Rao bulletin 15 April 2016 html edition this bulletin contains the following articles


Burn Pit Toxic Exposure Update 36



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Burn Pit Toxic Exposure Update 36 Vet Denied VA Treatment Dies
A decorated Army veteran who battled the VA over treatment for cancer he claimed to have gotten from working over burn pits in Iraq has died, his family said 4 APR. Former Army Sgt. John Marshall, who went to his grave believing his cancer was caused by standing over burn pits where the military disposed of everything from disabled IEDs to lithium batteries, died at his home in Surprise, Ariz., 29 MAR. He was 31, and left behind a wife and two young children. "John was the type of guy who touched people even if he didn't know them that long," said Marshall's wife and fellow veteran, Ashley. "The amount of people that have come from all over to offer condolences has been amazing and overwhelming. I knew John was a great person, but it shouldn't have amazed me as it did that so many other people thought so, too."
ashely and john marshall met while serving in the army. john died last week, leaving behind his wife and two young children. (fox news) 2544127_1415560105.873_funddescription.j campaign photo

Ashely and John Marshall met while serving in the Army. John died last week, leaving behind his wife

and two young children.
In February, FoxNews.com wrote about Marshall's struggle after being diagnosed with soft tissue sarcoma two years ago. He claimed the VA ruled his illness was not related to his service, and Marshall said he was unable to appeal the ruling with evidence because he was laid up in a hospital bed in January 2015 with pneumonia. "It's all just a big slap in the face," Marshall told FoxNews.com. "I tried to be the perfect soldier. I did everything I was told, and now they just forced my claim through and denied coverage and my benefits."
VA officials told FoxNews.com at the time that they would re-examine his case, but by then, Marshall's cancer had reached the terminal phase, according to his wife. The family raised money for his private medical treatment through a https://www.gofundme.com/veteranmarshall page, where friends and strangers continued to offer support on Monday. "As retired Army, we are saddened that the VA did not come through for you," wrote Bob and Edna Woods in a post that accompanied a donation. "You and your family are in our prayers. God bless!" "The support for my husband is so heartwarming and beyond what I ever thought would happen when this journey started," Ashley Marshall wrote on the site.
Marshall told FoxNews.com he had no doubt that the soft tissue sarcoma he was diagnosed with 14 months ago is a result of his work on Improvised Explosive Device Disposal (IEDD) units. "During my second tour, we were providing security for the EOD [Explosive Ordnance Disposal] guys," he said. "We didn't know what we were blowing up, so it's possible that there we were exposed to something toxic. We stood over open burn pits." An October 2013 report from the United States Government Accountability Office identified open burn pits as the likely cause of long-term health issues for many veterans returning from service in the Middle East. "The U.S. military returning from Iraq and Afghanistan may be suffering chronic, long-term health issues as a result of exposure to toxic fumes from open burn pits," reads the report. "Defense contractors have used burn pits at the majority of U.S. military bases in the Middle East as a method of military waste disposal. All kinds of toxic waste have been incinerated in these open burn pits, including human waste, plastics, hazardous medical waste, lithium batteries, tires, hydraulic fluids and vehicles -- often using jet fuel as an accelerant." [Source: Fox News | Perry Chiaramonte | April 05, 2016 ++]
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Hero Corps Fighters Against Online Child Sexual Exploitation
The Human Exploitation Rescue Operative (HERO) Corps is a partnership between the military, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the National Association to Protect Children. It gives wounded, ill or injured troops a chance to train in high-tech computer forensics and law enforcement skills so they can help federal agents in the fight against online child sexual exploitation, according to information on the ICE website https://www.ice.gov/hero#wcm-survey-target-id.
The men and women receive eight weeks of digital forensics and child exploitation investigation training before they are sent to Homeland Security Investigations field offices across the country for 10-month internships. There, they will train with and assist HSI special agents with criminal investigations, conduct computer forensic exams and help to identify and rescue child victims. “I think we can all agree that there is no crime that is more heinous, that gets our attention more readily, than the sexual abuse and exploitation of children,” said Sarah Saldana, director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Partnering with the military, particularly U.S. Special Operations Command, in the HERO Corps program gives ICE candidates who are mature, dedicated and focused, Saldana said. “The Department of Defense has trained them, and now we get to give them some additional training and then put them out there to try and do this important work,” she said. “This is very demanding and really, really difficult work, and this is a ready pool of people who have a great chance of success.” So far, the HERO Corps has trained 83 veterans, and the goal is to train a total of 40 in fiscal year 2016. At least 22 have been hired as full-time computer forensic analysts.
J. Christian, a former Army Ranger and early HERO Corps graduate who is now the chief operating officer of the National Association to Protect Children, said service members, especially special operations troops, bring a unique dedication to the mission to hunt down child predators. “They’ve proven themselves time and time again to be the best of the best,” Christian said. “They understand where there’s a mission like this to take on, they go after it with all they have. The mentality they bring in has been unmatched.” The work HERO Corps graduates take on is difficult, but it also is “extremely rewarding,” Christian said. “When you’re analyzing a hard drive, that’s a new form of the enemy,” he said. “It really gives you gratification that you’re going into that digital material and possibly rescuing a victim.” The HERO Corps program also helps service members who are transitioning from military service, Christian said. And as a former Ranger, he has helped recruit at least 11 former members of the regiment into the HERO Corps. “When I came into the HERO Corps, I thought, ‘this is where I should be telling my buddies their next mission is at,’” he said. For high-speed special operations troops, a medical retirement or physical limitations from combat wounds can be devastating, he said. The HERO Corps program gives them a new mission and a new career, he said. “I’ve seen guys turn around from depths of depression to once again being the vibrant superstar we knew back in Regiment,” he said. “It’s something that keeps giving back, not only to the children and to the agencies they support, but also to the individuals who do the work.”
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Former Ranger and Army Times soldier of the year Tom Block and his colleagues are sworn in after graduating from HERO Corps training at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Washington, D.C., April 1, 2016. The graduates will go on to internships at a variety of agencies to learn how to combat child sexual exploitation.
Retired Maj. David Matzel, a self-described "nerd gear head" who graduated alongside Block, said he was intrigued by mission of the HERO Corps. “The real impact for me was seeing how vast [child sexual exploitation] was,” he said. “It looks like it never ends. You have to keep in the back of your mind that there’s a kid you’re going to save.” The program does a good job of connecting with veterans, said Matzel, who will do his internship in Blaine, Washington. “This is just like your missions overseas. There is an enemy out there, and you can help get that enemy,” he said. “This new venture we’re going into, I think, is just as important as going after Zarqawi or bin Laden or whoever the target is. We have a direct ability to save kids here.”
Capt. George Riley, who is waiting to be medically retired from the Army, agreed. “Finding a child, even rescuing one child, is worth it,” he said. Riley, another member of the newest graduating class, spent most of his career, including as an enlisted soldier, with the 56th Chemical Reconnaissance Detachment, which is attached to 5th Special Forces Group. He deployed five times to Iraq and once to Afghanistan; he was wounded in an improvised explosive device blast in Mosul, Iraq. The HERO Corps gives him a new mission after the Army, he said. “My physical limitations stop me from doing some things I want, but this opportunity came about,” he said. “I have a daughter. The stuff that goes on, somebody has to step up and do the dirty work.” Riley will complete his internship in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
As for Army, Sgt. Tom Block, who was medically retired in February, he will intern in the Homeland Security Investigations field office in Boston, Massachusetts. The transition from the 75th Ranger Regiment, where Block served in 3rd Battalion, wasn’t easy, he said. “Growing up, I’ve always been a very physical-minded person,” he said. “This was different for me. It wasn’t something I could just punch through or lift out of the way.” But Block said he received good, solid training, and he’s ready for his internship. “When I left the 75th Ranger Regiment, I was looking for that team mentality one more time, and I believe I’ve found that with HSI and the HERO Corps,” he said.
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Tom Block
Block was wounded in Afghanistan by a suicide bomber in October 2013. Among his injuries was the loss of his right eye, which he replaced with a prosthetic eye that bears the Captain America shield. He hopes the eye, which draws a lot of attention, can someday serve as an ice breaker when he helps to rescue a child. “I look at the Captain American shield as a symbol of hope for those that are going through a tough time,” he said. Block said he’s looking forward to diving into his new mission. “Children are our future, and someone’s got to be there to stave away the wolves,” he said. “It’s going to be a hard road, but I’d gladly raise my right hand every time to protect these children. You look at kids differently now. If there’s somebody out there who’s willing to hurt you, I will be willing to find them and bring them to justice.” [Source: ArmyTimes | Michelle Tan | April 10, 2016 ++]
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Vet Jobs Update 185 UberMilitary Drivers
UberMilitary has reached its goal of signing up 50,000 members of the military community to become drivers, the company announced Thursday. The initiative began in September 2014, and half of the 50,000 have taken their first ride so far. To celebrate, the company is donating $1 million to veterans service organizations on behalf of its UberMilitary Advisory Board. Todd Bowers, Marine veteran and UberMilitary director, told Military Times that working for Uber helps veterans and their families transition back into civilian life. He said the military drivers he’s spoken to name flexibility as the biggest selling point: They can earn an income while they continue the job hunt or save money to go back to school. “I compare it to the lance corporal who’s just getting out of the service in February and wants to go back to college,” Bowers said. “He has that awkward six to eight months until classes start. Uber helps him fill that gap and helps with the transition.”
Robert Isaac, a Marine veteran in the San Francisco area, said he started driving for Uber when he decided to change careers. He needed $10,000 for a 10-week tech bootcamp and realized how lucrative Uber was for him. “Uber frees that time and space so I can do what I need to do but still be able to have an income,” said Isaac, who is able to apply to jobs and go on interviews during the day. Meeting different people also helps him with networking, he said, and he can get career tips and find out which companies are veteran-friendly. “If you don’t have your exact reentry plan to go back into being a civilian, Uber is a perfect way to get back in there,” Isaac said. “Not everyone is ready to put on a suit and get back out there.”
Bowers said it provides a good opportunity for military families as well. “I enlisted, but my family got drafted,” he said. “[Military families] find themselves in these places where over the space of a 20-year career, they might move up to eight times.” Kia Hamel, a Navy veteran who’s married to an active-duty sailor, said she was trying to get back into the job market after her husband was transferred to the Washington, D.C., area. “There were not a lot of government jobs because of sequestration, so I started looking at various opportunities that would afford me the flexibility to make my schedule,” said Hamel, who has been with Uber since 2014. Hamel is considering going to law school and said it’s helpful to have the extra income. “It’s a very good fit for veterans who are transitioning into other careers and are still trying to make up their mind on what they want to do,” she said.
635956185353489747-uberkia.png smartphones display uber car availability in new york

Navy veteran Kia Hamel (left) said UberMilitary provided flexible job when it was tough to find one after her husband was transferred to Washington D.C. Smartphones (right) display Uber car availability in New York on Nov. 21, 2014.
UberMilitary’s next goal is to help military drivers earn $500 million by 2020, Bowers said. “This is going to be a tough one to go for, but we’re going to go for it,” he said. “It comes down to the earning opportunity and potential of these individuals that we really want to focus on.” Another focus is improving reliable transportation for military communities and lowering the number of alcohol-related incidents near military installations, Bowers said. “Having served, you’re always just one degree away from someone who’s had an incident,” he said. “We want to create a safe environment.” UberMilitary is also working on allowing drivers to earn more money when they start or end a trip at a military installation. [Source: Military Times | Charlsy Panzino | April 7, 2016 ++]
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Vet Jobs Update 186 OPM Lacks Vet Advocacy Office
The Office of Personnel Management should have a special office dedicated to helping disabled veterans apply for jobs, according to Sen. Heidi Heitkam (D-ND). During a Senate discussion about www.USAJobs.gov, the OPM-managed federal job-search website, Heitkamp suggested that disabled veterans might need extra help navigating the process. “They should have somebody within the system who is their advocate,” to look at applicants’ skill sets and connect them to jobs for which they are qualified, “as opposed to a system that automatically assumes qualification,” she said during the discussion, which was hosted by the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. “Why don’t we create an office within OPM of advocacy for disabled veterans so that those professionals would be looking for opportunities not just to give somebody a job, but to give them a job that they can be . . . enriched in?” Heitkamp said. There have been other efforts in the past year to improve online benefits for veterans. In November, the Veterans Affairs Department unveiled www.Vets.gov , a website eventually aiming to link to more than 1,000 veteran-related services. [Source: Nextgov | Mohana Ravindranath | April 12, 2016 ++]
 sen. heidi heitkamp, d-n.d.

Sen. Heidi Heitkamp
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Veterans in Government Update 01 ► Most Lack Military Background
Veterans, this is your call to serve. Of the five candidates for President of the United States, Commander-in-Chief of all the armed forces of our country, not one of them is a veteran. None has served on active duty in any of our uniformed services. The fact is that less than 20 percent of Congress is veterans. In 1976 we saw more than 75 percent of Congress having previously served in uniform. Veterans, the phone is ringing loudly; it's your call to continue to serve our community and/or the country by serving in Congress and in State Legislatures across this country.
We all are aware of the increasing threats made by the rogue governments of North Korea, Iran, Russia and China. Russia continues to threaten the U.S. Threats are coming from ISIS and it's becoming more commonplace having to deal with their continuing barbaric assaults on civilized cultures. President Obama has made it his agenda to negotiate with these countries through diplomatic channels, while at the same time, according to many generals, reducing our military strength and power to the lowest it's been since the advent of World War II. Our country also has plenty of challenges regarding the medical care of our veterans. Not only do we have ongoing, enormous problems with the services provided by Veterans Affairs (VA), our active duty components also have their problems with health care.
Wouldn't it make sense to place the welfare of our country in the hands of congressional and state representatives who had served on active duty in the armed forces? Our country's strategic focus should be on being able to negotiate with rogue countries from a position of strength, not weakness. We need to be building and modernizing our armed forces, not reducing them to the point that some leaders question whether the nation's fighting forces can actually meet their mission if we had to go to war. The need is becoming more and more imminent as ISIS and other terrorist groups continue to get bigger and stronger. Today we need militarily-experienced representatives to advocate for military forces adequate for the defense of our nation. Who would be better to represent the voluminous needs of our current active military, and our veterans, before Congress? There is no substitute for the experience of having served when trying to understand the challenges, issues and experiences that military personnel go through from deployments through their post-service years.
With regard to legislative needs, we need our representatives to prevent the erosion of earned military benefits of our retired population, and those who will become retired, in the future. Currently, there are too many proposed cuts to military benefits. This is balancing the books on the backs of our military. We need representatives that not only understand the issues, but those who can stand up and protect the benefits our veterans have earned and paid for by many sacrifices. The erosion of benefits are evidenced by reductions in retired pay, cost-of-living allowance (COLA) calculations, increases in fees to TRICARE beneficiaries, and multiple attempts to rework the military retirement system.
Folks, all of these issues affect our nation's ability to fight wars when they occur. Today, we are blessed with good recruiting ability. Servicemen and women today are the best they've ever been. But we need to keep our fighting force. Retention of our experienced personnel is essential to building and maintaining our national defenses. Sequestration has adversely impacted all military services. Having representatives in Congress and in state Legislatures who have served in uniform will help to provide alternative solutions to the country's fiscal problems that do not include balancing the budgets on the backs of those in uniform. Public service will be better with the presence of experienced servicemen and women. They possess excellent leadership skills and they have a perspective of military service that many, Americans don't. They also have a level of credibility by asking the tough questions that need to be asked. The other representatives, who haven't served in uniform, need to be constructively challenged by those who have served in uniform.
The battle to maintain and improve the lives of America's national security depends on an all-volunteer force. Veterans service in Congress, and in State Legislatures, is key to preventing the erosion of benefits which negatively impacts recruiting the fighting force; it also diminishes our capability to keep (retain) some of America's finest in uniform. The next generation of military leaders faces a set of challenges that are as daunting as those faced by this generation. With more representation, and challenging debates in Congress and in State Legislatures, our solutions become better and stronger. This sets the stage for a promising and secure future. [Source: Times Record News | March 27, 2016 ++]
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Korean War Vets Richard E. Cavazos
As one version of the story goes, a crippling performance evaluation was pushing then-Brig. Gen. Colin L. Powell’s military career toward a dead end when two higher-ranking commanders learned of it. The two generals were horrified to hear Powell tell them over dinner in 1982 that he planned to leave the Army. One of them was a legendary Texas war hero, Gen. Richard E. Cavazos, who decided to intervene. It came as no surprise to those who knew Cavazos that he went out of his way to keep Powell in the Army. The first and only Hispanic four-star general, he is now 85, living his last days, his once-encyclopedic mind ravaged by dementia. It’s painful for those he led and mentored. Some weep when talking of it. In recent interviews, they described Cavazos as loyal and fearless, a master tactician, an innovator, a charismatic soldier’s soldier. He served as a role model for every Hispanic general who came up through the ranks, retired Army Maj. Gen. Alfredo Valenzuela said.
https://sp.yimg.com/xj/th?id=hr.222781917322&pid=15.1&p=0&w=300&h=300 http://www.stripes.com/polopoly_fs/1.402466.1459609456!/image/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/landscape_804/image.jpg

Caroline Cavazos kisses her husband and waits for retired Army Gen. Richard Cavazos to fall asleep at the Army Residence Community in San Antonio on Feb. 2, 2016, before returning for the night to her home.
In his autobiography, Powell — who became the first African-American chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and, later, U.S. secretary of state — called Cavazos an Army legend who saved his career. The other commander at the dinner table that night, now-retired Lt. Gen. Julius Becton Jr., recalled that Powell had a personality conflict with his supervisor and had suffered for it. “And what got my attention, and it got Dick’s attention, too, was when Colin said he was probably going to put in his papers,” said Becton, of Fort Belvoir, Virginia, now 89. Powell confirmed the account through a spokesman.
While he still has a firm handshake, Cavazos doesn’t talk much. He sat in his wheelchair in a San Antonio nursing home recently and stared gently at his wife, Caroline, as they held hands. Asked about his father, a World War I veteran who worked on the legendary King Ranch, he replied, “I’m really taken by the building. It appeared out of nowhere.” There are better days. At 83, Caroline Cavazos is his constant companion, living a short walk away at the Army Residence Community in Northeast San Antonio. Each night she helps put him to bed. He’s often anxious, so she climbs into bed and hugs him. In time, he falls asleep “'He just wants to know that I'm here,” she explained. “We don't talk much. I hug him. It's amazing. I'm still in love with him.”
How Cavazos became an Hispanic icon was rooted in his childhood on the King Ranch and forged in Korea, where his fluency in Spanish helped him lead a once-shamed Puerto Rican Army National Guard regiment to combat distinction and where he risked his life to recover men left behind. “He’s one of these kind of guys in the military, we used to say, ‘He looked good from the top’ — the commanders, his commanders, thought the world of him — and he looked good from the bottom, because every troop thought the world of him,” said Charles Carden, one of his company commanders in Vietnam. “He was such a good soldier,” added retired Gen. Gordon Sullivan, a former Army chief of staff. “He was born that way. He liked men, he liked combat soldiers. He was courageous and they knew it, and they knew he couldn’t ask them to do anything that he wouldn’t do with them.”
Richard Edward Cavazos had a theory of leadership that he attributed to the great commanders of history. He called it “moral ascendancy” and said those who possessed it had an edge, an aura of superiority. Cavazos had it — and it made him the best Army general in a century, said retired Lt. Gen. Marc Cisneros, who was one of Cavazos’ battalion commanders in the 2nd Armored Division at Fort Hood. “He would talk about General Lee, and that one of the reasons General Lee was superior is because he had moral ascendancy over his Union generals,” said Cisneros, 76, of Corpus Christi. “If the troops had trust and that faith in you, that you were going to lead them well to victory, that’s moral ascendancy.”
Cavazos was the son of a Mexican-American cowhand. His father, Lauro Cavazos, came to Kingsville in 1912, fought as an Army artillery sergeant in World War I and became a foreman of the King Ranch’s Santa Gertrudus division in an era of intense racism. Being handy with a rope, horses and guns came with the job. Tom Lea’s history of the ranch describes Lauro Cavazos as among the 16 “Kineños” and guests, including eight Army soldiers, who repulsed an hours-long attack by 58 cross-border raiders at a house in Norias in 1915 during an era of guerilla violence spun off from the Mexican Revolution. Determined to give their children a life beyond the ranch, Lauro and Thomasa Quintanilla Cavazos put all five of them through college. Lauro Cavazos Jr., became the U.S. education secretary under the first President Bush. Dick Cavazos, their second son, got a degree in geology from Texas Tech University, playing football until breaking a leg his senior year. Studying alongside World War II veterans made an impression.
“He said if you weren’t a serious student after you got a look at them, you were when you did,” the Vietnam journalist and author Joe Galloway said. “Those guys had lost five years of their lives and they were in such a hurry to get it back and get on with their lives that they were total, zero-BS students. And you didn’t want to be sitting in a classroom with them if you were anything less than they were.” Cavazos served in ROTC before entering the Army. Eventually he would lead a brigade, a division, an Army corps and finally command all soldiers in the continental United States before retiring in 1984.
But first, he led a company in Korea and a battalion in Vietnam, where he learned that mistakes were as instructive as success. In Korea, he dressed down a sergeant who shot an enemy soldier who could have been captured. Cavazos then decided to lead the next patrol, and his adrenaline took over when he encountered a North Korean soldier who was carrying pots and pans — a cook, Cisneros said. “And he said, ‘Guess what I did? I put that mother on full automatic and that was the end of it.’” Cisneros said. “Before you chew somebody out, you have to understand that you could probably be in that same situation.”
Cavazos’s first combat came with the Puerto Rican regiment months after its troops fled their observation post, resulting in the court-martial of more than 90 soldiers. He was awarded a Silver Star, the nation’s third-highest decoration for battlefield gallantry, for leading a small group of men to capture an enemy soldier under fire in February, 1953. That summer he earned a Distinguished Service Cross for withdrawing his company from Hill 412 amid heavy shelling and rifle fire and going back to look for missing American troops. He found five and “evacuated them, one at a time, to a point on the reverse slope of the hill from which they could be removed,” states the citation for the medal, the second-highest award for valor. “Lieutenant Cavazos then made two more trips … searching for casualties and evacuating scattered groups of men who had become confused,” it continued. “Not until he was assured that the hill was cleared did he allow treatment of his own wounds.”
As a 38-year-old colonel in Vietnam, he earned another DSC in 1967 for organizing a counterattack against a battalion-sized enemy force that hit one of his companies near Loc Ninh. “When the fighting reached such close quarters that supporting fire could no longer be used, he completely disregarded his own safety and personally led a determined assault on the enemy positions,” the DSC citation said. “The Viet Cong were overrun and fled their trenches.” Carden, 77, of Biloxi, Mississippi, was then a captain. He observed his boss calmly sitting by a tree and waiting for a round of artillery fire, “absolutely fearless.” “They brought in napalm,” said Ronnie Campsey, a private first class from Devine who is now 73, of Long Island, New York. “You could feel the heat from the napalm just taking the breath out of you, that’s how close we were to it. You could see the enemy moving up the hill to get away from the artillery and the air support.” Cavazos “directed artillery fire on the hilltop, and the insurgents were destroyed as they ran,” the citation states. Bill Fee, a private first class in Campsey’s company who was badly wounded two days later, said most battalion commanders coordinated ground attacks and search-and-destroy missions by radio from defensive perimeters or from helicopters. “Cavazos would have none of that. He was on the ground,” said Fee, 68, of Cincinnati. “He fought with us side by side and he earned our respect.”
Cavazos’ determination to share what he had learned helped shape today’s Army. He was an early supporter of the National Training Center at Fort Irwin, California, a vast desert range used to prepare troops for duty in Iraq and Afghanistan. He was influential in developing the Army’s Battle Command Training Program for higher-ranking officers. Cavazos would never betray a friend, even if it could hurt his chances of promotion, Becton recalled. And well into his retirement, he was still teaching officers how to fight. Sullivan, the retired Army chief of staff, said Cavazos had “a real knack for being able to mentor people, very senior people, that was very open, very candid, and guys responded” because of his experience and credibility.
general richard e. cavazos


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