Why do some people reject the existence of PTSD?

The topic is touchy. Even asking the question is slammed as irresponsible.

“Why on Earth would you try to put out something that states combat PTSD isn't a true affliction? Or even try to debunk it? Or to put questions into the minds of society? In the first 155 days of 2012, we lost 154 men,” Amy Cotta, an author and the mother of a Marine wrote in an email to NBC News. Her message arrived minutes after she learned NBC News was seeking to interview a PTSD denier.

Despite exhaustive scientific studies that have explored the symptoms, causes, diagnoses, and prevalence of post-traumatic stress disorder, hardcore skeptics remain.

They exist within the military, where some leaders openly call PTSD a mental weakness, according to mental health advocates. David Weidman, who did two tours in Afghanistan and was diagnosed with PTSD, said all of his senior non-commissioned officers advised him not to seek treatment, instead suggesting he “just put your head down and keep going” in order to maintain any chance at a promotion.

They exist within the veteran community. Kevin R.C. “Hognose” O’Brien, who operates a blog called “WeaponsMan” and identifies himself as “a former Special Forces weapons man,” wrote in July that PTSD was a “quack” diagnosis, “invented” to clump “any odd and many normal behaviors.” He added: “If a vet is wound up tight? PTSD! If he or she is calm? Hypercontrolling due to PTSD! Lose weight, gain weight, maintain weight, those are all PTSD markers. Get in fights? PTSD, natch. And avoid fights? Well, clearly it's .... are you starting to get the idea?” O’Brien declined to be interviewed for this story.

And they exist within medicine. In late September, Washington, D.C. psychiatrist Dr. Joseph Tarantolo authored an op-ed piece titled: “PTSD, The Grand Scapegoat.” In it, Tarantolo described PTSD as a “pseudo-diagnosis” and held that “the PTSDer gets an enormous amount of pseudo-sympathy.” On Friday, Tarantolo’s voicemail message said he was out of the country on vacation.

To Afghanistan veteran Weidman, most people who so stridently dismiss PTSD have simply failed to read the available scientific literature on the subject and are, he said, “uneducated.”

But Weidman acknowledged that different people possess varying degrees of mental “resiliency,” underscoring the slippery nature of diagnosing anxiety disorders. That means, he added, that if an entire platoon collectively endures the same moment of extreme combat violence, not every platoon member will ultimately feel the symptoms of post-traumatic stress. According to the Mayo Clinic, those signs can include “flashbacks, nightmares and severe anxiety, as well as uncontrollable thoughts about the event.”

“There are people who can experience something who have no side effects. It could be that person (who ends up being a denier),” said Weidman, a student at Penn State-Lehigh Valley. “Or it could be the person who is extremely uneducated and chauvinistic, who says a guy who gets diagnosed with PTSD ‘is not being a man.’ You’re going to have a perfect storm within the individual who’s going to be that outlier, who says: ‘It doesn’t exist.’

“Or, it could be the person who actually has post-traumatic stress, who is not seeking help, who is more living up to society’s ideal male image of being strong and being resilient,” he added. “Those people going to make even more noise.”

Mental health experts say the occasional repudiation of PTSD is merely an extension of the larger societal taint associated with anxiety or mood disorders.

Click here for more military-related coverage from NBC News.

“It comes back down to the stigma of mental illness,” said Jean Teichroew, spokeswoman for the Anxiety and Depression Association of America. “Military members also are afraid to speak out because it’s seen as a weakness. The VA has programs to try to combat that, too. But when you have a sergeant who doesn’t think you should be afraid of a bomb going off near you or seeing a dead body, that’s another issue.”

Still, the rate of diagnosed PTSD cases among Iraq and Afghanistan veterans is higher than the rate of cases associated with men and women who served in past conflicts. That abrupt spike has sparked an ongoing debate within American and British academia as to how common PTSD truly is among military personnel and veterans.

“The suffering of people with PTSD is very real whether we label it an ‘anxiety disorder’ or not. As for the skeptics, some of them may believe that a proportion of veterans without the disorder may report symptoms to secure service-connected disability compensation payments for PTSD,” said Harvard University psychology professor Richard J. McNally. He has penned more then 320 publications on anxiety disorders, including PTSD.

“According to (Department of Veterans Affairs) data reported late last spring, 45 percent of all veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan have applied for service-connected disability compensation, and 31 percent have secured it already. This figure includes all forms of medical problems, however, not just PTSD," McNally said. "The percentage of veterans of World War II and Vietnam who obtained disability compensation is 11 percent and 16 percent, respectively.”

In 2011, the VA listed the three most common service-connected disabilities among veterans receiving federal compensation that year: tinnitus (ringing in the ears) at 10.9 percent, hearing loss at 7.5 percent, and PTSD at 5.3 percent.

Is PTSD being over-diagnosed in post-9/11 veterans?

“Yes. I think it is,” said Simon Wessely, vice dean of academic psychiatry at King’s College in London. “I think that despite the formal criteria, there is a confusion sometimes (about) the normal emotional responses to war — my father still has nightmares about his World War II service in Royal Navy and he is 87, but he doesn't have PTSD.

“I also think that, for example, depression often gets under diagnosed, and substance misuse also,” Wessely said. “Our evidence also shows, for example, that quite often the triggers for what becomes labeled as PTSD is not combat exposure but actually a reflection of problems back home. It is important that we remember that not every mental health problem in theater is PTSD."

Despite the loose diagnoses or cases of outright PTSD fraud, to those in medicine and the military (post and present) who deny PTSD altogether, Wessely offers three final words: “They are wrong.”

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Getty Images

Veterans Michael Futch, right, and Logan Remillard register for the "Hiring Our Heroes" job fair in Utah last November. Companies say they are are stepping up efforts to hire veterans.

Veterans who are looking for work may have reason to feel more optimistic about their job prospects this Veterans Day: A new survey finds that businesses appear to be making a greater effort to hire them.

The CareerBuilder survey finds that 29 percent of employers are actively recruiting veterans, up 9 percent from a year ago.

In all, 65 percent of the 2,600 employers surveyed on behalf of CareerBuilder said they would be more likely to hire a veteran over another, equally qualified candidate.

The efforts come amid increased attention to the plight of job-seeking veterans. Unemployment has been a particularly big problem for young veterans who are returning from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to high unemployment and low job prospects.

The unemployment rate for veterans who have served since Sept. 11 was 10 percent in October. That’s far higher than the comparable unemployment rate of 7.5 percent for the entire population. The figures are not adjusted for seasonal variations.

Many young veterans are expected to enter the workforce in coming years, as the U.S. withdraws from wars in the Gulf and potentially looks to shrink its overall presence as well. The job market has been slowly improving, and that could help increase their changes of finding a job.

But experts say the young veterans are facing additional roadblocks as well.

Many don’t have the skills or experience in crafting a resume and interviewing for a job outside the military. They also may not know how to translate their military skills into civilian language that would make them attractive to employers.

Some veterans are also finding that the skills they learned have in the military, such as driving a military truck or serving as a military medic, don’t translate directly into civilian life. That means they have to spend time and money getting the same certifications to do their job outside the military.

Advocates argue that veterans also bring a special set of skills to the workforce, such as loyalty and the ability to perform under pressure. Other perks, such as the good publicity that comes from hiring veterans, probably don’t hurt, either.

Related:

• Report: Military-friendly firms stir upswell in hiring
• Younger veterans want to work but face roadblocks
• Why companies do, or don’t, hire veterans

Courtesy of Rebecca Morrison

Ian Morrison and Rebecca Morrison, taken at Fort Hood in Texas the day he deployed to Iraq as an Army Apache helicopter pilot. He flew 70 missions in Iraq. In March this year, Ian Morrison committed suicide in Texas at age 26.

The call she placed, and the advice she received, didn’t simply allow Rebecca Morrison to survive one of her worst days. The words she heard, she said, saved her life.

Before a Fort Hood memorial service to honor her husband – an Army chopper pilot who ended his life – Morrison grabbed a scrap of paper from her nightstand, read the scrawled number, and dialed up the Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors (TAPS). In that pitch-black moment, she needed answers to two desperate questions. On the other end, Kim Ruocco listened. Seven years earlier, Ruocco had lost her husband, a Marine major, to suicide.

“I can’t even breathe,” Morrison began, through sobs, from her Texas home. “How do you breathe?”

“It will just come,” Ruocco replied from the TAPS office in Arlington, Va.

“How can I ever be happy again?”

“It doesn’t get less painful,” Ruocco told her. “After time, it just gets ... less present.”

Six months later, Morrison, 25, is breathing. She’s also teaching third graders, running, riding her horse, and — Thursday — remembering Ian on what would have been his 27th birthday. She's also speaking at anti-suicide events and launching a suicide support group near Dallas — all of it, she added, because she placed that call. But with one U.S. service member committing suicide every 19 hours, it’s the breathing that Morrison mentions first when asked how TAPS helped her most.

“Once you lose someone to suicide, you are so prone to suicide yourself. I got to that point. If they hadn’t been there, I wouldn’t be here,” she said. “Every widow I’ve talked to, every family member, has felt that way. You just want to be with that person more than anything. I mean, he was my husband. They’re saving the lives of the survivors.”

The suicide crisis inside the military has, indeed, injected fresh urgency into the larger mission of TAPS, a peer-based, emotional support group for families who have lost active-duty military members overseas or at home. It also has “stretched” the nonprofit’s budget and 53-member staff, said Bonnie Carroll, who founded TAPS in 1994 after her husband, Brigadier General Tom Carroll, was killed in a plane crash.

Courtesy of Bonnie Carroll

Bonnie Carroll founded TAPS in 1994, two years after her Army husband, Tom, was killed in a plane crash. When Rebecca Morrison called TAPS last April, Bonnie answered the phone.

“We are the alumni association for those who have died in the military. There is no one else that does this,” Carroll said. “Whether it’s a motorcycle crash or a death in combat or a suicide, for the family, it’s the same knock on the door, the same folded flag.

“We’re seeing an increase in the death rate, in the casualty rate, but from the public’s perception: ‘Oh, the war is over and everybody’s home and they’re safe.’ Well, in a skewed way it almost seems like you’re safer in a deployed environment. You’re less likely to die there of a hostile attack than you are to die here.”

Some increasingly sad statistics: During the first nine months of this year, 247 Army troops — including active-duty soldiers, National Guard members and reservists, have committed suicide, according to a Department of Defense report last week. (The Army is the only military branch that issues monthly press statements on suicides). In 2012, the Army suicide rate has climbed over last year, despite myriad anti-suicide initiatives, conferences and medical studies as well as prevention promises and get-help pleas both inside and outside the branch. Meanwhile, within the Navy, Marines and Air Force, another 126 service members combined have taken their lives this year, reports ArmyTimes. 

As America transitions from a decade of war toward a hopeful peace, TAPS has rarely been busier. The organization, which staffs a 24-hour hotline, is fielding, on average, 111 calls per day, Carroll said. From November 2011 through this past September, TAPS began working with 4,138 new survivors.

In the military community, the TAPS team is considered credible, Carroll said, because each member has lived that moment.

“The traumatic death of an immediate loved one will knock you out and sometimes kill you. You really need to deal with it on a very deep and serious level,” Carroll said. “And the absolute best support — what we’re really finding with our suicide survivors — is that unless they’re talking with another mom found her son after he died by suicide, they’re just not going to talk.”

As its staff now connects, on average, with 376 new survivors per day, TAPS is feeling the urgent need “to definitely do more,” Carroll said.

But on an already-tight budget, seeking extra dollars to meet the crisis requires a delicate, high wire walk worthy of a Wallenda: A nonprofit must project fiscal stability while also demonstrating its growing obligation.

“After 9/11, why did people continue to give to the Red Cross even though it was funded in the billions? It’s because people give to organizations that are financially sound. Which is counterintuitive. You’d think they’d give to the ones that have a more desperate need for the funding,” Carroll said. “So it’s a really tough balance there. We are financially sound. We take every penny and put it toward appropriate programs. We have wonderful partners. But we are constantly searching to meet that need.”

TAPS spends $450,000 per month, Carroll said. In addition to its paid staff and the 24-hour hotline they manage, the group publishes a quarterly magazine and stages dozens of survivor events around the country, including a conference for military-suicide survivors earlier this month in San Diego.

Funding is funneled to the nonprofit from neighborhood bake sales on to large checks from corporate partners, including foundations affiliated with Prudential, New York Life and Hasbro.

“There is no membership — no fees, no dues,” Carroll said. “The cost of admission is the sacrifice of a loved one. And the care they receive is forever and always.”

TAPS further squeezes its budget by leveraging a 1,000-plus legion of volunteers — survivors who are, themselves, at least two years beyond their own loss and trained in how to support the newly bereaved. That network is the bittersweet result of the mounting losses on the home front: as more service members die after returning from war, more of their survivors are volunteering with TAPS.

“That is the holy grail of why this works. It’s a concept of: when you help another person, you continue your own healing,” Carroll said.

Courtesy of Bonnie Carroll

Bonnie and Tom Carroll. They met in Alaska in 1988 during a massive attempt to save three gray whales trapped beneath pack ice.

This is the sacred notion that inspired Carroll to build TAPS. While working for the Reagan White House, she met her Army husband, Tom, on a massive spread of pack ice in Barrow, Alaska, in 1988 amid a globally watched effort — dubbed “Operation Breakthrough” — to free three trapped gray whales. That rescue inspired the 2012 film "Big Miracle."

Tom, portrayed by Dermot Mulroney, and Bonnie, portrayed by Vinessa Shaw, later married. Their wedding — complete with a cake topped by icing-laden whale replicas — was re-enacted in the film. (Their characters had different names in the movie — a choice made by the filmmakers because “Big Miracle” is not a documentary).

“That’s Tom, that’s us. He’s that guy, and I’m that White House girl,” Carroll said.

Four years after the whale rescue, Tom Carroll died along with eight other soldiers in an Army C-12 plane crash in Alaska.

“When Tom was killed, that was my family. Now I have this extraordinary family of tens of thousands of incredible Americans who have made the ultimate sacrifice for this nation’s freedom,” Bonnie Carroll said. “We’re a family healing together."

Courtesy of Rebecca Morrison

Last weekend, Rebecca Morrison ran the Army Ten-Miler in Washington, D.C. to help raise money and awareness for TAPS - and as part of her own healing following the loss of her husband.

Now, Rebecca Morrison wants to join that family.

With a degree in counseling and the life experience of a survivor, she’s hoping to eventually work with TAPS.

In the meantime, she already has become closely aligned with the nonprofit. On Oct. 21, she ran in the Army Ten Miler — which started and finished at the Pentagon — and helped raise money for TAPS. In June, she spoke as part of a TAPS survivor panel during the annual Department of Defense/Department of Veterans Affairs Suicide Prevention Conference in Washington, D.C. And in July, Kim Ruocco of TAPS asked Morison to share her raw story for a Time magazine cover piece on military suicides titled “One A Day.”

“For me to feel better about this, I have to help other people,” Morrison said.

“Bonnie, Kim and everybody made that possible. Through speaking out, I have been able to heal.”

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Courtesy Clemson University

'It is possible to hold opposing viewpoints and debate issues without rancor and disrespect,' Clemson University President James Barker wrote Tuesday.

The president of Clemson University reprimanded the school's football fans Tuesday for booing President Barack Obama during a military ceremony last weekend, saying there is only one president, "and he is president of us all."

The display came as students were taking their oath upon being inducted into the university's Reserve Officer Training Corps on Military Appreciation Day during Clemson's 38-17 victory over Virginia Tech at Memorial Stadium in Clemson, S.C. The booing began as the members recited their pledge to "obey the orders of the president of the United States."

The booing, first reported Sunday by the Daily Kos, drew a mixed reaction on the Clemson sports message board TigerNet. One fan called the display "disgusting," adding, "We have actually dropped into the sewer," noting that the ceremony was intended to honor "military heroes and future defenders of our freedom."

But others defended the booing. One wrote: "Even the General who was administering the oath smiled at the booing. He knows the truth."

In an e-mailed message to students Tuesday, Clemson President James Barker said many people had contacted him to "express their sadness and disappointment."

"Freedom of speech is a right which makes our country great," But he agreed that the booing was inappropriate because "this ceremony was a sacred moment to the recruits, their families, and many others in attendance."

Booing the president at sporing events is a tradition that goes back at least as far as the administration of Herbert Hoover, who newspaper reports of the time reported was booed at the opening game of the 1931 World Series between the St. Louis Cardinals and the Philadelphia Athletics.

Obama was booed when he emerged to throw out the first pitch at Nationals Stadium in Washington in 2010:

So was President George W. Bush when he opened Nationals Stadium in 2008, their inaugural season:

First Lady Michelle Obama and Vice President Joe Biden's wife, Jill, were booed last year at a NASCAR race in Miami:

Following is Barker's full letter to Clemson students:

Dear Clemson:

Saturday's football game marked Clemson's annual observance of Military Appreciation Day, a time when we pay tribute to veterans, men and women currently serving and those who gave their lives to protect us. Clemson has a strong military heritage, and this day is always a special occasion.

Unfortunately, the day was marred by bad behavior from some fans. During the ceremony inducting ROTC cadets into the military, a number of fans booed during the section of the oath they take to obey the President of the United States.

I understand that we are in the home stretch of a heated presidential election and that freedom of speech is a right which makes our country great. Regardless of one's political leanings, however, this ceremony was a sacred moment to the recruits, their families, and many others in attendance. Many Clemson people have contacted me to express their sadness and disappointment at this public display of disrespect for the office of the President and the young people taking a solemn oath that day. I share those sentiments.

As the election draws closer, negative campaigning is intensifying on both sides. The heated rhetoric and lack of civility we hear every day on TV, radio and in social media can be contagious. But it is possible to hold opposing viewpoints and debate issues without rancor and disrespect — as demonstrated at a recent Strom Thurmond Institute roundtable discussion with political science Professors Bruce Ransom and Dave Woodard.

Political campaigns seek to divide us — to highlight differences in order to drive us into opposing camps. I believe there is far more that unites us, as Americans and members of the Clemson family. These include:

• Our core Clemson values of honesty, integrity and respect for others.

• Our respect for the military and support for our servicemen and women.

• Our respect for the Constitution they are sworn to uphold, which is clear in placing ultimate authority in our civilian Commander-in-Chief, the President.

Passion about issues, commitment to candidates and participation in the democratic process are all vitally important. But when the voting is done, we have one President and he is President of us all.

After November 6, our nation will need to work together to solve the many challenges that lie ahead. Engaging in positive dialogue and choosing the right time and place to voice our opinions will help us do that.

Sincerely,

— Jim Barker

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Defense Secretary Leon Panetta issued a call to arms against cyber attacks on U.S. targets and said the Pentagon must be prepared to launch preemptive attacks in cyberspace against potential attackers. He warned that a cyber attack by a nation state or terrorists on the U.S. could be America's "cyber Pearl Harbor" and "be just as destructive as the terrorist attack of 9/11."

In a speech before business executives in New York, Panetta revealed that cyber intruders have already gained access to some of America's critical control systems that run chemical, electric and water systems with the intent to "cause panic, destruction and loss of life."

With a current annual budget of $3 billion for cybersecurity, Panetta urged that more needs to be done to create an army of "skilled cyber warriors" to confront the immediate and growing threat. The Defense Department is already hammering out new "rules of engagement" for a potential cyber war.

US Officials see Iran, not outrage over film, behind cyber attacks on banks

Panetta stressed that defending against potentially disastrous cyber attack on America will take a total government and business-wide effort. 

Panetta said that before the 9/11 terrorist attacks, warning signs went largely ignored.

"We cannot let that happen again," Panetta warned. "This is a pre-9/11 moment. The attackers are plotting."

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Courtesy Jerry Flanagan

Jerry Flanagan poses with a Hummer 2 and cargo trailer emblazoned with the JDog Junk Removal logo and decorations.

You might view Jerry Flanagan’s entrepreneurial vision for jobless veterans as junk economics. That’s fine. He certainly sees it that way.

The Army veteran has launched what he says is the first company to offer former service members — and only former service members — a chance to buy one of his fledgling franchises. The business: hauling away people’s unwanted appliances, furniture and other household rubbish. In crude terms, junk removal.

Before you trash his plan, listen to Flanagan’s strategy to tidy up the 10.9 percent unemployment rate that’s been dogging post-Sept. 11 veterans (as compared to the 8.1 percent rate afflicting the rest of the nation in August). 

“Offering the franchises only to military veterans gives them the opportunity to know, ‘In this program, I don’t have to compete against this guy who has a college degree or against that guy who just went to business school.’ Right now, these people need a leg up,” said Flanagan, who served in the U.S. Army from 1987 to 1989.

“So many veterans are going to be hitting the work force by 2014. I asked myself, ‘How can we put them back to work?’ They’ll be owning their own businesses and hopefully they’ll be hiring other veterans.”

He calls his enterprise JDog Junk Removal. The tasks, territorial duties, and even the logo are purposely intended to carry a military feel, a welcome-home gift, Flanagan said, for ambitious veterans with at least $15,000 to invest. That’s the cost to buy a franchise.

The fee — plus adequate credit to lease or finance a hauling trailer plus either a green H2 Hummer or Jeep Wrangler Rubicon (the only allowable vehicles, each painted with JDog’s trademarked bulldog emblem plus a local phone number) — puts veterans in the driver’s seat to self-employment, Flanagan said.

“I know there are these guys and women coming back, and if they’re jumping into a big, military-style vehicle, if they have some space, I think it helps with the transition,” Flanagan said.

Related: VA struggling to calculate lost wages for wounded vets, GAO report shows
Related: VA won't cover costs of service dogs assigned for PTSD treatment
Related: President Obama orders VA to expand suicide prevention services

Each franchisee will be assigned his or her own exclusive market — amid population pockets of at least 75,000 people — as well as a social networking push from corporate headquarters, local leads generated by the company website, and advice on peddling the service to area real estate firms, warehouses, commercial properties, churches and senior living facilities.

“There’s no office, no retail space to lease, and within 90 days, you’re booking jobs,” Flanagan said. “I’ve spent the past 17 months building his concept. But I also wanted to keep it simple. A lot of veterans are going to step right in and follow the system, just like they followed the system in the military every day. Veterans are the best qualified franchisees out there because they’re used to following orders.”

Flanagan saved one niche for disabled veterans: They can buy a franchise and hire one or two muscled-up pals to do the heavy lifting while the veterans run the businesses on their mobile devices.

“The cash flow is immediate because you’re paid on the spot. You go out and do four or five jobs that day, and you average $200 to $300 per job because I’ve structured the margins very well,” he added. “I started studying this (business sector) during the recession — junk removal was one of the few areas that did better after 2008. That’s what drew my attention. There’s junk in every state. There are military veterans in every state.

“We’re getting good feedback from the entire (salvage) industry that once veterans — and active duty members who are about to come home — get their heads around what I’m doing, we’re going to have a large turnout interested in franchises,” added Flanagan, who is based in Wayne, Pa. “I want 300 to 500 of these units up in 10 years. Of course, I could be underselling myself there. We could have 10 just in Long Island. We could have 50 in Texas."

According to the International Franchise Association in Washington, D.C., the only other American franchisor that offers buy-in opportunities solely to former service members is an outfit called Veteran Tech Brigade, which supplies IT services.

Kelly Crigger, co-founder and CEO of Veteran Tech Brigade said, however, that his company is aiming for an 80 percent veteran-owned franchise rate. (Veteran Tech Brigade currently is vetting its first potential franchisees — two veterans, both residing in Florida). The company mainly does government contracting and business-to-business IT consulting.

“But that’s why we started this company — to put a dent in the unemployment rate for veterans,” said Crigger, a retired Army lieutenant colonel who served in Afghanistan. “We have 25 veterans now doing IT consulting.

“Especially when you consider the immense responsibility levels many veterans had while in combat, you would think” scores of companies would be clamoring for their skills, Crigger said. “I remember one guy told me: ‘Over in Iraq, my responsibility was kicking doors in all day, looking for the enemy. But I get back here and I can’t even get a job laying cement’ ”

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The Department of Veterans Affairs is being investigated by the Office of the Inspector General for allegedly spending millions on two human resources conferences held in Orlando last year.

In initial findings provided to the House Committee on Veterans' Affairs, the OIG alleged that VA spent between $3 million and $9 million on the two gatherings, at which employees may have received "improper gratuities, including alcohol, gift baskets, concert tickets, embroidered pillow cases, stretch limousines, helicopter rides, and spa treatments."

Among the expenditures were $3,000 for two photographers; $84,000 for VA-branded promotional items, including pens, highlighters and hand sanitizers; and $52,000 for videos featuring a character in the likeness of Gen. George S. Patton. The video also includes interviews with VA staff members who discuss the importance of understanding the needs and experiences of veterans.

"This parody should never have been produced and this misuse of taxpayer funds is completely unacceptable," VA said in a statement issued to NBC News, referring to the use of the Patton character. "This event took place over a year ago and we have already adopted new rules that reflect our continuing commitment to safeguarding taxpayer dollars."

On Wednesday, two members of the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs released a letter sent Aug. 16 to VA Secretary Eric Shinseki demanding to know exactly how much the department had spent on conferences since 2009. 

In a February 2011 hearing, a VA official said the department budgeted $20 million for the expenditures, but testimony given in November indicated the VA spent "a little over $100 million," according to the letter. VA later said in a post-hearing response that an "accurate, reliable figure on the number of conferences (held in the past several years) is not available."

"If (the) $100 million figure is accurate, it raises questions of excessive conference spending in a tight fiscal climate," wrote authors Rep. Jeff Miller, R-Fla., who is the chairman of the committee, and Rep. Bob Filner, D-Calif.

Related: GSA head resigns after lavish training conference

Miller and Filner noted that even if VA spent $20 million last year, the two conferences in Orlando would amount to 45 percent of those costs.

In early August, the president signed into law a provision that asks VA to report conference expenditures in excess of $20,000 to Congress.

VA said in its statement that the agency is cooperating with the investigation and that it has stripped implicated employees of their purchasing authority.

“If the results of the IG investigation are upheld," Miller said in a statement, "this represents an egregious misuse of funds meant to provide for the care of America’s veterans."

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Bing maps

An aerial view of the Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay shows its proximity to St. Mary's Airport.

Two skydivers who landed at a Navy nuclear submarine base in Georgia instead of a nearby airport after being blown off course represent an ongoing security challenge, a base spokesman told NBC News on Tuesday.

The high-security Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay along an inland waterway near the Georgia-Florida state line is the East Coast home to Ohio-class submarines, base spokesman Scott Bassett said. The submarines carry Trident nuclear ballistic missiles.

“Security is robust,” he said.

The two skydivers were noticed “immediately” Sunday, he said.

Bassett said base security and Navy investigators were on the scene, but he would not go into details about security operations.

The jumpers were supposed to land at St. Mary’s Airport, just south of the base. Strong wind knocked them off course, Cathy Kloess, owner of The Jumping Place skydiving business at St. Mary’s, told the Florida Times-Union.

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One jumper was a naturalized citizen and one was not a citizen and was not carrying a passport, Jay Stanford, airport chairman, told the Time Union.

The base released the jumpers after The Jumping Place provided adequate identity for the pair, Kloess told the Times-Union.

The incident was the seventh in three years with errant skydivers, Bassett said.

“It’s a matter of serious safety concerns,” he said. "It's extraordinarily dangerous to parachute onto this base."

The Jumping Place website said the two jumpers were detained for “a couple of hours.”

“We want to remind all skydivers that the base should be only a last choice option for landing. Safety is our number one concern and the base feels the same way, so we will be introducing some new signage and classroom time with Cathy this week in reviewing procedures for off field landings.”

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The incident brought derision for the jumpers on the base’s Facebook page.

“They are lucky they didn't get shot before they hit the ground,” said one person identified as Marshall Gammon.

“Great- one MORE way for some crazy terrorist to make their way onto the base to do something stupid. Isolated incident? I think not...,” said a poster identified as ItsJustBarbara.

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Saurabh Das / AP file

U.S. M1 Abrams tanks withdraw to a safe position after mortar rounds landed nearby in Kufa, Iraq, on April 29, 2004.

Editor's note: This article was corrected after publication. An earlier version incorrectly said the Pentagon spends $3 billion every 82 minutes. The Pentagon actually spends $3 billion in a little more than a day. Also, the earlier version said that members of the House Armed Services Committee got $31,500 from General Dynamics during a two-week period in September last year. The correct figure is $30,500.

The M1 Abrams tank has survived the Cold War, two conflicts in Iraq and a decade of war in Afghanistan. No wonder – it weighs as much as nine elephants and is fitted with a cannon capable of turning a building to rubble from two and a half miles away.

But now the machine finds itself a target in an unusual battle between the Defense Department and lawmakers who are the beneficiaries of large donations by its manufacturer.

The Pentagon, facing smaller budgets and looking towards a new global strategy, has decided it wants to save as much as $3 billion by freezing refurbishment of the M1 from 2014 to 2017, so it can redesign the hulking, clanking vehicle from top to bottom.

Its proposal would idle a large factory in Lima, Ohio, as well as halt work at dozens of subcontractors in Pennsylvania, Michigan and other states.

Opposing the Pentagon’s plans is Abrams manufacturer General Dynamics, a nationwide employer that has pumped millions of dollars into congressional elections over the last decade. The tank’s supporters on Capitol Hill say they are desperate to save jobs in their districts and concerned about undermining America’s military capability.

So far, the contractor is winning the battle, after a well-organized campaign of lobbying and political donations involving the lawmakers on four key committees that will decide the tanks’ fate, according to an analysis of spending and lobbying records by the Center for Public Integrity.

Sharp spikes in the company’s donations – including a two-week period in 2011 when its employees and political action committee sent the lawmakers checks for their campaigns totaling nearly $50,000 – roughly coincided with five legislative milestones for the Abrams, including committee hearings and votes and the defense bill’s final passage last year.

After putting the tank money back in the budget then, both the House and Senate Armed Services Committees have again authorized it this year — $181 million in the House and $91 million in the Senate. If the company and its supporters prevail, the Army will refurbish what Army Chief of Staff Ray Odierno described in a February hearing as “280 tanks that we simply do not need.” 

The Center for Public Integrity

The cash and the tank. Click to enlarge image.

It already has more than 2,300 M1’s deployed with U.S. forces around the world and roughly 3,000 more sitting idle in long rows outdoors at a remote military base in California’s Sierra mountains.

The $3 billion at stake in this fight is not a large sum in Pentagon terms – it’s roughly what the building spends in a little more than a day. But the fight over the Abrams’ future, still unfolding, illuminates the major pressures that drive the current defense spending debate.

These include a Pentagon looking to free itself from legacy projects and modernize some of its combat strategy, a Congress looking to defend pet projects and a well-financed and politically savvy defense industry with deep ties to both, fighting tooth-and-nail to fend off even small reductions in the budget now devoted to the military – a total figure that presently composes about half of all discretionary spending.

Vulnerable to IEDs but impervious to Pentagon budgeteers
The M1 Abrams entered service in 1980, but first saw combat during Operation Desert Storm in 1991. That episode indicated that, on the battlefield at least, the only thing that could destroy an Abrams was another Abrams; only seven of the tanks deployed in the operation were destroyed, all by friendly fire. 

In the last decade, however, as hundreds were deployed to Iraq and later Afghanistan, a key shortcoming became apparent: Their flat bottoms made the Abrams surprisingly vulnerableto improvised explosive devices (IEDs). As a result, the Abrams in Iraq ended up being used as “pillboxes”— high-priced armored bunkers used to protect ground.

“The M1 is an extraordinary vehicle, the best tank on the planet,” Paul D. Eaton, a retired Army major general now with the nonprofit National Security Network, said in an interview. Since the primary purpose of tanks is to kill other tanks, however, their utility in modern counterinsurgency warfare is limited, he added.

Ashley Givens, a spokeswoman for the Army’s Program Executive Office for Ground Combat Systems, said that the Army can refurbish all 2,384 tanks it needs by the end of 2013. Freezing work after that, she said, will allow the Army to “focus its limited resources on the development of the next generation Abrams tank,” rather than building more of the same that “have exceeded their space, weight and power limits."

Warfare has changed, Odierno explained while discussing the Army’s new strategy at the February hearing: “We don’t believe we’ll ever see a straight conventional conflict again in the future.”

But top Army officials have so far been unable to get political traction to kill the M1. Part of the reason is that General Dynamics and its well-connected lobbyists have been carrying a large checkbook and a sheaf of pro-tank talking points around on the Hill.

For example, when House Armed Services Committee member Hank Johnson, D-Ga., held a campaign fundraiser at a wood-panelled Capitol Hill steakhouse called the Caucus Room just before Christmas last year, someone from GD brought along a $1,500 check for his reelection campaign. Several months later, Johnson signed a letter to the Pentagon supporting funding for the tank. Johnson spokesman Andy Phelan said the congressman has consistently supported the M-1 “because he doesn't think shutting down the production line is in the national interest."

The contribution was a tiny portion of the $5.3 million that GD’s political action committee and the company’s employees have invested in the current members of either the House and Senate Armed Services Committees or defense appropriations subcommittees since Jan. 2001, according to data on defense industry campaign contributions the Center for Public Integrity acquired from the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics.

These are the committees that approve the Pentagon’s spending every year; without their support, the tank – or any other costly military program -- would be dead.

Kendell Pease, GD’s vice president for government relations and communications, said in an interview that the company – which produces submarines and radios for the military, as well as tanks -- makes donations to those lawmakers whose views are aligned with the firm’s interests. “We target our PAC money to those folks who support national security and the national defense of our country,” says Pease. “Most of them are on the four (key defense) committees.”

But Pease denies trying to time donations around key votes, saying that the company’s PAC typically gives money whenever members of Congress invite its representatives to fundraisers. “The timing of a donation is keyed by (members’) requests for funding,” he says, adding that personal donations by company employees are not under his control. He said the donations tend to be clumped together because lawmakers often hold fundraisers at the same time.

More cash at key milestones
During the current election cycle, General Dynamics’ political action committee and its employees have sent an average of about $7,000 a week to members of the four committees. But the week President Obama announced his defense budget plan in 2011, the donations spiked to more than $20,000, significantly higher than in any of the previous six weeks. A second spike of more than $20,000 in donations occurred in early March 2011, when Army budget hearings were being held.

At a March 9 hearing of the House subcommittee dealing with land forces, Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas, railed against the Army’s decision to freeze work on the Abrams. Since the start of 2001, Reyes has received $64,650 in GD donations, including $1,000 on March 10, the day after the hearing, according to the data.  Reyes office did not return a request to comment; his overall campaign receipts in the current election cycle have been $1 million.

Another large spike occurred the first two weeks of May 2011, a period in which the House Armed Services Committee voted 60-1 for a budget bill containing money to continue work on the Abrams through 2013. Over this period, GD’s PAC and employees donated a total of $48,100 to members of the four committees, with almost $20,000 of that going directly to members of the House Armed Services Committee as they voted.

During another two week period in September, in which the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense handed in its conference report and Congress rushed to pass a stopgap spending bill to keep the government open, the company sent $36,500 to members of the four committees — primarily the House Armed Services Committee, whose members got $30,500.

The final large spike in donations last year came the week of Dec. 11-17, when Congress made a final vote on the whole budget. During this week, GD’s donations to members of the four committees totaled $17,000.

Along with its checks, the company has been carrying around a message that a cutoff of tank manufacturing work in Lima will harm the nation’s “industrial base,” using what has become a favorite expression of alarm for military contractors facing cutbacks.

The workforce “is not like a light switch. You can’t just click it off, then walk away for three years, come back and click it on,” Pease said. Smaller suppliers who exclusively make parts for the Abrams could be shuttered if the Army’s spending stops, he said. GD has also accused the Army of underestimating the plant’s temporary shutdown costs, claiming that the government’s actual savings would be minimal.

To help bring its corporate viewpoint to lawmakers, General Dynamics has spent at least $84 million over the past 11 years on lobbyists, according to Senate Office of Public Records lobbying data acquired from the Center for Responsive Politics. Just in the last year and a half, the firm —  which draws nearly three-quarters of its revenues from public tax dollars in the form of federal contracts —  has spent at least $13.5 million on more than 130 individual advocates, who pressed Congress to fund a variety of military and non-military programs at the firm.

While lobbyists often do not name their causes, those working for GD that specifically listed the Abrams tank, along with other topics, reported earning at least $550,000 from 2011 to the first quarter of 2012, according to the data. Pease described the lobbying efforts as “education… Shame on us if we don’t go and tell them (Congress) our side, because the Army is doing the same thing as we’re doing, having just as many meetings as we are.”

Relying on special contacts
In addition to tapping its in-house team, the company also hired outside firms to help sway lawmakers’ votes, which in turn assigned the General Dynamics account to former congressional staff tightly connected to committee members — part of the “revolving door” phenomenon now common among veterans of both political parties.

GD paid the Podesta Group nearly $1.7 million since 2009 to lobby on the defense appropriations and authorizations bills, according to lobbying disclosure forms. Among the more than 20 Podesta lobbyists assigned to the account was Josh Holly, communications director for the House Committee on Armed Services under Republican leadership for six years.

According to Holly’s bio on the Podesta website, he worked directly with Republican Buck McKeon of California, its current chairman. McKeon is a major recipient of GD campaign donations, garnering $68,000 from GD’s PAC and employees since the start of 2001 — with $56,000 of that coming just since 2009, when he became the committee’s top Republican. Holly did not respond to emails and phone calls seeking his comment and committee spokesman Claude Chafin said McKeon has consistently argued that it is fiscally smarter to keep the Abrams work going than to stop it.

Podesta also assigned the GD account to two former House Appropriations Committee aides.  One of them, Jim Dyer, confirmed that he lobbied on the tank this year, but directed other questions to General Dynamics. GD also hired firms that assigned its account to six other lobbyists who worked for the relevant committees and to a former Pentagon liaison to Congress. 

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Pease said that when working with outside firms, he lets them pick the specific lobbyists on the account. But when picking the firms, “you always look for those people who can get the job done,” he says, referring to his approach as using a rifle rather than a shotgun. The company hires “a lot of individuals who understand our message, and how to deliver the message, so we can educate the right people, so they can understand our side of the equation.”

The company’s efforts so far have had great success. In April, 111 House Republicans joined with 62 House Democrats in a letter to Secretary Panetta decrying the decision to freeze work on the tanks. Less than a quarter were from Ohio, Michigan and Pennsylvania — the rust belt states with small subcontractors that would be directly impacted by a halt to Abrams work.

Of the 173 signers, 137 received contributions totaling more than $2 million from GD since 2001. Giving to Republicans and Democrats was split in half, with Republicans receiving about 51 percent of contributions, and Democrats 49 percent. More than half of the Armed Services committee and defense appropriations subcommittee members signed, effectively telgraphing the outcome of their deliberations.

The first signature was from Rep. Sander Levin, D-Mich., whose district includes the Detroit suburb of Sterling Heights, the location of the headquarters for General Dynamics Land Systems. Rep. Levin’s brother is Michigan Democrat Sen. Carl Levin, the powerful head of the Senate Armed Services Committee. Sen. Levin has received $46,200 from General Dynamics since 2001; his brother has received $43,000.

In a written statement, Rep. Levin said he wants to protect the Abrams because it is of “vital importance to more than 60 local companies” in Michigan and the difficulty of restarting tank production after a hiatus. Rep. Levin’s spokesman Josh Drobnyk says Levin has not conferred with his brother on the issue but confirms that representatives from GDLS contacted the congressman’s office about the Abrams.

Sen. Levin’s spokeswoman Tara Andringa said that “based on information on the M1 tank program from the Army, from contractors, and from independent analysts,” the senator supported the funds for the Abrams as being in “the best interests of U.S. security and protecting taxpayers’ hard-earned dollars.”

Both this year and last year, the funds were added to the President’s proposed budget without a specific recorded vote, in what independent experts have termed an earmark — money directed by members of Congress to a pet project that often benefits their district. Earmarks were supposed to have been banned after the 2010 election, but lawmakers have decided that when multiple members favor adding funds – rather than just one lawmaker – it is not formally an earmark.

So far, there has been a great silence on the Abrams funding issue from congressional deficit hawks. Rep. Jim Jordan, who represents the Ohio district where the Lima plant is located and has received $31,000 for his campaigns from General Dynamics’ leadership PAC and employees, said he is now optimistic that the Abrams money will make it safely through the Senate.

If it does, the fight still might not be over. The White House, in its May 15 responseto the House budget, objected to the “unrequested authorization” of funds for the Abrams during a “fiscally-constrained environment.”  The administration did not specifically threaten a veto over the issue but said that if too many unrequested projects impeded “the ability of the administration to execute the new defense strategy and to properly direct scarce resources,” senior advisors will recommend the president veto the bill. 

Reporter Zach Toombs and Data Editor David Donald contributed to this report.

The Center for Public Integrity is a nonprofit, independent investigative news outlet.