Marine Fights A 'Broken' System
(CBS)
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Read all posts by Mary Walsh in Couric & Co.
August 3, 2009 11:33 AM CBS News Producer Mary Walsh recounts her first meeting in 2004 with Corporal Casey Owens, a Marine who was disabled in Iraq, frustrated with the treatment he received from the Veterans Administration.
October 19, 2007 5:43 PM
About Those Missing Missiles: "A Series Of Apparent Errors"
Mary Walsh is a producer for CBS News based at the Pentagon.
As he stepped in front of the Pentagon press corps this afternoon, a downcast Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne looked like he'd just come from a bad session with the school principal -- a meeting with Defense Secretary Defense Robert Gates to explain how those nukes got loose at Minot Air Force Base.
Now Wynne was in the briefing room to take another dose of punishment -- stand in front of the cameras and admit publicly that his airmen loaded six missiles onto a B-52 and flew them thousands of miles to another base -- without noticing they were nuclear. It was unthinkable -- nuclear munitions removed from a secure bunker without anyone knowing about it.
This afternoon, Wynne himself was about to do the unthinkable -- going on the record to confirm top-secret information. Were those tears in his eyes?
"Normally it is our policy to neither confirm nor deny as to whether there were nuclear weapons involved," he began. “In this particular instance I'm going to make an exception."
Wynne said there had been "a series of apparent errors," a breakdown in munitions handling procedures, unacceptable mistakes and "clear deviation from our exacting standards."
Three Air Force officers were being relieved of command, criminal investigations launched and a blue ribbon panel was to take on nuclear warhead security as only a blue ribbon panel can.
But Secretary Wynne could not guarantee the result. "We are making all appropriate changes to ensure that this has minimal chance of ever happening again, he said, "but we would really like to ensure it never happens again."
(AP)
Now Wynne was in the briefing room to take another dose of punishment -- stand in front of the cameras and admit publicly that his airmen loaded six missiles onto a B-52 and flew them thousands of miles to another base -- without noticing they were nuclear. It was unthinkable -- nuclear munitions removed from a secure bunker without anyone knowing about it.
This afternoon, Wynne himself was about to do the unthinkable -- going on the record to confirm top-secret information. Were those tears in his eyes?
"Normally it is our policy to neither confirm nor deny as to whether there were nuclear weapons involved," he began. “In this particular instance I'm going to make an exception."
Wynne said there had been "a series of apparent errors," a breakdown in munitions handling procedures, unacceptable mistakes and "clear deviation from our exacting standards."
Three Air Force officers were being relieved of command, criminal investigations launched and a blue ribbon panel was to take on nuclear warhead security as only a blue ribbon panel can.
But Secretary Wynne could not guarantee the result. "We are making all appropriate changes to ensure that this has minimal chance of ever happening again, he said, "but we would really like to ensure it never happens again."
July 25, 2007 2:02 PM
For Wounded Soldiers, A Place "Where Miracles Happen" -- And It's Not The VA
Mary Walsh is a producer for CBS News based at the Pentagon.
Corey Briest was an emergency medical technician in Yankton, South Dakota when he deployed to Iraq with the Army National Guard. He was the unit medic and so when his convoy was hit by an IED he moved forward to treat the wounded. It was the second IED that sent shrapnel into Corey’s skull, damaging his brain so badly that doctors weren’t sure he would survive.
That was Dec. 4, 2005. Four months later, when CBS News national security correspondent David Martin and I met him in a VA Hospital, Corey could signal “thumbs up” to indicate great pain, but he couldn’t talk, couldn’t walk. He was being treated at what the VA called a new “state of the art” poly trauma center -- but all Corey’s wife Jenny wanted was to get him out of there. There were staff shortages, she said. Corey wasn’t getting the therapy he needed.
Looking impossibly young, but drawn by fatigue and worry, Jenny wasn’t about to give up on the man she called the love of her life...
(AP / file)
That was Dec. 4, 2005. Four months later, when CBS News national security correspondent David Martin and I met him in a VA Hospital, Corey could signal “thumbs up” to indicate great pain, but he couldn’t talk, couldn’t walk. He was being treated at what the VA called a new “state of the art” poly trauma center -- but all Corey’s wife Jenny wanted was to get him out of there. There were staff shortages, she said. Corey wasn’t getting the therapy he needed.
Looking impossibly young, but drawn by fatigue and worry, Jenny wasn’t about to give up on the man she called the love of her life...
June 8, 2007 2:59 PM
Pace's Exit: "The Rumsfeld Years Are Over"
Mary Walsh is a producer for CBS News based at the Pentagon.
General Peter Pace has been a surprisingly emotional Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. He's been known to break down in tears speaking of Guy Farinaro, the first Marine to die under his command when Pace was a young lieutenant in Vietnam.
Yet Pace has been unflinching in his prosecution of the war in Iraq. Loyal to a fault, his critics say, arguing that someone with a more critical eye would have pushed for strategic adjustments long ago, most especially a larger Army and Marine Corps.
With General Pace leaving the chairmanship, you can finally say the Rumsfeld years are over. There has long been speculation that Defense Secretary Gates would decide to go with a new Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. Now it appears Congress has forced that to happen.
(AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
Yet Pace has been unflinching in his prosecution of the war in Iraq. Loyal to a fault, his critics say, arguing that someone with a more critical eye would have pushed for strategic adjustments long ago, most especially a larger Army and Marine Corps.
With General Pace leaving the chairmanship, you can finally say the Rumsfeld years are over. There has long been speculation that Defense Secretary Gates would decide to go with a new Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. Now it appears Congress has forced that to happen.
May 9, 2007 6:21 PM
Gates-speak
Mary Walsh is a producer for CBS News based at the Pentagon.
Google “Donald Rumseld quotes” and you’ll get more than a million hits -- amusing quotations from the former Secretary of Defense.
Rumsfeld was famous for saying things like: “There are known knowns. There are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns.”
His successor Robert Gates talks a little straighter. And he’s not afraid to have fun at the Pentagon’s expense.
Why will it take five months to get troops on the ground for the so-called Iraq surge? “The Department of Defense, like a dinosaur, has no fine motor skills,” Gates said. “We don’t – whether it's budgets or logistics, we don’t do things with a great amount of agility.”
How fast does that dinosaur spend money? Think water pump on steroids. Here’s how Gates handled a senator’s question about a proposal to dodge the current pull-the-troops-out debate with a stopgap two-month Pentagon funding bill.
“Senator, my concerns about the proposal are actually very practical,” he said. “A two-month appropriation assumes that the Department of Defense, first of all, has a precise idea, in real time, of the balances in thousands of accounts that we have to manage.
“In truth, I essentially have 10,000 faucets all running money. And some of them run at one rate; some of them run at another. And they all draw on one big pool of money behind them.
“Turning them on and off with precision and on a day-to-day basis or even a month-to-month basis, gets very difficult. I think the bill – the proposal – also assumes financial and cash flow controls, a precision in those controls, day-to-day would require a degree of agility that is not normally associated with the Department of Defense”...
Google “Donald Rumseld quotes” and you’ll get more than a million hits -- amusing quotations from the former Secretary of Defense.
Rumsfeld was famous for saying things like: “There are known knowns. There are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns.”
(AP)
Why will it take five months to get troops on the ground for the so-called Iraq surge? “The Department of Defense, like a dinosaur, has no fine motor skills,” Gates said. “We don’t – whether it's budgets or logistics, we don’t do things with a great amount of agility.”
How fast does that dinosaur spend money? Think water pump on steroids. Here’s how Gates handled a senator’s question about a proposal to dodge the current pull-the-troops-out debate with a stopgap two-month Pentagon funding bill.
“Senator, my concerns about the proposal are actually very practical,” he said. “A two-month appropriation assumes that the Department of Defense, first of all, has a precise idea, in real time, of the balances in thousands of accounts that we have to manage.
“In truth, I essentially have 10,000 faucets all running money. And some of them run at one rate; some of them run at another. And they all draw on one big pool of money behind them.
“Turning them on and off with precision and on a day-to-day basis or even a month-to-month basis, gets very difficult. I think the bill – the proposal – also assumes financial and cash flow controls, a precision in those controls, day-to-day would require a degree of agility that is not normally associated with the Department of Defense”...
April 18, 2007 2:50 PM 
Mary Walsh is a producer for CBS News based at the Pentagon.
The Pentagon has come up with a new way to reward soldiers for spending extra time in Iraq and Afghanistan -- one full day off for every month over the normal one-year deployment to the war zone. That means troops whose tours have just been extended from 12 to 15 months will get an extra three days off.
Principal Deputy Undersecretary of Defense Michael Dominguez made the announcement at at Pentagon press conference today. Reporters wondered if one day off was nearly equal to an extra month spent at war.
"If we start getting into why one, why not ten?" Dominguez replied. "Why not 100? Why not 1000? Because it wasn't about that. This is about saying look, I know this is extraordinary. I wish we didn't have to do this. But at least you'll know that we're thinking about it and we're thinking about you."
Pentagon planners did consider increasing hardship payments but ruled it out, Dominguez said. "We weren't trying to find some metaphysical balance between the service you are rendering and buckets full of gold."
"The thing we addressing here is frequency and intensity of service," Dominguez' assistant Bill Carr explained.
"What offsets intense frequency?" he asked. "The answer is respite. So when it came to a debate between cash which produces a set of behaviors or respite that produces a set of behaviors...respite is the behavior we would like to encourage."
What Every Soldier Needs: Time Off
(AP / CBS)
The Pentagon has come up with a new way to reward soldiers for spending extra time in Iraq and Afghanistan -- one full day off for every month over the normal one-year deployment to the war zone. That means troops whose tours have just been extended from 12 to 15 months will get an extra three days off.
Principal Deputy Undersecretary of Defense Michael Dominguez made the announcement at at Pentagon press conference today. Reporters wondered if one day off was nearly equal to an extra month spent at war.
"If we start getting into why one, why not ten?" Dominguez replied. "Why not 100? Why not 1000? Because it wasn't about that. This is about saying look, I know this is extraordinary. I wish we didn't have to do this. But at least you'll know that we're thinking about it and we're thinking about you."
Pentagon planners did consider increasing hardship payments but ruled it out, Dominguez said. "We weren't trying to find some metaphysical balance between the service you are rendering and buckets full of gold."
"The thing we addressing here is frequency and intensity of service," Dominguez' assistant Bill Carr explained.
"What offsets intense frequency?" he asked. "The answer is respite. So when it came to a debate between cash which produces a set of behaviors or respite that produces a set of behaviors...respite is the behavior we would like to encourage."
March 23, 2007 10:51 AM 
Mary Walsh is a producer for CBS News based at the Pentagon.
In May 2003 CBS National Security Correspondent David Martin and I were supposed to board a Chinook helicopter for a flight from Baghdad to Mosul to spend some time with the 101st Airborne Division in northern Iraq. But the weather socked in and the flight cancelled.
So we drove to Mosul -- on our own. Accompanied by security guards on contract to CBS News, we formed our own little convoy and hit the highway. It was a memorable journey -- not just because it would be unthinkably risky today. What I remember most is the roadside littered with scud missiles, artillery shells and rockets.
Four years later the General Accounting office has released a report detailing the US military’s failure to secure Iraqi weapons during the invasion. The artillery shells I was seeing on the highway to Mosul were future improvised explosive devices, the roadside bombs that have killed and maimed so many Americans and Iraqis...
"Uncovered": The Seeds Of Destruction In Iraq
(Getty Images/Mujahed Mohammed)
In May 2003 CBS National Security Correspondent David Martin and I were supposed to board a Chinook helicopter for a flight from Baghdad to Mosul to spend some time with the 101st Airborne Division in northern Iraq. But the weather socked in and the flight cancelled.
So we drove to Mosul -- on our own. Accompanied by security guards on contract to CBS News, we formed our own little convoy and hit the highway. It was a memorable journey -- not just because it would be unthinkably risky today. What I remember most is the roadside littered with scud missiles, artillery shells and rockets.
Four years later the General Accounting office has released a report detailing the US military’s failure to secure Iraqi weapons during the invasion. The artillery shells I was seeing on the highway to Mosul were future improvised explosive devices, the roadside bombs that have killed and maimed so many Americans and Iraqis...
February 16, 2007 2:46 PM 
Here’s something you don’t hear everyday about Iraq: “A potato crop is going in right now, as we speak.”
Ed Price knows all about that crop. Part of it is for eating. The rest is seed potatoes for the big planting next fall.
As head of Texas A & M University’s institute for international agriculture, Price has traveled to Iraq many times in the years since Baghdad fell. He’s tracked planting cycles for tomatoes and maize. He can tell you what it’s like to drive from the Turkish border to Irbil in the springtime – “all you can see is wheat and barley crops.”
It’s not well known, but while the Pentagon was preparing to surge troops into Baghdad, it was also signing a cooperative agreement with Price to put together his own kind of surge. Next week he travels to Iraq with a team of agriculture specialists to create – of all things – an extension service, much like the extension service that “has been the backbone of agriculture development in the United States” for a hundred years.
Back in the early, less violent, days after the US invasion, Price would go out on his own to take a taxi to Baghdad University to meet with Iraqi scientists. “There was tremendous rapport,” he says. “We were doing a good thing by providing them with hope.”
On this trip he won’t be grabbing his own cabs. Traveling around Iraq now, he says, “is scary, no question about it.” But Price is going anyway, drawing inspiration from the graduates of A & M who are serving in Iraq. “I need to complement their effort and build on what they’re doing.” Building the peace by building agriculture, he says.
Yup, he even sees an Iraqi version of the 4-H Club. He’s determined to win the trust of Iraqi colleagues, get them to win over farmers, earn respect from communities and then change lives with jobs, food and leadership programs.
Before you dismiss it as a pipe dream, consider where Price is coming from – the Norman E. Borlaug Institute for International Agriculture, named for the man who won the 1970 Nobel Peace Prize for his accomplishments as the “father of the green revolution.” Borlaug worked all over the world producing breakthrough wheat harvests and feeding millions. His motto: "Peace cannot be built on empty stomachs."
We can all only hope his protégé Ed Price finds such fertile fields in Iraq.
Planting Seeds Of Hope In Iraq
(CBS/AP)
Ed Price knows all about that crop. Part of it is for eating. The rest is seed potatoes for the big planting next fall.
As head of Texas A & M University’s institute for international agriculture, Price has traveled to Iraq many times in the years since Baghdad fell. He’s tracked planting cycles for tomatoes and maize. He can tell you what it’s like to drive from the Turkish border to Irbil in the springtime – “all you can see is wheat and barley crops.”
It’s not well known, but while the Pentagon was preparing to surge troops into Baghdad, it was also signing a cooperative agreement with Price to put together his own kind of surge. Next week he travels to Iraq with a team of agriculture specialists to create – of all things – an extension service, much like the extension service that “has been the backbone of agriculture development in the United States” for a hundred years.
Back in the early, less violent, days after the US invasion, Price would go out on his own to take a taxi to Baghdad University to meet with Iraqi scientists. “There was tremendous rapport,” he says. “We were doing a good thing by providing them with hope.”
On this trip he won’t be grabbing his own cabs. Traveling around Iraq now, he says, “is scary, no question about it.” But Price is going anyway, drawing inspiration from the graduates of A & M who are serving in Iraq. “I need to complement their effort and build on what they’re doing.” Building the peace by building agriculture, he says.
Yup, he even sees an Iraqi version of the 4-H Club. He’s determined to win the trust of Iraqi colleagues, get them to win over farmers, earn respect from communities and then change lives with jobs, food and leadership programs.
Before you dismiss it as a pipe dream, consider where Price is coming from – the Norman E. Borlaug Institute for International Agriculture, named for the man who won the 1970 Nobel Peace Prize for his accomplishments as the “father of the green revolution.” Borlaug worked all over the world producing breakthrough wheat harvests and feeding millions. His motto: "Peace cannot be built on empty stomachs."
We can all only hope his protégé Ed Price finds such fertile fields in Iraq.
February 8, 2007 2:11 PM 
Retired Army Major Johnny Parker wrote something about an Army general who died in Vietnam that is worth quoting today:
“The best memorial to a fallen soldier is the legacy he leaves behind.”
The legacy Maj. Gen. George William Casey left behind is a son who will become the next Chief of Staff of the Army. George Casey Sr. was the highest ranking American officer killed in the Vietnam War.
A member of the West Point Class of 1945, Casey was 48 when he died. When you read about him on the websites dedicated to his memory and in the West Point archives, you discover an officer so respected “all expected he would be the next Chief of Staff,” according to former Army Capt. Kirby Smith. “His presence was so commanding, yet (he was) disarmingly approachable to anyone.”
Casey’s death made national news in 1970. Here’s what Frank Reynolds said about him on ABC News: “General George Casey was one of those men who had soldier written all over him . . . (he) knew war and hated it, perhaps more than the rest of us.”
His website is full of tributes from former soldiers.
“This man was loved by his troops and always had our survival and safety as a top priority. General Casey was a man anyone could talk to about any problem,” wrote Ronald Dula. “I was just a young kid, a Spec 4, and he took time out of his busy life to talk to and listen to me.”
“Without question the finest officer I ever worked for,” wrote Joseph Ward. “And he was a staunch Red Sox fan.”
“As a young 19-year-old he was my image of a great leader after whom I later tailored my 24 year career,” Jaime Reuda wrote. Then he described his last encounter with the general: “he gave us a pep talk and in the rain he mounted his chopper to go see the troops over the mountain in the hospital.”
Socked in by the weather, Casey’s helicopter flew into a ridge; everyone on board was killed. As General L.L. Lemnitzer said at Casey’s funeral, “Perhaps it is fitting, if this illustrious commander had to die on the field of battle that his final mission was to visit the wounded and hospitalized soldiers of his division. Such was the man, General George Casey.”
A man whose impact was felt far beyond his lifetime -- as Jaime Reuda wrote, “All these years I still stop to take a moment for him.”
I don’t know for sure how the Vietnam commander influenced his son, but as Gen. George W. Casey Jr. takes command of the United States Army you can be sure he’ll have the lessons of the old warrior close at heart.
The OTHER George Casey
(AP)
“The best memorial to a fallen soldier is the legacy he leaves behind.”
The legacy Maj. Gen. George William Casey left behind is a son who will become the next Chief of Staff of the Army. George Casey Sr. was the highest ranking American officer killed in the Vietnam War.
A member of the West Point Class of 1945, Casey was 48 when he died. When you read about him on the websites dedicated to his memory and in the West Point archives, you discover an officer so respected “all expected he would be the next Chief of Staff,” according to former Army Capt. Kirby Smith. “His presence was so commanding, yet (he was) disarmingly approachable to anyone.”
Casey’s death made national news in 1970. Here’s what Frank Reynolds said about him on ABC News: “General George Casey was one of those men who had soldier written all over him . . . (he) knew war and hated it, perhaps more than the rest of us.”
His website is full of tributes from former soldiers.
“This man was loved by his troops and always had our survival and safety as a top priority. General Casey was a man anyone could talk to about any problem,” wrote Ronald Dula. “I was just a young kid, a Spec 4, and he took time out of his busy life to talk to and listen to me.”
“Without question the finest officer I ever worked for,” wrote Joseph Ward. “And he was a staunch Red Sox fan.”
“As a young 19-year-old he was my image of a great leader after whom I later tailored my 24 year career,” Jaime Reuda wrote. Then he described his last encounter with the general: “he gave us a pep talk and in the rain he mounted his chopper to go see the troops over the mountain in the hospital.”
Socked in by the weather, Casey’s helicopter flew into a ridge; everyone on board was killed. As General L.L. Lemnitzer said at Casey’s funeral, “Perhaps it is fitting, if this illustrious commander had to die on the field of battle that his final mission was to visit the wounded and hospitalized soldiers of his division. Such was the man, General George Casey.”
A man whose impact was felt far beyond his lifetime -- as Jaime Reuda wrote, “All these years I still stop to take a moment for him.”
I don’t know for sure how the Vietnam commander influenced his son, but as Gen. George W. Casey Jr. takes command of the United States Army you can be sure he’ll have the lessons of the old warrior close at heart.
January 17, 2007 6:13 PM
Pentagon Press Releases
Producer Mary Walsh receives her fair share of press releases from the Pentagon. But as more troops head to Iraq, she says some releases may not be telling the full story.
There are always complaints from Pentagon officials that the media only covers what goes wrong in Iraq. A bomb goes off in Baghdad, former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld used to say, and we make it look like the entire country is in flames.
So the American military works hard to promote “good news” stories. Public Affairs officers all over Iraq spend their days trying to get the word out about what's going on in their area. They write press releases and email them – with attached photographs, usually – to reporters who cover the military.
This morning my inbox had 17 press releases from “MNC-I Victory Main” – that’s military-speak for Multi-National Corps – Iraq, Camp Victory. One release reported the deaths of two soldiers in Al Anbar province, an area in the West infested with insurgents.
Five others detailed birthday celebrations earlier this week for Martin Luther King. There was a pre-dawn 2-mile “fun run” at Camp Liberty, with hats and t-shirts awarded to male and female first place finishers. At Camp Taji, hundreds of soldiers gathered to watch King's "I Have a Dream" address. Then unit commanders gave speeches about King’s struggle for freedom and how that applies to the fight against insurgents in Iraq. ...
(Mary Walsh)
So the American military works hard to promote “good news” stories. Public Affairs officers all over Iraq spend their days trying to get the word out about what's going on in their area. They write press releases and email them – with attached photographs, usually – to reporters who cover the military.
This morning my inbox had 17 press releases from “MNC-I Victory Main” – that’s military-speak for Multi-National Corps – Iraq, Camp Victory. One release reported the deaths of two soldiers in Al Anbar province, an area in the West infested with insurgents.
Five others detailed birthday celebrations earlier this week for Martin Luther King. There was a pre-dawn 2-mile “fun run” at Camp Liberty, with hats and t-shirts awarded to male and female first place finishers. At Camp Taji, hundreds of soldiers gathered to watch King's "I Have a Dream" address. Then unit commanders gave speeches about King’s struggle for freedom and how that applies to the fight against insurgents in Iraq. ...
