Fire Watch Episode 7: The Army of Families Caring for America's Wounded Vets

These are the family members who were part of the Department of Veterans’ Affairs caregiver program, a largely unsung army of thousands of friends, family members and guardians that quietly take care of veterans who cannot independently take care of themselves as a result of injury or illness incurred from their service.

Many have quit their jobs to work full time as a caregiver, sacrificing an otherwise independent life to help their veteran do things like bathe, dress themselves, eat, take medication, and other daily tasks they couldn’t do on their own.

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And until recently, the support they got from the VA to give that 24/7 care was essentially a sure thing.

So what happened and why were 90% of them at risk of being disqualified for the program?

In this episode of Fire Watch, we talk to caregivers who are facing unwavering challenges in the program – a lifeline that provides community, compensation, and support.

Main Topics

• Drew F. Lawrence and Executive Editor Amy Bushatz discuss the difficulties that many caregivers face.
• Guests, Dr. Colleen Richardson, Executive Director of the Department of Veterans Affairs Caregiver Support Program
• Hosts Drew F. Lawrence and Rebecca Kheel talk with Paul Szoldra, founder of The Ruck News about other important military stories for September October 14th.

Additional Resources

• VA Family Caregiver Program Open to Thousands More as of Oct. 1
• VA Disqualifies Vets from Caregiver Program Despite Promised Pause amid Review
• 'Dehumanizing:' Why Veterans Are Giving Up on the Caregiver Program After Surge of Expulsions
• They Spent Years Caring for Their Veterans. Now They Are Losing a Lifeline

Transcript:

SPEAKERS

Paul Szoldra, Drew Lawrence, Amy Bushatz, Alana, Rebecca Kheel, Elisa, Dr. Colleen Richardson

Alana

How does that work? You know, when you have a grown man who's your son, and he can't help himself?

Elisa

I manage and administer the medication to him, because he otherwise he won't take it. He won't remember to take it. Someday they wouldn't want to take it, you know.

Alana

Because it got to a point, after they put him in a nine day coma, he was probably 15, mentally.

Elisa

Pretty much, anything he needs, he gets it through me.

Drew Lawrence

Those were a couple of family members who were part of the Department of Veterans Affairs Caregiver Program, a largely unsung army of 1000s of friends, mostly family members and guardians that quietly take care of veterans who cannot independently take care of themselves as a result of injury or illness incurred from their service. Many have quit their jobs to work full time as a caregiver, sacrificing in independent life to help the veteran do things like bathe or dress themselves, or even eat and take medication, or any of the other daily tasks that they otherwise couldn't do on their own. And until recently, the support that they got from the VA to give that 24/7 care was essentially a sure thing.

Elisa

That veterans that have problems with like mental health condition, like let's say bipolar, schizophrenia, PTSD, traumatic brain injury -- all those veterans were going to get discharged unless they needed help with, like hands on health, you know.

Drew Lawrence

That was Elisa. She was one of many caregivers booted from the program this spring, as the VA was trying to reckon with the complex issues that affect veterans coming home from war today. Traumatic brain injuries, post traumatic stress -- those maladies are hard to assess. They are ones that as a country, we're still learning about.

Elisa

Like my husband will put his socks on, on his own right. Maybe sometimes you have to tell him to do that, though, you know, and they were not considering that.

Drew Lawrence

There's no one size fits all assistance for these injuries. But in trying to create one, the VA started to cut off support for an estimated 90% of families who were part of that program in the veterans that depend on them with a stroke of the pen.

Elisa

The evidence is all there there is no way that they're going to let us down right? So when they -- but we were nervous because we started hearing people -- like triple amputee -- being discharged in the program.

Drew Lawrence

Once the department realizes this, the VA took a step back and paused discharges from the program. Some like Elisa were put on a three year program, though it is temporary. And now the VA is working to create and reassess criteria that not only applies to veterans of the global war on terror, but veterans of all eras, and the unique challenges that affect each generation of fighter. But with the changes comes uncertainty for caregivers who, since 2017, have seen at least three scares where the VA support seemed uncertain. On this episode, you'll hear from those families, their issues with the caregiver program, and you'll also hear from the leader who's trying to fix them. For Military.com -- my name is Drew Lawrence. It is October 14. And this as Fire Watch. Amy Bushatz, thank you so much for being here. I want to say up front that not only are you Military.com's executive editor, and one of the executive producers for this show. But you are vastly familiar with the caregiver program, which honestly makes you the perfect person to help tell the story.

Amy Bushatz

Hey, Drew. Yeah, I have done a lot of reporting on this, but I'm familiar with it because I'm also a caregiver myself. My husband is currently serving in the Alaska Army National Guard, but he's also a disabled veteran. We have shared our story in several places, including as part of a recent documentary called Hidden Wounds. And I know so many other families of military veterans as well who have grappled with the challenges of being caregivers.

Drew Lawrence

Right, so before we get into the caregiver program, and a lot of the shakeups that have happened over the last couple of years, I want to acknowledge that this initiative is not one that gets a lot of attention or coverage. Many people might not know that there's literally 1000s -- there's an army of family members and friends and others that are helping treat veterans, and that much of the time that direct care -- that 24/7 care -- doesn't come from VA staff or their contractors. So can you tell us a little bit about this program and how many people are part of it?

Amy Bushatz

Yeah, so the first thing to know is that when people talk about the VAs caregiver efforts, they are usually referring to what's officially known as the Comprehensive Assistance for Family Caregiver program, which is a real mouthful. It's mandated by law to pay people who take care of veterans that's often a spouse or parent, but not always, for helping the severely disabled veteran with his or her daily life. This is not stuff like making dinner for your spouse or folding laundry. These are daily practical life things that a completely healthy person would be able to do for themselves. But a severely injured person cannot do like bathing and getting dressed or safety issues that are related to brain injuries, like quite literally making sure the house isn't set on fire. The VA also has a second caregiver program that connects those who don't qualify for the paid level with resources or simply labels them in the VA system as a quote unquote, caregiver. There are different applications for each. The one everyone really talks about the paid program currently has about 44,000 enrollees.

Drew Lawrence

I know it's probably a case by case basis. But can you give me a day in the life of what being a caregiver looks like?

Amy Bushatz

So if you're a caregiver who is providing that critical care for what the VA calls, activities of daily life, you're doing really practical stuff like helping the veteran in and out of bed, use the bathroom get dressed, if your veteran is really suffering from PTSD or memory problems from a traumatic brain injury, for example, you might be doing a lot of self harm prevention or safety work. This is all stuff that a full time nurse or a visiting home health aide would have to do and the VA would therefore be paying for. But because they have you the live in caregiver, instead, they don't pay for that specialist. And instead, they have the caregiver program. But many, many, many caregivers don't qualify for the caregiver program, because they aren't doing stuff that the VA would otherwise have to hire someone to do.

Drew Lawrence

Now, I know this program is obviously critical. But I also know that there are some some serious problems with it. Can you tell us a little bit about those?

Amy Bushatz

Yeah, this is an age old problem of bureaucracy and trying to squeeze something very complicated and nuanced into a blanket policy, while relying on all of the massive parts of the system like the VA to work together. So let me give you an example. I have in my desk drawer right now, a va evaluation that rates my husband as permanently and totally disabled for his TBI as a result, and this is a quote, of persistently altered state of consciousness, such as vegetative state, minimally responsive state coma. This official VA evaluation says that he is in a coma. And I can tell you with absolute confidence that he is not in a coma, he's at work right now. Meanwhile, the VA is also paying for him to attend in person therapies and receive treatments that you definitely would not receive. Were you in a coma. All of this is clearly a bureaucratic error. But it's an error. That is a perfect example of the level of nonsense that we are dealing with here.

Drew Lawrence

So to take me back to last year when caregivers were getting some very surprising and I'd posit upsetting letters in the mail about their caregiver status. What were those letters? And what did they mean for the program?

Amy Bushatz

So the problem comes down to the challenge of trying to somehow lay out in a single policy that can be also fairly administered across 1000s of different household and without ballooning costs. What in home service connected challenges are worth paying a caregiver to take care of, and which ones are not worth paying for. And every time the VA thinks they have come up with a good standard for this, they realized that it's not working the way they thought it would. And that is because injuries, especially traumatic brain injury and PTSD, are complicated, and have symptoms and challenges that vary wildly veteran by veteran, and they are really hard to quantify in one in home visit or even a series of interviews. To understand them, you really have to live with them. So until recently, the paid program was only for post 911 veterans and their caregivers. But Congress ordered the VA to expand it to all living veterans, which meant they needed to really dial in who qualifies and who does not qualify because the potential pool of those eligible ballooned, meaning the costs for the program would become just substantial, depending on how strict they decided to be about including families or not. So as a part of the policy effort, the VA came up with what as I mentioned, these eight activities of daily life, things like bathing and getting dressed and they said to qualify as a paid caregiver, you must be regularly helping with at least some of these things of the 19,000 caregivers that were in the program. When they put the policy in place, the VA thought about 1/3 of them would no longer qualify. That was intentional, by the way, they knew they would be pushing out some people from the program, because they thought those people maybe didn't qualify to start with. And because there was very little standardization in the early days. But as they started the process, they were actually removing more like 90%. And the news that you were removed was delivered by mail. And for many people, it eliminated an important part of their income.

Drew Lawrence

So I talked to a couple caregivers, and a lot of what you're telling me now rang true for them as well. I want to play something for you here. And I want you to let me know what you think

Elisa

It was a very long assessment, it was very stressful for my veteran, it was very traumatizing for the veteran. Because imagine you have to show them, you don't have to show them what you can do. You need to show them what you cannot do. And that is not an easy thing to do for a person that used to jump out of airplanes and now he's disabled. And you have to tell this person that you've never seen before in your life, you have to tell them how incapable you became. I was so deeply hurt, my husband down spiraled after the assessment. So as a result of the assessment, not even two days later, I went online and found out that we were set to be discharged. Of course, these discharges were not going to happen until October 1, right? So October 1 2022 was supposed to be our last paycheck. And then we were gonna have a cushion of like...

Drew Lawrence

So that was Elisa. And as you just heard, she told me that she was one of the caregivers who was discharged from the program, despite it being a lifeline for her. She also talked to me about how it was a full time job. And as you just heard, the evaluation that her and her husband went through was essentially humiliating. But I also want to show you a different side, because there's Alana who outside of a few instances of problems, kind of at the lower levels of the VA that she was dealing with, the program was steady for her.

Alana

My son Daniel was a Marine, and he was injured in 2012 in Afghanistan, he was hit with...an IED and sustained brain injuries, you know, and not every experience we had at the Birmingham VA was positive. But I can say that the caregiver coordinator that we have in Birmingham, the one who helps us, she was there she was there on weekends, she helped me with every resource that I could find to help Daniel. Daniel went missing one time, because when he would get off his medications after the brain surgery, he was, he was bipolar and probably partially schizophrenic. So if he didn't have his medications, which he didn't like to take, you know, he disappeared several times, we would have to file, you know, missing persons reports. And, you know, the caregiver coordinator in Birmingham...really helped me she was, she was a source of probably one of my primary support as far as where I would go first. I don't know what I would have done without them.

Drew Lawrence

So I do want to note that Alana's son unfortunately passed away. So she didn't really mention a lot of the stresses that Elisa is currently experiencing. But I wanted to show you this because, you know, despite how important the program was to each of them, their outlook on its management was different, wildly different. Caregiver experiences don't seem to be monolithic. Would you agree with that?

Amy Bushatz

Yeah. You know, I think it's like anything, if the program is working for you, you're happy with it. But if you're one of the 90% of these folks who are danger close to getting kicked out, or who had to go through this really humiliating process of having your life evaluated because the policy had no way of understanding your daily reality, then you are probably struggling.

Drew Lawrence

Let's talk about the coverage of this program for a second. It seems like a very personal program, I hear you and some other caregivers refer to your spouses or family members as my veteran or the veteran which, you know, to me shows a level of closeness with this problem. But it also shows that, you know, this is a very specific and small portion of the population. You know, veterans are, quote unquote, disabled veterans as the VA deems them are pretty small portion of the population. Why should the public care about these caregivers?

Amy Bushatz

This is a human issue and you hear people talk about it in the frame of providing support for people who sacrifice their health and well being in the service of our nation. It's as simple as that, but If you want to get really analytical about it, it's also a taxpayer money problem. There's a 2015 report from the Elizabeth Dole Foundation in the Wounded Warrior Project that says, military caregivers save us taxpayers like $15 million annually in unpaid labor, for the vast majority of caregivers, and that's, by the way, people like me, this is just a part of our daily lives. And it's not a full time job. And I don't expect to be paid for it. It's just something that I do. But that means for the caregivers who are doing this, instead of having a career or they're simply not working, and they're doing this instead, the US should be eager and willing, as a nation to compensate them for their time, not just as a thank you, not just because it's nice, but it's a practical solution to a very real money issue.

Drew Lawrence

And this might seem a little bit obvious to you and I and you had just talked about a little bit, but, you know, why is it beneficial or maybe even preferable to have family members as caregivers?

Amy Bushatz

Yeah, I mean, like we said, it saves money, right? It also saves money in the future, by the way, because of this, in home caregivers who are related to the person receiving care in this case of veteran are more likely to notice changes in that person's health that could have long term impacts than people who come in and take care of them once a day or as in home health aides, there are studies noting this. So it's not just guesswork. And it's an added reason why it's in the government's best interest to make this caregiver program happen.

Drew Lawrence

We're going to talk to a Veterans Affairs official here in a second. But from your perspective, what's the VA saying about all these problems and changes? Because it seems pretty shaky, it seems pretty uncertain for a lot of families involved.

Amy Bushatz

Yeah, the fee is really in a bind, because they were ordered by Congress to expand the program, even while they were still grappling with all of the ongoing issues over time, and trying to come up with a policy on who gets in and who doesn't. So their current solution is to pause the effort to reevaluate current enrollees who they are calling quote unquote, Legacy caregivers, and simply instead keep those people in the program until at least 2025. Instead of kicking them out.

Drew Lawrence

So it sounds like some of these caregivers are going to get some respite, you said until 2025. So at least three years. But we also talked about that this isn't the first time that the VA has put this program at risk for the caregivers in terms of them being discharged because of waning and waxing requirements for the program. With that, you know, what does that uncertainty in care mean for caregivers in the future? And how, I guess are caregivers supposed to trust the VA to keep this program alive if it's so important?

Amy Bushatz

Yeah, I read comments from caregivers who are impacted by the flip flopping on this. And I can tell you that it is incredibly stressful. Imagine relying on a agency to do what they said they're going to do, only to find out that they're changing their minds, again, on whether you even qualify all of this while you're dealing with the stress of taking care of somebody who's ill, and you've left your career or you're not working. And this money is a part of your daily finances. It's not just padding, a bank account, it's what you live on. So having this program go back and forth like this is an incredible source of stress. And having it pause kicking people out, is really just putting on ice this problem for another day.

Drew Lawrence

Amy Bushatz, thank you so much for joining us on Fire Watch.

Amy Bushatz

Anytime, thanks for having me.

Drew Lawrence

Next, we're talking to the executive director of the VAs Caregiver Program, Dr. Colleen Richardson. She's talking about the program's importance, and what her and her team are trying to do to fix these problems. Take a listen. So Dr. Richardson, I just wanted to start, if you could tell me a little bit about your background and how you became the Executive Director of the VA Caregiver Program.

Dr. Colleen Richardson

Sure. So I joined the military after I finished grad school specifically, I joined the United States Navy back in 2006. And did four years on active duty did one deployment to Fallujah with First Marine Division. I ran Wounded Warrior battalion shortly after that for a little over a year and a half and then I needed a break at that point in my career I know seems short, but deployment in Wounded Warrior battalion had really kind of taken its toll on me mentally physically so decided to leave active duty at that time join the VA. And the short version of the story is started out as a staff psychologist in California after I left the military, and then work my way over here to Texas, and then, about 20 months ago saw the position open for the caregiver support program. And I'm a clinical psychologist by training, and have done mental health, gosh, just short of 20 years and have enjoyed it thoroughly. But what I really loved about being at Wounded Warrior battalion was getting to interact with the families and taking care of just not the severely wounded ill and injured but you know, getting an opportunity to interact with their families and see that the toll that caregiving takes on those that are so ill and injured had when I saw this position open, I thought this was my opportunity to really get back to some of the things that I started with in my career. And so I applied for the position and they were crazy enough to take me so so here I am 20 months later, running the caregiver support program.

Drew Lawrence

I want to take a second and address the legacy caregivers that are there currently in the program. Because the VA was on track, as you know, to kick out about 90% of the legacy participants until recently, when the Department announced that in the spring, I believe that it would halt the dismissals of caregivers and kind of reevaluate. What happened to cause so many caregivers to be on track for that removal? And I guess where is the eligibility evaluation at now?

Dr. Colleen Richardson

Yeah, awesome, great question. So, you know, here's what VA does really great, right? We've been taking care of veterans for years and years and years. And I think what's really unique about this program is we're not necessarily taking care of veterans directly, we're taking care of the caregivers who in turn, turn around take care of these veterans. And I mean, as you can imagine, when you think about our world war two Korea, Vietnam veterans, Persian Gulf War, cold air, Cold War era veterans and our post 911 veterans, they all have very, very different you and unique care giving needs not necessarily unique veteran needs from from a health standpoint, but caregiving. And so I think this is what I've seen, just in the last, I would say, last year or so as you know, when we when the program initially set forth this eligibility criteria, which was, gosh, I think two years prior to me coming in even coming on board, so about four years ago. You know, I think they did the best they could to figure out what they thought eligibility requirements would be to capture all the generations on all the errors of veterans, not just post 911. But I think as we've seen, just in the last 20 months, you know, we've done a fairly decent job, but not that great of a job, right? So you look at post 911 veterans, I think one of the things that's very unique and different from the other arrows is these mental health issues, traumatic brain injuries, right surviving injuries that in any other war, nobody would have survived. I think that's what we've learned here. So on March 22, Deputy Secretary Remy announced a pause and on all discharges on the legacy cohort, then on March 25, VA caregiver support well really it was the VA lost a court case of the Veteran Warriors. And that court case set aside the definition for supervision, protection and instruction. And so we've reverted back to the statutory criteria. And what we've seen with that, going back to that statutory criteria, is we've seen approval rates jumped sky high, probably in the last since March, so maybe six or seven months from anywhere from 10 to 20%. We've seen approval rates go up. And what we've heard from our staff is that they really feel like this statutory definition of supervision protection instruction, is capturing those veterans that were not captured prior to that court case. So I think that that's the unique thing is, you know, we're trying to set eligibility criteria that captures multiple generations of veterans, and it's a, it's a huge undertaking, most importantly, I just want it to be fair and equitable to everybody. Nobody should get, you know, different treatment than anyone else. We've all served, we're all deserving of a certain entitlements that the VA offers, I want to make sure that our caregivers and veterans receive those.

Drew Lawrence

Can you kind of bridge that gap? And in terms of what the eligibility criteria and that changing and trying not to have a one size fits all and how that kind of led to, you know, the VA to take a step back and say, 'hey, you know, we're actually going to kick out or discharge 90%.' How, you know, how does that correlate?

Dr. Colleen Richardson

Yeah, so as far as supervision, protection and obstruction, originally, it was set on different levels. So you were looking at like, a daily basis for needing supervision, protection and instruction. And now we talk about really like an inability to self sustain, meeting these types of things on a continuous basis. So we see all different kinds of things under under SPI. So let me give an example. So for a lot of our post 911 veterans, right, we're looking at things like traumatic brain injury, we're looking at things like mental health disorders, PTSD, severe drug Depression and etc. And so what that looks like from a need standpoint or caregiving needs standpoint is very different than our pre 1975. Generation. So your World War Two Korean and some of our Vietnam veterans, they're really looking at Alzheimer's dementia, we're looking at ALS, we're looking at ms, all these types of neurological conditions. And so when the court set aside this definition, almost all of our post 911 veterans had already been reassessed, and they were not reassessed under the statutory criteria for supervision, protection and instruction. And I think, you know, as we move forward, I think that would be really interesting to see if the statutory criteria really lines up better with the needs of the post 911 veterans we it was, it's a lot easier to kind of see Alzheimer's dimension, what that looks like and see MS, and ALS, and all these other neurocognitive disorders. But I think it gets a little trickier when you start talking about mental health needs for these veterans. So I think that was probably the biggest thing that it did for us.

Drew Lawrence

You kind of touched on it too, but just directly, what's the rationale for changing the requirements at all?

Dr. Colleen Richardson

So if you think about really what the intent is, right, and what the original intent of this program was, it was really set aside for about 3500 to 3600, severely wounded veterans coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan that just without a caregiver would not have been able to function independently on their own without needing some type of alternative caregiving arrangements. And so what we're seeing today is, I would say, you know, we started the program where a good majority of folks who applied and got in or maybe even more than that, and and it kind of waxed and waned over time, where we saw independent decisions coming from 170 different medical facilities across time. Now we have it where we have 18 visitors that render these decisions, from an objective standpoint, is there work to do 100%, there's still work to do there. I think the biggest thing is, when we look at these things, we ask ourselves, are we still capturing the intent of the program? And I think the answer is sort of, but I think there's still a cohort of veterans or there are veterans and caregivers out there who need the program of comprehensive assistance that we're not capturing, because of the way the eligibility criteria is written today. So that's what we're trying to do is come back and realign this program with what the intent of the program was. And that's really to capture veterans who without a caregiver would need alternate caregiving arrangements or services, because they really wouldn't be able to function independently on their own. And they need assistance with those activities of daily living, or they need assistance with supervision, protection and instruction.

Drew Lawrence

And so for the changing of the requirements, and the decision to change some of the requirements. Did that have anything to do with you know, the the cost of the VA Caregiver Program? Or was there any concern that, you know, there was potential for fraud or things to be?

Dr. Colleen Richardson

No, absolutely not. Absolutely not. Are there people that are in the Permian that may no longer need the program? I'm sure there are. How -- what that number looks like, I'm not sure. But I think really, what we want to do is get the intent, right, and capture those veterans that need to be in here. And today. We know we're not doing that with 100% accuracy. Will we ever get to 100% accuracy? I don't know. I mean, I hope so -- that's our goal. I think that's a lofty goal. But no, absolutely not.

Drew Lawrence

So I spoke to a caregiver recently. And while she talked about, you know, many of her problems with the program, and we talked a lot about how, you know, when she was at risk of being kicked out, that was really scary for her. But she also told me something really interesting, and that she had reached out to you. And you had taken the time to speak with her personally. And she told me that she said she felt heard. Do you? Do you talk to caregivers often? And why?

Dr. Colleen Richardson

I do. I get lots of emails from caregivers, I get lots of emails from veterans, and I always pick up the phone and call them because they're who I serve. And it's it's a privilege to serve them. And I never want to get so far disconnected from the humans that are behind each and every one of these applications. And I feel it's important that I meet with caregivers, I feel it's important to to hear their stories and understand what their unique needs are. You know, it I would never sit back up here as the executive director and and lose sight of what my mission really is. And that is these caregivers. And it's these veterans and if I'm not connecting with them and reaching out to them, they'll never get to know who I am and what my intent really is and how much I care about what I do every single day. These are, you know, my husband and I are both veterans and these are our brothers and sisters. These are our stories that that we've lived ourselves and are really familiar with and we care about them and I need them to know Not so I do I, whenever I get an email, I do I pick up the phone and call people. And sometimes I've spent two hours on the phone with caregivers. And sometimes it's a quick, 30 minute. And I think that's all they're asking for is they want to be heard. And they want us to recognize what their struggles are. And I absolutely hear that. And I see that from them.

Drew Lawrence

So just to take a step back a little bit, this isn't the first time that the VA has taken a pause in terms of reevaluating, and, you know, talking to some caregivers, to them that has given them a data point, a few data points of stress of saying, hey, maybe this program, which has been a lifeline, as one put it isn't as stable for me as I'd like it to be. You know, what, what can you tell them? What do you say that? What do you say to that, you know, for people who may be in the three year temporary program, who are looking down the line and saying, 'Hey, maybe in three years, I might be going through the same stress.'

Dr. Colleen Richardson

I say that that breaks my heart on so many levels. I just can't even imagine, I can't even imagine for a second what it's like to be in their shoes, not once, not twice, but three times wondering if they were going to continue to be in this program or not be in this program as we move forward. And that's just not fair that our job is to take care of them is not to stress them out is not to add additional things to their plate that is already completely and utterly full. So I would say over the next three years is they're also sitting there waiting to figure out what is going to happen to them. Next, I'm going to ask for a little bit of grace and a little bit of patience. And my note Trust is earned. And I think you know, I've had some decent relationships with our caregivers and VSOs they need to know that I'm busting my butt behind the scenes to make things right for them in the best way possible, not just for legacy, but for all veterans.

Drew Lawrence

Dr. Richardson, thank you so much for joining us.

Dr. Colleen Richardson

Yes, sir. My pleasure.

Drew Lawrence

Hey, thank you so much for listening so far, stick around because we have the reporting roundtable and we brought on a very special guest for you. But if you do want to check out more military and veteran news in the meantime, head over to Military.com. And thanks for listening.

Rebecca Kheel

Welcome back, everyone to our reporter roundtable. I am Rebecca keel, your congressional reporter at Military.com. Joining me as always, is Drew Lawrence and joining us today we're very excited to welcome Paul Szoldra, founder of The Ruck News. Welcome, guys.

Paul Szoldra

Hey, thanks for having me on.

Drew Lawrence

Hey, thanks, Rebecca. So Rebecca, I just want to get right into it. And I want to out front get it one of the top stories that's going on in the army this week. And that has to do with a general officer named Patrick Donahoe and kind of the investigation that has come to light in the recent weeks about some of his social media policy, and I was wondering if you could kind of explain what that investigation says and why it's important.

Rebecca Kheel

Yeah, so Major General Donahoe was a commander at Fort Benning, who was supposed to retire this summer. But we learned I think, a couple of months ago that that retirement was put on hold pending the outcome of an inspector general investigation. And last week, our friends over at Task and Purpose first reported the findings of that inspector general investigation, which were basically that he brought, quote, negative publicity upon the army when he responded to Fox News host Tucker Carlson and other conservative leaders who were disparaging women in the military. Basically, Carlson, for example, went on his show and said that maternity flight suits were making a quote, mockery of the military and that Biden was making the military quote, more feminine. So in response to that, and specifically, Donahoe posted a video of himself conducting a reenlistment ceremony for female soldiers, and he captioned that video, a reminder that Tucker Carlson couldn't be more wrong. And Donna was not the only one that responded to Carlson, there were a lot of Army leaders that responded and tried to defend women in the service. But as far as we know, Donahoe is the only one that was investigated for it. And the findings of this IG report, our Army reporter Steve Beynon reported have been rippling across the army people feel like it's a gut punch to those who advocated for female troops. One person told Steve that quote, it feels like a hunting permit to radical partisans. So Paul, I want to ask you, what do you think this all says about the direction the army is heading in?

Paul Szoldra

Well, I think I think it's it definitely -- it's going to be taken in a lot of different ways, you know, and I think you're seeing that, you know, on like mil-Twitter and just you know, among soldiers are discussing this you're seeing the reactions to, to this. Most of the reaction I've seen has been pretty negative, you know, a lot of people are just kind of pissed off at the Army that they're that they're, they're doing this and to say that you know, defending women soldiers against some kind of attack by Tucker Carlson is bringing negative publicity it feels kind of like to to some soldiers kind of like a slap in the face, you know, that it's basically this, this general stood up and he's trying to defend women in the ranks and and he gets punished for it. You know, and now other other people are taking it a little bit differently he had other interactions with with other soldiers, you know, of like lower ranks and stuff like that. You can look at that and think like that might be improper, being a military context with the chain of command and and how that, you know, that's very serious between interactions between ranks. But the bottom line is that the Army is not looking good yet again, in this case, you know, it's like a saying Donahoe invited negative publicity on the Army. And then that being the sort of top line results of the investigation basically gets the army even more negative publicity. In fact, it's generating a lot of negative publicity among soldiers themselves, they're pretty annoyed by this whole thing. A lot of people look at Donahoe and see a, you know, kind of like a social media trailblazer, a general officer who can be on Twitter and just be a normal human being and not, you know, act like some sort of stodgy like officer type that, you know, has to clear every single tweet with, you know, multiple lover levels of the channel, man, he just would tweet stuff from, you know, his home, and when he's watching TV, like any other normal human being, and sometimes he screws up, you know, sometimes he screws up and he admitted to that and the investigation, it seems like it's overall it's, it's like the Army's kind of pushing, trying to push the genie back in the bottle. And I think you're, you can definitely take that as you know, a cautionary tale, you know, more more officers, for right or wrong are gonna look at this case and think twice about what they post on social media.

Drew Lawrence

And I want to jump in too Paul and Rebecca too, because first to give credit to our friends over it in Army Times too, I think a few weeks ago, they had broken the original story that his retirement was delayed. But Paul, I did want to transition to another Army issue here. And it's one that both you and I reported on over the last week about, essentially a Chinese spy who had joined the Reserves. And, you know, through an investigation with the FBI, and with CID, and some other Army components, they found out that he had been trying to recruit potentially others to join the state service of the Chinese government. Can you tell us a little bit about that story? And, you know, is this a pervasive problem? Like what's the scope of essentially spies in the United States Army?

Paul Szoldra

Yeah, well, I don't I can't, we can't say really what the scope is. I wouldn't I definitely wouldn't say pervasive but this case here is is a case of a Chinese national, as his name is Ji Chaoqun I'm probably mispronouncing it. But he is a 31 year old, who we now know, thanks to a Justice Department news release that came out last month. He's he had worked for China, before joining the US Army Reserve in 2016. He's actually was born in China was recruited by their Ministry of State Security, and essentially acted as kind of, you know, one of these quote unquote, like illegals that, you know, burrows into the new society acts like they're, you know, they're, you know, in his case, he was a university student, you want to get his master's degree in Chicago. But But long before he ever made it into Chicago, he was meeting with Chinese intelligence officers on on several occasions. And, you know, really bought into the ideology He bought into what he was doing, which is to serve Beijing and where he was born. And of course, was also given several $1,000 in cash payments to pay his way and to pay for his schooling in the US. And so he basically came here and just acted like any other normal student. And then, right around 20 2015, he graduated. And now I needed to get a job. And the first thing he did was he found a website that gives gives, specializes in helping Chinese citizens fake employment for visa purposes. And then he was able to use that to get into the US Army. But, you know, reading through the, the, the court documents in this case, you know, it's really interesting. He's, he met on a few occasions with an undercover Agent with the FBI. And, you know, was telling this agent who he who he believed was another Chinese intelligence officer, all of the things that the US governmcurity issues, you know, I want to try to take such a complex national security environment, which is something you hear quite a bit and make it de-complex. I don't I don't really subscribe to the idea that these kinds of issues are so complex that everybody can understand them. So that's what I'm trying to do there. And if you're interested in that, I send out the email every Thursday, and you can sign up for that at TheRuck.News.

Rebecca Kheel ent, the US Army would not look at, they wouldn't look at anything in China, they wouldn't look at anything really beyond what's in what he put in there. And it almost came across as kind of bragging. And it just it to me it illustrated a you know, certainly a problem of insider threats. And, and how do you, you know, kind of stop this kind of stuff? I don't know the answer to that to it. But in this case, it's really good that they, they did stop him because he, he had greater plans to go on and use this to kind of jumped into other other parts of the US government.

Drew Lawrence

And I want to jump into just again, with some of the scale, it's difficult to tell him that on the military level, but in the spring, the FBI director Chris Wray, told NBC News that he was shocked at the number of Chinese cases that the FBI was was dealing with in terms of counterintelligence saying that, you know, there were over 2000 cases. And so I, you know, it's hard to tell you're right, I think the scope of it, but it is, you know, concerning, like even the small anecdotal ones are shocking to me, at least.

Paul Szoldra

It's one, you know, one thing that, you know, I kind of think about, I get, I get all these Justice Department releases, and I've noticed sort of a uptick, at least anecdotally, I see more of, you know, check like some kind of Chinese espionage a link to an arrest or an indictment when it comes from the Justice Department. And this has also led to a little bit of some fear in the Chinese community here in the United States about being targeted by, you know, for counterintelligence purposes. And it's legitimate, I mean, they, they, they're their fears are legitimate. The thing that I think about is that the Chinese do a sport in the United States needs to be protected from China, they are getting targeted. And if they have family back in China, that is a that is a pressure point that China's intelligence services can use against them.

Rebecca Kheel

Before we wrap up, I do just want to bring up one other issue that I have been tracking back when it was debated in Congress, and that is the naming commission that Congress created to study all military properties that have or that are honoring the Confederacy in some way. This was a commission that Congress created back in 2020, after the George Floyd protests, as you know, there was so a broader reckoning of the history of slavery in the United States. And there were questions as to whether our own military should be honoring traders that fought against the United States. So the commission was charged with looking at all these properties, most prominently, I think most people know about the nine army bases that are named after Confederate leaders. But their the commission found something like 1000 references to the Confederacy. And it finished its work in September and last week, we heard from Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, that he was accepting all their recommendations and ordered all of those 1000 Plus names to be changed. Now, this isn't going to be immediate. We're not going to see you know, the signs being taken down at Fort Bragg tomorrow or anything like that. But I think you know, it's, I would say the start of a new chapter, at least for the US military.

Paul Szoldra

Start a new chapter and I and it's a long, long time coming well long time coming on this on this change that will actually affect more than the Army -- It's the Navy ships and other other things. And even West Point, we learned how they a depiction of a KKK member on its campus, thanks to the naming commission finding that. So this is a very interesting exercise.

Drew Lawrence

Well, I also want to point out that, you know, while generally the sentiment of changing the names has been welcome, there has been chagrin, at least about one name, specifically for Fort Bragg, North Carolina, which was renamed Fort Liberty. And while this is anecdotal, like, you know, in for lack of a better term, people think that's kind of lame. Do you guys agree? Have you heard that? Or do you think that there's, you know, there could have been some better choices than Fort Liberty?

I hate that. And I think it's so bad Fort Liberty is, is just the most generic name. I mean, why is call it Fort America or something? I mean, it's, it was named after a man, Braxton Bragg who's a failed Confederate General, not worthy of having a base named after him. And now, we have decided to change it to you know, you know, basically like the Washington Football Team. And there are so many different names that you could have chosen, there are so many heroes Medal of Honor recipients, you name it, that that the Army could have gone and dug up in its long and storied history, it has done a lot of really important and amazing things in American history, and a lot of those third lot of human beings behind that, and that we couldn't find just one to grace, the name of one of its most important bases, Fort Bragg. It's, it's a disappointment to say the least.

Drew Lawrence

Well, Paul, before I hand it back over to Rebecca, I want to -- you have some exciting personal news that is materialized over the last month. And I wanted to see if you could let us and the viewers know about what you have going on.

Yeah, absolutely. So I just have started recently, a new newsletter called The Ruck, which you can find out TheRuck.News. And this is a weekly newsletter, that's, it's it's all about helping people get smarter on national se

Yeah. Well, thank you so much, Paul, for joining us. This was a great conversation and thank you to our listeners for tuning in. And be sure to tune in next time.

Drew Lawrence

Hey, everyone, thank you so much for joining us. I want to also thank our guests, my co host, Rebecca Kheel and executive producers Zach Fryer-Biggs and Amy Bushatz. Thank you to Paul Szoldra for joining our roundtable. And as always, to you the listener, thank you so much for tuning in. Give us a rating. Let us know what you think. Thank you.