Center for Investigative Reporting

The Department of Veterans Affairs has systematically missed nearly all of its internal benchmarks for reducing a hulking backlog of benefits claims and has quietly backed away from repeated promises to give all veterans and family members speedier decisions by 2015.

The manager of the sexual assault response program at Fort Campbell, Ky., was arrested in a domestic dispute and relieved of his post, authorities said Thursday. 

This marks the third time in recent weeks that an official in charge of preventing sexual assault in the military has been accused of sexual harassement.

(On Tuesday, the Army’s prevention coordinator at Ford Hood, Texas was arrested for allegations of sexual misconduct – including promoting prostitution. Last week, the chief of the Air Force’s prevention program was accused of groping a woman in a Northern Virginia parking lot.)

This comes just a week after a new report revealed a 35% rise in sexual assault instances since 2010. 

A separate survey also found that last year, servicemen and women reported 3,374 instances of sexual assault to the military chain of command – 238 of those cases led to a conviction. 

As the debate around the longstanding issue heats up, critics say seeking justice comes down to the culture that governs the military: reporting to your superior. 

For more on how this breaks down, you should really check out The Invisible War. The filmmakers do an excellent job following the backlash of what happens when service members speak out. Watch a clip —> here. 

californiawatch:

When Chief Warrant Officer Nicholas Johnson’s Black Hawk helicopter went down during bad weather April 19, killing him and three others, he became the 671st service member from California to die in the combined Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

A brief Department of Defense statement from April 24 said the crash occurred in Afghanistan’s Helmand province. Johnson and the rest of his crew were assigned to an Army aviation regiment based in Hawaii. U-T San Diego later reported that the 27-year-old Johnson was on his first deployment, attended Chino High School in San Bernardino County and is survived by a wife and child.

California continues to lead the nation in fatal sacrifices made to the conflicts, according to an analysis of the most recent Defense Department data available. The figures, which include both hostile and non-hostile casualties, cover three major operations across the two wars: Operation Enduring Freedom, Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation New Dawn. Read more.

Photo: Chief Warrant Officer Nicholas Johnson. Credit: U.S. Army

californiawatch:

Flashlights, exercise equipment, trumpets, gun parts, combat coats, pistol holsters, water canteens, radios, laptops, M16 rifles, helicopters, microwaves, survival kits, workout equipment, bayonet knives, ammunition cans.

A list of some of the surplus military equipment that California law enforcement agencies received last year. More than 17,000 local agencies across the country have taken advantage of the Defense Department’s equipment giveaways. California police accumulated more equipment in 2011 than any other year in the program’s two-decade history.  See what your community has received by searching our online database.