desert and people such as Roger Charles can shape the national debate on the war from their homes.

But Boyce cautioned that with such a free flow of information can come the danger of aiding the enemy, letting classified information slip out or rumors run wild. For instance, Soldiers for the Truth has been reporting that some soldiers in the field have been told that their families could lose a $400,000 life insurance payout if they are killed while wearing any body armor other than standard-issue Interceptor.

Boyce said that's not true. "If you are in U.S. armor or someone else's armor or buck naked and are killed, you are going to get your death benefits," Boyce said. "So anything that might have been said by a fellow soldier or commander or anyone else -- it's inaccurate.

"During World War II, a rumor might have stopped, at most, three tents away," he added. "But today, it might stop on the other side of the planet when all's said and done."

Winslow Wheeler is a defense analyst with the Washington-based Center for Defense Information who has written critically of the Pentagon and posted work on the Soldiers for the Truth Web site. He said the organization's influence cannot be underestimated.

"It's an organization that tries to represent the enlisted soldier and tries to have that point of view," Wheeler said. "And God knows, Washington needs to hear that voice."

Soldiers for the Truth was founded by the legendary and controversial David H. Hackworth, a retired Army colonel, highly decorated Korean and Vietnam War veteran and an outspoken critics of the Pentagon.

As Roger Charles tells the story, Hackworth, who died in 2005, was on a book tour promoting his autobiography, "About Face," when an elderly woman approached him.

"You've got all these ideas about things that need to be fixed. What are you going to do about it?"

"What do you mean?" Charles recalled Hackworth saying.

"You can't just write about it, you have to do something, for the soldiers, for the truth." Soldiers for the Truth. The idea resonated with him. So in February 1997, Hackworth, Charles and other retired military personnel gathered in Charles's living room and launched the nonprofit organization, funded in large part by Hackworth.

Hackworth began writing missives that his supporters admire for their candor and searing criticism of the Pentagon brass he often dismissed as careerist "perfumed princes" more interested in political connections and promotions than in the troops in the field. His detractors dismissed his writings as self-promoting and shrill.

But the e-mails came pouring in, by the thousands, from soldiers in the field. Articles and requests were posted on the Web site. Information about what it was like to be on the front lines began to get out.

In 2003, Charles posted a request on the site seeking information about vague allegations of prisoner abuses at an Iraqi detention center. He received an almost immediate return e-mail from the uncle of Staff Sgt. Chip Frederick, who had photographs of himself and comrades abusing prisoners. The uncle, William Lawson, sent Charles the horrific and now familiar photographs of Abu Ghraib, the piles of naked men, the hooded prisoners, the dogs, the sexually suggestive poses. Charles took them to CBS's "60 Minutes," and the news shook the world.

In December 2004, Hackworth, who was battling cancer, asked Charles to take over as president of the organization. He agreed.

Charles, a retired Marine lieutenant colonel, Vietnam veteran and Naval Academy graduate, had already built a reputation as a dogged investigator unafraid to look under Pentagon rocks.

In 1992, he began his journalism career with a bang, with a Newsweek cover story, "Sea of Lies," about how the Pentagon tried to cover up the USS Vincennes's downing of an Iranian civilian airliner in 1988.

Charles said he came to his own conclusion that the "perfumed princes" of the Pentagon did not have the best interest of the grunts at heart when he was training replacement Marines to go to Vietnam in 1968 at Camp Pendleton in California. There wasn't enough ammunition for training; Charles had to command his men to shout, "Bang! Bang!"

"It was one of the few times I was embarrassed to wear the uniform in front of my men," he said. "I've never forgotten that. With all the wealth of the United States, the Marines, with all its resources, and young grunts on their last tactical training before shipping out to Vietnam have to yell, 'Bang! Bang!' There's something wrong with the system that permits this to happen."

Later, as a major working on a research project at the Marine Corps Command and Staff College, he obtained previously classified back-channel communications that had passed among the top three Marine Corps generals responsible for waging war in Vietnam in the mid-1960s.

Reports that the Marines' leather boots were rotting in the jungle heat, or that rations were nearly running out, he said, were met with commands to tell the troops to stop whining. A two-star general suspected of leaking information to the media that the war wasn't going very well was summarily relieved of his duties and retired.

"There was no concern about the troops. No appreciation of their valor," Charles said, shaking his head. "It was all petty bureaucratic stuff."

Others may disagree with his views, he conceded. But he is so sure of his convictions that the troops, the cannon fodder, are often considered last, that he is recruiting the next generation to keep his organization going.

"The perfumed princes show up in every generation. And we want someone to be right there to hold their feet to the fire," he said.

He paused and sighed. "There's a saying: 'Only the dead have seen the end of war.' "

Ellie