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November 11, 2003

Host: Michael Grant
Topics:
· Veterans' Day
In-Studio Guests:
· Chief Master Sergeant Andy Bernal of Mesa;
· Retired Sergeant First Class Red Thomas of Mesa;
· Commander Martin Sepulveda of Chandler, a commander in the U.S. Naval Reserves.
Important Links and Resources:
The Department of Defense has asked the American public not to overload the military mail system with bulk mailings of cards and gifts. Here are alternative suggestions from the White House and the Pentagon:
* Donate to Operation USO Care Package at www.usocares.org/home.htm.
* Donate long-distance calling cards so service members can call their families:
Operation Uplink at www.operationuplink.org.
* Send an online greeting at anyservicemember.navy.mil or www.OperationDearAbby.net.
* Donate gift certificates to military dependents in need at www.commissaries.com.

>> Michael:
Tonight on "Horizon," a Phoenix man left his successful business to serve his country following 9/11. The story of a marine who earned the Medal of Honor, but paid the ultimate sacrifice. Plus the conflict in Iraq is a daily reminder of our service to our country by our men and women in uniform. Tonight, we look at issues our military and its veterans face. Good evening, I'm Michael Grant. Welcome to a Veterans Day edition of "Horizon."

>> Michael:
Census figures show there are some half million military veterans living in Arizona, about 15% of our adult population. In a moment, we'll talk to three of them about current issues facing veterans and our military. There are any number of reasons why people choose to serve our country. The events of September 11th, 2001, prompted one Valley man to join the U.S. Marine Corp. Here's the story of Lance Corporal Michael Williams.

>>Sandy Watson:
The thing that stood out about Mike the most, he was very big hearted.

>>Heather Strange:
He was such a good, kind-hearted person, and would just do anything for anybody.

>>Sandy:
He was very social. He liked to be with people, and when they were having a problem, he was a great listener.

>>Heather:
He made me feel special and made me feel loved.

>> Reporter:
A mother and a fiancee. They are bound with the spirit of a man who gave his life for his country. Lance Corporal Michael Williams was a marine in the coalition forces that is liberated Iraq. He was a forward observer for the First Battalion, Second Marine Regiment, Second Marine Expeditionary Brigade. He was killed near Nasariyah.

>>Man:
We have with us today members of the Williams family, Michael Williams who was killed in service almost a month ago.

>> Reporter:
Maricopa County employees are honoring his memory at this ceremony. His mother is Sandy Watson and his fiancée, Heather Strange remember the man who became a marine.

>>Heather
: He was very dedicated and very proud to be doing what he was trained to go do. We recently found out that he died saving the lives of his fellow Marines, which is no surprise to us. It's exactly what we would have expected from him, and that's what he went over there to go do, and we are all so proud of him.

>>Sandy:
Mike was a very active child. He was very creative. Very artistic, very curious, very active. So the big challenge of life was to get his energy directed in a positive way. And that's not always easy to do. But back up to the time he joined the Marines, it was very difficult.

>> Reporter:
Anyone who ever said you can never change, never met Mike Williams. He joined the Marines at a relatively older age, after a troubled youth.

>>Sandy:
He went through a really rough young adult life. That's what made this that much more of a shock for all of us, because he just came home one day and said "I joined the Marines." It was that -- but that was Mike.

>> Reporter:
Mike and Heather's mothers work together at Maricopa County. Heather's sister is married to Mike's brother. Mike e-mailed Heather often after he is deployed to Iraq. On January 26th, Heather got a special message.

>>Heather:
I will formally ask you when I get back, but for now I have to use e-mail. Will you marry me, Babe? I love you and want to spend my life with you. We can plan the wedding when I get back. I miss you in a bad way.

>>Heather:
We kept each other filled in on the day's events. Even though we had e-mail, I would write him a letter every night before I went to bed and sometimes in the middle of the day to let him know something that happened. Both us were journaling our days for each other, so it made us feel like we were together a little bit more, even though we were thousands of miles apart.

>> Reporter:
Coverage of the war on television captivated the world, but the images were more personal to Sandy and Heather.

>>Sandy:
Everybody that I know was glued to the TV, CNN, MSNBC, all of them, because of the embedded reporters and the blow-by-blow descriptions, oh, yeah. Everybody is hoping to see somebody they know and it was -- it made it interesting. It made it real.

>>Heather:
I had to stop watching TV and funny enough, the last day I watched the news was March 23rd, and that was the day he was killed. And for some reason that day, I had no idea where he was at. I had a general idea just based upon information he had given me in letters. I had a general idea and that day was really, really hard. I cried the entire day. I couldn't stop crying, and I had an uneasy feeling.

>>Sandy:
They were in a convoy of troop transport. I think there was 11. There wasn't much going on that morning, believe it or not, and they were just hanging out until they got their orders, and they saw the 507 go by, which I understand was Jessica Lynch's and Lori Piestewa's group, and the reaction was what are they doing here, because they weren't -- they didn't expect to see them. Well, we found out later they took a wrong turn. They let it go for a little bit and then they decided to check it out because it didn't make sense. So they took out after them, but they never did catch up to them. After a while, they turned around to return, and in doing that, they crossed the bridge to go over.

>>Heather:
While they were approaching the bridges, they were ambushed. There was fire coming from multiple directions. RPGs, machine gunfire, you name it, it was coming at them, and a couple of troop movers in front of Mike had actually gotten hit with an RPG, and the men were still alive inside.

>>Sandy:
This one marine, his name is John Klein who ends up -- my kids were born in Reno, and we lived in Reno a long time. He's from Reno, and to make a long story short, he was the one that was getting these people out of these AAVs, and they were telling him not to do that and he said I have to, this is my family. And whether they were dead or alive or what, he was pulling these people out, and in doing that, Mike and Patrick Nixon, who also died with Mike beside Mike, manned the mortars to protect John while he went and did this.

>>Heather:
Mike was actually providing coverage for those Marines, medics and so forth, while they were trying to move the injured to a safe spot, and he was hit directly with a mortar in the process.

>>Sandy:
The Marines said that they presented -- some friendly Iraqis presented Mike's dog tags to them and said that they had buried him and a few other of the guys, they had buried them because the Muslims want their dead buried, and plus I heard, they didn't want anything to happen to the bodies. So they had buried them, gave them the dog tags and said we will show you where they are buried. I think what happens is, God gives you a peace. I definitely felt that. You can call it shock or whatever, but I was -- Mike was killed on a Sunday, and starting that night, I didn't sleep well at all. I kept hearing knocks at the door. I'd get up to answer the door, my husband would tell me nobody is there, please get back in bed. He'd go check, and the military visits you at the door, so when a few nights later when we really did get a knock at the door, I wasn't really surprised.

>> Reporter:
Sandy and Heather keep in touch with the families of the young men who were killed with Mike. They say their faith has helped them cope with their profound loss, but their grief is a constant reminder.

>>Heather:
I was planning on moving to North Carolina to Camp LeJeune where he was stationed, and we were going to get married, and we were going to start a family, and all of those things are just impossible now, and so we're just trying to figure out where I want to start again and start moving towards it. It's really hard to get motivated. Some days I just want to be by myself all day and not even have to deal with other people. It's just difficult having to start over at zero at 25 years old.

>>Sandy:
I hope nobody else has to deal with something like this, but I think it's very important to get in touch with your beliefs, what you believe in. It's important to cultivate friends, good friends, and be in touch with your family and love each other.

>> Reporter:
Lance Corporal Michael Williams died fighting to save his fellow Marines. Sandy's son and Heather's fiancée is gone. What remains is the memory of an ordinary person who, when confronted with his mortality, did extraordinary things for his family, friends and country.

>>Sandy:
I knew somewhere under all of that other stuff, every once in a while, I would see this person that I knew was there. As a mother you have -- you know what your kids really truly can be usually, because you see a glimpse of it that maybe other people can't see. I knew what was under there and I was very proud of him. I finally got to meet the man I knew was there. My biggest heartbreak is that I won't be able to enjoy that after 29 years of trying to find it.

>>Heather:
These are his dog tags. He gave these to me before he left on January 2nd, and I haven't taken them off since.

>> Michael:
According to the U.S. Central Command, there are roughly 102,000 active military personnel and 28,000 reservists serving in Iraq. Overall, there are 1.4 million active duty military members, and 1.2 million members of the guard and reserves. Department of Veterans Affairs list more than 26 million military veterans in America, a half million here in Arizona. Joining me now are three veterans, retired Chief Master Sergeant Andy Bernal of Mesa. Sergeant Bernal served in the special force from 1963 to 1966, 23 years as a para-rescueman in the U.S. Air Force Reserves, retiring in 1989. Also here is retired Sergeant First Class Red Thomas of Mesa. He is a former tank commander, drill instructor and armor master gunner. Sergeant Thomas retired from the U.S. Army in 1994. And Commander Martin Sepulveda of Chandler, a commander in the U.S. Naval Reserves. Commander Sepulveda served as a Naval gunfire liaison officer in both Persian Gulf wars and in the Kosovo air campaign. Gentlemen, it is good to see all of you, and we appreciate your service very much.

>> Michael:
Andy, let's start with the current situation over in Iraq. One of the things that occurred -- we've obviously been hearing about troop rotation problems. You've got about 140,000 or so over in Iraq. You've got a million-four full time. Just for the person who doesn't know much, you would think that we would be able to, you know, rotate after a three month tour of duty or a six month tour of duty with that kind of total force and that kind of deployed force. What don't we know that we should know about that issue?

>>Andy Bernal:
I think it's difficult to tell because, if you don't have the right kind of people in the right positions, you really can't do your mission. And I think for the reserves and the guards, some of them have been overstressed to some extent because they have been in the last 10 years -- actually more than 10 years. There has been more use of both the Guard and the Reserve for rotations going into Turkey, going into other parts of the world. The Balkans, to provide coverage where the active military needed some coverage. Now with back-to-back conflicts in Iraq, I think it has stretched some of that, and there's just not enough people to go around to cover.

>> Michael:
Are we spread too thin, Martin?

>>Martin Sepulveda:
I think so. When you have to depend on other nations to kick into the troop mix to have the right amount of -- or right number of troops and right types of troops, I think it's probably a pretty safe bet to say you don't have enough people to do the job at hand. You know, in addition to your numbers with the troops in Iraq, I'm not sure if you mentioned the number of troops in Afganistan.

>> Michael:
Did not, no.

>>Martin:
You've got those troops there, and you still have two Army divisions in the Balkans, one in Bosnia, and another group in Sarjevo.

>> Michael:
You've got other deployments throughout the world.

>>Martin:
Right, Southeast Asia, there's quite a few troops there.

>> Michael:
Red, one of the other things that occurs to me is the changing mission here. It's one thing to kick in the door and take the objective, but you know, it's a little different holding, occupying the objective as, unfortunately, it appears we'll have to do for sometime.

>>Red Thomas:
That's a subcomponent of your -- when you said we have all of these millions of people, why shouldn't we be able to cover the ground, but the term "soldier" isn't generic. We don't all know everything. So you've got the guys who come in, kick down the door. We're good at conquering, and you have people that are very good at repairing generators, people good at repairing trucks and they are not interchangeable like it looks in the movies. So the mission has shifted but, you know, we're making headway. If you look at the news in the evenings, you don't see stories any more about gun fights, because the bad guys have learned, don't get in a gun fight with the Americans. It's now hit-and-run attacks.

>>Martin:
The campaign has changed.

>> Michael:
That would be devastating.

>>Martin:
It's less conventional, but you have insurgent type operations being waged by not only Iraqis, but Hezbollah, Hamas, the Martyrs Brigade. I think the problem with this -- I won't get into policy here because I'm not king for a day. We've bypassed all of these pockets of resistance. We've conquered Baghdad, so we thought, we were there in a very fine fashion, but I think we've found there are still a lot of combatants there. What we're seeing now is those combatants aren't necessarily from the Baathist party.

>>Andy:
Those combatants are going after noncombatants because they are the easiest targets. They are going to pick them off as they can. >> Michael: As long as I've got all three of you at the table, I've got to ask you, Andy, what do you think about the embedded journalist thing in the coverage of the war. Is that a good or bad idea?

>>Andy:
I think the American public needs to know what's going on, but I think that was a detriment to a lot of the military people because they had to basically baby sit those people, and they were really a liability for those people that are already in danger.

>> Michael:
Martin, I think at least one of the concepts was that it would give you a better perspective on the larger picture, but then you've got to report it real time, so I'm not sure that --

>>Martin:
I think, in my humble opinion, it became a situation of who can come up with the latest most sensational story. As Andy said, there is a lot of baby-sitting that goes along with that. In a macro sense I would characterize it as a made for TV movie and it really isn't. That's not what it is.

>> Michael:
Red, do you see any advantages to that as opposed to the old system where you sit down and get the military briefs and --

>>Red:
The idea of the embedded reporters was a double-edged sword. There was -- yes, it put a strain on the unit, but it also gave the American people a view of what was happening.

>> Michael:
What's the problem?

>>Red:
The problem is, a lot of reporters think if we're not talking bad about the government or the Army, then we're not reporting. We're afraid to say these guys are doing a great job. Or these guys are trying hard, you know. It's always got to be controversy. That's what sells. Sometimes we do a good job and we shouldn't be afraid to say that. It may not sell, but it forms public opinion.

>>Martin:
But I think it cut both ways. You had the embedded reporters charging up to Baghdad and really in the minds of the American public, I think, is what's -- the war is over, well, it's not. It does cut both ways.

>> Michael:
Retention and recruitment, where are we? Are we retaining people? Are we recruiting new people or not? That's obviously not at a satisfactory level.

>>Martin:
Mike, right now I'm the executive officer of the largest Naval groups in San Diego. I will tell you that my retention isn't there. I think a lot of these --

>> Michael:
What are the reasons for it?

>>Martin:
A lot of them signed up for the benefits. And the realism is the single parents and kids in school, they don't want to be plucked out of their situation right now to go to a tour that they don't know how long it's going to be. And that's the level of uncertainty. So, it's good that they are -- in my opinion, that they are in the military, but I think in some cases, they probably signed up for the wrong reasons.

>>Red:
I think a lot of people joined up because it was -- "a free ride" isn't the right term, but they weren't really aware that at some point you take the king's Schilling, you do the king's bidding. I could be sent to bad places to do bad things to bad people, it never really came home, well, not me, those people will go. And now that the road has gotten hard, the Army is right-sizing itself.

>> Michael:
Andy, when you stop to think about it, there has been a lot of deployments to a lot of different theaters of operation here in the past, you know, 10, 12 years. A lot of people getting called on pretty regularly.

>>Andy:
Well, I think that's the risk a person takes when enlist in the Reserves or the National Guard, and they are going to have to sacrifice -- sacrifice some time away from their homes and from their families and from their jobs, and unfortunately, some people don't recognize that that's going to happen sometimes. In some cases it may not happen at all, but in some cases it's happening more and more frequently, but you just have to find that kind of person that is willing to make that sacrifice, because if they are not willing to make the sacrifice, you don't really want them in your unit anyway.

>> Michael:
The House on Monday approved a budget that includes a $4.1% military pay increase and some other benefits. Obviously, a step in the right direction. The question is, is it enough?

>>Martin:
As an active guy or active reservist, active duty reservist, if there is such a thing, whatever the characterization is, I will tell you that you better not be doing it for the money.

>>Andy:
No, it's the wrong reason to do it. There is no money in being a reservist or in the National Guard.

>>Martin:
If you've got a profession, typically you lose quite a bit of money. I shouldn't say quite a bit, you lose money, you don't break even in most cases. So money isn't in my experience, my peers, it's not an underlying factor to stay in the military.

>>Red:
So the right-sizing thing, we're losing some sunshine patriots. The guys who are joining are the kind of people who understand that hard work has to be done, if not me, who, if not now, when.

>> Michael:
Red, you were telling me that disabled veterans, which you are, cannot pull both retirement and disability pay?

>>Red:
Yeah, it's a neat little leftover from around the Civil War. If you serve long enough to retire, but you get injured or you have an illness that affects you, and you go to the Veterans Administration, which is completely different than the Army, a lot of people don't know that, or the military, I should say that, let me rephrase that.

>>Michael:
There is other branches in the Army, but I can understand as an Army guy.

>>Red:
They are here to support us, and we have to include them. The idea, though, they take away dollar for dollar. So I'm 100% disabled. They take my entire retirement paycheck. I haven't seen it in years. And they save that only for military. That's the one part that really galls you is if you work for the post office or the Forest Service, Congress, you don't get that. That's a little something special they serve -- they reserve just for service members.

>> Michael:
Any discussion on revising that because it does seem like a very bizarre kind of system.

>>Red:
Well, theoretically, the fix is in -- wink, wink -- they've done the secret handshake. They are going to phase it in over a 10-year period. A lot of people don't like that, but it's better than the system in place right now where I get nothing. You know, people are trying -- people are working. We have to wait for the Senate to vote on it and the President to sign it to start righting this wrong, but you know, I have to admit, people are trying. You know, the lot of a soldier really isn't all that different than it was 100 years ago.

>> Michael:
Andy, let know me go to the broader issue of healthcare available for veterans. Is it adequate or like anything, will that maybe change region to region, city to city, based upon the facilities available, those kind of things?

>>Andy: I can't really comment on that because I haven't taken advantage of any kind of benefits from the VA or anything like that, personally, but the little knowledge that I have is with brothers using it that they've gotten really adequate care at the local VA hospital. Other than that, I really can't comment.

>> Michael:
Martin, how is the healthcare for veterans, access to the healthcare?

>>Martin:
They've got this thing called Tri-Care. Quite frankly it's so complicated I confuse myself in explaining to the troops how to access Tri-Care. So, I've not had to use it. I feel fortunate I've not had to use it, but I think maybe it's probably the lack of adequate services, just a symptom of a bigger problem. There is not enough people aware of the problems that Red has. I think we've got champions, Senator McCCain is probably one of them that, that want to really revisit this issue. Until the American public that haven't been in the military see what a dire strait that system is in, it probably won't change. Am I off base there?

>>Red:
No, but a lot of times -- you've got to understand, and a lot of veterans don't, that the VA hospital has a mission. They have requirements, stuff they have to do. They are constrained in what they are allowed to do, and sometimes you've got to do your homework and help the VA help you.

>> Michael:
Sergeant First Class Red Thomas, thank you for joining us. Commander Martin Sepulveda, our thanks to you as well. And chief Master Sergeant, Andy Bernal, thanks for being here. Thanks guys.

>>Michael:
If you would like to learn more about veterans issues, the military's effort in Iraq or how you can help our servicemen and women, please visit the Channel 8 web site at www.kaet.asu.edu, click on "Horizon" to the left. Once on the "Horizon" home page, just look for today's date, and you'll get a host of related links to tonight's topic.

>>> We leave you tonight with the names of the men and women from Arizona who have paid the ultimate price in service to our country this year. I'm Michael Grant. Thanks for joining us for this Veterans Day edition of "Horizon." Good night.

 

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