The Government Is Wasting Your Tax Dollars!

How Uncle Sam spends nearly $1 trillion of your money each year.

By Ryan Grim with Joseph K. Vetter From Reader's Digest January 2008

You've Been Had!

Almost a decade ago, the federal government dropped $100 million for an Earth-monitoring satellite that never made it into space. Today it sits in a closet in Maryland. Cost to taxpayers for storing it: $1 million a year. And that's just what's hiding in one closet. Who knows what's in the rest of them? Reader's Digest decided to find out.

Because we think the government should be held to at least the same standards as a publicly traded company, and because as taxpayers, we're America's shareholders, we performed an audit of sorts of the federal books. We're not economists, but we do have common sense. We tried to be apolitical and got help from Congressional staffers from both parties, as well as various watchdog groups and agencies (see list*). In the end, we found that the federal government wastes nearly $1 trillion every year.

That's roughly equal to the amount collected annually by the Internal Revenue Service in personal income taxes. Put another way, it's also equal to about one-third of the country's $2.9 trillion total annual budget. And reclaiming that lost trillion could help wipe out the country's annual budget deficit, improve education, and provide health insurance for those who don't have it.

So how do you define "waste"? David Walker of the Government Accountability Office (GAO), a federal watchdog agency, calls it "the government's failure to give taxpayers the most for their money." For our part, we used the kind of household test you would use on a piece of meat sitting in your refrigerator: If it smells rotten, it's waste. And there is plenty to sniff out. Our government regularly pays for products and services it never gets, wildly overpays companies to do things it could do more cheaply itself, loses money outright due to lax accounting and oversight, fails to collect what it's owed, and antes up for unnecessary programs.

*Source list: OMB Watch, Tax Payers for Common Sense, Citizens Against Government Waste, Cato Institute, Heritage Foundation, Government Accountability Office

How Does It Happen?
How exactly does the federal government fritter away your hard-earned tax dollars? We've identified what we consider ten of the worst ways. Now, we're not naive. We know that not everyone will agree on every ripoff we've flagged. And we know that even with excellent discipline and management, it's unlikely we could recover more than half of this waste. But hey, it's a start.

1. Taxes: Cheating Shows. The Internal Revenue Service estimates that the annual net tax gap—the difference between what's owed and what's collected—is $290 billion, more than double the average yearly sum spent on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

About $59 billion of that figure results from the underreporting and underpayment of employment taxes. Our broken system of immigration is another concern, with nearly eight million undocumented workers having a less-than-stellar relationship with the IRS. Getting more of them on the books could certainly help narrow that tax gap.

Going after the deadbeats would seem like an obvious move. Unfortunately, the IRS doesn't have the resources to adequately pursue big offenders and their high-powered tax attorneys. "The IRS is outgunned," says Walker, "especially when dealing with multinational corporations with offshore headquarters."

Another group that costs taxpayers billions: hedge fund and private equity managers. Many of these moguls make vast "incomes" yet pay taxes on a portion of those earnings at the paltry 15 percent capital gains rate, instead of the higher income tax rate. By some estimates, this loophole costs taxpayers more than $2.5 billion a year.

Oil companies are getting a nice deal too. The country hands them more than $2 billion a year in tax breaks. Says Walker, "Some of the sweetheart deals that were negotiated for drilling rights on public lands don't pass the straight-face test, especially given current crude oil prices." And Big Oil isn't alone. Citizens for Tax Justice estimates that corporations reap more than $123 billion a year in special tax breaks. Cut this in half and we could save about $60 billion.

The Tab*
Tax Shortfall: $290 billion (uncollected taxes) + $2.5 billion (undertaxed high rollers) + $60 billion (unwarranted tax breaks)
Starting Tab: $352.5 billion

2. Healthy Fixes. Medicare and Medicaid, which cover elderly and low-income patients respectively, eat up a growing portion of the federal budget. Investigations by Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) point to as much as $60 billion a year in fraud, waste and overpayments between the two programs. And Coburn is likely underestimating the problem.

The U.S. spends more than $400 per person on health care administration costs and insurance -- six times more than other industrialized nations.

That's because a 2003 Dartmouth Medical School study found that up to 30 percent of the $2 trillion spent in this country on medical care each year—including what's spent on Medicare and Medicaid—is wasted. And with the combined tab for those programs rising to some $665 billion this year, cutting costs by a conservative 15 percent could save taxpayers about $100 billion. Yet, rather than moving to trim fat, the government continues such questionable practices as paying private insurance companies that offer Medicare Advantage plans an average of 12 percent more per patient than traditional Medicare fee-for-service. Congress is trying to close this loophole, and doing so could save $15 billion per year, on average, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

Another money-wasting bright idea was to create a giant class of middlemen: Private bureaucrats who administer the Medicare drug program are monitored by federal bureaucrats—and the public pays for both. An October report by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform estimated that this setup costs the government $10 billion per year in unnecessary administrative expenses and higher drug prices.

The Tab*
Wasteful Health Spending:
$60 billion (fraud, waste, overpayments) + $100 billion (modest 15 percent cost reduction) + $15 billion (closing the 12 percent loophole) + $10 billion (unnecessary Medicare administrative and drug costs)
Total $185 billion
Running Tab: $352.5 billion +$185 billion = $537.5 billion

*All figures are estimates.

Running Up Tabs
3. Military Mad Money. You'd think it would be hard to simply lose massive amounts of money, but given the lack of transparency and accountability, it's no wonder that eight of the Department of Defense's functions, including weapons procurement, have been deemed high risk by the GAO. That means there's a high probability that money—"tens of billions," according to Walker—will go missing or be otherwise wasted.

The DOD routinely hands out no-bid and cost-plus contracts, under which contractors get reimbursed for their costs plus a certain percentage of the contract figure. Such deals don't help hold down spending in the annual military budget of about $500 billion. That sum is roughly equal to the combined defense spending of the rest of the world's countries. It's also comparable, adjusted for inflation, with our largest Cold War-era defense budget. Maybe that's why billions of dollars are still being spent on high-cost weapons designed to counter Cold War-era threats, even though today's enemy is armed with cell phones and IEDs. (And that $500 billion doesn't include the billions to be spent this year in Iraq and Afghanistan. Those funds demand scrutiny, too, according to Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-MN, who says, "One in six federal tax dollars sent to rebuild Iraq has been wasted.")

Meanwhile, the Pentagon admits it simply can't account for more than $1 trillion. Little wonder, since the DOD hasn't been fully audited in years. Hoping to change that, Brian Riedl of the Heritage Foundation is pushing Congress to add audit provisions to the next defense budget.

If wasteful spending equaling 10 percent of all spending were rooted out, that would free up some $50 billion. And if Congress cut spending on unnecessary weapons and cracked down harder on fraud, we could save tens of billions more.

The Tab*
Wasteful military spending: $100 billion (waste, fraud, unnecessary weapons)
Running Tab: $537.5 billion + $100 billion = $637.5 billion

4. Bad Seeds. The controversial U.S. farm subsidy program, part of which pays farmers not to grow crops, has become a giant welfare program for the rich, one that cost taxpayers nearly $20 billion last year.

Two of the best-known offenders: Kenneth Lay, the now-deceased Enron CEO, who got $23,326 for conservation land in Missouri from 1995 to 2005, and mogul Ted Turner, who got $590,823 for farms in four states during the same period. A Cato Institute study found that in 2005, two-thirds of the subsidies went to the richest 10 percent of recipients, many of whom live in New York City. Not only do these "farmers" get money straight from the government, they also often get local tax breaks, since their property is zoned as agricultural land. The subsidies raise prices for consumers, hurt third world farmers who can't compete, and are attacked in international courts as unfair trade.

The Tab*
Wasteful farm subsidies: $20 billion
Running Tab: $637.5 billion + $20 billion = $657.5 billion

*All figures are estimates.

Spend, Spend, Spend
5. Capital Waste. While there's plenty of ongoing annual operating waste, there's also a special kind of profligacy—call it capital waste—that pops up year after year. This is shoddy spending on big-ticket items that don't pan out. While what's being bought changes from year to year, you can be sure there will always be some costly items that aren't worth what the government pays for them.

Take this recent example: Since September 11, 2001, Congress has spent more than $4 billion to upgrade the Coast Guard's fleet. Today the service has fewer ships than it did before that money was spent, what 60 Minutes called "a fiasco that has set new standards for incompetence." Then there's the Future Imagery Architecture spy satellite program. As The New York Times recently reported, the technology flopped and the program was killed—but not before costing $4 billion. Or consider the FBI's infamous Trilogy computer upgrade: Its final stage was scrapped after a $170 million investment. Or the almost $1 billion the Federal Emergency Management Agency has wasted on unusable housing. The list goes on.

The Tab*
Wasteful Capital Spending: $30 billion
Running Tab: $657.5 billion + $30 billion = $687.5 billion

6. Fraud and Stupidity. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) wants the Social Security Administration to better monitor the veracity of people drawing disability payments from its $100 billion pot. By one estimate, roughly $1 billion is wasted each year in overpayments to people who work and earn more than the program's rules allow.

The federal Food Stamp Program gets ripped off too. Studies have shown that almost 5 percent, or more than $1 billion, of the payments made to people in the $30 billion program are in excess of what they should receive.

One person received $105,000 in excess disability payments over seven years.

There are plenty of other examples. Senator Coburn estimates that the feds own unused properties worth $18 billion and pay out billions more annually to maintain them. Guess it's simpler for bureaucrats to keep paying for the property than to go to the trouble of selling it.

The Tab*
General Fraud and Stupidity: $2 billion (disability and food stamp overpayment)
Running Tab: $687.5 billion + $2 billion = $689.5 billion

7. Pork Sausage. Congress doled out $29 billion in so-called earmarks—aka funds for legislators' pet projects—in 2006, according to Citizens Against Government Waste. That's three times the amount spent in 1999. Congress loves to deride this kind of spending, but lawmakers won't hesitate to turn around and drop $500,000 on a ballpark in Billings, Montana.

The most infamous earmark is surely the "bridge to nowhere"—a span that would have connected Ketchikan, Alaska, to nearby Gravina Island—at a cost of more than $220 million. After Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans, Senator Coburn tried to redirect that money to repair the city's Twin Span Bridge. He failed when lawmakers on both sides of the aisle got behind the Alaska pork. (That money is now going to other projects in Alaska.) Meanwhile, this kind of spending continues at a time when our country's crumbling infrastructure—the bursting dams, exploding water pipes and collapsing bridges—could really use some investment. Cutting two-thirds of the $29 billion would be a good start.

The Tab*
Pork Barrel Spending: $20 billion
Running Tab: $689.5 billion + $20 billion = $709.5 billion

*All figures are estimates.

What You Can Do
8. Welfare Kings. Corporate welfare is an easy thing for politicians to bark at, but it seems it's hard to bite the hand that feeds you. How else to explain why corporate welfare is on the rise? A Cato Institute report found that in 2006, corporations received $92 billion (including some in the form of those farm subsidies) to do what they do anyway—research, market and develop products. The recipients included plenty of names from the Fortune 500, among them IBM, GE, Xerox, Dow Chemical, Ford Motor Company, DuPont and Johnson & Johnson.

The Tab*
Corporate Welfare: $50 billion
Running Tab: $709.5 billion + $50 billion = $759.5 billion

9. Been There, Done That. The Rural Electrification Administration, created during the New Deal, was an example of government at its finest—stepping in to do something the private sector couldn't. Today, renamed the Rural Utilities Service, it's an example of a government that doesn't know how to end a program. "We established an entity to electrify rural America. Mission accomplished. But the entity's still there," says Walker. "We ought to celebrate success and get out of the business."

In a 2007 analysis, the Heritage Foundation found that hundreds of programs overlap to accomplish just a few goals. Ending programs that have met their goals and eliminating redundant programs could comfortably save taxpayers $30 billion a year.

The Tab*
Obsolete, Redundant Programs: $30 billion
Running Tab: $759.5 billion + $30 billion = $789.5 billion

10. Living on Credit. Here's the capper: Years of wasteful spending have put us in such a deep hole, we must squander even more to pay the interest on that debt. In 2007, the federal government carried a debt of $9 trillion and blew $252 billion in interest. Yes, we understand the federal government needs to carry a small debt for the Federal Reserve Bank to operate. But "small" isn't how we would describe three times the nation's annual budget. We need to stop paying so much in interest (and we think cutting $194 billion is a good target). Instead we're digging ourselves deeper: Congress had to raise the federal debt limit last September from $8.965 trillion to almost $10 trillion or the country would have been at legal risk of default. If that's not a wake-up call to get spending under control, we don't know what is.

The Tab*
Interest on National Debt: $194 billion
Final Tab: $789.5 billion + $194 billion = $983.5 billion

What YOU Can Do
Many believe our system is inherently broken. We think it can be fixed. As citizens and voters, we have to set a new agenda before the Presidential election. There are three things we need in order to prevent wasteful spending, according to the GAO's David Walker:

• Incentives for people to do the right thing.

• Transparency so we can tell if they've done the right thing.

• Accountability if they do the wrong thing.

Two out of three won't solve our problems.

So how do we make it happen? Demand it of our elected officials. If they fail to listen, then we turn them out of office. With its approval rating hovering around 11 percent in some polls, Congress might just start paying attention.

Start by writing to your Representatives. Talk to your family, friends and neighbors, and share this article. It's in everybody's interest.

*All figures are estimates.

Find and contact your Congressional representative.

Last Updated: 2007-12-07

November 27, 2007 A mother loses three children to CPS... then loses three more While it may take weeks, months or years to take someone's freedom away, on May 16, 2005, it took only 17 minutes to take three children away from their mother. Vanessa Shanks of Hardin County, Kentucky, is one of the many parents each year who lose their children to the state, often in confidential hearings. Shanks was originally charged with truancy, but social workers later declared her home to be unsafe after they discovered an open bleach bottle on the floor: left out because she had just finished doing the laundry. Apalled by what they had found, Kentucky Child Protective Services moved to terminate Shanks's parental rights to three of her six children. A NIGHTMARE IN SEVENTEEN MINUTES The state accused Shanks of educational and medical neglect. The evidence? The social worker testified that Shank's eleven year-old child had a kindergarten reading-level, and that some of the children had missed days at school, though no records or testimony from the school was produced. The evidence for "medical neglect" was equally spurious: the social worker testified that one of the three children, who had been diagnosed with spina bifida, had missed some doctor's appointments. But this scanty evidence was more than enough for the family court judge, who ruled after only seventeen-minutes that the children should be placed in the custody of the state. "I didn't see my children for 11 months. It is the hardest thing you can go through," said Shanks. "It's like someone close to you just dies, like you don't have a part of you anymore." CPS RETALIATES When Shanks decided to appeal the decision, the unthinkable happened: CPS came after her again, this time removing her other three children, as well as fourteen children from her extended family. "The first thing they came to us and said was, 'Well, you started an appeal,'" Shanks said. "Nothing else." Shanks turned to local attorney Bob Bishop for help, who said he couldn't believe what he saw when he took Shanks's case. "There has to be something, some evidence of wrongdoing that has placed a child in danger or has hurt the child, and a pattern of conduct not due to poverty alone," said Bishop. In response, CPS removed Bishop's adopted daughter from his home. "They said if you don't cooperate with us, we're going to take all of your children away, and we're going to charge you with emotional abuse," said Jennifer Bishop, the attorney's wife. SAD REALITY In 2006, the Kentucky Court of Appeals ruled that the judge made a mistake in removing Shanks's three children, unanimously ruling that the state had acted in haste and offered no proof of abuse or neglect. But reunions like this are rare: terminations of parental rights have been upheld in the majority of such cases before the court over the past 10 years. Shortly after Shanks's children were restored, the director of Kentucky CPS said that the state would review the way parental rights are terminated. Yet earlier this month, a report issued by the state inspector general found that some social workers have been accused of "suspicious conduct" by fellow social workers, including lost records and conflicts-of-interest in termination proceedings. FIGHTING FOR PARENTAL RIGHTS Vanessa Shanks's story highlights the dangers that parents face when the state steps in and takes the role of the parent. It can take years to bring a shattered family back together, but it only takes seventeen minutes to tear one apart. Please join with us by encouraging your friends to get involved in the battle to protect parental rights. Please forward this email to your friends, and encourage them to join the campaign today at https://www.parentalrights.org/petition. To see the full report on Vanessa Shanks' story, see this report done by Channel 32 News, Louisville, Kentucky: http://www.parentalrights.org/blog/true-stories/parenting-while-poor-you-might-lose-your-kids SOURCES Target 32: Kentucky's Child Protection System Investigated http://www.wlky.com/target32/9478131/detail.html Target 32 Investigates: Child Protective Services http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21760886/ The ParentalRights.org Email Service is a service of: ParentalRights.org • P.O. Box 1090 • Purcellville, Virginia 20134-1090 Phone: (540) 751-1200 • Email: info@ParentalRights.org Web: http://www.ParentalRights.org   Change Settings POSTMASTERS: This message is being sent to the most recent address we have for our subscribers. If this is an invalid email address or you have other problems, please reply to webmaster@ParentalRights.org. DISCLAIMER: This is considered a private and confidential message from ParentalRights.org to its bonafide ParentalRights.org Email Service subscribers. ParentalRights.org cannot attest to the authenticity of copies posted, forwarded, or sent by any party other than ParentalRights.org. © 2007 ParentalRights.org. All rights reserved.

December 6, 2007 Controversy in Minnesota Over a Child's "Right to Privacy" A bill in the Minnesota legislature which would let parents know what books, CDs, and video tapes their kids check out from the library is sparking a debate over "privacy rights" and parental involvement. If passed, the law would allow parents who request information to obtain records that document the library use of children under age 16. With few exceptions, libraries in the United States are currently prohibited from disclosing any records that indicate the identity of individuals who borrow library materials or use library services: even if the individual is a young child and the inquirer is a parent. INVOLVEMENT OR PRIVACY? Opponents claim that the measure will harm children by jeopardizing their right to privacy. "It's a major invasion of the right of privacy of children," says Rep. Marlin Schneider, an opponent of the bill. "Children need to understand their rights are protected, and if government won't protect their rights nobody will." In hearings before the legislature, the Minnesota Department of Public Instruction unsuccessfully recommended changing the bill to apply only to those younger than 14. "At that age we felt children should have the freedom of mind and access to information," said Richard Grobschmidt, who heads the agency's libraries, technology and community learning division. The Wisconsin Library Association also opposes the bill, and recommended a lower age limit. But state Representative Sheryl Albers, the author of the bill, explains that the bill is about the ability of parents to be informed about what is going on in the lives of their children. Senator Joseph Leibham, the bill's Senate sponsor, agrees. According to Liebham, "this bill provides parents the opportunity to be informed and involved in the lives of their teenage children." AN EXPANDING "RIGHT TO PRIVACY"? The idea of a child's right to privacy - even privacy from parents - is not a new concept. The Code of Ethics of the American Library Association, for example, explains that the ALA "resist all efforts to censor library resources," and will "protect each library user's right to privacy and confidentiality with respect to information sought or received and resources consulted, borrowed, acquired or transmitted." While this policy sounds good for adult library patrons, the ALA extends this privacy to children from their parents. Abroad, the concept of a child's "right to privacy" continues to expand. Article 16 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child states that "no child shall be subjected to arbitrary or unlawful interference with his or her privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to unlawful attacks on his or her honour and reputation." This strong language makes little allowance for the role of adults who are unavoidably involved in a child's private world - namely, the child's parents. HEARTBREAK IN NEW ZEALAND One need look no further than New Zealand, which ratified the CRC in May of 1993, to see the dramatic and heart-breaking impact that a child's purported "right to privacy" can have on a family. A New Zealand family has been searching for their sixteen year old daughter since she ran away from home on November 6. They have since learned that their daughter is alive, but that the police are "protecting her whereabouts" and will not tell the family where she is - citing the girl's right to privacy. Because the police will not reveal their daughter's whereabouts, her parents have been left with unanswered questions about why their daughter fled, and if she will ever return. "It is a disgrace that the role of parents and the right of parents to know where their children are is being undermined by privacy legislation and the so-called rights of children," says Bob McCoskrie, National Director of Family First NZ. "If the government wants parents to be responsible parents, the law must firstly respect their authority and role." PROTECTING OUR CHILDREN Thankfully, it is not too late for the United States to avoid the example of New Zealand. If parents are to make the best decisions for their children, they must also have access to the information needed to make those decisions. Parents simply cannot protect their children or be the "anti-drug" if their effort to help violates their child's "right to privacy." Please join with us by encouraging your friends to get involved in the battle to protect parental rights. Please forward this email to your friends, and encourage them to join the campaign today at https://www.parentalrights.org/petition. SOURCES Libraries may have to tell parents what kids borrow http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=182605 Daughter Hidden from Parents Under Privacy Act http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO0711/S00479.htm Code of Ethics of the American Library Association http://www.ala.org/ala/oif/statementspols/codeofethics/codeethics.htm The ParentalRights.org Email Service is a service of: ParentalRights.org • P.O. Box 1090 • Purcellville, Virginia 20134-1090 Phone: (540) 751-1200 • Email: info@ParentalRights.org Web: http://www.ParentalRights.org   Change Settings POSTMASTERS: This message is being sent to the most recent address we have for our subscribers. If this is an invalid email address or you have other problems, please reply to webmaster@ParentalRights.org. DISCLAIMER: This is considered a private and confidential message from ParentalRights.org to its bonafide ParentalRights.org Email Service subscribers. ParentalRights.org cannot attest to the authenticity of copies posted, forwarded, or sent by any party other than ParentalRights.org. © 2007 ParentalRights.org. All rights reserved.

Study: Typical Stay-at-Home Mom Would Earn $138,095 a Year

Thursday , May 03, 2007

NEW YORK — 
If the typical stay-at-home mother in the United States were paid for her work as a housekeeper, cook and psychologist among other roles, she would earn $138,095 a year, according to research released on Wednesday.
 

This reflected a 3 percent raise from last year's $134,121, according to Salary.com Inc, Waltham, Mass.-based compensation experts.
 
The 10 jobs listed as comprising a mother's work were housekeeper, cook, day care center teacher, laundry machine operator, van driver, facilities manager, janitor, computer operator, chief executive officer and psychologist, it said.
 
The typical mother puts in a 92-hour work week, it said, working 40 hours at base pay and 52 hours overtime.
 
A mother who holds full-time job outside the home would earn an additional $85,939 for the work she does at home, Salary.com reported.
Last year she would have earned $85,876 for her at-home work, it said.
 
Salary.com compiled the online responses of 26,000 stay-at-home mothers and 14,000 mothers who also work outside the home.

January 11, 2007
Volume LVX Number 338 Telling the Fort Bragg story ™ www.paraglideonline.net

 

82nd arrives in Kuwait, ready for action

 by Sgt. Mike Pryor
 2nd BCT PAO
  CAMP BUEHRING, Kuwait — The 82nd Airborne Division’s 2nd Brigade Combat Team began arriving in Kuwait this week to assume the role of quick reaction force for Multi- National Force- Iraq. The Falcon Brigade will remain in Kuwait on stand- by sta­tus, ready to deploy into Iraq to support coalition operations.
  “ The 82nd Airborne is America’s strategic response force. Within days of being alerted, we’ve moved an entire brigade combat team by strategic airlift to Kuwait, and we are prepared to respond to any contingen­cies that the combatant commander directs,” said Col. B. Don Farris, the 2nd BCT commander.
  The 2nd BCT is particu­larly suited to the role of strategic response force, Farris said. Its long- stand­ing mission has been to deploy world- wide on short notice and conduct full- spectrum combat operations. Paratrooper training stresses readiness and adaptability to a vari­ety of different mission sets.
  “ Paratroopers possess an expeditionary mindset. It’s a lifestyle. It’s our cul­ture.
  Paratroopers know they must be ready to go at a moment’s notice,” said Farris.
  Since the Global War on Terrorism began, the Falcons have had six short- notice deployments at battalion- or- greater strength to support opera­tions in Iraq and Afghanistan.
  This is their first deploy­ment as an entire brigade since 2003.
  The Falcons received the order for their current deployment on Dec. 27.
  In less than a week, the brigade deployed approximately 3,000 paratroopers, 300 containers of equip­ment, and 100 vehicles to Kuwait, said Maj. Michael Baumeister, the Brigade Logistics Officer.
  “ I don’t know of anyone else ( but the 82nd Airborne) who can do that,” Baumeister said.
  Adding to the complexi­ty of the deployment was the fact that it occurred over the Christmas and New Year holidays.
  Farris credited the com­mitment and support of Falcon family members with helping the brigade rise to the challenge.
  “ We have great families who understand that we are at war, and who appreciate that the 82nd is always going to be called on to support the Global War on Terrorism,” said Farris.
  For combat- hardened veterans like Sgt. Brian Mundey of B Co, 1st Battalion, 325th Airborne Infantry Regiment, who is on his third deploy­ment as a Falcon, there is no such thing as a sur­prise deployment.
  He knows he can be called on at any time, Mundey said, and when it happens he is ready.
  “ It’s our job. It’s what we do,” Mundey said.

 

 

 

Picture 1

photo by Spc. Jaime Avila/1st BCT PAO
 Paratroopers from the 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division, board a plane, which will take them to Kuwait. The Falcon Brigade will remain in Kuwait on stand-by status, ready to deploy into Iraq to support coalition operations.

 

Picture 2

photo by Spc. Jaime Avila/1st BCT PAO
 Brig. Gen. Joseph Votel, right, deputy commanding gen­eral, 82nd Airborne Division, shakes the hands of para­troopers who are preparing to deploy to Kuwait on stand-by status, ready to immediately deploy into Iraq to support coalition operations. The Paratroopers are from the 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Abn. Div.

Artist commemorates 2003 Iraq battle in oil painting

by Sgt. Mike Pryor 2nd BCT PAO At a time when many Soldiers carry digital cameras with them on patrols, and raw footage from combat is downloadable off the Internet, using oil paint, brushes, and a canvas to tell the story of a battle might seem like an outdat­ed approach.   Fans of painter James Dietz would disagree.   Over the past 20 years, Dietz paintings have been commis­sioned by more than a dozen Army organizations to commemo­rate military campaigns and bat­tles stretching from the Revolutionary War to the Global War on Terrorism. In a sense, an event hasn’t truly been captured for posterity until it has been ren­dered in a Dietz painting.   “His paintings freeze a piece of history,” said Master Sgt. Robert Karnas of Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division.   During a ceremony at BCT headquarters Sept. 22, Dietz offi­cially presented his new painting “Bridges of Freedom: Task Force Falcon Liberates As Samawah,” which portrays members of 2nd Brigade during a 2003 battle in Iraq that won the brigade the Presidential Unit Citation.   “ You captured a moment in time that we can all reflect on, and for that we owe you a debt of gratitude,” said brigade com­mander Col. B. Don Farris during the presentation.   Afterwards, Dietz stayed for several hours signing prints for paratroopers who purchased a reproduction of the painting.   In terms of his art, Dietz said his goal was not 100 percent histori­cal accuracy but to capture the emotion of the moment and por­tray it on canvas.   “It may not be totally what it looked like but it’s what it felt like, and if I can capture that then I know I’m on the right track,” Dietz said.   Dietz said he relies on the input of Soldiers from the units who commission his paintings to help him make the paintings as true to what really happened as possible.

“ I depend on the unit and the people in it to tell me, ‘ This is what it looked like and this is what it felt like,’” he said.
  Many Soldiers who waited in line to have Dietz sign their prints of Bridges of Freedom agreed that he had captured in a single image the raw essence of a battle that lasted days.
  For Sgt. 1st Class Santos Cavasos and Sgt. 1st Class Donald McAlister, who fought in the battle portrayed in the painting, seeing Dietz’ version seemed to bring back a flood of memories.
  “ Remember how the rounds were coming right over our heads?” asked McAlister.
  “ Remember when I fell in that artillery hole?” Cavasos countered.
  “ We’re always telling people, ‘ See that guy in the picture? That’s me,’” McAlister said. Then he stared at his print quietly for moment.
  “ It’s cool, man. We were there,” he said finally.
 

 
 
 
 
**Photo by Sgt. Mike Pryor/2nd BCT PAO
James Dietz signs prints of his painting “Bridges of Freedom: Task Force Falcon Liberates As Samawah,” which portrays 2nd Brigade paratroopers in action during the battle of As Samawah in Iraq in 2003, during an appearance at Brigade Headquarters Sep. 22

 
Check out painting history at:
 
The Art of James Dietz - "Bridges of Freedom"
 
 
 
 
 



 

News:
 
http://www.upi.com/SecurityTerrorism/view.php?StoryID=20061228-022657-6422r

Published on Wednesday, December 27, 2006

 

Defense Secretary Robert Gates has signed orders to send the 82nd Airborne Division’s 2nd Brigade Combat Team to Kuwait shortly after the new year, senior defense officials told The Associated Press on Tuesday.
 
The decision to send the unit was first reported earlier this month. The move could be part of a short-term surge of troops to the battlefront to quell the continuing violence, the AP reported.
 
The paratroopers will replace the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit, which was the reserve force based in Kuwait but deployed to Iraq.
 
At Fort Bragg, soldiers are just coming off a four-day Christmas weekend.
 
“I am not aware of anything official at this time,” said Maj. Tom Earnhardt, spokesman for the 82nd Airborne Division. “We are always ready. If the order comes, we will go.”
 
Two senior defense officials, who requested anonymity because the announcement had not yet been made public, said Gates signed the order Tuesday, the first of his week-old tenure as Pentagon chief.
 
He was in Iraq last week meeting with U.S. military commanders and Iraqi officials.
 
The 2nd Brigade Combat Team has about 3,500 paratroopers, including the 1st and 2nd Battalions of the 325th Airborne Infantry Regiment. Four soldiers from the 1st Battalion died in Iraq in 2006.
 
Some spouses have complained that the deployment comes too soon after the brigade’s service in Iraq this year. Some soldiers returned to the U.S. from Iraq this month.
 
The 82nd Airborne has four brigade combat teams. The 1st Brigade, built around the 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment, is deploying to Iraq in early 2007.
 
The division’s 3rd Brigade Combat Team, the 82nd Combat Aviation Brigade and the 82nd Sustainment Brigade are in Iraq and are expected to return in August. The 3rd Brigade is built around the 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment.
 
The 82nd Sustainment Brigade is based at Camp Adder on Tallil Air Base in southern Iraq. The base is a major supply hub for units coming into Iraq from Kuwait.
 
About 6,000 paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne’s headquarters and its 4th Brigade Combat Team are headed to Afghanistan next year to replace the 10th Mountain Division.
 

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However, the most incredible thing was what happened following the service on the way to the cemetery.  We went to our cars and drove to the cemetery escorted by at least 10 police cars with lights flashing and some other emergency vehicles, with Texas Rangers handling traffic.  Everyone on the road who was not in the procession, pulled over, got out of their cars, and stood silently and respectfully, some put their hands over their hearts.

When we turned off the highway suddenly there were teenage boys along both sides of the street about every 20 feet or so, all holding large American flags on long flag poles, and again with their hands on their hearts.  We thought at first it was the Boy Scouts or 4H club or something, but it continued .... for two and a half miles.  Hundreds of young people, standing silently on the side of the road with flags.  At one point we passed an elementary school, and all the children were outside, shoulder to shoulder holding flags . kindergartners, handicapped, teachers, staff, everyone.  Some held signs of love and support.  Then came teenage girls and younger boys, all holding flags.  Then adults.  Then families.  All standing silently on the side of the road.  No one spoke, not even the very young children. 

The military presence..at least two generals, a fist full of colonels, and representatives from every branch of the service, plus the color guard which attended James, and some who served with him .. was very impressive and respectful, but the love and pride from this community who had lost one of their own was the most amazing thing I've ever been privileged to witness.

I've attached some pictures, some are blurry (we were moving), but you can get a small idea of what this was like. Thanks so much for all the prayers and support."