Military Personnel

Reports of alleged sex crimes by soldiers at the U.S. Army military proving ground in Aberdeen, Md., raise the question - as did Tailhook and the rape on Okinawa - whether persistent incidents of sexual misconduct represent the tip of an iceberg. Do they reflect, as some claim, an underlying defect in military culture? Does the U.S. military have a rape problem? A careful examination of the facts reveals that the answer is both yes and no. Statistical analyses conducted at Duke Law School, based on crime data provided by the FBI and the four military services, show that the rates of violent crime by military personnel in all four services are much lower than the rates of violent crime by civilians, controlling for age and gender.

When the hearings on gays and lesbians in the military start next week, some very high-profile potential witnesses will be missing: the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who favor keeping the ban in place. The only uniformed witness scheduled to testify before the House Armed Services Committee next Tuesday is Navy Petty Officer Keith Meinhold, the California-based sonar instructor recently kicked out of the military because he is gay. A federal judge later ordered the military to reinstate Meinhold.

WASHINGTON - Subsidiaries of Bank of America Corp. and Morgan Stanley will pay more than $22 million to settle allegations that the banks wrongfully foreclosed on almost 200 active-duty military-service members, the Justice Department said yesterday. "The men and women who serve our nation in the armed forces deserve, at the very least, to know that they will not have their homes taken from them wrongfully while they are bravely putting their lives on the line on behalf of their country," said Justice Department Assistant Attorney General Thomas Perez.

If there was an argument for letting lenders and mortgage servicers operate free of consumer-minded oversight, it is blown away by news of illegal foreclosures against 700 active-duty military personnel. In 2009 and 2010, while service men and women were putting their lives on the line for their country, their country was looking the other way as banks and mortgage servicers stole their homes. The outrageous foreclosures went ahead even though these members of the military were current on their mortgage payments, according to a New York Times report.

As the first anniversary of the invasion of Iraq passed, presidential candidates on the campaign trail swapped criticism about veterans' benefits, materiel support such as body armor for the troops in Iraq, higher combat pay, and better health care for reservists and their families. What is your or your family's experience of these issues? Are claims by candidates just electioneering? Are active and retired military personnel getting the support and benefits they need? Send 200 to 500 words by Monday to South Jersey Voices, 53 Haddonfield Rd., Suite 300, Cherry Hill, N.J. 08002.

Uncle Sam wanted them. Now service men and women hope that civilian employers will, too. They may get help from a job-interview system called the Video Interviewing Module, which was put together by Militran Inc., of Wayne, and the Vision 2000 unit of Office Systems Inc., of Norristown. The system got an audition yesterday at a jobs fair at the Cherry Hill Inn. The module allows military personnel to be interviewed on-screen and save job-hunting expense and effort.

WASHINGTON - U.S. military personnel will go to North Korea in March to restart efforts to recover thousands of servicemen missing from the 1950-53 Korean War, the Defense Department said Thursday. The U.S. and North Korean militaries agreed last October to restart recovery operations in what was seen as a sign of easing tensions between the wartime enemies, but they did not announce a date. But a letter from Sen. Richard Lugar (R., Ind.) to Defense Secretary Leon Panetta notes that the agreement sets a March 1 start date.

A Navy SEAL from Toms River who was killed in a helicopter crash in Afghanistan last month has been awarded the Bronze Star posthumously. The Navy says the parents of Special Warfare Operator 3rd Class Denis C. Miranda, 24, received the medal at a ceremony Wednesday at Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek-Fort Story in Virginia. Capt. Tim Szymanski, commodore of Navy Special Warfare Group 2, also presented Bronze Star to the families of three other SEALs killed in the Sept. 21. crash.

Never seen one of the "Dead" films? Can't tell them apart? Here's a quick primer: While all of the "Dead" films have underlying social messages, "Night Of the Living Dead" (1968) is most similar to an old-fashioned monster movie. In the black-and-white tale, people take up refuge from an invasion of flesh-eating zombies in a small farmhouse. Though their situation is dangerous, the characters know if they can summon up enough savagery to "win," they'll be able to go back to the "normal" world.