Real Life as a Marine Wife

Where are we now?

2009-11-19T17:04:00.000+01:00

Tomorrow our living hell ends: the sale of our house in California closes. I've scheduled the gas & electric turn off, final water meter reading, and termination of our homeowner's insurance policy. It's going to take another couple weeks to finish up the HAP side of things, but dude: can I tell you? I am SOoooooo thankful the house itself is off our backs. The rest is just paperwork. I am not exaggerating when I say now that I NEVER, EVER want to own another house.
And when you think about the way mortgages work, when you really read all the papers you sign at closing when you're the buyer, and they factor out your eventual total cash outlay for the house including the interest, you're paying nearly double the price you agreed to. After 30 years of mortgage payments, not only has the bank received its full repayment of your loan, its also received an almost equal amount of interest. I swear if I'm ever delusional enough to desire home ownership again I'm saving up and paying in cash so the banks that made billions while destroying the world economy don't get another penny of my money.

Listen carefully

2009-11-18T09:52:00.000+01:00

The short sale of our godforsaken house in California is supposed to close in two days, and we're still not quite sure how HAP is going to work. Whomever is entitled to HAP benefits and is already working with a counselor, make sure you understand EXACTLY what your options are and what the potential benefit limitations may be. In our case, which is almost a done deal, we ended up entirely changing direction on HAP Monday, based on new information from our counselor. The implementation guidelines are still what I'll call "fluid."
For example, the initial rule on PCS move beneficiaries was their mortgage payments had to be current as of the date they departed from their prior duty station. Monday it was hinted to me that the payments have to be current-current, not just current up to when you left. If that's the case now, a lot of people will be scrambling for money to catch up payments in order to qualify for assistance, although the whole friggin point of assistance is that you're in a new place, collecting BAH for this location or living on post, and have no money to pay a mortgage on a house you no longer live in near a duty station to which you are no longer assigned. So the whole "current-current" rule on the mortgage at the prior duty station puts an insane, virtually impossible criteria for the service members to meet, and is utterly retarded.
Plus, like I mentioned in my last post, the benefit calculation is NOT what I'm pretty sure we all thought it was. The difference is staggering. Really, like a kick in the gut. Finding out we're still on the hook for money we don't have in order to close the sale... sickening.
If you read the interim final rule on the HAP program, PCS members have the 90 percent maximum benefit threshold. BUT... read down a little farther and you see that if the house goes through a short sale and you're still liable for the remaining balance, THEN the benefit threshold becomes 95 percent. I also heard if you go through a short sale, HAP will pay off the ENTIRE remaining shortage. Which is it? And how does one find out for sure which offer is going to be best for their given situation?
Seriously: I'm a Certified Defense Financial Manager, a Certified Internal Auditor, and an accountant. If I can't figure it out, and I've been specifically educated and certified to understand and audit government financial transactions for compliance with federal rules and statutes, what chance does anyone else have?

Punching a gift horse in the mouth

2009-11-14T20:56:00.001+01:00

I have a lot of nerve to bitch about this, but when there's a $45,591.50 semantic difference in our HAP benefit I need to tell you about it. I hope no one else had the same mistaken impression that I did.
My understanding of the HAP benefit was we are eligible to receive 90 percent of the difference between our purchase price and the amount we get from the new buyer. In our case, that would be $615,000 we paid, minus $500,000 it sold for, for 90 percent of our $115,000 loss = $103,500.
Yeah; no, that's not how it works. It's 90 percent of the $615,000 we paid, so $553,500, minus the $500,000 it sold for, for a final benefit amount = $53,500. That's a $50,000 difference. So instead of losing $11,500 due to our military service, we're out $61,500. That was about my annual salary in California, which means the military effective cost us a year of my life.
I'm not sure this is better than a sharp stick in the eye. At least a sharp stick in the eye is free.

Hmm... interesting.

2009-11-10T18:42:00.002+01:00

This story from Newsweek fascinated me since I currently live in Germany. It may give Americans something to think about.

Military Family Month -- more empty words

2009-11-10T15:12:00.000+01:00

A cliché throughout the military is if they wanted you to have a family, they would have issued you one in boot camp. It is widely understood that if their child is sick, or has an orthodontist appointment, or there’s a school function during the day, the service member is not the one dealing with it. The service member will never be the one to call the office and say, “Sorry; my kid has a fever. I can’t come in today.” Career service members did not advance through the ranks by living a balanced life. They advanced by putting the military’s demands first, every time, all the time.
The disjointed efforts of the Department of Defense to promote spousal employment are not likely to accomplish anything until they address that imbalance in family responsibilities inherent to military life. Military members’ long duty hours, deployments, TADs, and PCSs are too disruptive for a spouse to sustain or grow a civilian career, or manage a full-time student course load.
Unless the military starts functioning predictably, no scholarships or spousal hiring preferences are going to change the military family dynamic. Since that’s never going to happen, all these spousal education and employment initiatives are just more “benefits” that sound good but benefit very few people.

November is Military Family Month. So?

2009-11-09T18:08:00.000+01:00

November is “Military Family Month,” and the Department of Defense put out yet another self-congratulatory press release about all the wonderful initiatives they’ve developed for us. It also included several sentences of pandering praise for our strength, and thanks for the sacrifices military families make every day.
Elsewhere on the web site for Tommy T. Thomas, deputy undersecretary of defense for military community and family policy, one can find a 2007 demographic study of the military, and the results of a comprehensive family survey conducted in 2008. The problem is, they don’t publish their interpretation of either of these resources. Rather than the tabulation of raw data, I’d prefer to see the inferences gleaned from it and the go-forward plan to address the findings.
For example, the demographic research shows the military is committing billions of dollars in resources for military family members, who far outnumber active-duty personnel. Housing, medical care, dental care, schools, and relocation costs are some of the obvious big-ticket items coming out of the Department of Defense’s personnel budget for military family members; then there’s the self-funded initiatives like morale, welfare, and recreation (MWR), and the commissaries and retail exchanges. (An aside about the exchanges: who are the buyers? And what planet are they from, with some of their clothing inventory choices? Truly, the exchanges should not count as a benefit, because two-thirds of what they sell is total crap.)
More to come on this subject.

HAP update - benefits are tax-free!

2009-11-06T13:09:00.002+01:00

President Obama is scheduled to sign the bill extending unemployment benefits and continuing the first-time home buyer tax credit today, according to NBC news Thursday evening.
There are few reports of the other issues attached to this legislation, so it took a lot of digging to learn that the provision to make HAP benefits non-taxable as income is included.
God bless America, finally doing something that provides meaningful help to military families.

This makes me want to puke. Guh.

2009-11-05T10:05:00.000+01:00

The Department of Defense put out a news release yesterday about its support of military families. Omygod, are they serious? (insert profane rant, here.) How do I get into one of their focus groups? I have a thing or two to tell them about military families' quality of life. These people are high on drugs if they think merely talking to someone is going to effect much change. How about if the Department of Defense cuts the bullshit and puts its policies where its mouth is? Our lives wouldn't be so godam stressful if the military wasn't constantly jerking us around. Wish I had more time to elaborate, but I'll definitely get back to this later.

We need a decision on Afghanistan

2009-11-03T14:11:00.002+01:00

Now that the election in Afghanistan is settled, whether legitimate or not, it's time for President Obama to make his decision on what to do with the war and troop levels. The popular excuse of waiting for the results of the run-off between Afghanistan's incumbent president, Hamid Karzai, and his challenger Abdullah Abdullah, is no longer valid. By the end of this week America's president needs to face The People and his advisers, lay out the plan and its reasoning, and announce the criteria to determine a win and an end to the eight-year war.
The Washington Post had this article today about the potential complications of dealing with Karzai. General Stanley McChrystal's request for 44,000 additional troops included an expectation that the Afghan government would significantly step up its participation to protect population centers from the Taliban. He wrote,

A foreign army alone cannot beat an insurgency; the insurgency in Afghanistan requires an Afghan solution

How many troops will it take to achieve an objective in Afghanistan if its government DOESN'T participate in a solution? Karzai was elected in 2004, and the war clearly hasn't made any great strides during his five years in office.

Rainy day and Monday

2009-11-02T14:15:00.000+01:00

The boys and I had a good weekend, keeping ourselves amused while Eric is gone. Saturday we went to a Halloween party on base, and then trick-or-treated around one of the housing areas. It was so great to see all the kids and parents out in costume, neighbors distributing candy together, and all the decorations. The Germans don't do Halloween, so entering the American bubble for the occasion was the only option for my kids to celebrate in the style to which they're accustomed.
Sunday we had the most beautiful weather, and I insisted we spend all day outside in the sunshine while we had the chance. We ran amok at the playground and traded Pokemon cards with three German boys. Some of the characters were identical, but of course their cards are in German and ours are in English, so they swapped duplicates with each other. The boys were so happy to play with neighborhood kids, and now they know where their new friends live, so hopefully we can cultivate the connection.
Today, it's been pouring rain since we woke up, my son gave me his cold, and we haven't heard from Eric since Saturday. It's the kind of day that yoga pants and a half-zip fleece pullover are my uniform for laying on the couch and listening to the deluge outside. Glad we soaked up all that sunshine yesterday!
I can see how easy it would be to linger in a deep blue funk like this. Every day would feel like today if I didn't take classes, exercise, and write. It would be easy to sink into depression without the appreciative audience of a spouse to validate all the cleaning, laundry, cooking, and child rearing. It all feels so pointless. The kids are the only ones here, and they not only don't care if the house is clean, they actively un-clean it at every opportunity. Laundy? They both would prefer to wear the same thing day after day, and would if I'd allow it. Cooking, forget about it. They would happily subsist for months on a diet solely consisting of frozen things that can be baked on a cookie sheet at 375 degrees.
When we first arrived here and still lived in the hotel on base, it immediately struck me that every woman I saw appeared to have given up. Now I get it. Without someone to notice the effort, why bother? There's not a lot of personal satisfaction gained from the repetitive chores of domestic life. I was so happy this weekend to finish bringing up a cord of wood from the driveway to the basement, because the cord of wood isn't going to reappear in the driveway tomorrow, strewn about. I can't say the same, metaphorically, about the laundry and the dishes. Those things always reappear, strewn about.
Having a life outside the house is, in my opinion, the most important thing a military spouse can do for him- or herself. When the service member is gone, there has to be something to fill the space.

My punditry and prescience

2009-11-02T13:33:00.000+01:00

The Washington Post just announced its 10 finalists in a contest for a new opinion columnist, and I wasn't one of them. This is the column I submitted as my entry, written on October 13. Today an article on MSNBC.COM confirmed my position. If only my psychic gift would give me some lottery numbers!

Last week on an American military base in Germany I overheard, “Did you see SecDef says there’s no plan to ever leave Afghanistan?” This was a simplification of the day’s front-page headline in Stars and Stripes newspaper, that the U.S. would not “abandon” Afghanistan to succumb to Taliban rule.
For an American to make this statement, in Germany, about Afghanistan, with no trace of irony would be amusing, were it not so pointed an illustration of the general national ignorance of America’s post-war history. America retained a military presence after virtually every overseas conflict we are agreed to have won since the Spanish-American War in 1898, and in almost every case, a contingent of U.S. forces remains to this day.
Guantanamo Bay has been a U.S. military outpost since 1898, and the land is leased in perpetuity. Even if the infamous prison is closed, Marines will remain, as they have for 111 years. Germany is still home to roughly 120,000 American troops; Japan, 45,000; Korea, 37,000. Since Operation Desert Storm in 1991, Kuwait has been the staging area for U.S. troops headed into Iraq and the launch pad for air strikes.
The Philippines successfully evicted American troops in 1992, aided by the complete destruction of Clark Air Base and extensive damage to Subic Bay Naval Base after the eruption of Mt. Pinatubo. Were it not for the billions of dollars required to restore those bases, the Department of Defense would certainly have pushed much harder for Filipino ratification of the treaty between the United States and the Philippines, which would have allowed continued presence by U.S. forces after the pending expiration of the Military Bases Agreement of 1947.
The reasons for long-term U.S. occupation or tenancy vary by location and evolve with the changing geopolitical landscape. Maintaining stability and assisting with reconstruction are usually the stated goals when making the case to hang around and get comfortable immediately after hostilities cease, but eventually the investment and the strategic value of these sites argues for continued presence. In Europe, the Cold War required our local vigilance to protect our allies. Now, we use European bases to provide support to forward troops and NATO.
With the general instability of the entire region, of course America has no plans to leave Afghanistan, even if we “win.” Pakistan and Iran are both loose cannons, and the fact that we never should have entered Iraq to begin with makes our exit there more pressing. Americans may not have the stomach for a long war, but we have no problem whatsoever with long-term residency when the bullets stop flying.

Alone again, naturally

2009-10-30T14:29:00.001+01:00

My husband the Marine is out of the country for an exercise. This time feels so much different than all the times before. Primarily I feel lonelier, I miss him more, and the days feel really long even though it's getting dark at 5 p.m.
It's been years since I've been a stay-at-home wife and mother. The only occasions I had to do it in the past involved caring for a newborn and one or more other children, breastfeeding, and contemplating if and when to return to work. When Eric was away, I still had plenty to keep me busy, and I was utterly exhausted.
When I was gainfully employed outside the home, I didn't have time to miss him because I was so overwhelmed trying to keep track of when and where the kids were supposed to be, who needed a ride, and other routine domestic management, on top of showing up on time with a modicum of concentration for the job I was getting paid to do.
My teenagers are gone, finishing high school in Maryland with their father, and they were a constant source of entertainment and conversation for me in Eric's prior absences. Their sense of humor and vocabularies are sophisticated enough to engage in meaningful and/or hilarious exchanges. They were also handy to have around when I wanted to run an errand, because they could babysit for an hour on short notice.
Living on base made it easier, because everyone's husband was coming and going at random intervals. When Eric was in Iraq, my neighbor's husband was in Afghanistan, and we spent time together every day. We even got through Christmas alone in Okinawa, and although it wasn't fun or pleasant for us, we did okay for our kids without their dads. At least, I don't think either of us cried in front of them.
Woe is me, and he's only gone for two weeks this time. What am I going to do when he has to deploy again if I'm struggling now?
Everything is different here than every other time he left, so I need to learn different coping strategies. I wonder what they'll be.

"Free" health care

2009-10-29T16:24:00.002+01:00

That military families receive "free" medical and dental care is a common misconception, and one regularly cited by critics who think we have it so much better off than civilian Americans. News flash: the only time our medical or dental care is "free" is when a military treatment facility (MTF) will see us.
The systems works reasonably well when we're in a location where obtaining civilian-provided care would be impractical because of an insurmountable language barrier, or if the local system's resources are overwhelmed by its own socialized medicine recipients. This was the case in Okinawa, where English is not universally spoken or understood, and the local media consistently reported outrageous stories of Japanese heart attack patients being turned away from emergency rooms due to overcrowding. The system also worked well in Guam, which is a U.S. Territory but did not have an accredited civilian hospital until October 6 of this year.
At any rate, in California I had the misfortune of needing gum grafting surgery, twice. Each time the bill from my civilian periodontist was $3,950. Our military dental insurance's "allowable charge" for the procedure is $1,050, with a 40 percent cost share. My out-of-pocket cost - twice - was $3,320.
United Condordia, our provider through the Tricare Dental Program, has gone so far as to ask me for a refund of $105 they say they overpaid on my second procedure, due to erroneously withholding only a 30 percent cost share. The procedure was performed over a year ago.
I'm thinking since it took them a year to come back with the nerve to ask me for it, I can take a year to reimburse them.

The Messenger

2009-10-29T16:03:00.000+01:00

Link through header to see the trailer for this movie, coming soon to a theater near you. It's the story of an Army soldier whose duty is to notify the next-of-kin when their loved one is killed at war. The trailer totally gave me goosebumps.

Previously on Tracy's blog...

2009-10-27T16:35:00.002+01:00

It seems like forever ago that I wrote about the need for the U.S. to do whatever the hell it takes to get the job done and bring the troops home from Afghanistan. It was actually just over a week ago. Today I posted two viewpoints about the war: one regarding the resignation of a civilian who was fed up with the whole thing, and one from the father of a Marine killed there. The civilian thinks America needs to get out of Afghanistan, immediately and completely. The fallen Marine's father, who is a retired Marine himself, thinks America should change the Rules of Engagement and go all-out with a big old-fashioned WAR, get in there and blow the bad guys sky-high, and get it over with that way.
I agree America needs to get the hell out of there, but how to go about it is clearly wide-open to interpretation. Other than knowing we're there, and 14 Americans died yesterday, and eight more died today, does America know enough about what's going on to be persuaded in either direction?

Another point of view

2009-10-27T12:58:00.001+01:00

A 26-year Marine veteran whose Marine son was killed in Afghanistan created the blog Let Them Fight or Bring Them Home (link through heading) and wrote a passionate response to the news that the White House would have its Afghanistan decision by the end of the week. A fascinating counter-point to my earlier post about the guy who resigned. Just in case you didn't find the issue complex enough.
http://letthemfight.blogspot.com/

U.S. official resigns over Afghan war

2009-10-27T09:08:00.001+01:00

From today's Washington Post. This is the first time I've EVER seen unanimous praise for the guy who resigned, instead of a bunch of bad-mouthing and back-stabbing. In that context, this is pretty hard-core. Nobody even jumped on his own admissions of earlier PTSD and heavy drinking as an excuse for his resignation.

Foreign Service officer and former Marine captain says he no longer knows why his nation is fighting
By Karen DeYoung
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, October 27, 2009

When Matthew Hoh joined the Foreign Service early this year, he was exactly the kind of smart civil-military hybrid the administration was looking for to help expand its development efforts in Afghanistan.

A former Marine Corps captain with combat experience in Iraq, Hoh had also served in uniform at the Pentagon, and as a civilian in Iraq and at the State Department. By July, he was the senior U.S. civilian in Zabul province, a Taliban hotbed.

But last month, in a move that has sent ripples all the way to the White House, Hoh, 36, became the first U.S. official known to resign in protest over the Afghan war, which he had come to believe simply fueled the insurgency.

"I have lost understanding of and confidence in the strategic purposes of the United States' presence in Afghanistan," he wrote Sept. 10 in a four-page letter to the department's head of personnel. "I have doubts and reservations about our current strategy and planned future strategy, but my resignation is based not upon how we are pursuing this war, but why and to what end."

The reaction to Hoh's letter was immediate. Senior U.S. officials, concerned that they would lose an outstanding officer and perhaps gain a prominent critic, appealed to him to stay.

U.S. Ambassador Karl W. Eikenberry brought him to Kabul and offered him a job on his senior embassy staff. Hoh declined. From there, he was flown home for a face-to-face meeting with Richard C. Holbrooke, the administration's special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan.

"We took his letter very seriously, because he was a good officer," Holbrooke said in an interview. "We all thought that given how serious his letter was, how much commitment there was, and his prior track record, we should pay close attention to him."

While he did not share Hoh's view that the war "wasn't worth the fight," Holbrooke said, "I agreed with much of his analysis." He asked Hoh to join his team in Washington, saying that "if he really wanted to affect policy and help reduce the cost of the war on lives and treasure," why not be "inside the building, rather than outside, where you can get a lot of attention but you won't have the same political impact?"

Hoh accepted the argument and the job, but changed his mind a week later. "I recognize the career implications, but it wasn't the right thing to do," he said in an interview Friday, two days after his resignation became final.

"I'm not some peacenik, pot-smoking hippie who wants everyone to be in love," Hoh said. Although he said his time in Zabul was the "second-best job I've ever had," his dominant experience is from the Marines, where many of his closest friends still serve.

"There are plenty of dudes who need to be killed," he said of al-Qaeda and the Taliban. "I was never more happy than when our Iraq team whacked a bunch of guys."

But many Afghans, he wrote in his resignation letter, are fighting the United States largely because its troops are there -- a growing military presence in villages and valleys where outsiders, including other Afghans, are not welcome and where the corrupt, U.S.-backed national government is rejected. While the Taliban is a malign presence, and Pakistan-based al-Qaeda needs to be confronted, he said, the United States is asking its troops to die in Afghanistan for what is essentially a far-off civil war.

As the White House deliberates over whether to deploy more troops, Hoh said he decided to speak out publicly because "I want people in Iowa, people in Arkansas, people in Arizona, to call their congressman and say, 'Listen, I don't think this is right.' "

"I realize what I'm getting into . . . what people are going to say about me," he said. "I never thought I would be doing this."

'Uncommon bravery'

Hoh's journey -- from Marine, reconstruction expert and diplomat to war protester -- was not an easy one. Over the weeks he spent thinking about and drafting his resignation letter, he said, "I felt physically nauseous at times."

His first ambition in life was to become a firefighter, like his father. Instead, after graduation from Tufts University and a desk job at a publishing firm, he joined the Marines in 1998. After five years in Japan and at the Pentagon -- and at a point early in the Iraq war when it appeared to many in the military that the conflict was all but over -- he left the Marines to join the private sector, only to be recruited as a Defense Department civilian in Iraq. A trained combat engineer, he was sent to manage reconstruction efforts in Saddam Hussein's home town of Tikrit.

"At one point," Hoh said, "I employed up to 5,000 Iraqis" handing out tens of millions of dollars in cash to construct roads and mosques. His program was one of the few later praised as a success by the U.S. special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction.

In 2005, Hoh took a job with BearingPoint, a major technology and management contractor at the State Department, and was sent to the Iraq desk in Foggy Bottom. When the U.S. effort in Iraq began to turn south in early 2006, he was recalled to active duty from the reserves. He assumed command of a company in Anbar province, where Marines were dying by the dozens.

Hoh came home in the spring of 2007 with citations for what one Marine evaluator called "uncommon bravery," a recommendation for promotion, and what he later recognized was post-traumatic stress disorder. Of all the deaths he witnessed, the one that weighed most heavily on him happened in a helicopter crash in Anbar in December 2006. He and a friend, Maj. Joseph T. McCloud, were aboard when the aircraft fell into the rushing waters below Haditha dam. Hoh swam to shore, dropped his 90 pounds of gear and dived back in to try to save McCloud and three others he could hear calling for help.

He was a strong swimmer, he said, but by the time he reached them, "they were gone."

'You can't sleep'

It wasn't until his third month home, in an apartment in Arlington, that it hit him like a wave. "All the things you hear about how it comes over you, it really did. . . . You have dreams, you can't sleep. You're just, 'Why did I fail? Why didn't I save that man? Why are his kids growing up without a father?' "

Like many Marines in similar situations, he didn't seek help. "The only thing I did," Hoh said, "was drink myself blind."

What finally began to bring him back, he said, was a television show -- "Rescue Me" on the FX cable network -- about a fictional New York firefighter who descended into "survivor guilt" and alcoholism after losing his best friend in the World Trade Center attacks.

He began talking to friends and researching the subject online. He visited McCloud's family and "apologized to his wife . . . because I didn't do enough to save them," even though his rational side knew he had done everything he could.

Hoh represented the service at the funeral of a Marine from his company who committed suicide after returning from Iraq. "My God, I was so afraid they were going to be angry," he said of the man's family. "But they weren't. All they did was tell me how much he loved the Marine Corps."

"It's something I'll carry for the rest of my life," he said of his Iraq experiences. "But it's something I've settled, I've reconciled with."

Late last year, a friend told Hoh that the State Department was offering year-long renewable hires for Foreign Service officers in Afghanistan. It was a chance, he thought, to use the development skills he had learned in Tikrit under a fresh administration that promised a new strategy.

'Valley-ism'

In photographs he brought home from Afghanistan, Hoh appears as a tall young man in civilian clothes, with a neatly trimmed beard and a pristine flak jacket. He stands with Eikenberry, the ambassador, on visits to northern Kunar province and Zabul, in the south. He walks with Zabul Gov. Mohammed Ashraf Naseri, confers with U.S. military officers and sits at food-laden meeting tables with Afghan tribal leaders. In one picture, taken on a desolate stretch of desert on the Pakistani border, he poses next to a hand-painted sign in Pashto marking the frontier.

The border picture was taken in early summer, after he arrived in Zabul following two months in a civilian staff job at the military brigade headquarters in Jalalabad, in eastern Afghanistan. It was in Jalalabad that his doubts started to form.

Hoh was assigned to research the response to a question asked by Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, during an April visit. Mullen wanted to know why the U.S. military had been operating for years in the Korengal Valley, an isolated spot near Afghanistan's eastern border with Pakistan where a number of Americans had been killed. Hoh concluded that there was no good reason. The people of Korengal didn't want them; the insurgency appeared to have arrived in strength only after the Americans did, and the battle between the two forces had achieved only a bloody stalemate.

Korengal and other areas, he said, taught him "how localized the insurgency was. I didn't realize that a group in this valley here has no connection with an insurgent group two kilometers away." Hundreds, maybe thousands, of groups across Afghanistan, he decided, had few ideological ties to the Taliban but took its money to fight the foreign intruders and maintain their own local power bases.

"That's really what kind of shook me," he said. "I thought it was more nationalistic. But it's localism. I would call it valley-ism."

'Continued . . . assault'

Zabul is "one of the five or six provinces always vying for the most difficult and neglected," a State Department official said. Kandahar, the Taliban homeland, is to the southwest and Pakistan to the south. Highway 1, the main link between Kandahar and Kabul and the only paved road in Zabul, bisects the province. Over the past year, the official said, security has become increasingly difficult.

By the time Hoh arrived at the U.S. military-run provincial reconstruction team (PRT) in the Zabul capital of Qalat, he said, "I already had a lot of frustration. But I knew at that point, the new administration was . . . going to do things differently. So I thought I'd give it another chance." He read all the books he could get his hands on, from ancient Afghan history, to the Soviet occupation in the 1980s, through Taliban rule in the 1990s and the eight years of U.S. military involvement.

Frank Ruggiero, the Kandahar-based regional head of the U.S. PRTs in the south, considered Hoh "very capable" and appointed him the senior official among the three U.S. civilians in the province. "I always thought very highly of Matt," he said in a telephone interview.

In accordance with administration policy of decentralizing power in Afghanistan, Hoh worked to increase the political capabilities and clout of Naseri, the provincial governor, and other local officials. "Materially, I don't think we accomplished much," he said in retrospect, but "I think I did represent our government well."

Naseri told him that at least 190 local insurgent groups were fighting in the largely rural province, Hoh said. "It was probably exaggerated," he said, "but the truth is that the majority" are residents with "loyalties to their families, villages, valleys and to their financial supporters."

Hoh's doubts increased with Afghanistan's Aug. 20 presidential election, marked by low turnout and widespread fraud. He concluded, he said in his resignation letter, that the war "has violently and savagely pitted the urban, secular, educated and modern of Afghanistan against the rural, religious, illiterate and traditional. It is this latter group that composes and supports the Pashtun insurgency."

With "multiple, seemingly infinite, local groups," he wrote, the insurgency "is fed by what is perceived by the Pashtun people as a continued and sustained assault, going back centuries, on Pashtun land, culture, traditions and religion by internal and external enemies. The U.S. and Nato presence in Pashtun valleys and villages, as well as Afghan army and police units that are led and composed of non-Pashtun soldiers and police, provide an occupation force against which the insurgency is justified."

American families, he said at the end of the letter, "must be reassured their dead have sacrificed for a purpose worthy of futures lost, love vanished, and promised dreams unkept. I have lost confidence such assurances can be made any more."

'Their problem to solve'

Ruggiero said that he was taken aback by Hoh's resignation but that he made no effort to dissuade him. "It's Matt's decision, and I honored, I respected" it, he said. "I didn't agree with his assessment, but it was his decision."

Eikenberry expressed similar respect, but declined through an aide to discuss "individual personnel matters."

Francis J. Ricciardone Jr., Eikenberry's deputy, said he met with Hoh in Kabul but spoke to him "in confidence. I respect him as a thoughtful man who has rendered selfless service to our country, and I expect most of Matt's colleagues would share this positive estimation of him, whatever may be our differences of policy or program perspectives."

This week, Hoh is scheduled to meet with Vice President Biden's foreign policy adviser, Antony Blinken, at Blinken's invitation.

If the United States is to remain in Afghanistan, Hoh said, he would advise a reduction in combat forces.

He also would suggest providing more support for Pakistan, better U.S. communication and propaganda skills to match those of al-Qaeda, and more pressure on Afghan President Hamid Karzai to clean up government corruption -- all options being discussed in White House deliberations.

"We want to have some kind of governance there, and we have some obligation for it not to be a bloodbath," Hoh said. "But you have to draw the line somewhere, and say this is their problem to solve."

A little history

2009-10-26T17:28:00.000+01:00

My grandfather, Lt. Raymond H. Moulton, was a prisoner of war here in Germany during World War II. His bomber was shot up during an air raid on Berlin, killing one crewman and injuring another, and they lost all their fuel through holes in the fuselage. He and the rest of the crew had to bail out over occupied Holland, were captured by the German army, and sent to P.O.W. camps.
We just learned that the camp my grandfather was liberated from in 1945 is relatively close-by, on the far side of Munich: Stalag VII A, in the town of Moosburg, Bavaria (link through heading). Some of the barracks still remain, and there is a memorial to the prisoners.
How cool is that? We're definitely making that side trip next time we visit Munich. His time as a P.O.W. affected the rest of his life, and consequently the rest of the family's lives. I'm eager to learn more about it.

What to do, what to do?

2009-10-26T16:39:00.000+01:00

Now that the soul-crushing anxiety about our house has been somewhat ameliorated by moving into escrow, we're wondering when the Senate is going to sign off on bill 1678. The bill's main provision is to extend the $8,000 first-time homebuyer's credit for another six months. Attached to the legislation is an item that would make HAP benefits non-taxable.
The flat tax rate on HAP benefits is 25 percent. In our case, that amounts to over $20,000. When that gets deducted from our benefit payment, we're still left with roughly that amount owed to USAA on the 2nd mortgage/equity loan. Even after HAP, we'll still be paying a mortgage on a house we no longer own. Sick, isn't it?
At any rate, the House of Representatives passed the extension of the first-time homebuyer's credit bill unanimously, so it shouldn't run into any problems in the Senate. The initial credit expires on November 30, so I imagine the Senate HAS TO get it done before then, but will they get it done before we close escrow on November 23?
If not, we'll just proceed like we would have if HAP didn't exist and modify the remaining balance of the equity loan; then request the HAP benefit after the tax bill is in effect a week later. Theoretically, we could go to closing with the net of the taxed HAP benefit, but can you imagine what we'd have to go through to get the withheld taxes refunded? I don't even want to think about it.

Okay:

2009-10-23T21:53:00.003+02:00

This is such a long story with so many moving parts I think I'll begin at the end: our house is in escrow. Unbelievable, yes, I know, but it's been a very busy couple of days.
After my last post, I spoke with the CEO's representative I mentioned from USAA. Her signature line is "Voice of the Member," and she got QUITE an earful from me. I told her everything in my last post, and many of my previous posts about the way this went, and she was appalled at the conduct of the GMAC rep acting on USAA's behalf. She totally agreed that GMAC was not living up to the customer care standards USAA expects, was not acting in USAA's or its member's best interest, and she was very apologetic about everything I've had to endure getting to this point. She called GMAC, and hopefully threatened to pull every mortgage they "service" for USAA, and was able to accomplish what I wasn't, which was to speak to a human that flagged our account and will take no further action due to the imminent full payoff at the close of escrow November 23.
Meanwhile, our HAP guy sent us a letter with our case file number, but that's about it. It even specifically said "This number does not indicate your position in the application process nor does its assignment confer eligibility, which will be subsequently determined." I was like, "Um, thanks, but that's not quite what I think USAA had in mind..." I e-mailed back and asked if he could be a little more specific, and send it directly to our loss mitigator. Evidently he did that, but he didn't CC me. (sigh) Whatever; as long as USAA is satisfied.
Lo and behold, USAA must have been satisfied, because we received our Short Sale Approval from the loss mitigator! It took me all of two seconds to get that baby printed out, signed, scanned, and back to her, our HAP guy, our realtor, and our escrow person. Whew!
The escrow person was going to call GMAC to confirm the payoff amount on the primary mortgage, so I warned her that they are an absolute joy to deal with (cough, cough). Looking forward to hearing back from her on how THAT goes.

Unbe-f***ing-lievable

2009-10-21T16:41:00.000+02:00

Sorry to go bipolar on you again, but in light of my great news from USAA home equity and our loss mitigator yesterday, I placed a call to GMAC (our primary mortgage servicer on behalf of USAA) to let them know we're going into escrow Friday. What the hell was I thinking, to go and ruin my good mood like that?
GMAC is not acting in the best interest of its client, USAA. GMAC says that despite the house going into escrow Friday, they will continue foreclosure proceedings when the breach of contract letter expires October 30, unless we make a full mortgage payment. If the house goes into foreclosure, the sale can still go through, but of course it will involve more fees and complications. Of course it will! I'm sure USAA home equity, our loss mitigator, and the mortgage insurer will be thrilled to hear their contractor is throwing up yet another roadblock into everyone getting paid.
At that point, there must be a human decision made to file whatever is necessary in San Diego County to begin foreclosure proceedings, and I requested to speak to one of these humans, but was told they don't take calls. I was also told that the circumstances of our pending home sale are irrelevant, because although it is a human decision to send a home into foreclosure, the humans involved can't be bothered to consider the circumstances and make a judgment call about whether to wait another 17 days to foreclose and see through the close of the sale when they get paid in full. That would make sense, so of course it's not possible in a transaction such as this. So no, the copious notes the call handler puts in our record about all of this, and our written responses to the late payment notices and default warning, have no bearing whatsoever. Nor does the sales contract or the confirmation from USAA that the second lien is being released and refinanced.
Meanwhile, we received an e-mail from someone on behalf of the CEO of USAA offering to personally address our concerns. Be my guest, ma'am. Maybe she'll have better luck than I had.
This morning the Today Show had a segment on the aggravation and waiting the buyers of short-sale homes go through, with barely a mention of the aggravation and waiting of the sellers. At least the buyers aren't going bankrupt while they wait for the bank to make a decision.
With all due respect to cancer sufferers, this is house is my cancer. It has been a torturous battle, and it has regularly featured physical and emotional suffering. I have to take muscle relaxers before bed because I clench my teeth so hard it's eroding my gums. This has to end.

Reefer sanity: The marijuana lobby goes mainstream

2009-10-21T14:56:00.000+02:00

From today's Washington Post. As a Californian, I agree with everything in this article. I have always maintained that alcohol is a much greater menace to society and public safety than marijuana. Of course the military will still prohibit its use even if it is legalized, just like the Marine Corps prohibits body piercings.

By Kathleen Parker
Wednesday, October 21, 2009

In an act of merciful sanity, the Obama administration has made good on its promise to stop interfering with states that allow the medical use of marijuana.
Clink-clink, hear-hear, salud, cheers, et cetera, et cetera.

The announcement from Attorney General Eric Holder surely comes as a relief to the many who rely on cannabis to ease suffering from various ailments. This new, relaxed approach doesn't let drug traffickers off the hook. It merely means that 14 states that now provide for some medical marijuana uses no longer need fear federal raids on dispensaries and users operating under state law.

It's a good move, long overdue. But is it enough? Not quite.

The debate over whether Americans ought to have the right to be stupid -- or to make other people seem more interesting -- continues apace after 40 years of the (failed) "war on drugs."

Arguments for and against decriminalization of some or all drugs are familiar by now. Distilled to the basics, the drug war has empowered criminals while criminalizing otherwise law-abiding citizens and wasted billions that could have been better spent on education and rehabilitation.

By ever-greater numbers, Americans support decriminalizing at least marijuana, which millions admit to having used, including a couple of presidents and a Supreme Court justice. A recent Gallup poll found that 44 percent of Americans favor legalization for any purpose, not just medical, up from 31 percent in 2000.

The highest level of support, not surprisingly, is in the Western states and among self-described liberals, with 78 percent of liberals favoring decriminalization. But the shift toward a more sensible national policy is no longer confined to the left. Nor is the long-haired stoner the face of the pro-pot lobby. Today's activist, more likely, doesn't have facial hair, but she does have kids.

Lately to the smallish conservative crowd, notably once led by anti-prohibitionist William F. Buckley, is Jessica Corry of Colorado, a married, pro-life Republican mom, soon to be "freedom fighter of the month" in High Times magazine.

Recent partakers undoubtedly will have to rub their eyes for a double take when they spot Corry, who spoke last month at a NORML conference (National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws) in San Francisco, wearing an American flag lapel pin, a triple strand of pearls and a gold marijuana leaf pin.

Another day, another stereotype in the dust bin.

In addition to writing and speaking to end marijuana prohibition, Corry, who does not smoke pot, is trying to organize Republican women around the cause. So far, she has commitments from 20 fellow Coloradoans, most of them lawyers, like Corry. Her husband, also an attorney, represents medical marijuana users.

Corry's arguments focus not only on the inhumanity of further punishing sick people who seek relief through pot but also on protecting her children should they decide to try marijuana someday. There's nothing like imagining one's own children as "criminals" to put irrational laws in perspective.
Corry is hardly alone and, in fact, may be part of a "toking point." (Is there a drug yet for "Tipping Point Fatigue"?) In its October issue, Marie Claire magazine featured "Stiletto Stoners," an article about accomplished career women who prefer to relax with pot. A September Fortune cover story, "Is Pot Already Legal?" examined the issue. In April, the 2006 Miss New Jersey, Georgine DiMaria, outed herself as a stealth marijuana user to treat her asthma.

States' rights and conservatism are old friends -- except when they're not. While many Republicans nurse a libertarian streak, the party has been selective in its support of federalist principles. George W. Bush's administration refused to honor states authorizing medical uses of cannabis, for instance, but aimed to return abortion and marriage issues to state jurisdictions.

In a column for the Colorado Daily, Corry argued that conservative principles of smaller government directly conflict with laws that try to control what we put into our bodies. Alcohol and cigarettes -- not to mention 700-calorie cheeseburgers -- are inarguably more harmful than a little reefer, she wrote.

The decision not to raid dispensaries or punish people who benefit from marijuana use, though commendable, falls short of what's needed. At the very least, when jobs and cash are in short supply, legalizing marijuana would seem both prudent and profitable.

In 1929, the Women's Organization for National Prohibition Reform led the movement to end alcohol prohibition. Might women lead the next revolution in personal autonomy?

Keep those flutes and snifters (and bongs?) handy.

I said, "Woo. Hoo."

2009-10-20T18:50:00.000+02:00

It's a real challenge to sit here and type since I'd rather be jumping up and down shrieking with joy, but an update is definitely in order.
Epic news day for me: HAP eligibility letter is on its way via e-mail, and USAA and its mortgage insurer have agreed to our short sale.
After feeling completely mental about this all day yesterday, today I decorated the house for Halloween, went to the commissary, mailed my son's 16th birthday gifts, and took my little boys to our Stuttgart suburb's indoor playground. I specifically went out of my way to avoid my e-mail and computer all day, because it was unproductive and anxiety-provoking to sit here waiting for news.
This was a watched pot waiting to boil. By ignoring it all day, the heavens smiled upon me and gave me everything I needed when I got home: another phone call answered by a real person at HAP, with a real response to our question; and a phone call to us from our USAA loss mitigator, putting me out of my misery, by letting me know the short sale can proceed into escrow.
Unfortunately she may be deaf in one ear from my ecstatic outburst, and since it's 6:30 p.m. here and only 11:30 a.m. there, I will drink a toast to her and her hard work in getting this done. Cheers to you, Anna!
The best part of this, besides relieving the crushing weight of financial doom from my shoulders, is that now there's a precedent for everyone else. We were totally winging it, making it up as we went along, with me pushing and kicking and screaming every step of the way. At least now for others like us, USAA and its mortgage insurer will be like, "It's the same thing we did for the Peterson house," and the blueprint we created can be followed faster and easier next time. Because what I'm hearing from our loss mitigator is virtually everyone involved at USAA and the mortgage insurer has been briefed on the circumstances and minutia of our long slow journey through hell.
Coincidentally (speaking of hell), when I was in the pit of despair yesterday I went looking for inspirational quotes about perseverance, and this immortal line from Sir Winston Churchill kept me in the fight: "When you're going through hell, keep going."
Thanks, Sir Winston, and thanks to my Moulton forebears who never let the prospect of someone not liking what we had to say keep us from saying it. The origin of my maiden name is from "mule," and we have a long-standing family tradition of being as stubborn as one.
Keep the faith, HAP applicants. Help is on the way!

The slowly vanishing NATO

2009-10-20T11:43:00.000+02:00

From today's Washington Post, by Opinion columnist Anne Applebaum:

"This is a solemn moment for this House and our country," Gordon Brown, the British prime minister, said while addressing the House of Commons last week. A hush fell over the room and, according to a parliamentary sketch writer, the members "ceased to fidget, a truly rare thing in the Commons." Brown then began to read a list of names: the 37 British soldiers who died in Afghanistan over the summer.

Just a week before, a parallel scene had unfolded across the Channel: In Paris, a soldier wounded in Afghanistan this summer died at a hospital. French Prime Minister François Fillon paid homage to the sergeant, speaking of "the courage of our soldiers, their devotion and their professionalism," which he said merited the recognition of "the nation." In the United States, meanwhile, CNN featured the story of an American mother who flew home with the body of her son, another soldier killed in Afghanistan this summer. He died in what was described as "the deadliest battle for U.S. troops since July 2008."

When Polish, Dutch or German soldiers die, the stories are often much the same. Politicians, and frequently the national media as well, salute their heroism and express the thanks of the nation. Patriotic songs are played at the funerals, which are sometimes featured on the news. Usually a number is mentioned: the 221 British troops who have died in Afghanistan since 2001, the roughly 850 Americans, 131 Canadians, 36 French soldiers, 34 Germans, 21 Dutch, 22 Italians, 26 Spaniards, 15 Poles and others.

Sometimes, a political outburst follows, too. In recent days Prime Minister Brown has been attacked by an opponent on the grounds that British soldiers are "fighting and dying for an Afghan government that is deeply corrupt." French President Nicolas Sarkozy has just been forced to declare that while French soldiers will for the moment stay in Afghanistan, "not one single more" will be sent in the future. Rising summer casualties have led to an intensifying debate in the Netherlands. And of course the American argument rages on.

Only very rarely do the casualties of one country make it into the media, the political debates or the prime ministerial speeches of another country. There has been an international coalition operating in Afghanistan since 2001. NATO has been in charge of that coalition since 2003. Yet to read the British press, one would think the British are there almost alone, fighting a war in which they have no national interest. The same is true in France and in the Netherlands. American media outlets hardly note the participation of other countries, even though some -- Britain and Canada -- have endured casualties at a higher rate than that of the U.S. military, relative to the size of their contingents.

There is almost no sense anywhere that the war in Afghanistan is an international operation, or that the stakes and goals are international, or that the soldiers on the ground represent anything other than their own national flags and national armed forces: Most of the war's European critics want to know why their boys are fighting "for the Americans," not for NATO. Most of the American critics dismiss the European contribution as useless or ignore it altogether. As Jackson Diehl pointed out Monday, the central debate about future Afghanistan policy is taking place in Washington without any obvious contributions from anybody else. I'm not going to blame the U.S. administration alone for this: It's not as if Europe has put forward a different plan -- and there was certainly a moment, back at the beginning of this administration, when that would have been very welcome.

The fact is that the idea of "the West" has been fading for a long time on both sides of the Atlantic, as countless "whither-the-Alliance" seminars have been ritually observing for the past decade. But the consequences are now with us: NATO, though fighting its first war since its foundation, inspires nobody. The members of NATO feel no allegiance to the alliance, or to one another. On its home continent, NATO does precious little military contingency planning, preferring to hold summits. Above all, there is no recognizable alliance leader who is willing or able to engage in the national debates of the various member countries, to argue in favor of the Afghan mission or any other. President Obama could in theory do this, but I'm guessing the idea doesn't fill him with inspiration.

None of this might matter much in Afghanistan, since the outcome of current deliberations may well be some version of the status quo. But the next time NATO is needed, I doubt whether it will be there at all.

Time zone tirade

2009-10-19T14:26:00.001+02:00

Today is giving me a hard time. No news back from HAP or USAA last Friday; it's now Monday mid-afternoon here in Germany, but not even normal business hours in either of the U.S. time zones I'm waiting to hear from. I'm guessing that if my loss mitigator or HAP counselor had anything to tell me Friday, they would have done so, and calling them before they even take their coats off Monday morning isn't going to get me an answer.
Patience has never been my strength, and there's fine line between squeaky wheel and annoying pain-in-the-ass. I think I'm tipping toward annoying pain-in-the-ass. I told the loss mitigator that I understand my case may not be the most pressing concern in her life at the moment, despite the fact that it's the most pressing concern in mine. Intellectually, that's absolutely true. Unfortunately my intellect isn't the only thing driving this train. I can't sleep, my cuticles are shredded, and unless whomever is speaking to me stands right next to me and says, "Tracy," I can't hear anything but my inner monologue: "the house. the house. the house." When this is over, I won't know what to do with myself in the absence of soul-crushing anxiety.

More media dithering over Afghanistan

2009-10-19T07:26:00.001+02:00

Since when is it a BAD thing to have the Commander-In-Chief deliberate carefully about committing more forces to war? The media and the Europeans may be getting impatient, but I for one am heartened to see the care with which the decision is being made. Let's not just throw more young American bodies at it; let's figure out the best use of the money and the personnel, choose a goal, establish a strategy to attain it, and proceed with an end in sight.

Europe's angst over Afghanistan
Allies have a question: Will Obama walk away?

By Jackson Diehl
Monday, October 19, 2009

As the president and his National Security Council privately debate whether to send tens of thousands of troops to war, America's European allies watch with a mixture of anxiety and anguish. They know that if the deployment goes forward, they will be asked to make their own difficult and politically costly contributions of soldiers or other personnel. But they are, if anything, even more worried that the American president will choose a feckless strategy for what they consider a critical mission. And they are frustrated that they must watch and wait -- and wait and wait -- for the president to make up his mind.

"Everyone is waiting for what is going to be decided in the Oval Office, without having any chance to have our say," moans a senior commander in one European army.

No, Norwegian Nobel Committee, this is not George W. Bush but Barack Obama, the president lionized for favoring harmonious collaboration with the rest of the world. It's fair to say that Obama has tried harder than Bush to coordinate policy with U.S. allies. But his deliberations on Afghanistan are demonstrating how some fundamentals of being a superpower never really change.

For example, when you're supplying 70 percent of the troops for a war and doing 90 percent of the fighting, your allies may just have to cool their heels while you decide whether to escalate, hold steady or blow up your strategy.

And while they wait, they will stew. In conversations with senior European officials visiting Washington, and at a transatlantic conference sponsored by Italy's Magna Carta Foundation last weekend, I heard an earful of Euro-anxiety about the strategy review Obama is conducting. Some of the concern is simply about the spectacle of a young American president hesitating about going forward with a strategy that he committed himself to just months ago -- and what effect that wavering might have on enemies both in Afghanistan and farther afield.

But a surprising amount of the worry, considering the continental source, is about whether Obama will be strong enough -- whether he will, in the words of one ambassador, "walk away from a mission that we have all committed ourselves to."

European governments bought in to Obama's ambitious plan to pacify Afghanistan when he presented it in March. Unlike the U.S. president, they mostly haven't had second thoughts. By and large they agree with the recommendations developed by the commander Obama appointed, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, who says that unless the momentum of the Taliban is broken in the next year, the war may be lost.

It's hard for European leaders to argue that Obama should send the 40,000 or more reinforcements that McChrystal is seeking, since they will be accompanied, at best, by only 2,000 to 3,000 more Europeans. So they tend to focus on the other half of the equation: why the West cannot give up on the effort to stabilize Afghanistan under a decent government.

"We need to create a stable government in Afghanistan, a government we can deal with," NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said during a recent visit to Washington. "Otherwise we will be faced with permanent instability in Afghanistan and in the region."

Rasmussen and other Europeans are also happy to speak up publicly against the strategy sometimes attributed to Vice President Biden, under which the United States would focus on counterterrorism operations against al-Qaeda with drones or Special Forces. "Why are there no Predator strikes in Peshawar or Quetta? Because it can't be done," said Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt, whose country currently represents the European Union. "But we know leaders of al-Qaeda and the Taliban are hiding in those urban areas. I fail to see that as a viable strategy."

Britain, naturally, has made the most direct attempt to sway the Washington debate. Last week Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced that he would add 500 troops to Britain's contingent of 9,000 -- a step that wouldn't make much sense if the United States were to scale down its own commitment. His defense staff chief left no doubt about where the British military stands. "I don't want to put words in the mouths of the Americans, but I am fairly confident of the way it is going to come out," said Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup, who added that he agreed with "just about all" of McChrystal's report.

In fact, administration officials say the president hasn't made up his mind; they also say that he had no problem with Brown's announcement. For now, it seems to me that the most likely outcome of the internal debate is a decision to send some additional military trainers or other troops, but not the full combat force McChrystal wants.

If that's his decision, Obama will have some work to do with allies. "Once a decision is made, Obama is going to have to reach out directly to his European counterparts," said another ambassador. "They are going to need a lot of persuasion."

Send enough troops to win in Afghanistan.

2009-10-18T11:26:00.000+02:00

What did I JUST SAY two days ago?

Don't Settle for Stalemate in Afghanistan

By Ike Skelton and Joe Lieberman
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Rep. Ike Skelton (D-Mo.) is chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) is chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee.

Six months ago the Obama administration concluded that the only way to stop Afghanistan's slide into insecurity and prevent the reemergence of a terrorist haven was to put in place an integrated counterinsurgency strategy focused on protecting the Afghan population, building up the Afghan national security forces and improving Afghan governance.

We strongly supported the president's decision and continue to believe that he was right. He also made the right decision last week when, in a meeting with congressional leaders, he ruled out withdrawing U.S. troops from Afghanistan.

The key question confronting the administration now is not whether to pursue counterinsurgency in Afghanistan but whether to provide that counterinsurgency effort with the resources it needs. We believe that providing those resources will be critical.

Gen. Stanley McChrystal's assessment states that his new strategy requires additional resources and the proper execution of an integrated civilian-military counterinsurgency campaign. To this end, he has reportedly forwarded to the president a range of resource options, each with differing levels of risk to the mission. We hope that President Obama will carefully weigh these recommendations and provide his commander with the necessary forces and civilian resources he needs to properly execute a counterinsurgency campaign.

Some suggest that we should send just enough forces to "hold the line" against the Taliban and prevent them from retaking the major population centers, while continuing to build up the Afghan army and police. In our view, this course would probably be a prescription for stalemate -- which, in a counterinsurgency, is a prescription for failure.

Indeed, as McChrystal warned in his recent assessment, "Failure to gain the initiative and reverse insurgent momentum in the near-term (next 12 months) -- while Afghan security capacity matures -- risks an outcome where defeating the insurgency is no longer possible."

Other critics justify opposition to a properly resourced counterinsurgency by pointing to other problems and priorities in the region that also require attention. But exactly how would sending fewer forces to Afghanistan put us in a stronger position to persuade the Afghan government to crack down on corruption and reform? Or persuade reconcilable elements of the Taliban to abandon insurgency and come over to our side? Or get nuclear-armed Pakistan to tackle the extremist threat on its own territory?

Failure to provide Gen. McChrystal with the military resources he needs to reverse the insurgency's momentum would make all these challenges harder to manage by reinforcing doubts throughout the region about our commitment to this fight and our capacity to prevail in it. But if we can roll back the Taliban and establish basic security in key population centers, as a properly resourced counterinsurgency will allow us to do, it will put us in a position of far greater strength and credibility from which to convince Afghans and others throughout the region that it is in their interest and worth the risk to work with us.

The population security established with an increase of military forces will provide the opportunity to employ additional civilian resources to help the Afghan people build more acceptable governance structures on a local level, help reform the central government and begin to establish the real services that Afghans want their government to provide. We should be clear: We will not win this conflict because we send some specific number of additional troops to Afghanistan. But those additional troops are, in our opinion, probably necessary to buy the time and space to help the Afghan people win their own fight against the Taliban and other extremist groups.

Here at home, we must stabilize public support by convincing an increasingly skeptical American people that the Afghan war is in fact winnable. This will happen when Americans begin to see the kind of visible gains that only a properly resourced counterinsurgency campaign can achieve through the use of additional troops to establish security and additional civilian resources to aid governmental reform and economic growth. On the other hand, if we send too few troops to regain the initiative from the insurgency and too few civilian resources to help cement those hard-won gains, public support will likely collapse.

There should be no confusion about what is at stake in this fight. The last time they were in power, the Taliban not only brutally suppressed the human rights of their own people, they also welcomed Osama bin Laden and the al-Qaeda network into Afghanistan, refusing to give them up even after Sept. 11, 2001. Allowing the Taliban to return to power would represent a major victory for extremist forces throughout the world, tilt the balance of power in South Asia in their favor and further endanger America's homeland security from terrorists trained there.

The president was right to call the war in Afghanistan "a war of necessity." Now it is time to treat it as such and commit the decisive force that will allow Gen. McChrystal to break the Taliban's momentum as quickly as possible.

In the immortal words of Tom Petty, I Won't Back Down

2009-10-16T14:30:00.002+02:00

Remember the "Tribute to Heroes" fundraiser concert, where most of the acts were singing sad, mournful dirges, and out comes Tom: "Well I won't back down, no I won't back down. You can stand me up at the gates of hell but I won't back down." He was the first performer to say what every American was feeling, which is that we're a country of badasses and the terrorists better get ready, because we're coming for them, and we won't back down.
Our military is standing up at the gates of hell, in Afghanistan and Iraq, every day. Children have lost parents; parents have lost children; wives have lost husbands and husbands have lost wives. And still we stay and fight, enlist and re-enlist, deploy and re-deploy, until America decides it's over.
I keep reading that America is tired after eight years of war. The current dialogue in Washington about troop levels in Afghanistan is asinine, because it's turned political instead of tactical. After eight years, send enough of us to get the job done. Rout the terrorists and show it on TV -- along with the images from 9/11. America needs to be reminded of what we're fighting for, and who's doing the fighting.
The military won't back down, but the rest of America might if they're allowed to forget why we're fighting.

Loan Modification Program Inadequate, Report Says

2009-10-16T08:16:00.001+02:00

They needed a study to figure that out? Honest to god.

By: Kirk Haverkamp | October 12, 2009
Current government programs to help homeowners keep their homes are inadequate to address a coming wave of foreclosures and will only delay foreclosure for many, according to a new report from the bipartisan Congressional Oversight Panel.

The report, which assesses the effectiveness of the administration's Making Home Affordable Program, says that the program is not set up to address some of the major factors that are expected to drive foreclosures in coming months, including scheduled resets on payment option adjustable rate mortgages and interest-only mortgages, and rising unemployment rates, which the report says appears to be one of the biggest factors driving foreclosures.

The report, released on Friday, came out one day after the Treasury Department announced that the Making Home Affordable Program had reached a major milestone one month early, achieving a level of 500,000 trial loan modifications begun by the first of October. However, the report notes that even if the program achieves its goal of modifying 3-4 million mortgages, that will be less than half of the estimated 10-12 million foreclosures predicted to result from the current financial crisis.

The report did say that the benefits of the $42.5 billion foreclosure modification program are likely to outweigh the costs to taxpayers, however. An estimated one mortgage in eight is current in default or foreclosure, according to the report.
Cites concerns with scope, scale and permanence

The report cited three major concerns with the administration's foreclosure avoidance program as it currently stands. First, it said the scope of the program is too narrow, appearing to address the foreclosure problem as it stood six months ago instead of today, noting in particular rising problems with unemployment and mortgage resets the program was not designed to address.

Second, the report says that the scale of the program is inadequate to address the current foreclosure crisis, noting that foreclosure starts are outpacing loan modifications under the program by a 2-1 ratio. It questions whether the program will be able to slow down the foreclosure crisis and moderate its impact on the economy even if it manages to achieve its targets for loan modifications.

Third, the report questions the permanence of the solutions offered under the program, questioning whether the loan modifications will put homeowners into a long-term stable situation. It notes that for most homeowners, their loan modifications will expire after five years, after which their payments will rise. It also points out that reducing mortgage payments for many homeowners will actually result in greater negative equity, which has been associated with increased rates of default.

The bipartisan Congressional Oversight Panel was created to oversee the expenditure of the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) funds authorized by Congress in the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 (EESA).

Loan Modifications Are Going To Be Made Easier

2009-10-16T08:10:00.002+02:00

Not exactly "active voice" in the headline. "Are going to be made easier" is not as meaningful as "were made easier;" Are going to be made easier WHEN?

As home owners across the country are aware, getting a HAMP loan modification has been a nightmare. The paperwork has been at the crux of the problem. Recently U. S. Secretary of the Treasury, Tim Geithner, celebrated as the goal of 500,000 “trial modifications” approved was reached earlier than had been anticipated.

Lenders have been very inefficient with handling paperwork. Borrowers report that lenders ask for paperwork repeatedly, with lost or missing papers being the reason for modification confusion, and subsequent modification denials.

In addition, there have been issues with one arm of a lender not knowing what the other arm is doing. There have been far too many stories of “modification in process” notices from the loss mitigation department, while “notice of default” filed notices from the foreclosure department for the same borrower. (Blogger's note: I just wrote about this two days ago regarding our USAA situation. The primary may be "serviced" by GMAC, but everything comes out on USAA letterhead.)

The big lenders, such as Wells Fargo, Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, are all reporting that while they have been a bit slow in getting their acts together, they are finally getting more organized and are now successfully getting loans modified.

The big problem now is that these “trial modifications” are not being converted to permanent modifications because borrowers are unaware that they must send in more paperwork, during the trial period, in order to have the trial made permanent. Currently only approximately 17,000 trial loan modifications have been made permanent

Laurie Maggiano, policy director at the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Homeownership Protection, said the government is introducing a new, streamlined application with just two documents to be signed, acknowledging the original paperwork was onerous.

Speaking at a session of the conference in San Diego, Maggiano said the government also intends to have the Internal Revenue Service use its formidable computer system to process these applications and get a "yes" or "no" answer back to servicers in two days.

For those home owners who are already in the “trial” period, they will be given an additional two months to complete the paperwork required for the permanent approval.

Nevertheless, there is still the bigger issue here that home owners who need a modification because of loss of employment are not being helped by the HAMP (Home Affordable Modification Program) program, because it was not designed for unemployed borrowers.

HAMP was designed to help borrowers with sub-prime mortgages where mortgage rates were being adjusted up due to the short term nature of the loans. But the bigger issue now is unemployment which is causing a flood of foreclosures for those who have lost their jobs and do not qualify for a HAMP trial modification.

This new flood of foreclosures is causing housing values to continue to fall, which in turn is leading to a new class of foreclosures, called “strategic defaulters.” Strategic defaulters are those who have good credit and enough income to pay the mortgages, but are walking away from their houses because they no longer want to pay a mortgage on a house they can buy for half the price in the same neighborhood.

Then there are the pay option ARM loans which are starting to re-set. These were the loans with the low (as low as 1%) teaser rates which were deferring principal from the first payment. These loans were very popular for qualifying borrowers for higher priced homes than they could have otherwise purchased, and for investors who wanted low payments so rents could paper out for them.

Now as these loans are re-setting to conforming rates, these borrowers have increased principal balances due to the deferred principal, coupled with falling property values. It is anticipated that we could see an additional 4.9 million new foreclosures in 2010 just on this type of loan alone.

The administration is scrambling to find ways to handle all the issues they are facing regarding loan modifications.

Two of the options that are being considered are principal forgiveness. Currently only 5 of the loans modified under the HAMP program have forgiven any principal. The other option that is gaining some steam is payment forbearance, which is being urged by the FDIC.

Stay tuned. This problem is not going away, but administration officials are aware of all the shortcomings of all the programs out there, and are working as quickly as possible to find solutions. The good news is that , according to Tim Geithner, US Treasury Secretary, the rate of loan modifications has now bypassed the rate of new foreclosures.

Written by Shelby Bateson

Imagine all the people

2009-10-15T21:23:00.001+02:00

Giving more thought to the bigger picture with HAP and its estimated 4,500 applicants: Can you imagine if your spouse was killed in Iraq or Afghanistan, and then you had to deal with the financial disaster of trying to sell your house to move back home to your family from Camp Pendleton, or Fort Hood, or wherever the military made you live? Or your spouse is grievously injured and you have to move to be closer to adequate medical facilities to continue treatment? The very thought makes my heart hurt. The paperwork, the waiting... it's inexcusable.
Even for those of us with college degrees and backgrounds in accounting and tax law, this is not an easy process. I thank merciful heavens that we're as anal-retentive and organized as we are, because I had to produce the HUD-1 estimated closing statement from our home purchase in May 2006, which moved from Japan to California to Germany since then. That request created a brief panic; luckily in the two-inch sheaf of paper from that transaction, I found it.
So again, imagine your spouse has made the ultimate sacrifice for America, and you're dealing with everything that entails, and then to get financial relief you have to scrounge up a HUD-1 statement from a home you purchased several years ago. I wonder if any of the surviving spouses gave up on HAP and decided they could eat the loss because of the SGLI.

Amen and big props to HAP

2009-10-15T18:02:00.001+02:00

Since yesterday's rant I've at least gained a lot of traction with HAP. It still blows me away when a live person answers the 800 number, and I hit the jackpot with the guy I spoke with -- he's my new best friend.
I also have to thank our loss mitigator at USAA for her efforts, and her very professional and measured response to my P.O.'d e-mail yesterday regarding the default notice. The poor woman probably gets crap from people like me all day long for messes she had little or no role in creating yet is forced to clean up.
Who I'd REALLY love to have a word with is the mortgage insurer. It's unfair to our loss mitigator that she has to deal with whomever it is, because clearly that person is irrational, unreasonable, and apparently deliberately obstructing the sale of our house. There must be some kind of law against that, and I hope he recognizes the likelihood that his insurance company will have to pay off in full if we go into foreclosure. That alone should be a strong enough impetus to get it done!
My most fervent hope is to come home from school tonight to an e-mail from HAP confirming our eligibility, which I will then forward to the loss mitigator, who will then notify me that we will proceed into escrow tomorrow. Or next week. Actually I'll settle for just proceeding into escrow before the end of October.
My gypsy hairdresser in California always told me to manifest my future, envision it, smell it, taste it, touch it, make it happen. She didn't advise me to blog about it, but it on top of the envisioning, smelling, tasting, and touching, it can't hurt. My mantra for the evening is I Will Accomplish The Sale of That House. I Am Accomplishing The Sale of That House. That House Is As Good As Sold.
So let it be written; so let it be done.

The ongoing saga of USAA and HAP

2009-10-14T17:00:00.000+02:00

In a brilliant example of the right hand not knowing what the left hand is doing, we received today a nastygram from USAA about our mortgage. Again, I have difficulty conveying this without liberal use of profanity, but in a nutshell they're threatening foreclosure on the house they wouldn't allow us to sell four months ago. Our credit rating may be adversely affected, they say, along with a lot of legalese blah blah blah whatever. They encourage us to contact their loan counselors immediately.
I have a suggestion: whomever sent the letter can meet up with our loss mitigator at the USAA water cooler and coordinate to get our (profanity) house sold like it should have four months ago! Additionally, I insist every fee and penny of interest be waived from let's say July 31 forward, because July 31 would be a reasonable closing date if USAA hadn't lost our first buyer. I also better not see ANY of this on our credit report, because they've exacerbated this nightmare every step of the way. We would have been off this hook months ago if not for their delays and the utterly fictitious value their mortgage insurer concocted.
(More profanity and the lord's name in vain.) Now my head hurts; probably from the effort I'm making not to let it explode. What the (profanity) else do they want us to do? We're not the (profanity) obstacle! THEY ARE! I can't emphasize enough how all this would have been avoided if they made any effort whatsoever six months ago to work with us to get the deal done and the house sold. We could and would have continued to make payments on the outstanding difference while we waited for HAP to materialize.
Really, what will it take to get this over with? I am clinging desperately to the frayed and ragged end of my last good nerve. If I didn't object to another trip to see my friends at the German emergency room, I'd be banging my head against the wall.

My country, 'tis of thee

2009-10-14T09:55:00.000+02:00

I am an American. I said the Pledge of Allegiance every school day of my life, including the "under God" part. I served in the military, my father served in the military, his father served in the military. In fact, my grandfather flew a bomber in WWII, was shot down over Germany, captured and held as a P.O.W., and returned home to live a very long and productive life. He was buried at Arlington National Cemetery in 2008. Now I live in Germany with my active-duty husband, continuing to serve our country. I believe in the premise of America and its founding rhetoric.
I am 4,125 miles away, and from this vantage point I am horrified by the distant sound and image of America tearing itself apart from the inside. When we lived there, I was merely disgusted by all the talking heads on 24-hour news channels and call-in radio shows, because I was too busy to give it much thought while trying to sustain the American Dream of home ownership in a nice neighborhood with good public schools while clawing my way to the top of a career I loathed.
Here I don't work outside the home, I've had time to pursue something I'm passionate about, and I've learned over the past month that one person really can make a difference. Now I'd like to make a difference in the national dialogue taking place back in America.
At the top of my big ol' heap of issues is the treatment of the all-volunteer military and its family members, and I've been shouting from the proverbial rooftops to bring attention to our overlooked plight since I just couldn't take any more of the hypocritical pandering from Washington.
Next there's the health care "debate," which is more of a screaming match with no meaningful exchange of constructive information.
That brings me to the destruction of America by corporate greed, facilitated by our elected representatives and the notion of capitalism, which we handily eschew when the corporate interests over-reach and destroy the national economy.
The social problems are too exhaustive to list, and most could be traced to political slavery to Christian fundamentalism, even though America's bedrock is supposed to be the separation of church and state.
So that's where I'm headed with this, and the journey will feature a lot of unfavorable comparisons of America to other countries. Just don't get the impression that I hate America; I don't. I love America, and that's why I care enough to try and improve it.

An aside...

2009-10-13T17:57:00.000+02:00

So yeah, the reason I haven't posted much lately is because the stitches holding my index finger together seriously impede my typing! After 30 years of using improper cutting technique without incident, my luck ran out. Kitchen safety, everyone!

German public medicine

2009-10-13T17:49:00.000+02:00

Due to my recent spate of boneheaded injuries, I've spent a lot of time obtaining German medical care over the past few months. From emergency rooms to X-rays, CT scans, general anesthesia, stitches, and specialists, I've pretty much run the gamut of treatment options in the greater Stuttgart area. Let me just tell you, the customer service is excellent.
Granted, my injuries required immediate attention; it wasn't like I showed up at the E.R. with cold-or-flu-like symptoms or a possible sprain. I showed up with a shattered nose the first time (trampoline accident), and with most of the pad of my index finger detached the second time (improper cutting technique). Both involved a lot of blood and a LOT of discomfort.
Both trips to the E.R. lasted less than an hour from check-in to check-out, including the X-rays, and the nerve block and stitches. There were never more than three other patients waiting to be seen. The treatment rooms were private -- no inadvertent sharing of intimate medical details with strangers on the other side of curtains (although here that's a non-issue because of the language barrier, but you know what I'm saying).
The hospitals are new and immaculate; the ceiling lights in staging area for the operating room had visible streaks from cleaning and disinfection (I noticed this while laying on a gurney waiting to have my nose re-broken and re-set under general anesthesia). And from what I could tell, there were enough personnel around to adequately attend to each patient.
Stuttgart has an enormous tax base; it's the home of Mercedes-Benz, Porsche, Bosch, and myriad other German corporations. Regardless of the money that allows for shiny new facilities, though, the efficiency and standard of care would be remarkable even in an older, dingier setting... like most of the hospitals we have in America.
Maybe if American elected officials weren't such slaves to the corporate interests of insurance companies and pharmaceutical manufacturers, all working for profit, more resources could be devoted to treating the patients instead of trying to save money and shove them out the door. Maybe all the people in America who show up at the emergency room because they don't have insurance and know they can not be refused care wouldn't be there if they could see a regular doctor for their non-emergency problem. Then the people with actual emergencies could be taken care of quickly and thoroughly instead of suffering for hours in a waiting room.
I'm just saying.

More HAP outrage

2009-10-09T11:33:00.000+02:00

Just reading over some comments left on the VRSAM National Military Real Estate Forum (link from this post title) message boards, one can easily become enraged anew over the unreasonable and inexcusable delays in the Homeowners' Assistance Program. The estimated 4,500 applicants awaiting notice of eligibility DO need to "go viral" about the problems we've faced so far, and the implications of an additional six- to nine-month wait for assistance.
Again, I urge you to contact your elected officials and make as much noise as you can in letters to the editor, blogs, Facebook, and any other venue you can think of, to get the word out.

What should happen with HAP

2009-10-07T14:17:00.001+02:00

The mailing of eligibility letters this week for HAP beneficiaries, at least from the Sacramento District, is great news for every affected family. Unfortunately there was a bit of bad news attached: a six- to nine-month estimated backlog in processing payments.
As with prior HAP delays, this begs the question: "Why?" What's taking so long? With the eligibility letter, at least our home's short sale can proceed, but we must continue to pay the outstanding balance of the mortgage until the HAP funds are actually released. Just to get this over with, we agree to that. If that's what it takes to get this done, we'll do it. It would just be a hell of a lot easier to coordinate with HAP through escrow and come to the closing table with funds in hand to end this financial nightmare and get on with our lives.
United States Senator Barbara Boxer, from my home state of California, graciously responded to my e-mail request for assistance with this problem, and I am eager to find out if the estimated backlog time gets any shorter as a result of her inquiries.
Another problem with this is the requirement that PCS beneficiaries sell the house in question. Easier said than done. Even with a buyer and a very solid, reasonable, and current fair-market purchase offer, the bank and its mortgage insurer may not allow the house to be sold. The HAP eligibility letter should solve that problem, but in my lengthy and detailed conversation with our loss mitigation representative at USAA, I learned that what makes perfect sense to any sane person may not be enough for the mortgage insurer. Sellers could get hung up with repeated rejections of decent offers due to the mortgage insurer's desire to obtain their fantasy price. And their desired price truly is a fantasy for our house in California.
Even more galling is that our mortgage insurer is a subsidiary of AIG, which already received $85 BILLION from taxpayers in September 2008. Apparently they will just keep squeezing hardworking Americans until their executives can claim recovery and success -- and ask for a few more million dollars of compensation and bonuses.

Progress is not my middle name, but I am making some!

2009-10-05T18:54:00.001+02:00

Wow, I'm virtually giddy after my real live phone conversation with our loss mitigation representative at USAA, and my real live phone conversation with a HAP person! Just the fact that both of these individuals answered their phones is remarkable. Then the amount of time the USAA person spent with me, talking through possible scenarios to get our house sold was amazing: 41 minutes. I take back many of the bad things I said. And for all you HAP applicants in the Sacramento service area, notification of eligibility will be mailed this week, no later than next week for sure, according to the lovely and pleasant person I spoke with.

Another good site for military info and support resources

2009-10-05T09:10:00.000+02:00

Thanks to Darrell via corpsman.com for contacting me. Click the title above to visit.

A Call to Service

2009-10-03T10:20:00.000+02:00

Please take a moment to visit the blog site of Capt. Eric Navarro, USMCR (link through heading). His premise that all Americans should be required to serve our country in some capacity resonates with me. The gulf between those of us who KNOW what it means to serve - because we DO serve - and those who don't, creates even more divisiveness in our already-fractured national agenda.

Jaw-droppingly unbelievable-yet-true story from today's Washington Post

2009-10-02T21:18:00.001+02:00

For once, I am rendered truly speechless. I have no words.

Soldiers' Data Still Being Downloaded Overseas, Firm Says
Sensitive Information Found by Using 'Peer to Peer' File-Sharing Software

By Ellen Nakashima
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, October 2, 2009

The personal data of tens of thousands of U.S. soldiers -- including those in the Special Forces -- continue to be downloaded by unauthorized computer users in countries such as China and Pakistan, despite Army assurances that it would try to fix the problem, according to a private firm that monitors cybersecurity.

Tiversa, which scours the Internet for sensitive data, discovered the data breaches while conducting research for private clients. The company found, as recently as this week, documents containing Social Security numbers, blood types, cellphone numbers, e-mail addresses, and the names of soldiers' spouses and children.

The availability of such data, security experts say, exacerbates the threat of identity theft and retaliation against troops on sensitive missions. In addition to using the information to drain financial accounts, hackers could pose as soldiers in an effort to ferret out sensitive data, including passwords to government systems.

Such disclosures represent a "major security risk" to the service members and the military, said Rep. Edolphus Towns (D-N.Y.), chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which was informed of the data breach by Tiversa.

The company found the sensitive documents by using "peer to peer" file-sharing software, which can be easily downloaded on the Internet and which allows computer users to share music or other files. While such software is popular -- in any given second, about 22 million people are on file-sharing networks -- many computer users do not realize that it can make the contents of their computers available to other file-sharers.

Towns, who is drafting legislation to address the problems raised by peer-to-peer technology, said: "What is striking about these file-sharing leaks is that these aren't one-time events. Once this software is installed and files are leaked, the leaking is continuous."

In 2003, the Army instituted policies barring the unauthorized use of peer-to-peer software. The Pentagon did the same in 2004, and defense contractors have followed suit. But critics say policies often are not enforced.

Of particular concern to security experts is Tiversa's discovery of personal information about soldiers in the 3rd Special Forces Group (Airborne), whose mission area is Africa.

"These guys are operating behind lines, and they are absolutely in the deepest part of the fight," said James Mulvenon, vice president of the intelligence division at Defense Group, a security consulting firm. "The fact that the documents have the names and addresses of the families and all the pressures that could be put to bear on them, it's a nightmare."

Carol Darby, a spokeswoman for the Army Special Operations Command, confirmed the data breach but described it as an isolated incident. She said those involved in the breach had been punished, but she did not provide details.

"The unit now has measures in place to reduce the chances of this happening again," she said.

Robert Boback, chief executive of Tiversa, said such precautions are not sufficient safeguards.

"Every company, agency and defense contractor will say that they have a policy against P2P on company-owned equipment and blocking, usually through intrusion detection," he said. "The fact remains that these documents are still going out."

Tiversa saw the Special Forces data on servers in Pakistan in May and immediately notified military criminal investigators. Similarly, in April 2008, the firm spotted spreadsheets from Army master sergeants' promotion lists containing the personal data of 60,000 soldiers, as well as data on several thousand civilians and soldiers from the 1st Signal Brigade. All have been downloaded recently in foreign countries, Boback said.

In October, the secretary of the Army assured then-Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr., who was concerned about the breach, that the Army would alert the soldiers, try to have the information removed from an unauthorized host site, and better educate the Army workforce on preventing breaches of personal data.

Gary Tallman, an Army spokesman, said it is "troubling" that personal information continues to appear on file-sharing networks. "Clearly there've been instances where the checks and balances have not worked and the data have gotten out. When it does happen, it's taken very seriously and we try to prevent it from happening again."

Steven Shirley, head of the Defense Department's Cyber Crime Center, said that "even very tech-savvy organizations -- DOD and contractors -- have issues with peer-to-peer applications." Towns's committee found, for instance, that contractor documents on major weapons programs such as the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter have found their way onto these networks and have been accessed by computer users in China and other countries.

Some of these documents, while not marked "classified," are restricted under the Arms Export Control Act of 1976, or the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR), which prohibit release of the information to unauthorized foreigners. Violation of ITAR can result in a fine of up to $1 million or 10 years in prison or both, and a civil penalty of up to $500,000 for each violation.
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Industry has long complained that ITAR is too broad.

Jeffery Adams, a spokesman for Lockheed Martin, which is building the Air Force's Joint Strike Fighter, said the company is "aware of the vulnerabilities peer-to-peer networks present to the corporation," and so prohibits employees from using such networks on company systems. He declined to comment on the F-35 documents.

Staff writer Brian Krebs and staff researcher Eddy Palanzo contributed to this report.

What's next for us with HAP and USAA?

2009-10-02T11:46:00.000+02:00

Our HAP coordinator in Sacramento returned my call yesterday, and I missed it because we were embracing German culture at the Cannstatter Volksfest. The Volksfest is in the Stuttgart suburb of Bad Cannstatt, and is surpassed only by Munich in terms of size and attendance.
At any rate, due to the nine-hour time difference between Germany and California, I have to wait until after 4 p.m. to call back. The suspense is killing me! They must be swamped with calls now that the program has officially begun.
My nemeses at USAA will certainly require some documentation of our eligibility and an estimated benefit amount, assuming a given sale price for our house. A time estimate on the distribution would be helpful too, but I don't imagine HAP is going out on that limb. Not a wise idea to offer firm dates, lest the process get hung up somewhere else during its long, hard slog through bureaucracy.
We'll need to approach USAA with a "hope for the best, prepare for the worst" mind-set. Frankly, with regard to the mortgages, every encounter with USAA has been a worst. But I'll still hope.
I've said some pretty inflammatory things about USAA in the past two weeks, and in the interest of fairness, I should say this is the ONLY problem we've had with their service in the past 12 years. The insurance team is particularly noteworthy for their incredible speed and efficiency. When my husband's Pentagon office burned down on 9/11, along with many of his uniforms and personal effects, USAA insurance issued a check in about a week. When we were the third car in a four-car pileup on leave in California, and all the other drivers started suing each other and us, USAA insurance again handled the situation almost invisibly. There was a court date while my husband was in Iraq, I was in Okinawa, on the day our baby was due, and USAA took care of everything.
Nevertheless, this mortgage thing is so far gone, and the financial repercussions will be so long-lasting for us, my plummeting opinion of USAA tars the whole organization with the same brush. If they accept eligibility documentation from HAP and we can get out from under the house, I'll be delighted and grateful, even after the living hell of the past few months. If not, rest assured you'll hear about it, and oh yes, so will they.

Like-minded blogger! This heading is a link.

2009-10-02T10:19:00.001+02:00

http://itsaveteransworld.wordpress.com/
It's a Veteran's World

This site features more no-holds-barred discussion of military quality-of-life issues, from a post-discharge perspective. Big thanks to Heather Wiegand for contacting me and sharing her site, and adding a link to my site through hers, which I am proud to do in return.

HAP news signals the beginning of the end of an error

2009-10-01T13:20:00.002+02:00

Yesterday's publication of the Interim Final Rule for the Homeowners' Assistance Program (HAP) in the Federal Register means applicants should finally be notified of eligibility, and dollars should finally start flowing.
This miraculously coincided with publication of my letter to the editor of Stars & Stripes newspaper. My 10-day media campaign about the inexplicable -- and inexcusable -- delays in the implementation of HAP was born of personal frustration. I wasn't the only one out here making noise; links to other blogs and sites about the same thing were posted to my blog as well. The timing was probably just serendipitous, but the outcome is exactly what I've been hollering about since last Tuesday. Woo hoo!
What is a reasonable timeline now for the Army Corps of Engineers, which administers the program, to start cutting checks? That's my next big question. If the answer is "more than 45 days," I'll be in my electronic pulpit again, biting the hand that feeds me.
Best wishes to every eligible Wounded Warrior, surviving spouse, PCS'd service member, and victim of BRAC!

Homeowner assistance program begins today!

2009-09-30T21:41:00.001+02:00

And not a moment too soon! Thank goodness!

Blue Star Families posts HAP story on home page!

2009-09-29T13:10:00.000+02:00

The word is spreading! Excellent...

http://bluestarfam.org/drupal/study

A very minor catastrophe

2009-09-29T12:57:00.001+02:00

One of my FAVORITE keepsakes from our time in Japan got broken this morning, by me. It was such a banal little item -- a liquid soap dispenser -- but I loved it; it was adorable, and I was delighted to find it at my favorite store for fun and unique Japanese do-dads. It couldn't have cost more than 800 yen (about $8), but to me: priceless. Irreplaceable, because I bought it in Okinawa at least five years ago; and irreparable, because it broke into a million little porcelain slivers. (sigh).

HAP Manager asks banks, credit unions to help program applicants get homes sold

2009-09-28T11:19:00.002+02:00

Loans could tide over HAP homeowners

By Karen Jowers - Staff writer

Military financial institutions could help military homeowners with low-interest, short-term loans while they await payments under the expanded Homeowners Assistance Program, a Defense Department official said July 22 at a Defense Credit Union Summit.

Don Chapman, assistant HAP manager for the Army Corps of Engineers, said short-term loans could help service members who are “upside down” on their mortgages, owing more than the selling price of the home. These homeowners are unable to cover the costs of the mortgage payoff and closing. The loans could help service members who are forced to relocate for reasons beyond their control and who have seen steep drops in their home’s value in the current mortgage crisis.

The expanded HAP, part of the economic stimulus law enacted Feb. 17, covers certain service members with permanent change-of-station orders, certain wounded warriors and forward-deployed civilians relocating because of medical treatment or medical retirement, surviving spouses, and those affected by base realignments and closures.

No applications can be processed before the Defense Department publishes the rules for the program in the Federal Register, which sources said should happen very soon.

As of July 23, officials have received 3,546 applications for the expanded program. Forms are available online.

Officials can’t put complete information about the rules for the new program on their Web site until the rules are published in the Federal Register.

Chapman said officials have set aside about $55 million to help wounded warriors and surviving spouses, out of the $555 million in funding provided for the program. About 30 people in those categories have applied for the program so far. But the law is retroactive to Sept. 11, 2001, and applies in the future for homeowners in those categories.

The law and the Pentagon’s proposed rules place more restrictions on time windows for those affected by PCS moves and BRAC actions. Officials have set aside $208 million for those affected by BRAC and the rest for those in the PCS category until the money runs out.

Chapman told credit union officials that these eligible homeowners still will have to sell their homes before the program can help them. Although the law, and the draft rules, allow the government to buy the home, the government wants to avoid doing so as much as possible because it is more expensive and will mean the money won’t go as far to help as many people, Chapman said.

Since February, defense officials have been hammering out their rules for implementing the law and are now in final discussions with the Office of Management and Budget before they are published in the Federal Register. A big hurdle has been the requirement that the HAP payments be taxed as income, with the money withheld upfront. Officials are reportedly close to resolving that issue.

Who gets help first?

Homeowners who already have sold their homes will be the first to get help under the expanded Homeowners Assistance Program, Chapman says. Since the program is retroactive, those affected should go ahead and try to sell their home rather than wait for the program to kick in, he said.

Applications from wounded warriors and surviving spouses will be processed first. “We will do all others based on their PCS date or when the home was sold,” Chapman said. “Obviously, an applicant who signed up in February would be ahead of those who signed up in March. But if people in March already sold their home, and the people in February haven’t been able to sell it, we can help those in March right away.”

Once the program catches up with the backlog of applications, officials will try to meet homeowners at the closing table so they won’t have to take the loss, he said.

HAP not Helping Military Homeowners

2009-09-28T11:09:00.002+02:00

HAP not Helping Military Homeowners
by Joe Gladden

With Congress’ undivided attention on health care reform, many of the housing assistance programs have lost the momentum and oversight necessary to remove the tremendous bureaucratic obstacles to make them helpful. At best, folks who have been through the loan modification process will tell you that it’s a long, miserable process. More often than not, loan mods are nothing more than an exercise in futility needed to begin the short-sale process — another complex, lengthy, and stressful process.

This is particularly true for the Military Homeowner’s Assistance Program (HAP), which has been an utter failure to date.

You must think, “man, this guy is really a pessimist.” Actually, I was encouraged when Congress finally acknowledged that military families were hit hardest, and most unfairly, by the “housing crisis” by including it in the stimulus package. Many military families held out hope that HAP would be the answer to their dilemma.
But six months after HAP was thrown into the February stimulus package, our sources tell us that not one dime of the $550 million appropriation has gone to a single military family. And now many families are running out of time and hope. Many now see the short sale as their only hope for avoiding a complete financial apocalypse.

In my opinion, the poorly written Congressional language has been problematic for the Army Corps of Engineers and the Department of Defense to interpret and implement. It was essentially a “cut and paste” from the original program that was established in the 1960s to assist military families and DOD federal employees impacted by base closures (BRAC).

Below are some of the frequently asked questions about HAP on our VRSam’s online forum. They highlight the confusion on the critical elements of the policy. We were able to compile responses to these questions from forum participants, military families, and we thank them for their assistance in sharing their information.

1. Will I be reimbursed at 95 percent, 90 percent, or 75 percent of the appraised or market value?
2. Who will determine the appraised or market value, and on what date will it be based?
3. How long does the process take?
4. We couldn’t wait for the HAP due to PCS orders and rented our house out. Will the home still qualify as our primary residence?

This question came to us about one month after the stimulus bill was passed: “We bought our home on July 1, 2006. Are we eligible for the HAP?”
Unfortunately, the answer is no. According to our understanding of the Congressional language, this family missed the window by hours. The July 1, 2006 date applies to folks who aren’t eligible for the “wounded warriors” section of the program.

Additionally, our forum participants wanted to know, “Will I be taxed on any amount forgiven?” This is the question that is holding up implementation of the program. While we are not CPAs, we understand that as presently written, yes, you would be taxed on these amounts but Congress is apparently trying to rectify this.
Understandably, the Army Corps of Engineers is reluctant to give definitive answers until DoD guidance is completed.

It’s important to note that depending on several factors such as the original price of the home, the appraised or market value determination, and which percentage (95 percent, 90 percent or 75 percent) applies, the losses to military families could still be very significant. Also, we believe that homes that have been rented out may still qualify as “primary residence,” and thus for the HAP. But this has not been definitively clarified.

In an effort to gauge the success and effectiveness of HAP, we conducted several polls over four months with the following results:

* 94 percent of the respondents believed that “The HAP was an inadequate fix for Military families hit hard in the housing market.”
* 98 percent of the respondents believe that “Military families should receive a full tax credit for losses incurred due to losses on their homes to PCS moves.”
* 99 percent of respondents believe that “Military families should enjoy parity in benefits (paid settlement costs and protection from catastrophic losses on home sales) as some other federal employees.”

We contend that like other federal agencies and corporations, expenses and losses associated with PCS moves are indeed an expense of employment and should be paid, or at least mitigated in some manner , by the employer. We believe it’s a reasonable expectation by those (and their families) who defend our country.

Finally, we know thousands of military families struggle with many of the issues addressed in this article. We offer to them the opportunity to tell their stories, to see that they’re not alone in this mess, and the chance to share what they learned to the benefit their fellow servicemembers on VR Sam's Forum.

G.I. Bill payment delays get action, emergency payments

2009-09-28T10:54:00.001+02:00

Now let's see the same thing happen for Homeowners' Assistance Program payments. Immediately.

Quick aside:

2009-09-28T08:27:00.001+02:00

Getting everyone out the door and where they need to be, on time, each morning has always been a challenge for me. When the kids returned to school, it took less than a week for me to give up trying to make myself look decent for the drop-offs. Today my son's German teacher asked if I could accompany the class on a hike this week since she "knows I don't work out of home." Is it that obvious? Does my usual San Diego Mom morning get-up of yoga pants and an Encinitas Surfboards sweatshirt give me away?

When my teenagers were little I committed to chaperoning ONE field trip per boy. I regularly lack patience with my four sons; I'm really not cut out to shepherd 10 of someone else's kids around the Jamestown Settlement or the Bates Nut Farm pumpkin patch. I've done both, poorly.
All the kids in both those cases spoke English. There are only two English-speaking children in this class, and my son is half of them. Here is a list of key phrases I should learn in German by Wednesday, compiled from my prior experience as a field trip chaperone:
"Hey! Knock it off!"
"Don't touch that/him/her."
"Get over here."
"Stay away from the water."
"Can we step it up, people?"
"Put your snack away; it's not time."
Considering I told the teacher the other American kid was a closet ("shrank" in German) instead of sick ("krank" in German) today, this outing Wednesday may not end well. I'll let you know. Wish me luck.

The outrage is here, but the publicity isn't.

2009-09-27T19:25:00.002+02:00

"I can’t believe the lack of follow thru by our elected officials and our senior leadership. Always a lot of lip service about morale and yet they fumble the ball big time on this program." Joe MacKay, Military Officers' Association of America (MOAA) web site blog Homeowners' Assistance Program.
http://moaablogs.org/financial/2009/08/homeowners-assistance-program/#comment-409"
There are 152 blog entries on the MOAA web site about the Homeowners' Assistance Program. My first blog entry will be published in the Stars & Stripes early this week as a letter to the editor. It will also be posted next week in the US Army Garrison Stuttgart newspaper. I have written our senators in Minnesota and California, the governors of both those states, and multiple media outlets that I know are sympathetic to military service members. Friends are posting links to this blog on their Facebook pages, and family members are writing their state representatives to call attention to this issue.

One of my favorite books, "Too Soon Old, Too Late Smart" said this: Only bad things happen fast. My desire for instant response, action, and gratification is chafing against the reality that it will be weeks before this blows up somewhere and lights a fire under someone who can DO something. Don't just stand there: DO SOMETHING! As opposed to the prevalent M.O. of Don't just do something: Stand There! Stand there wearing a navy blue suit and a red necktie talking about how much America Supports Its Troops and Appreciates Our Immense Sacrifices!

Firestorm of Controversy

2009-09-26T19:53:00.000+02:00

Wooo! It feels good to get people talking about the things that really matter to us and to our lives. My friend Tiffany -- active-duty spouse, former active-duty Marine -- put a link to this blog on her Facebook page and the repercussions are exciting to behold. There is a HEATED debate taking place about activism, role modeling, and the best way to initiate change in a system that's so clogged and bound by its own bureaucracy. There are so few authentic voices out here telling it like it is, for those of us who are unafraid to speak the truth it's a wide-open field for constructive discourse. We can only hope to keep it from deteriorating into an exchange of pointless arguments like we're seeing in so many other venues. The temptation to respond "You're an idiot" to some comments and posts is VERY powerful, but that doesn't really help anyone, does it? One thing I learned about 12 years ago and have been striving to live by ever since is this: Is what I am about to say more likely to help achieve the outcome I desire? If the answer is no, I don't say it. This is not a flawless system, and I have certainly come verbally unglued, counter-productively, from time to time, but overall this has been a pretty successful philosophy to live by.
So let's go, girls and boys! Make some noise and make some changes!

But wait... there's more.

2009-09-26T18:58:00.000+02:00

http://moaablogs.org/financial/2009/08/homeowners-assistance-program/

Military Officers Association of America bloggers wonder and worry about the timeline for HAP decisions and payments.

It's not just me!!

2009-09-26T18:49:00.000+02:00

Thank merciful heavens, people are talking about this:

http://moaablogs.org/financial/2009/06/the-homeowners-assistance-program-benefit-could-be-taxable/

Hopefully a lot more people will be talking about it when my letter is printed in the Stars & Stripes early next week.

Is this possible?

2009-09-26T14:07:00.000+02:00

Can it be possible that we're the only ones who find it obscene that the government can introduce a bill in March, finalize it in July, and give out $1 billion in September for people to buy new cars; but it can't financially assist active-duty military members with the $555 million program finalized in February? All the while running around telling everyone how great this program is, and how much they Understand Our Concerns, Support Our Troops and Appreciate Our Immense Sacrifices?
Come on. Really? You appreciate our immense sacrifices? Do you even understand what they are? Have you ever been sitting at home - in Japan - with your newborn, two-year-old, and two middle schoolers, and answered the phone to hear this: "Is (your husband) okay?" because 31 men from his unit in Iraq just died in a helicopter crash?
No? How about this one: You're at work in Alexandria, Virginia, on September 11, 2001, watching the break room TV in horror while the Twin Towers burn, you feel a little rumble, maybe hear something, and 10 seconds later see your husband's side of the Pentagon has just been obliterated by an airplane-turned-bomb?
Or this: getting month-old mail from your Pentagon post office box that has been reduced to ash because its been irradiated to kill anthrax bacteria?
Has a friend of yours ever been featured with his unit in Iraq on 60 Minutes, and you learn at the end of the segment that his convoy was blown up moments later and he was killed -- and then you're treated to the televised image of his blood on the street?
Has this happened to you? Because it's happened to us.

MilBlog

2009-09-26T10:17:00.000+02:00

View My Milblogging.com Profile

At the risk of risking everything...

2009-09-25T14:01:00.000+02:00

My husband is getting a little uncomfortable with my crusade. Although he admires my zeal, there is always the danger of getting hauled in by the C.O. to hear a lecture about why his wife should chill and be quiet. It's happened before.
In Okinawa, the unit's "key volunteers" coordinated a Christmas party for the family members and single troops. Snack bags were distributed to the guests, including my children, that included red-and-white striped candy canes carrying this cheery holiday message on a little tag:

It is shaped like a “J” for Jesus or a shepherd’s staff.
It is hard because, Jesus is our “Rock.”
The big red stripe stands for Jesus’ blood that He shed.
The three little stripes stand for the stripes He was given
when He died for our sins.
The white stands for Jesus’ perfect and sinless life.

I told one of the key volunteers it seemed a bit much, a bit inappropriate, for kids' treat bags. Shortly thereafter, my husband was verbally counseled about my lack of support for unit functions. True story.
So you can imagine how discomfiting it is for him to have me running around the blogosphere shooting my mouth off. Hopefully nothing but good will come from it, for us and for every other military family affected by HAP.

Enough is Enough

2009-09-25T13:15:00.000+02:00

"You're too opinionated for an Airman," an officer told me when I was on active duty in the Air Force. Nineteen years later, I haven't changed; I'm now "too opinionated for an officer's wife."
This is the first time in 19 years I have gone public with a complaint about the military, the Department of Defense, and the endless pandering and lip-service given us by leaders: Support Our Troops! Thank You for Your Service! Quality of Life! We Couldn't Do This Without the Spouses!"
Like I said about USAA: I. Have had. ENOUGH. The straw that broke this camel's back is the Homeowners' Assistance Program (http://hap.usace.army.mil/homepage.html), part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, the Economic Stimulus Bill, signed in February. The intent was to assist military homeowners who were forced to relocate and were unable to sell their homes. Primarily aimed at Wounded Warriors who needed to relocate to be closer to V.A. services and medical treatment, the program also covers homeowners with PCS orders.
Almost 10 months later, the program is still not operating, and we are one of the families being financially strangled by a house at our old duty station that we can't sell for enough to cover the outstanding mortgage, can't rent for enough to cover the monthly mortgage, and can't continue to pay for now that we're in another country receiving OHA to live here instead of BAH to pay for the house at our old duty station.
We didn't even complain when the free two weeks of leave for the birth of a new child were denied my husband because the leave had to be taken within 30 days of the child's birth. The child was born while my husband was in Iraq, and when he returned the child was six months old. But we didn't complain about that.
Nor did we complain when, despite requesting a Southern California duty station, and despite the fact that we own a home equidistant between Camp Pendleton, MCAS Miramar, and Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego, we were sent to Europe. Everyone knows how it is when the General says, "You're the guy I want to have (here)." The guy, my husband in this case, does not say no. He says, "Thank you sir, I look forward to the opportunity." That is, if he wants to continue his military career. We have friends that once turned down orders and their subsequent duty station was in the armpit of California: Lemoore. I think it goes without saying that they resigned as soon as possible.
So military, Department of Defense, government of America, the country we voluntarily serve and sacrifice for: get it together! Help a brother out! Enough is Enough!!

USAA - they know what it means to serve (themselves, with our money)

2009-09-25T13:11:00.000+02:00

USAA's slogans vary from time to time but always refer to their Service to military members. "Serving Those Who Serve America." "We Know What it Means to Serve." And this, from their "Why Choose USAA" page: "When you belong to the USAA family, we have your interests at heart. You get great value, personal service from people who really care..."
Since February, I've dealt with USAA on the mortgage liens they hold on our San Diego-area home. I have successfully managed to accomplish: nothing.
When we received permanent-change-of-station orders from San Diego to Germany, we immediately entered a contract with a realtor for the sale of our home, with a listing date of February 26 and an initial asking price of $569,000. Under the proposed terms of the new Homeowners’ Assistance Program, due to the PCS orders, we met the eligibility requirements for financial assistance with any residual loan balances due, if our home sold for less than we owed. Recognizing the likelihood that a) the house might not sell prior to our leaving the area and losing my employment income and our housing allowance, and b) we could not completely pay off our mortgage loans with the proceeds from the sale of our home, we contacted USAA. USAA customer service notified us that nothing could be discussed or considered unless our account was 60 days delinquent. In order to obtain cooperation and consideration from USAA, we consequently withheld the March and April mortgage payments.

Between February 26 and April 19 no offers were received for our home. Under the advice of our realtor, the asking price was lowered to $539,000 and marketed as a “short sale.” On April 22, we received and declined a purchase offer of $417,000. We were in contact with USAA Loss Mitigation regarding our 60-day payment delinquency, and were now told that no loan adjustment or modification could be considered unless the account was current, exactly the opposite their previous criteria. Nevertheless, we entered a repayment agreement for $9,427.12 to be paid between April 16 and May 30.
On May 10, we relocated to Stuttgart, Germany, our monthly housing allowance for the San Diego duty assignment was terminated, and I became ineligible for California unemployment insurance. Between April 22 and May 28 no offers were received for our home. On May 28, we again reduced the asking price, to $499,900.
On June 13 we received and accepted a home purchase offer for the asking price of $499,900. Weeks passed while a short-sale negotiator worked with USAA for the release of the second lien held by USAA. We satisfied every request for personal financial information to facilitate USAA’s decision. At no time did USAA contact us to discuss or negotiate a re-amortization of the anticipated outstanding loan balance, which we agreed to continue paying in anticipation of eventual resolution through the Homeowners’ Assistance Program. During this time, on June 30, we received the County of San Diego property assessment which valued our home at $459,000.
On July 28, six weeks after accepting the purchase offer and submitting everything to USAA, the purchase offer was rescinded by the prospective buyer due to the lengthy delays.
On August 5 we received and accepted a home purchase offer for $500,000. Because USAA had been working on our short sale since mid-June, we were assured that things would move quickly and we would be able to move forward into escrow in less than two weeks. Weeks passed while USAA and its mortgage insurance investor haggled over the terms of our home sale.
On September 22 we were notified that the mortgage insurance investor would not approve the sale, because it estimated our home’s value at closer to $550,000.
USAA is aware of the Homeowners' Assistance Program, but refuses to consider it in negotiations with us because, as I mentioned yesterday, the government still hasn't begun assisting. USAA also is fully aware of what this is doing to our financial picture, because the USAA credit cards we used to survive while continuing to pay the mortgage are nearly maxed out.
Wouldn't it be great if the government and the bank could get together and start Supporting Our Troops with equivalent energy they use in their shameless self promotion, lauding their service to the military?
I. Have had. ENOUGH.

Military Homeowners Squeezed while HAP Funds Sit

2009-09-25T13:03:00.000+02:00

Desperate military families are losing homes or sinking deeply into debt because they were forced to relocate under military orders and are unable to sell their homes.

When the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, the Economic Stimulus Bill, was signed into law by President Obama on February 17, its provision of $555 million in a Homeowners’ Assistance Program for military members was touted as "very important to our military personnel and their families" by House Armed Services Committee Chairman Ike Skelton, D-Mo.#

On May 14, 2009 it was again publicized in Department of Defense News Release #333-09.# The same day, Vice President Biden said this aboard the USS Ronald Reagan in San Diego: "The sacrifices military families make for our country – in terms of deployments, but also moving several times in their career – are immense. They often don’t get to choose when they move and may be forced to sell their homes when they don’t want to. The Department of Defense, with funds from the Recovery Act, is expanding its program to help its military families who have been forced to sell their homes at a loss."#

On September 3, the US Army Garrison Stuttgart newspaper The Citizen reported the Homeowners Assistance Program on its front page. In the article, Lt. Gen. Robert Wilson, commander of Installation Management Command, was attributed with these written remarks: “The current housing situation continues to affect Soldiers who have purchased homes, those living in rentals, and (those making) government- directed moves for permanent change of station and Base Realignment and Closure relocations.” Consequently, various federal organizations, including the Department of Defense, and private sector agencies, “are aggressively working programs to provide help, information and support during these challenging times.”#

The government is very proud of its appropriation of $555 million for financial assistance to service members, and its pride would be well-deserved, if anyone had actually received this financial assistance.

The funds were appropriated February 17. Today is September 24. Our active-duty family relocated from San Diego to Germany under permanent-change-of-station orders, issued five days after the Economic Stimulus Bill was passed. In May, we left California and our basic allowance for housing at the San Diego duty station terminated. The relocation also necessitated my resignation from a civilian position, where I earned over $61,000 annually. The State of California then deemed me ineligible for unemployment benefits because we live outside the United States.

Our home was purchased in May 2006 and is now assessed at $156,000 LESS than we paid for it. It was listed for sale in February 2009, four days after receiving the PCS orders. It remains unsold, and we have lost multiple buyers, because the lien holder will not accept less than the outstanding balance. We continue to make mortgage payments and slide deeper and deeper into personal debt because of military-ordered relocation and the lack of anticipated financial help from the Homeowners’ Assistance Program.

The Program’s “private sale augmentation” option would supplement a buyer’s purchase offer and eliminate the outstanding balance due to the lien holder. The military member would not receive any sale proceeds or reimbursement of money already lost, but would be relieved of the financial burden of a home no longer live in, near a duty station no longer assigned to, and that he or she can no longer afford to pay for, due to a military-ordered relocation.

Based on all the available information disseminated by the Homeowners’ Assistance Program, our family is exactly whom the program is designed to help. We meet every known criteria for financial assistance. Now, as we slide toward foreclosure and watch our credit rating drop by hundreds of points, the government we serve and sacrifice for is holding on $555 million specifically appropriated to help us alleviate the hardship it imposed.

Please write, call, or e-mail your elected representatives demanding the immediate distribution of the Homeowners’ Assistance Program funds to the affected military members.

Our New Place!

2009-05-30T20:03:00.000+02:00

In February 2009 we received orders to Stuttgart, Germany, and began preparations to move a family of six to a foreign country in 90 days. I'll spare you the usual complaints about the preposterous hoops we had to jump through to get here, and pick up with our arrival on Monday morning, May 11.
Our sponsor, an Air Force master sergeant, picked us up. I walked ahead of my husband and the kids, making idle and brain-dead (on my part) conversation with him through the terminal. The Stuttgart airport included one special feature I've never seen anywhere in the world: a sex shop, complete with window showcases featuring fetish lingerie and adult toys. Luckily the boys didn't notice it, because after 13 hours on a plane with no sleep, I didn't really have the capacity to quickly neutralize any questions or comments they may have come out with.
Our sponsor led us out to the government vehicle he checked out to pick us up: a Mercedes van. Nice! Inside was a new laundry basket full of food and drinks, courtesy of the C.O.'s wife, along with a welcoming note and invitation to an office function the following evening. Note to self: be that kind of C.O.'s wife when I'm in that role.

Welcome!

2008-06-24T21:34:00.001+02:00

The purpose of this blog is to reveal the every day challenges for one military family trying to get through a Marine officer's career with their marriage and their sanity intact. From California, Virginia, Japan, Iraq and back, we've dealt with just about everything that can -- and does -- happen to military families. Through it all, three words have pushed me through times I didn't think I could deal with: Continue To March. I hope you enjoy my stories of how we continue to march, day after day, on the path the Marine Corps lays in front of us.