Fire Watch: The War Is Done & the Bill Is Due -- TBI and the Price Paid by Vets

Traumatic brain injury has largely gone unrecognized, untreated, unnoticed and ignored by the institutions charged with caring for those who bear its weight … as well as those who are left picking up the pieces when that load becomes too great to bear at all.

It was one of the signature wounds of the Global War on Terror, striking as many as half a million veterans. And as the bill for those wars comes due -- past due -- veterans and families are footing the cost, sometimes with their lives.

Suicide is a complex issue and, as we are learning, TBIs add to that complexity. One university cohort study showed that veterans who experienced even a mild traumatic brain injury were three times as likely to die by suicide compared to their civilian counterparts.

As the fighting from the Global War on Terror fades into the rearview for the public, so too does the cost of those wars, even if that cost will continue to take its toll for years to come.

This reporting is based on a three-part Military.com series on TBIs from reporters Patricia Kime and Rebecca Kheel.

Main Topics

• Drew F. Lawrence interviews Kristina, an Army veteran and wife of Jonny, an infantryman who grappled with a TBI.
• Guest Frank Larkin -- a former Navy SEAL, 40th U.S. Senate Sergeant at Arms, and chairman of Warrior Call -- explains TBI advocacy after his own son died by suicide, and just how far behind institutions are in addressing the issue.
• Drew and co-host Rebecca Kheel speak with investigative reporter and former Marine James LaPorta about his reporting on AWOL Weapons.

Additional Resources

• They Said the Rise in Military Suicide Is a Mystery. Traumatic Brain Injury May Be an Answer.
• Lost Years and Missed Opportunities: How the Pentagon Squandered the Chance to Combat Brain Injuries
• Congressional Research Service IED Statistics
• TBI Among Service Members and Veterans, Centers for Disease Control
• Stellate Ganglion Block and TBI, National Library of Medicine
• Hyperbaric Oxygen Chamber and TBI

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Transcript:

SPEAKERS

Frank Larkin, Drew F. Lawrence, Kristina, Jim LaPorta, Marine, Drew F. Lawrence, Rebecca Kheel

Drew F. Lawrence

This episode contains descriptions of suicide. Listener discretion is advised. Can you tell me about when you and Jonny first met and why'd you like him? What attracted you to him?

Kristina

His smile. He had the biggest dimples, and his sense of humor.

Drew F. Lawrence

What was Jonny like before 2005?

Kristina

He was motivated, he was driven, he had goals. He wanted to succeed. He had plans and all that changed.

Drew F. Lawrence

Are you still in the same house that you were when he died?

Kristina

Yes. I'm unsure of what to do, honestly. I think I'd much rather just put a for-sale sign up and, and get out. It's a lot of memories. I'm in the garage right now sitting in the spot where I found my husband in his blood and I usually avoid the garage. It's really hard, every day. Every day when I come home from work, I feel like I should be seeing him, he should be waiting for me.

Marine

Good! Good! Good! I'm good, I'm good.

Drew F. Lawrence

What you just heard was a roadside bomb detonating in front of a Marine convoy in Afghanistan. It is not unlike the one that Jonny first sustained in 2005 in Iraq -- that after struggling with a brain injury from that explosion led him down to nearly 17 year road, which ended in the same garage that his wife Kristina sits in now, as she tells a story. As we speak, you may hear some sounds in the background, ones that appear to show a normal suburban life. A few dogs, a couple of appliances whirring on and off, echoing against the emptiness of the space as Kristina speaks almost reverently into a headset she borrowed from her son while she takes a break from work. Their story, like many others stems from the hallmark enemy weapon of the Global War on Terror, the improvised explosive device, or IED. And while statistics vary, Congress reported this year that nearly half of troops killed in both Iraq and Afghanistan were killed by IEDs. And those that were spared death -- like Jonny -- were often left with what is now becoming known as the signature injury of the last 20 years of war: the traumatic brain injury, an invisible wound that nearly half a million service members have been diagnosed with since 2000. Suicide is a complex issue. And as we're learning TBI is add to that complexity. One university cohort study showed that veterans who experienced even a mild traumatic brain injury were three times as likely to die by suicide compared to their civilian counterparts. And as the Global War on Terror Fades into the rear view for the public, so with it the cost of these wars. But a small and important section of America continues to fit the bill for the last 20 years, often with their lives, and with the lives of their families as they cope with their absence.

Kristina

Our veterans and our service members that did deploy over there and fight in those wars, they've, they're still fighting them. They're still fighting it every day, every day of their lives. And just because we've withdrawn and people don't care anymore, doesn't mean it's over and it's never going to be over for them ever.

Drew F. Lawrence

TBI has largely gone unrecognized, untreated, unnoticed and ignored by the institutions charged with caring for those who bear its weight, as well as the ones who are left picking up the pieces when that load becomes too great to bear at all. For Military.com, my name is Drew Lawrence. It is December 9th. And this is Fire Watch. Can you tell us what happened in 2005?

Kristina

He was on a patrol in Iraq and they got hit by IED. And that's where he got his first traumatic brain injury. And then he came back after that deployment, and that's when you could already see some of the changes in him. Not as bad, but he just wasn't the same after that.

Drew F. Lawrence

And when did you kind of first realize that something was wrong. Something was different about Jonny.

Kristina

Um, it didn't take long. That was a while ago, I want to say probably a few months. And he was just short tempered. I had our second child while he was deployed. So he just met him when he was I do believe six months old. And he was just short tempered, and he drank a lot more. He had started smoking cigarettes, which he had never done before. And just not as happy and more angry a lot of the times.

Drew F. Lawrence

Was there a moment where you realized he was different?

Kristina

He...I don't know if...this is...I'm gonna try to say it. He made a bad decision. He got into a vehicle after he'd been drinking and he hit a curb. And he would have never done that before his brain injury. He would have never got in a vehicle after drinking and just drive off. And he was very -- not sure what he was angry about, I don't remember, but he was just angry. And that wasn't like him.

Drew F. Lawrence

And what -- how did you feel after that had happened?

Kristina

Honestly, just shocked. I didn't know what to do with it. And I mean, I figured he'd have a hard time after coming home. So I kind of just thought, well, maybe this is just something that, you know, he has to work through and that he would go back to normal after a while.

Drew F. Lawrence

When was he diagnosed with a TBI? When did you figure out that that was like the official reason these changes were happening with Jonny?

Kristina

Well, I mean, he was diagnosed in 2005 when it happened with a TBI.

Drew F. Lawrence

You know, was this was it...did you know what a TBI was before he was diagnosed with it?

Kristina

No. I never heard of it, honestly. I don't really remember the doctors taking it seriously. Honestly, I don't think Jonny took it seriously at that point. I remember we did a little bit of research, but not too much. I mean, we figured out it could affect you know, his mood and his ability to control his emotions and but like me, I think he thought that it was, you know, just a small thing. And he would just get over it.

Drew F. Lawrence

And after he was diagnosed with a TBI, he deployed again, right?

Kristina

Yes.

Drew F. Lawrence

How many times?

Kristina

Twice. I think back then it wasn't taken as serious as it is now. I mean, maybe if it was they wouldn't have sent him again,

Drew F. Lawrence

Like many who experienced a TBI Jonny -- who was an Army infantryman -- wasn't pulled from deploying to combat again. At the time, the Pentagon didn't have a protocol to do so, let alone identify service members who sustained a brain injury from these blasts. So Johnny deployed again, and was exposed twice more to explosions.

Kristina

But they shouldn't have sent him back the second time, just a few months after getting hit with an IED. That was definitely a huge mistake on someone's part. Honestly, the way I look at it is just a very serious concussion. That's how I think of it. I mean, I'm sure that's probably not really what in medical terms that is maybe, and it just completely after that -- the second time is when I really noticed that he was just a completely different person. It was - you had to walk on eggshells. You couldn't say anything wrong. Loud noises scared him. He became paranoid. He was forgetful. He couldn't cook anymore. He would leave the stove on. I'd have to remind him to shower. He just he couldn't do finances. He made bad decisions. It was just always everything was spur of the moment. He never thought anything through anymore. He became depressed. It was just...it was really hard. Honestly, it was not the same person I married. It was like just somebody else had moved in, that I didn't even know. And the kids started you know, staying in their rooms. They didn't want to hang out with dad anymore because they never knew how it was going to be. Were they going to get a happy dad or were they going to get an angry dad and so it kind of just affected everybody.

Drew F. Lawrence

How do you deal with that change living with someone who's not the same as the person you married?

Kristina

It was really hard. There were times I wanted to give up. We were on the brink of divorce probably too many times to count. But I think deep down inside, what kept me going is that I think, I think Jonny was still in there. And I just kept waiting for the time that he would come back to me. I mean, he did, he did try treatments, he wanted to get better. But I think at some point, I think he just kind of gave up. But I never gave up on him. And it's just sad that this is how it ended.

Drew F. Lawrence

Did you ever see glimmers of the old Jonny, as you were...?

Kristina

Yeah. That's what kept me going. The few moments that it would be my old Jonny, the dimples would come out and he'd be happy and he'd be excited. And we would make plans. And when we got older and the kids moved out, we were gonna get an RV and travel the country. And so I knew he was in there somewhere. It was just so hard for him to get past everything.

Drew F. Lawrence

Kristina and Jonny moved to Florida in 2013. She said that the family was adjusting well to the "new normal" that they had come to know, at least for a little while. But soon, Jonny's symptoms started to worsen. And one day, while he was cleaning his weapon, he began kicking in every door of the house searching for an invisible enemy. The police were called. And Jonny was involuntarily committed to a mental health facility. For people who don't know the Baker Act is -- and correct me if I'm wrong -- but it's when you're involuntarily committed to a mental health facility.

Kristina

Yes, for 72 hours.

Drew F. Lawrence

Was that helpful for him? Or was it...

Kristina

I think it was more traumatic. It kind of at that point, made him realize he needed a little bit more help than what he was getting.

Drew F. Lawrence

Jonny tried a host of treatments, light therapy, a stellate ganglion block, which is an injection into the back of the neck, meant to alleviate post traumatic stress and inflammation issues associated with a TBI. He also tried medical marijuana, which Kristina says helped him but was disqualified for other medication by the VA because he used it. He even did a hyperbaric chamber, a kind of therapy meant to help oxygen flow to the brain. And again, while that helped, he had to travel over 2000 miles to Colorado to do it.

Kristina

But really all in all, in the end, everything only worked for a few months. The VA really didn't do anything for him. Every time he went it was just more upsetting for him than anything else. He always had a new primary care doctor. So every time he went in, you'd have to sit there and relive everything all over again and explain everything all over again and he just didn't want to do that anymore.

Drew F. Lawrence

About a week before Jonny's death, he again believed people were trying to invade his home. He took his gun and fired shots at invisible assailants who he believed were jumping over the fence in his backyard. Kristina's youngest son called the police and Jonny was again involuntarily committed. Again to non-military or veteran specific facility. After a few days, he was released home with medication that just made him sleep.

Kristina

He really wasn't with us at that point, he was even more depressed than ever. So the day it happened, I went to work like normal. He called me a few times, but I couldn't answer the phone. And I got off at about -- the day's kind of blurry -- probably about two or three in the afternoon. And he was on the couch and I had hidden his AR-15 after he had gotten Baker Acted, and he had found it and he just had it next to him And then he went out into the garage. And he was out here for a minute, so I came out and he was sitting in my car and he was convinced that somebody was stalking him through my car or my car radio and I told him to get out of the car. And he did and I turned around and went back inside and I closed the door and then the minute I close the door I heard a gunshot. And I opened the door, I kept my son from going outside and I found him laying in...laying in the garage. He was still breathing. And I called 911. And that was that, by the time I got to the hospital, he was gone. That was it.

Drew F. Lawrence

Here, there are so many things I could have asked Kristina. About how now -- eight months later, the calls of support have slowed, or about how stressful coordinating a military burial at Arlington has proven to be. But instead I asked Kristina what she would want others to know about Jonny's story,

Kristina

I want to talk about the whole Baker Act situation. He was Baker Acted, and unless he told the VA he was Baker Acted, they didn't even know about it. I think things might have gone differently if he had been transferred maybe to a military hospital, instead of [BLEEP] which is where they put drug addicts. I mean, just not where he should have been, that's not the help that he needed. He needed specialized help. They gave him medication that I think that was just the norm of what they give everybody when they come in just to calm them down and make their job easier. And I think if there had just been some kind of link between [BLEEP] and the VA hospital I think, I think...but then again, I have so many thoughts and regrets and I think maybe "what if" and "what if this had happened?" But I think maybe if he had been transferred somewhere better with better care, specialized care, maybe that would have helped. Maybe prevented it. But I don't know if...like I said I don't know, it's everything is a "what if" and "could it have" and "maybe" and that's my life now is wondering and regretting and...but I think there should be a change in the system. I think when veterans have issues like that, you just shouldn't toss them into some hospital, they should be transferred to a military hospital for specialized care.

Drew F. Lawrence

What does this all mean to you now? What is your life like now?

Kristina

I don't know. I'm still trying to figure that out. Sometimes, it just still seems like it's just a bad dream. I mean, I've he's been on deployments before so sometimes, sometimes I catch myself wishing, thinking, you know, I've done this before, I've been a year without him before on deployments. And this is all it is. It's just another another deployment. It's been really hard, but my kids are. They're awesome. They've really rallied together. And we support each other. Sometimes I feel like they're more supportive of me than anything else. Sometimes I fall apart and they understand and they give me hugs and they pull me back together. I don't know what I do without them. I try to only remember the good, but sometimes I can't do that. Life was pretty...it was very difficult. At times. We had a lot of issues with the TBI and his behaviors and. But I prefer to think back on the time when we were younger and he was happy and none of this had happened. And we had our whole lives ahead of us and just that smile that I'll never forget. That's what I think about happy memories.

Drew F. Lawrence

In 2009, the Pentagon realized they had a TBI problem, and that was just too late. At least for the military physicians in the nation's capital who six years prior, diagnosed 437 soldiers with the injury. At the National Naval Medical Center at Bethesda over 80% of wounded Marines and sailors had brain damage, both temporary and permanent from TBIs. The doctors recognize this -- even then -- as the signature injury of the Global War on Terror. And still the Pentagon ignored it.

Frank Larkin

...And that's what we're seeing right now. We're seeing a lot of this fester and and result in catastrophic consequence. So you know, as long as we're ignoring this or not taking this seriously or slow rolling as the you know, piece of criticism I do have with the DoD is four years it took them to roll out their strategy this past summer on dealing with TBI. They had all the information they needed to put out their strategy then. It took four years before it finally got published. We can't tolerate that. How many people have we lost in the four years?

Drew F. Lawrence

That's Frank Larkin. He's a former Navy SEAL and chairman for Warrior Call -- a veteran service organization where Frank and other volunteers help former service members connect with each other. Frank lost his own son to suicide, also a Navy SEAL, after he too suffered a TBI. And now Frank helps others navigate the injury, as he advocates for better care for those who sustained one.

Frank Larkin

As I tried to help my son through his struggle, and certainly, as we leverage VA services, we came in contact with some wonderful folks within the VA, but they were equally as frustrated with bureaucracy.

Drew F. Lawrence

He's gonna walk us through that advocacy and explain just how far behind institutions like the VA and Pentagon are when it comes to TBIs.

Frank Larkin

I'm a father of a decorated Navy SEAL who five years ago took his life. And as we came to understand what was challenging him and the invisible wounds that he was wrestling with every day, that we found out after his death, that he had a severe level of undiagnosed brain injury at the microscopic level uniquely related to blast exposure. So this launched me on on a mission to help folks understand what's going on, you know, my background, I started out as a Navy SEAL, many, many years ago, the post-Vietnam era. Found myself into law enforcement for almost 35 years, working my way off the street, as a beat cop into homicide, and then eventually 22 years with the Secret Service. And then one day answered the phone without looking at it. And it was, you know, the Pentagon calling, saying, hey, we need you into this counter IED, counterterrorism fight. You know, my question, then "why me?" And they said, you know, we need somebody to think about this differently. I had a background in organized crime investigation and, and at the time, as many your listeners probably are aware that the improvised explosive devices, the IEDs, were the weapon system that the enemy was using against us very effectively, to not only paralyze our movements, but to just maim and kill many of the men and women that went forward to serve in that environment.

Drew F. Lawrence

Before we kind of talk a little bit more about traumatic brain injury, can you tell me about Warrior Call, and what this -- your nonprofit is doing?

Frank Larkin

It's a really simple, grassroots, deck plate initiative to reach out to those men and women who are isolated. One thing that we've learned, you know, the past 20 years of persistent conflict, has really left a debris field, you know, behind that will last for decades. And what we're finding out as many of the veterans that have participated in the Global War on Terror, you know, in various roles have come home burdened, not only with visible wounds, you know, related to amputations, disfiguring scars and other injuries, gunshot wounds, but more have come home with invisible wounds. And these invisible wounds are hard to characterize, because you're looking at a man or a woman who looks on the outside to be fine. But as we're coming to find out, they're pretty broken up on the inside. And a lot of them, you know, get disenfranchised with not only how they left the service, but the struggles that they're involved in every day just to stand up and move through the day, as they you know, try to, you know, claw their way back to some sense of normal lifestyle. And, and, in many cases, not getting a lot of help, not getting help from our defense health services for those that are still in uniform. And then as they transition out of the service, not getting a lot of love from you know, other support services such as the VA and others. And so Warrior Call simply recognizes the fact that isolation is a key factor in a lot of the suicides that we have confronted as a nation, especially in our veteran population. It's an effort to deputize not only those that have served or are serving but friends and families to reach out and call a veteran, or take a call from a veteran, have an honest conversation, see how they're doing, let let them know that, hey, you know, you're thinking about them that you value what they've done that, you know, they're not alone. And if you sense that something's not right, then get connected up with services.

Drew F. Lawrence

Frankly, want to take advantage of your experience with IEDs and counter IEDs, as well. Because as you mentioned, IEDs were, you know, the hallmark weapon, I'd say, in the Global War on Terror in Iraq, Afghanistan and other places. And as a result, we're seeing the injury, the hallmark injury, for a lot of GWOT veterans be a traumatic brain injury from IEDs. Can you talk a little bit about the connection between those two, and what a traumatic brain injury really is?

Frank Larkin

So, so the, you know, just the basic physics of any type of explosive environment, or system, whether it's a weapon system, or a breaching charge, which we use to blow through walls and doors, whether it's an IED improvised explosive device, an artillery around, a mortar, every time you shoot one of these weapons, or you use one of these devices, it gives off an invisible energy wave. And that energy wave passes through your body, passes through your skull, and what it does is it causes tremendous tension and pressure on your brain tissue. And especially, as we've come to find out with, with the unique aspects of blast related brain injury, is that as this energy wave passes through, you have different tissues in your brain, your white matter, your gray matter, you have blood vessels, and you have fluid, at each one of those borders, with a different level of density of tissue, it causes different movement, and, and in those in those areas, those boundary areas, shearing occurs. And that shearing, ultimately, results in scarring. And that scarring impedes the ability for the brain to talk to itself to talk to other sectors of the brain. You know, that are related to, you know, your ability to sleep, you know, impulse control, your memory, your balance, your eyesight, your hearing, you name it, your brain is your command and control center for your body. So, you know, if you can understand that if if damage is happening to the circuitry, at the microscopic level, that basic, you know, levels of functioning of the brain, then it makes sense that if there's damage and there's various sectors that you're going to see behavioral manifestations that are going to, you know, really highlight what our veterans are dealing with, especially when we talk about invisible wounds, you know, neurochemical, neural hormonal imbalances that go hand in glove with that, you know, it's not one or the other, very often they're, they're, you know, going together, you know, we hear about post traumatic stress disorder, we hear about substance use disorder, moral injury, which is not talked about very much. So this stuff just eats away it inside. And then all this is further complicated by TBI. And if we can't, if we don't have the ability to effectively diagnose the TBI, then the default tends to be back towards a psychiatric diagnosis, which very often that's when we see the drugs coming forward. The drugs that are pointed at, you know, dealing with the symptoms, not the root cause. So this is why it's so important to understand this, this dynamic of the TDI and the blast, the effect of blast exposure, because if we're not getting it right at the first point of triage, and guiding these folks down the right path, then we're going to continue to see these high numbers of suicides and other problems associated potentially with a biological injury that's not being diagnosed. And that's where we need the science.

Drew F. Lawrence

Can you touch a little bit more on the link to those behavioral changes and, you know, as we're now learning how they can result in suicide?

Frank Larkin

Yeah, definitely, I would say probably the predominant symptom we hear is inability to sleep. And, and again, the sleep is so important to brain health, to be able to detoxify the brain to be able to allow the brain to regenerate. So if you have people that are not able to get sleep, this, this is a major challenge. And certainly focus and trying to help them recover, or at least, you know, get to a better place. A lot of them when they try to, you know, they try to get to sleep, and they leverage alcohol. Because it's over the counter, it's readily available. But the alcohol, you know, realistically only makes it worse, it doesn't address the problem. Very often they're using alcohol to numb the pain that they all feel. They complain nightmares. So, you know, when they if they are able to get to sleep into some stage of REM sleep, the next thing you know, they're they're confronted their demons, their nightmares, you know, how do you feel after a lousy night's sleep? Bad, but we we've got veterans out there that haven't slept in years, it's a big factor in the slide that they experience. Every one of them is trying to figure out what's happening to them, especially if they're dealing with anxiety, they're dealing with bouts of depression, they're dealing with cognitive disabilities, you know, they can't remember, you know, where they put their keys, they forget to pick up their kids, they don't remember the names of their friends, all this just, you know, comes in as a perfect storm, and they're not getting answers. Instead, they're getting quick judgments. You know, they're being labeled, you know, by bureaucratic processes that need to justify their assessments in their actions. And, and this is, you know, where they build a level of distrust, which only moves them further and further away from those services that they need to become closer to.

Drew F. Lawrence

How do you get someone who has this injury? Who's not sleeping, who's, you know, maybe slipping into these isolative tendencies and feeling alone? How do you how do you bring them out of that, and put them in a group and put them back in a tribe and get them treatment?

Frank Larkin

Well, it usually starts with a phone call. "Hey, Drew, it's Frank. Hey, I was just thinking about you. Are you doing? I haven't talked to you in a while, you know, I just I saw your number, you know, and I said, well, let me give you a call," you know, and, you know, as a result, you know, hopefully, we, you know, because our prior relationship, we have some level of connection where we can start opening up "Yeah, Drew, you know, I, I went through this period a couple months ago, it was a little rough. And then, you know, one of my other buddies, you know, our other teammates, kind of, you know, helped me out..." You know, and it just by kind of exposing yourself, you know, having a raw, honest conversation, it's amazing how people will open up, and just the fact that somebody's reaching out to them. You know, we've gotten anecdotally on more, more than one occasion, many occasions where that phone call has pulled somebody back from the edge.

Drew F. Lawrence

A few weeks ago, you co wrote an article called "Why are we failing vets who bravely served our country?" You know, when you say, "we" who or what are you talking about in terms of this failure?

Frank Larkin

Well, I think a lot of people share, share the blame on this, I think, you know, our services do. You know, they're focused on operations. And, you know, if you get to a point where you can't contribute to operations, I mean, we'll do what they can to try to help you kind of get back on the saddle. But if it's beyond what they have time and space for, then, very often, you'll see folks cut away. And and when they're cut away, then that's when you see the effects of that tribal separation and the other things that go along with that. And then you have, you know, we got our VA, we've got our HHS, you know, platforms that, you know, are still trying to figure this out 20 years of persistent conflict, when you're looking at, you know, DOD, defense health, you're looking at the VA looking at HHS. I mean, they're not they don't talk very well together, let alone share information. And as a result, you see veterans fall in between the cracks. And, you know, as far as the VA goes, it's like 7-11 franchises, you know, you're walking to one 71-1 and it's pristine, it's operated real well, it feels fresh, and you know, it's got its act together, and then you walk into another one a couple miles away, and, and it's like, is this the same company? Government's a bureaucracy, and I don't think this is going to be solved within the government. I really think that, one we need to make this a priority -- a health priority within our nation. And the way that we will will solve this is through a public private partnership, where not only the government entities stepp forward in earnest, but absolutely link arms, with the private sector, with academia, with the nonprofits, who are out there doing some great work, and also some really innovative treatment therapies that, in many cases don't exist within the government architecture. And this is why you often see veterans gravitating to some of these options, because what they've experienced within our, our government platforms, you know, have not been effective.

Drew F. Lawrence

Has the reluctance to address this injury, especially when we're talking about the services. Has that cost lives?

Frank Larkin

I think so. Every day that we don't have answers, cost lives. You know, as I said, a lot of these men or women are struggling with what's happening to them, you know, you got to remember, you know, they all went through, you know, physical and mental health examinations before coming in, before somebody, you know, put a stamp on, on their, their, you know, their, you know, brand new service jacket, that they're good to go, they're good to go to, you know, enter the service and, and, and do the job of this nation. And so something's happened in between the time that they entered. And now that has caused some significant changes and who they are and how they behave. And I got it, you know, there's some things that can slip through, but not everybody, and certainly not to the numbers that we're talking about. So something's going on that we need to understand. Now, there's one important point I want to make here, whatever we come up with whatever solution we come up with, as we increase our understanding of what's going on with these various threats. We cannot impact our operational effectiveness on the battlefield. We cannot impact our lethality. We need these forces. We need these men and women to defend our interests and to protect our national security. And as somebody that's been part of that, and has lost a son, you know, to this I clearly recognize that we can't take our eye off of that reality. We just need to do it smarter. And that's all I'm asking is let's not be afraid. Let's dive into the information. We've got enough smart people to figure this out. It's not because we lack intellectual capability or capacity. We just need the will to answer this and find the solutions and do it appropriately before we lose any more.

Rebecca Kheel

Hi, everyone, my name is Rebecca Kheel, co host of Fire Watch and congressional reporter for Military.com. Welcome to our reporter roundtable. Here's what you may have missed since our last episode. Stewart Rhodes, an Army veteran and founder of the right wing militia group called the Oathkeepers was convicted a seditious conspiracy last week for his involvement in the January 6 insurrection. In 2021 military.com. Reporters Jeff Lawrence and Constantine tore a pin, delve into how the militia had manipulated a handful of dutiful but Prime veterans to violently attack the capitol that day, ultimately landing all of them in hot legal water and adding roads to the very short list of veterans ever convicted. A seditious conspiracy. Also, the National Defense Authorization Act will repeal the DoD is vaccine mandate. The change comes as the Marine Corps commandant, General David Berger told the conference that the COVID-19 vaccine mandate is hurting recruiting. He added that in areas where misinformation about the vaccine is prevalent, potential recruits are being turned off from joining the service. And one of the first acknowledgments of vaccine related recruitment travels from a top officer in the military. And lastly, the Air Force revealed its new B 21 Bomber this month. It's the first new American bomber in over 30 years. And the flashy announcement comes at a time when the US faces rising nuclear tensions with China and Russia. As always Joining me is my co host Drew Lawrence. And with us today is Jim LaPorta. He's a former Marine and a national security reporter with years of investigative work in the military space. We're so happy to have you here, Jim, thanks so much for joining us.

Jim LaPorta

Thanks for having me.

Drew F. Lawrence

Yeah, thank you for the introduction and rundown Rebecca and Jim, thanks again for being here. We're gonna talk about the military's weapon accountability problem. And your excellent reporting on how some of these missing weapons and even some explosives have ended up on America's city streets. And I want to do this, you know, first in the context of some of our recent reporting here at Military.com, where a non-commissioned officer out of Joint Base Lewis McChord was charged last month for allegedly stealing, and losing an M2 50 cal machine gun receiver. And, you know, on the grand scheme of crimes, and in dumb things that happen in the military, this seems kind of small. But as we know, and through your reporting, this is a pattern for the military, not just with weapons parts, but complete weapons and even explosives. Can you help us put this into perspective? And kind of give us the scope of what these losses mean for the force?

Jim LaPorta

Yeah, so if you know, the reporting, you know, we spent almost a year and a half, when I was at the Associated Press, it started with a really a basic question, which was, if you went to the Pentagon, could they tell you say, in a given year, how many weapons or explosives went missing that year? And as we found that is a very hard question for Pentagon to answer just on a whole. I went there kind of thinking, you know, how many, you know, weapons did you lose between, I don't know, 2019, and 2020. And I thought they'd come back with like, well, we lost 50, something to that effect, right, like something's very plain and simple. And that's not what we discovered. In fact, what we discovered was that the military didn't have a good database or plan in place to really account for their weapons. So we had to start building our own database, some of these weapons that were going missing from military installations were ending up being used in in the commissioning of a felony, or the commissioning of a crime. So for instance, you know, one of the one gun we tracked was a Beretta nine millimeter that had gone missing on Fort Bragg. And we tracked it all the way up, it ended up being used in a shootout between rival gangs in Albany, New York. The problem is, it goes into what Military.com report, which was, that was a full gun. So that Beretta nine mil, that was a full gun, it was fully serialized. The issue that we're seeing emerging, that we saw emerging through our reporting was that, you know, not every single part of a gun is serialized. And given the advent of 3D printers, you could you could have people steal say an upper receiver of a nine mil. And then then you could just 3D print the lower receiver. And then they got a full functioning weapon, which makes it very much harder to track because not every part of a weapon is serialized. And that's really the real problem that's facing the military right now.

Rebecca Kheel

So Kim, what you were saying about the scope of how many weapons have gone missing, and the fact that the services don't didn't really have a way to track this. To me, it was both shocking and not shocking. On the one hand, the military talks a lot about accountability. But on the other hand, Drew, I know you and I have discussed the headache of accounting for sensitive items before. So Jim, how did you feel as you were digging through this information? And what shocked you most when you were reporting?

Jim LaPorta

What surprised me most or was on the explosive slide. So I'm a former Marine, I did eight years, you know, weapons going missing is...like everybody has a missing weapons story or missing gear story where, you know, the whole base shut down and, you know, people were police calling for hours to try to find like a single pair of night vision, you know, so everybody's kind of got a story like that. What surprised me was on the explosive side, before our reporting the military as a whole used to have a policy regarding C 4. And I remember getting into a very heated conversation with John Kirby over this policy when he was the chief Pentagon spokesman. So the policy was that you could have...commanders can have up to 10 pounds of C4 go missing without having to report it. Which was just crazy to me, because any EOD guy that I talked to, I was like, "Well, okay, what can you do with one pound of C4?" And they're like, "Oh, I could blow up a car. Or I could blow up this, you know, just with one pound of C4." You know, they were telling me things that they could do with one pound of C4. So the idea that you can essentially steal nine pounds of C4 and there's no report about that was shocking to me. And that's what we commonly found was guys would steal, you know, somewhere between six or seven pounds of C4. There was one case where they were hiding C4 in a hollowed out tree, and so they would hide the C4 in the tree, and then they just come back and retrieve it later. But they knew if they didn't go over that 10 pound threshold, there would be no investigation into it, there'd be no report. And it was just shocking to me that that was a policy in the Pentagon. It was a it was a very obscure policy.

Drew F. Lawrence

And, you know, you had mentioned that a lot of these losses are happening at the tactical level, at the unit level. And what I really appreciated that you did in your reporting is you got into the granular issues with accounting for weapons and you used your experience as a former non-commissioned officer to kind of explain that process. There was a really great video that you guys had done in conjunction, where you had talked about that. Can you tell us a little bit more about that process of accounting for these weapons? You know, where the gaps are? And, you know, especially from the perspective of an NCO.

Jim LaPorta

Yeah, I mean, most weapons, you know, there's a couple of cases where, you know, it was someone breaking in on armory. But those are outliers. Really, it's people who work in the armor, who have access already to the armory, that's mostly how weapons and explosive goodness. It's usually not someone breaking in. So it seems like one of the holes is, you know, within the accountability system, inside the armory, or inside, you know, the, you know, the ammunition point.

Drew F. Lawrence

Well, it's interesting that you had mentioned that too. And, you know, I don't know what it was like in the Marines, but in the Army, while I had met some, some great armors, it was never really a coveted job to be in armorer. And a lot of times they were from an MOS that didn't have anything to do with weapons maintenance, or accountability. It was an infantryman or a cavalry scout or something like that that was put in this job with, you know, minimal training, it's a high stress job. There's tons of inventories that happen all the time with sensitive items. Was that something that you had looked at in terms of how personnel were integrated into the armory in your reporting?

Jim LaPorta

Yeah, the Marines worked in the same way. And that was also reflected in the reporting where you'd have guys that, particularly in the Marines, you know, you had your regular armorers, right guys who actually had gone through and became real armorers. And they could actually work on weapons and stuff like that. But then there's these, like host of characters in the armory, who they usually fall into two categories. One, they were kind of a troublemaker within the unit. And so the unit didn't really know what to do with them. So they stuck them in the armory. Or two, it was a service member who was on their way out the door, like they had six months left in the military. And so they're like, well, they're not going to make, you know, the service member is not going to be able to to deploy with us. So we'll just stick them in the armory, until, and they can finish out their remaining days in the military in the armory. And there was a lot of those kind of guys, and you're right, kind of not much training. And it was guys who were not from the armory kind of MOS that were being stuck there. And they're all very junior. So if you imagine the job of, you know, accounting for weapons accounting for explosives. You know, that job fell to like an E-3 or E-2, you know, privates and Lance Corporals, you know, this wasn't a job for, you know, a first sergeant, or a sergeant major, or even a lower ranking officer.

Drew F. Lawrence

Jim, as you had mentioned, you know, this AWOL weapons reporting you had done with the AP, and I wanted to ask you about and talk to you about your departure from that organization, especially, because there's been, you know, a lot of coverage on it, including coverage on internal discussions that immediately predated your departure. Is there anything that you can tell us about what happened there and what your next plans for journalism are?

Jim LaPorta

But yeah, it's very you know, I'm the guy who used to work at like Blockbuster. And like Taco Bell, you know, when I was like in high school and stuff like that. It's very weird to have like, the whole world know that you got fired from a job. You know, to wake up one day and like, oh, look, I'm reading about my firing in the New York Times. It's a very odd position to be in. I can't say too much about it. The AP doesn't want me to comment on it. And it's actually not in my best interest to comment on it at the moment. I will say there's probably enough information out there where, you know, you mentioned, you know, the internal communications, that predated that firing. I think anybody who's read those has come to the same occlusion that everybody else has come to. There's enough information out there to where I don't have to say anything about what happened, you know, I'll just leave it at that. But there's enough information out there where people can make their own decisions about, you know, whether or not they think I made a mistake or not. In terms of my plans, you know, I'm cruising for the next job. You know, I mean, I was a freelancer for five years. You know, I was a freelance journalist. So, you know, if I'm in a publication or not, I'm always gonna be a journalist. So and like I was telling you before we started recording, like, you know, you know, people keep telling me...I have, I will say that I've gotten a lot of like, kind words and messages from people and people have really, really helped me out financially. You know, but there's a thing where, like, you know, people are telling me...their words of encouragement, they're saying, "Well, you know, you'll make it through this." And, you know, my bar is, is like, ya I know, because my bar is like, you know, I've been in combat. So, you know, in combat, everything is life or death. And so, you know, someone getting fired while I can empathize with someone losing their job, particularly me. It's not the worst thing that I've been through. It's not, you know, so hopefully that answers your question. I'm not what I feel like now rambling.

Drew F. Lawrence

No, it does. It does answer my question. You know, it makes sense. And I'm definitely looking forward to seeing, you know, whatever those plans are come to fruition and what stories you're going to tell next. So thanks, Jim. I appreciate it.

Jim LaPorta

Yeah. Thanks for having me on. I really enjoyed this.

Rebecca Kheel

Thanks again, Jim, for joining us. And thanks as always to our listeners for tuning in. Be sure to tune in next time.

Drew F. Lawrence

Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Fire Watch. I want to thank our guests, my co-host, Rebecca Kheel, as well as executive producers, Zachary Fryer-Biggs and Amy Bushatz. If you enjoyed this podcast and you want to let us know, head over to Spotify or Apple or wherever you get your podcasts and leave us a review. And as always, thanks for listening.