The Defense of Freedom Medal Held Hostage by The Defense Base Act

WHY HAVE I NOT RECEIVED THE DEFENSE OF FREEDOM MEDAL?

The Defense of Freedom Medal is an award held to be the equivalent of the Purple Heart and is awarded to Civilian Contractors injured in the war zones. 

One question we get here repeatedly is why have I not received the Defense of Freedom Medal?   The question comes from severely disabled Civilian Contractors wounded in horrific explosions and insurgent attacks.

WHO IS HOLDING YOUR MEDAL HOSTAGE?

The company you work for is responsible for requesting  that you receive the medal and providing the documentation that you have indeed suffered a qualifying injury.

As all Injured War Zone Contractors know the minute you must file a Defense Base Act Claim you are automatically placed in an adversarial relationship with your employer.   Your Employer and the Defense Base Act Insurance Company are considered equal entities in the battle you have entered for your medical care and indemnity.

Your Employer is required to assist the insurance company in denying your claim.  Under the War Hazards Act the Employer/Carrier must prove to the WHA Tribunal that they have diligently tried to deny your claim.

It appears that your Defense of Freedom Medals could be held hostage by your Employers due to the adversarial relationship the Defense Base Act has created.

When KBR, DynCorp, Blackwater, Xe, et al, provide documentation of your injuries to the DoD they have just admitted that you are indeed injured and to what extent.

Specific information regarding injury/death: Description of the situation causing the injury/death in detail to include the date, time, place, and scene of the incident, and official medical documentation of the employee’s injuries and treatment. The description must be well documented, including the names of witnesses and point of contact (POC) for additional medical information, if needed.

These admissions sure would make it hard for Administrative Law Judges like Paul C Johnson to name them as alleged.   ALJ Paul C Johnson has yet to award benefits to a DBA Claimant in a decision based on a hearing.

KBR who can never seem to find their injured employees medical records holds the key to the Defense of Freedom Medal.

Certainly there are other lawsuits outside of the DBA that the withholding of this information is vital too.

For those of you who still give a damn after being abused by so badly simply because you were injured-

The Defense of Freedom Medal may find you many years down the road once an Administrative Law Judge says you were injured.

We recommend that you contact your Congressional Representative or Senator and have them request this Medal if you qualify for it and would like to have it.

If you are still litigating your claim it SHOULD serve to legitimize your alleged injuries.

The Unnamed Military Veteran Civilian Contractor War Casualties

They too are the

BEST KEPT SECRET OF THE WARS

The Majority of ExPat Civilian Contractor Casualties first served their country in the military.  

Many of them gave twenty and more years of service before deploying in a civilian capacity.

Many of them were buried with full military honors.

Yet we are not supposed to know their names or even that they died in our wars.

Defense Base Act War Profiteers are encouraged to abuse the families they leave behind

You can see some of these nameless hero’s at

Our Fallen Contractors Memorial

Please keep them and their families in your thoughts today and everyday

The Price of Sacrifice

The government decided that contractors are eligible for public honor as civilians, through awards such as the Defense of Freedom Medal. This is described as the “civilian equivalent” of a Purple Heart, as both require the recipient to have been injured or killed. But the contractor is honored as victim; not hero.

David Isenberg at Huffington Post  May 24, 2012

Please see David’s blog  The Isenberg Institute of Strategic Satire

How should one recognize an act on the battlefield that gets you wounded? If you are a soldier, marine, sailor or airman the answer is easy; you get a Purple Heart. That medal, originally created by General George Washington, is awarded to U.S. soldiers wounded by the enemy in combat. It was ordered by the Continental Congress to stop giving commissions or promotions, since the Congress could not afford the extra pay these entailed, so Washington drew up orders for a Badge of Military Merit made of purple cloth. In 1782 he directed that “whenever any singularly meritorious action is performed, the author of it shall be permitted to wear on his facings, over his left breast, the figure of a heart in purple cloth or silk edged with narrow lace or binding.”

In short, Washington gave cloth because he could not give money. But if you are a private contractor and you get wounded you don’t get a Purple Heart.

You, hopefully, will get medical care and benefits which your employer is required, at least theoretically, to provide under the Defense Base Act.

To Mateo Taussig-Rubbo, a professor at the State University of New York, Buffalo Law School this raises the question as to whether they are forms of value which can be substituted one for the other.

In an essay he wrote, “Value of Valor: Money, Medals and Military Labor,” published earlier this year he explores the divide between money and medals. This raises interesting questions about motivation.

Please read the entire post here

Judge Denies Blackwater’s Motion for Arbitration

Law Offices of Scott J Bloch  May 23, 2012

WASHINGTON, DC (May 23, 2012) – Blackwater Industries, which changed its name to Xe Services, and now has changed it yet again to Academi LLC, lost its initial bid to have the $240 million suit for employee misclassification sent to arbitration and dismissed from federal court in Washington, D.C.

Scott Bloch filed an amended complaint (see link above) in the class action lawsuit on behalf of four former security specialists, who were injured while working for Blackwater, in order to recover their payment of social security, unemployment insurance, and unpaid benefits and state and local withholding and unemployment insurance, and other unspecified damages. The action seeks $240,000,000 in damages for lost benefits, overtime, treble damages and punitive damages, as well as additional amounts as proved for the class of specialists.

The court has rejected that motion filed by Blackwater and required it to file another motion to determine if the same Plaintiffs agreed to have an arbitrator determine if the agreements were unconscionable, procured by duress, fraud and undue influence.

“Blackwater acted illegally and unconscionably toward these brave individuals,” said Bloch. ”Through their fraud as pointed out in the Amended Complaint, they avoided overtime for security workers who worked sometimes 12-16 hours a day 6 days a week. They were forced to sign agreements they never read and were not given time to read and not given copies, which took away valuable rights and were unlawful in their terms. Now the court has rejected their initial motion and required Blackwater to seek the same relief if they can prove that the Plaintiffs who never were allowed to read the original agreements agreed to have an arbitrator determine whether they properly agreed to anything. We continue to assert the illegality of the agreements and the actions of Blackwater.”

Read Xe’s Arbitration Bid Denied in Misclassification Suit here.

Ronco Consulting Corporation named in Lawsuit for EEOC Violations

Ronco Consulting was named in the Defense Base Act Class Action Lawsuit against Defense Base Act Insurance Companies and some Overseas Civilian Contractor Companies.

The EEOC granted a former Ronco Consulting Employee and American Injured War Zone Contractor the Right to Sue under the Americans with Disabilities Act after investigating the complaint.

The Americans with Disabilities Act prohibits discrimination against persons with disabilities.

Even those who were disabled due to the negligence of the company in question.

Leaked Memo: Afghan ‘Burn Pit’ Could Wreck Troops’ Hearts, Lungs

Spencer Ackerman at Wired’s Danger Room

For years, U.S. government agencies have told the public, veterans and Congress that they couldn’t draw any connections between the so-called “burn pits” disposing of trash at the military’s biggest bases and veterans’ respiratory or cardiopulmonary problems. But a 2011 Army memo obtained by Danger Room flat-out stated that the burn pit at one of Afghanistan’s largest bases poses “long-term adverse health conditions” to troops breathing the air there.

The unclassified memo (.jpg), dated April 15, 2011, stated that high concentrations of dust and burned waste present at Bagram Airfield for most of the war are likely to impact veterans’ health for the rest of their lives. “The long term health risk” from breathing in Bagram’s particulate-rich air include “reduced lung function or exacerbated chronic bronchitis, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), asthma, atherosclerosis, or other cardiopulmonary diseases.” Service members may not necessarily “acquire adverse long term pulmonary or heart conditions,” but “the risk for such is increased.”

The cause of the health hazards are given the anodyne names Particulate Matter 10 and Particulate Matter 2.5, a reference to the size in micrometers of the particles’ diameter. Service personnel deployed to Bagram know them by more colloquial names: dust, trash and even feces — all of which are incinerated in “a burn pit” on the base, the memo says, as has been standard practice in Iraq and Afghanistan for a decade.

Accordingly, the health risks were not limited to troops serving at Bagram in 2011, the memo states. The health hazards are an assessment of “air samples taken over approximately the last eight years” at the base.

Please see the original and read the entire article here

Al Qaeda attack on US convoy in Yemen hit civilian contractors

AFP at New York Post  May 21, 2012

HUDAIDA, Yemen — Al Qaeda militants claimed Monday that they attacked a convoy carrying four US military advisers in Yemen, but American officials said the targets were civilian contractors.

The terror group said in a statement that jihadists opened fire Sunday on two cars carrying four American military advisers who were in Hudaida on a training mission with the Yemeni Coast Guard.

The militants “opened fire on them as they left their hotel on their way to work,” the group said, adding that the attackers were able to flee despite efforts by Yemeni security forces to cordon off the city

But US officials said the four were not Department of Defense personnel and were civilian contractors training Yemen’s coast guard.

A local security official confirmed the attack took place. One of the contractors was slightly injured.

An email from the US embassy in Sanaa said,”Reports of US military trainers in Hudaida are false.”

Please see the original and read more here

Overseas Civilian Contractor Count 2nd Quarter FY 2012

Thanks to Danger Zone Jobs for posting this, please visit their site

This update reports DoD contractor personnel numbers in theater and outlines DoD efforts to improve management of contractors accompanying U.S. forces. It covers DoD contractor personnel deployed in Afghanistan (Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF), Iraq, and the U.S. Central Command (USCENTCOM) area of responsibility (AOR).

In 2nd quarter FY 2012, USCENTCOM reported approximately 153,000 contractor personnel working for the DoD in the USCENTCOM AOR. This was approximately a .6% increase from the previous quarter. The number of contractors outside of Afghanistan and Iraq make up about 16% of the total contractor population in the USCENTCOM AOR.

A breakdown of DoD contractor personnel is provided below:

DoD Contractor Personnel in the USCENTCOM AOR

	Total Contractors	U.S. Citizens	Third Country Nationals	Local & Host Country Nationals
Afghanistan Only	117,227	34,765	37,898	44,564
Iraq Only*	10,967	3,260	5,539	2,168
Other USCENTCOM Locations	24,765	11,126	12,796	843
USCENTCOM AOR	152,959	49,151	56,233	47,575

*Includes DoD contractors supporting U.S. Mission Iraq and/or Office of Security Cooperation-Iraq

Afghanistan Summary

The distribution of contractors in Afghanistan by contracting activity are:

Theater Support – Afghanistan:	20,226	(17%)
LOGCAP:	32,653	(28%)
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers:	15,222	(13%)
Other:*	49,126	(42%)
Total:	117,227
*Includes Defense Logistics Agency, Army Materiel Command, Air Force External and Systems Support contracts, Special Operations Command and INSCOM.

OEF Contractor Posture Highlights:

There are currently approximately 117.2K DoD contractors in Afghanistan. The overall contractor footprint has increased 3.2% from the 1st quarter FY12.

The contractor to military ratio in Afghanistan is 1.18 to 1 (based on 99.2K military).

Local Nationals make up 38% of the DoD contracted workforce in Afghanistan.

Iraq Summary

Contractor Posture Highlights:

There was a 54% decrease in the number of DoD contractors as compared to the 1st quarter 2012 due to the end of Operation New Dawn and the transition of authority to the Chief of Mission.

The Department of Defense and Department of State continue to refine the requirements for contract support. We project that by the end of FY 2012, the USG contractor population in Iraq will be approximately 14K. Roughly half of these contractors are employed under Department of State contracts. Although the remainder are employed under DoD contracts, only approximately 4,000 will be directly supporting DOD mission areas. The remaining contractor personnel employed under DoD contracts are supporting State Department and other civilian activities under the Chief of Mission, Iraq. These DOD contractors are provided on a reimbursable basis.

General Data on DoD Private Security Contractor Personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan

	Total*	U.S. Citizens	Third Country National	Local & Host Country National
DoD PSCs in Afghanistan	26,612	519	782	25,311
DoD PSCs in Iraq	3,577	288	2,991	298

*These numbers include most subcontractors and service contractors hired by prime contractors under DoD contracts. They include both armed and unarmed contractors. They do not include PSCs working under DoS and USAID contracts.

Vets invite others, civilian contractors, to new oasis at mall

The World  May 8, 2012

Andy Osborn, right, and Floyd Jackson enjoy their new meeting space

NORTH BEND — Vietnam veterans who came together years ago to help each other cope with the trauma of war hope to use their combined experiences to help modern veterans after they’ve returned home.

‘We saw the need for veterans coming back,” said Steve Hilton, a Vietnam veteran who helped found the new group. ‘It is a hard transition from the military back into civilian life.”

The group had the idea for years, but didn’t have a centralized, neutral location to meet until January, when they gathered enough donations to rent an upstairs room at Pony Village Mall.

The walls of the new Forward Operating Base 101 are covered with posters, plaques, maps, ribbons and American flags.

The group meets every Thursday night at 6:30, and starting this week, it will host a Wednesday night meeting just for veterans of modern wars, from the 1980s on.

‘A lot of the younger guys have trouble relating to the older, Vietnam veterans,” said Andy Osborn, who will host the gathering for the younger veterans.

Osborn, who served in Iraq from 2005 to 2007, said once the veterans make it to the group, they often find it easy to relate to the older veterans, like Hilton, who served in the Vietnam War.

‘When we came back we didn’t have places to go,” Hilton said. ‘We feel compelled to help these guys who are coming back now. Through our experiences we can give advice, let them know they are not alone.”

Osborn said veterans from all branches of the military are welcome. He also welcomes people who worked as civilian contractors in modern war zones.

Osborn worked in Iraq as a police advisor, training Iraqi police officers, for a civilian contractor hired by the State Department. Although he was not enlisted in the military, he saw combat, and often worked and fought alongside soldiers. And he returned home to face the same difficulties readjusting.

‘Nothing could prepare me for how hard it was going to be coming back,” he said.

He was nervous to attend a FOB gathering, he said, worried the others wouldn’t accept him as a veteran; worried the group would be therapy; worried he would be looked down on.

When Osborn finally did attend the group meetings, ‘It got a lot better for me,” he said. ‘It is what helped me make the final step back into society.”

Please see the original and read more here

At Least 49 Civilian Contractor Deaths Filed on in First Quarter 2012

WE ARE THE BEST KEPT SECRET OF THE WARS

According to the Department of Labor’s Defense Base Act Claim Summary Reports there were at least 49 Civilian Contractor Deaths filed on in the first quarter of 2012.

Keep in mind that these numbers are not an accurate accounting of Contractor Casualties as many injuries and deaths are not reported as Defense Base Act Claims.  Also, many of these injuries will become deaths due to the Defense Base Act Insurance Companies denial of medical benefits.

Many foreign national and local national contractors and their families are never told that they are covered under the Defense Base Act and so not included in the count.

At least 2, 580 Defense Base Act Claims were filed during this quarter

At least  49 were death claims  

(3  reported for Iraq compare to 1 coalition death,  36 for Afghanistan compared to 97 coalition, Kuwait 2, UAE 1, Columbia 1, Nation Pending 2)

At least 1008 were for injuries requiring longer than 4 days off work

At least 196 were for injuries requiring less than 4 day off work

At least 1433 were for injuries requiring no time off of work

A total of 84, 820 Defense Base Act Claims have been filed since September 1, 2001

Contact dbacasualty@yahoo.com for questions regarding these numbers