US Marines Research Articles

Characterization Of Energy Expenditure, Body Composition, And Androgen Status During Summer And Winter Marine Mountain Warfare Training

BACKGROUND: Military operations occurring in austere environments result in declines of androgen status and physical performance, which has been associated with the severity of negative energy balance. However, whether negative consequences of military operations differ between environmental conditions has not been well described. PURPOSE: To characterize energy expenditure, body composition, and androgen status during Marine mountain warfare summer and winter training. METHODS: Sixty seven healthy US Marines taking part in summer (18 ± 3°C, n = 46) or winter (2 ± 4°C, n = 21) training at Marine Corps Mountain Warfare Training Center participated in this longitudinal observation study. Doubly labeled-water was used to determine energy expenditure throughout summer and winter training. Body composition (InBody 770) and blood draws were performed before and after 15 days of mountain warfare training. Data presented as mean ± SD. RESULTS: Energy expenditure was 3782 ± 688 kcal/d during summer and 4596 ± 688 kcal/d during winter Marine mountain warfare training. Summer training resulted in a decline (P < 0.01) in body mass (-2.7 ± 1.5 kg), fat mass (-1.1 ± 1.0 kg), lean mass (-1.6 ± 1.3 kg), total body water (-1.2 ± 1.0 kg), and dry lean mass (-0.5 ± 0.4 kg). Winter training resulted in a decline (P < 0.01) in body mass (-2.2 ± 1.1 kg), lean mass (-1.7 ± 1.1 kg), total body water (-1.3 ± 0.8 kg), and dry lean mass (-0.4 ± 0.3 kg). There was no difference in fat mass (-0.5 ± 1.2 kg) following winter training. Following summer training a decline (P < 0.01) in IGF-1 (-28 ± 27 ng/mL), but not testosterone (36 ± 124 ng/dL) was observed, while in both IGF-1 (-51 ± 38 ng/mL) and testosterone (-111 ± 135 ng/dL) declined (P < 0.01) following winter training. CONCLUSION: Findings from this investigation indicate that both summer and winter mountain warfare training result in declines in body mass and dry lean mass, while only winter training results in a decline in both circulating IGF-1 and testosterone. This material is based on the work supported by DHP JPC-5/MOMRP; authors’ views not official U.S. Army or DoD policy.

Lost in translation: anthropologists and Marines in Iraq and Afghanistan

ABSTRACTDrawing upon ethnographic data gathered over a six year period, this paper illustrates how the contrasting worldviews of US Marines and anthropologists frequently led to misunderstandings, frustrations, and garbled interpretations as the two struggled to work together to help resolve conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. I examine three key military domains where cultural experts and Marines attempted to work together to understand the cultural factors at play in both Iraq and Afghanistan: first as interpreters or experts in pre-deployment language and culture training programs; secondly in theater on the Human Terrain Teams; and third as cultural SMEs (experts) in military planning rooms. As the case studies and interviews illustrate, while both sides thought they were working together to understand the foreign cultures where they were operating, the real cross-cultural misunderstanding was ironically between the cultural experts and Marines.

Leptospirosis Seroconversion Surveillance Among US Marines Assigned to Japan, 2011-2015.

Leptospirosis is a global zoonotic disease spread through contact with contaminated water/soil. The US soldiers at the military bases in these countries are extremely vulnerable, as most of them are immunologically naïve to the responsible pathogen. No recent sero-epidemiological data of leptospirosis among US Marines stationed in Japan were available. In this study, we analyzed the presence of leptospirosis in US Marines stationed in Japan. One thousand posttour sera samples were analyzed by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay for Leptospira-specific Immunoglobulin G. Among these 1,000 posttour samples, 85 of them were positive and corresponding pretour samples were analyzed by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay also. Seroconversion occurred for 35 (3.5%) Marines during their assignment to Japan. These results also indicate that 50 Marine personnels were exposed to leptospires before their assignment to Japan, perhaps because of previous exposure to leptospires at home. The 5% rate of seroconversion in 2013 and 2014 suggests that leptospirosis is a potential threat for Marines in the endemic region in Japan.

The US policy of “Rebalance” and China’s counter-tactics

In 2011, National Bureau of Asian Research at the US Department of State was “absolutely panicked” that Beijing would understand that American military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan were drawing down so sought to describe this more positively, and initially they put forward the term “the turn to Asia”. In the article “America’s Pacific Century”, which appeared in the November 2011 issue of Foreign Policy, Hillary Clinton used the concept of “Pivot” instead of “Turn”, its content included the statements and deployments towards Asia - Pacific, becoming one of the highlights of the Barack Obama government’s security and foreign policy. This policy achieved initial successful deployments, especially when President Obama announced an agreement for 2,500 US Marines based in Darwin (Australia), and he became the first America President attending the East Asia Summit (in Bali), the “Pivot” became seemingly unknown after those successes. If the US can turn to Asia, it can turn away in the future. Washington needs something long-term and “Pivot” has become “Rebalance” within six months.

Testosterone Status Following Short-term, Severe Negative Energy Balance Predicts Fat-free Mass Loss in U.S. Marines

Male US military personnel exposed to periods of severe negative energy balance often experience marked reductions in circulating total testosterone, and it is not uncommon for concentrations to fall below normal levels (<300 ng/dL). However, testosterone fluctuations following severe negative energy balance are variable, and little is known about the metabolic and physiological differences between males who experience low testosterone (LT) and those who maintain normal testosterone (NT). PURPOSE: To determine metabolic and physiological differences between males with LT versus those with NT following 8 d of strenuous military training. METHODS: Male US Marines (n = 68) were dichotomized based on testosterone concentration (< or ≥ 300 ng/dL) following 8 d of severe negative energy balance incurred during military training. Body composition (DEXA) and whole-body protein turnover (15N alanine) were measured and blood and urine samples collected before (PRE) and after (POST) training. Linear mixed models were used to assess the effects of testosterone status, time, and their interaction on outcomes. RESULTS: Testosterone concentrations decreased PRE (505 ± 135 ng/dL) to POST (284 ± 115 ng/dL, P < 0.01). When volunteers were dichotomized by POST testosterone status (NT, n = 24: 407 ± 97 vs. LT, n = 44: 217 ± 52 ng/dL, P < 0.01), PRE BMI, total fat mass, and testosterone were greater in NT compared to LT (P < 0.05). LT lost more fat-free mass (FFM, -3.4 ± 1.3 kg) and less fat mass (-2.4 ± 1.2 kg) compared to NT (-2.4 ± 2.0 and -3.2 ± 1.6 kg, respectively; P-interaction < 0.03). Insulin (+5.55 ± 9.35 μU/mL) and norepinephrine (+0.23 ± 0.29 ng/mL) increased from PRE to POST in LT, whereas no changes occurred in NT (+1.03 ± 3.75 μU/mL and +0.04 ± 0.30 ng/mL, respectively), resulting in significant differences between groups (P-interaction < 0.02). Independent of time, LT had greater whole-body protein synthesis, breakdown, and flux (P-status < 0.01), but not net balance (P-status = 0.2), compared to NT. CONCLUSION: Military personnel susceptible to operational stress-induced LT may be predisposed to greater FFM loss during periods of negative energy balance incurred during short-term, strenuous military training. Supported by US Army Medical Research and Materiel Command; authors’ views not official US Army or DoD policy.

The American way of war in Africa: the case of Niger

ABSTRACT Increasing attention paid to US casualties in far-flung places such as Tongo Tongo, Niger, and headlines claiming ‘secret wars’ have fueled discussion about American military’s involvement in Africa. Though the continent has been a part of the American way of war since the beginnings of the US – consider the early combat actions of US Marines in Tripoli –, current African conflicts are challenging our understanding of war and approaches to winning it. This article examines the ways America seeks to achieve its ends in Africa with a particular focus upon the last 10 years of US counter-terrorism and stability operations in Niger and the Sahel Region. The author proposes unifying American, Allied, and partner efforts through a strategy of Active Containment.

Domestic Workers and Foreign Occupation: Haitian Servants, US Marines, and Conflicts over Labor and Empire in Haiti, 1915–1934

AbstractDuring the US military occupation of Haiti, domestic workers performed the crucial labor that allowed Marine households, the city of Port-au-Prince, and the entire country to function. In this sense, they represented a human infrastructure for the entire occupation. Their experiences show that the debates over labor, race, and sovereignty that defined the high politics of the occupation actually reached into private spaces where face-to-face interactions between occupier and occupied occurred. Domestic work, like other types of labor in the occupation, ran the gamut from highly coerced forms of unpaid child labor and convict work to various configurations of wage labor. Domestic sites influenced mutual processes of race-making, including the US exoticist obsession with Haitian Vodou. Servants’ conflicts with their Marine employers included—but ultimately went beyond—daily struggles over labor. Their proximity to marines influenced domestics’ participation in acts of anti-imperial activism, such as the Caco rebellion, and explains why servants were invoked by radical journalists and cultural nationalist writers who opposed US rule. Domestics’ activities also highlight under-explored areas of Haitian activism, such as their use of formal state institutions to seek redress and their participation in emerging forms of urban protest that included other members of the urban working class. Although novel and relatively small during the occupation, such urban protests have become a staple of Haitian politics in the present day.

“Defiant”, a Today Unique Helicopter in the World

You do not see helicopters like this every day. Sikorsky-Boeing SB1 in his first demonstration flight showed that it is much more than just a fancy design on paper as he could initially think, with a first relevant flight demonstration. The initial flight lasted less than 30 min, enough time for to prove he can climb and descend easily, move back and forth and turn left and right with extraordinary ease and maneuverability. Companies have described this action as a low-speed flight maneuver and a short film has revealed that the helicopter can also operate in the area of about 10 to 20 m of land successfully. His first start in the inaugural flight test was held at a Sikorsky airport in West Palm Beach, Florida. SB1 has an unusual design that instantly conquers you. If most helicopters have one main rotor for vertical lifting, Defiant has a pair of coaxial rotors, one rotating clockwise and the other rotating trigonometrically (counterclockwise) to achieve a balancing the dynamics of the couple - that is, to prevent it from overturning one side or another. This means that the aircraft no longer needs the standard rotor at the helicopter tail. Instead, it has a new, distinctive, rear-wheel drive, which has the role of getting Defiant's zoom along the high-speed horizontal flight. Defiant is designed to fly at almost twice the speed of classic helicopters while maintaining the best low speed and hover performance of conventional helicopters. Coaxial design can also be found in some Russian military helicopters but without a propeller. Sikorsky used the project earlier (with the propeller) in the experimental X2 helicopter and the next S-97 Raider. The Project is considered by the United States Army for the Future Lift Vertical program, which intends to find a replacement for many of the US military helicopters used today (Finally, as in the early 2030s, where Defiant's rival in that area is the Bell V-280 Valor, which is not a helicopter, but rather a V-22 Osprey-like tiller-like aircraft used by US marines. The V-280 has been able to improve flight quality since its first flight in December 2017). The Sikorsky-Boeing team will then analyze the flight data recorder and film on this first demonstration flight with the aim of establishing a plan for several Defiant test flights in the coming weeks and months to confirm other important features of the new helicopter, before making a complete presentation, for massive future production orders. Sikorsky and Boeing have long been working on this high-speed military helicopter project and have released the first images of what is expected to become a very efficient utility helicopter of the United States Army sometime in 2030. SB1 is a technology demonstrator with Future Lift technology, built around the Sikorsky X2 platform, using two counter-rotating blades at the top of the plane to eliminate the problem of a 150 km/h traction rotor (~ 240 km/h).

The shipboard Beirut terrorist bombing experience: a historical account and recommendations for preparedness in events of mass neurological injuries.

On a Sunday morning at 06:22 on October 23, 1983, in Beirut, Lebanon, a semitrailer filled with TNT sped through the guarded barrier into the ground floor of the Civilian Aviation Authority and exploded, killing and wounding US Marines from the 1st Battalion 8th Regiment (2nd Division), as well as the battalion surgeon and deployed corpsmen. The truck bomb explosion, estimated to be the equivalent of 21,000 lbs of TNT, and regarded as the largest nonnuclear explosion since World War II, caused what was then the most lethal single-day death toll for the US Marine Corps since the Battle of Iwo Jima in World War II. Considerable neurological injury resulted from the bombing. Of the 112 survivors, 37 had head injuries, 2 had spinal cord injuries, and 9 had peripheral nerve injuries. Concussion, scalp laceration, and skull fracture were the most common cranial injuries.Within minutes of the explosion, the Commander Task Force 61/62 Mass Casualty Plan was implemented by personnel aboard the USS Iwo Jima. The wounded were triaged according to standard protocol at the time. Senator Humphreys, chairman of the Preparedness Committee and a corpsman in the Korean War, commented that he had never seen such a well-executed evolution. This was the result of meticulous preparation that included training not only of the medical personnel but also of volunteers from the ship's company, frequent drilling with other shipboard units, coordination of resources throughout the ship, the presence of a meticulous senior enlisted man who carefully registered each of the wounded, the presence of trained security forces, and a drilled and functioning communication system.Viewed through the lens of a neurosurgeon, the 1983 bombings and mass casualty event impart important lessons in preparedness. Medical personnel should be trained specifically to handle the kinds of injuries anticipated and should rehearse the mass casualty event on a regular basis using mock-up patients. Neurosurgery staff should participate in training and planning for events alongside other clinicians. Training of nurses, corpsmen, and also nonmedical personnel is essential. In a large-scale evolution, nonmedical personnel may monitor vital signs, work as scribes or stretcher bearers, and run messages. It is incumbent upon medical providers and neurosurgeons in particular to be aware of the potential for mass casualty events and to make necessary preparations.

Mission overwatch: Emphasising a Joint One MEDLOG Concept

Within the US military, when a soldier is injured on the battlefield, they may observe a US Army Medic submitting a nine-line medical evacuation (MEDEVAC) request which is executed by an Air Force para-jumper rescue team that evacuates them to a US Navy medical facility, where they are treated by a US Navy Corpsmen detailed to the US Marines. The injured soldier ultimately receives their care, thanks to a complex evacuation management system, that, if executed correctly, returns the soldier to duty with limited disruption to themselves, family and branch of service. This scenario is not uncommon, yet includes multiple layers of bureaucracy that goes unnoticed and is underpinned by an equally complex logistics system. Medical supplies and equipment used to treat soldiers originate from a number of locations and sources of supply. Historically, each branch of service has its own distinct medical logistics agency through whom all such requirements are identified, communicated and purchased. This paper is concerned with examining the importance of a Joint One MEDLOG Concept.

Trends in mental health outcomes and combat exposure among US marines returning from Iraq, Afghanistan or other deployments, 2004-13.

As of 2015, more than 2.7 million US military Veterans have served in support of the Global War on Terror. The negative sequelae associated with deployment stressors and related traumas are well-documented. Although data on mental health issues are routinely collected from service members returning from deployment, these data have not been made publicly available, leaving researchers and clinicians to rely on convenience samples, outdated studies and small sample sizes. Population-based data of US Marines returning from deployment between 2004 and 2013 were analyzed, using the Post-Deployment Health Assessment. Rates of Marines returning from Iraq who screened positive for depression ranged from 19.31 to 30.02%; suicidal ideation ranged from 0 to 1.44%. Marines screening positive for PTSD ranged from 3.00 to 12.41%; combat exposure ranged from 15.58 to 55.12%. Depression was indicated for between 12.54 and 30.04% of Marines returning from Afghanistan, while suicidal ideation ranged from 0 to 5.33%. PTSD percentages ranged from 6.64 to 18.18%; combat exposure ranged between 42.92 and 75%. Our results support the heterogeneity of experiences and mental health sequelae of service members returning from deployments. Outcomes for Afghanistan and Iraq Veterans fluctuate with changes in OPTEMPO across theaters over time.

A Blueprint for Successful Peacekeeping? The Italians in Beirut (Lebanon), 1982–1984

ABSTRACTOn 6 June 1982, Israel invaded Lebanon to fight the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO). Between August 1982 and February 1984, the US, France, Britain and Italy deployed a Multinational Force (MNF) to Beirut. Its task was to act as an interposition force to bolster the government and to bring peace to the people. The mission is often forgotten or merely remembered in context with the bombing of US Marines’ barracks. However, an analysis of the Italian contingent shows that the MNF was not doomed to fail and could accomplish its task when operational and diplomatic efforts were coordinated. The Italian commander in Beirut, General Franco Angioni, followed a successful approach that sustained neutrality, respectful behaviour and minimal force, which resulted in a qualified success of the Italian efforts.

No-Man's-Land: The Battlefield Watercolors of Claggett Wilson

No-Man's-LandThe Battlefield Watercolors of Claggett Wilson Kristine Somerville Click for larger view View full resolution Symphony of Terror, Claggett Wilson, ca. 1919, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Alice H. Rossin [End Page 97] Like many aspiring artists, Claggett Wilson, born in Washington, DC, in 1887, rejected a conventional gentleman's education at Princeton to briefly study at the Art Students League of New York before sailing to Paris. He enrolled at the progressive Académie Julian, and from 1906 to 1910 showed his work at the Paris Salon, the art exhibition of the Académie des Beaux-Arts. When he returned to the United States in 1913, Modernism had fully arrived. The International Exhibition of Modern Art, known simply as the Armory Show, featured 1,250 paintings, sculptures, and decorative works by over three hundred avant-garde European and American artists. Historically it became a Who's Who of Modern art: Pablo Picasso, Edward Hopper, Wassily Kandinsky, and Paul Cézanne, to name a few. Claggett Wilson's oil painting Moorish Girl, now lost, was exhibited among the works of these now better-known artists. Modernist artists sought to create symbols representing the dehumanizing effect of industrialization and the impact of cities on contemporary life. As a means of signifying their doubts about time-honored values and institutions, they rejected the traditional use of perspective, color, and composition. Critics reviled the new work as an "insane" affront to artistic sensibilities. Marcel Duchamp's Nude Descending a Staircase, with its overlapping images meant to express motion, was singled out for derision; a critic in the New York Times famously referred to it as "an explosion in a shingle factory." As an instructor at Columbia University Teachers College, Wilson was certainly interested in helping his students search for a unique, surprising kind of beauty as encouraged by the new art of the day. In 1917, when the United States entered the First World War, mobilizing more than 300,000 soldiers, thirty-one-year-old Wilson put aside his paintbrushes and left his teaching job to enlist as a combat marine. He believed that to be a fully realized artist, he needed to experience the world in all its complexity, including truly bad things. His desires, though honorable, were naive. After training as a second lieutenant, he found himself on the frontlines in France, where he experienced two of the bloodiest battles of the war: the Battle of Château-Thierry and the Battle of Belleau Wood. In the month-long Battle of Belleau Wood in June 1918, US marines struggled to block one of the German approaches to Paris, but they did so artlessly, advancing shoulder to shoulder, which had rarely been done since the slaughter of the British at the Somme in 1916. Wilson was wounded by poison gas and was left for three days lying in the muddy [End Page 98] no-man's-land between the American and German trenches before being recovered for medical treatment. Click for larger view View full resolution Front Line Stuff, Claggett Wilson, ca. 1919, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Alice H. Rossin World War I was called the "chemists' war" for its large-scale use of poison gas. The gases soaked into woolen uniforms, causing skin burns and blisters, and hung in noxious clouds over the trenches, resulting in near blindness, vomiting, and long-term respiratory problems; Wilson experienced respiratory difficulties for the rest of his life. After recovering at a hospital in Dijon, he returned to the front to witness Germany's surrender. Following the armistice, Belgian, British, French, and American forces stayed behind to maintain control of the occupied territories. While many of his buddies went home, Wilson was sent to the small town of Koblenz, Germany, for the Army of Occupation [End Page 99] of the Rhineland. To deal with the haunting memories of life in the trenches, a place filled with the stench of urine, rotting flesh and excrement, rats the size of cats, and men suffering from poison gas and shell shock, Wilson knew he needed to paint; it was the only thing that would bring him solace. He acquired a set...

A Study on the Leptospirosis Outbreak Among US Marine Trainees in Okinawa, Japan.

The US Marines operate the Jungle Warfare Training Center (JWTC) in Northern Okinawa, where leptospirosis is endemic. The JWTC endurance course involves prolonged fresh and stagnant water exposures in a simulated jungle warfare environment. Since a leptospirosis outbreak in 1987, JWTC has required prophylactic use of doxycycline at 200 mg weekly during exposure to the endurance course. This policy is based on a 1982 study in a similar environment in Panama. In August and September of 2014, an outbreak of leptospirosis occurred among 81 Marines training at JWTC. We analyzed data from the largest reported outbreak of leptospirosis among US military members. Two hundred and thirty nine US Marines who completed the endurance course were interviewed by trained personnel regarding their exposures and use of prophylactic medication utilizing a standardized questionnaire. All available personnel who went through the course during the outbreak period were interviewed regardless of whether or not they became ill. The Armed Forces Health Surveillance Branch's case definition was used to identify cases. Eighty-one cases in 239 personnel were identified (attack rate = 33.9%). Exposures linked to being a case were swallowing water in the stagnant pond (attack rate ratio [ARR] = 2.3, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.4-3.7), cuts on the body (ARR = 1.5, 95% CI = 1.01-2.11), and insect bites (ARR = 2.0, 95% CI = 1.2-3.4). Exposures not linked to being a case were taking doxycycline before the exposure (ARR = 3.2, 95% CI = 0.5-22.2), taking doxycycline after the exposure (ARR = 0.9, 95% CI = 0.6-1.3), and swallowing water in the natural stream (ARR = 1.3, 95% CI = 0.9-1.9). Attack rate data indicate that whether or not personnel took pre- or post-exposure doxycycline made no difference statistically. Increased internal exposure (via swallowing water or through broken skin) increased risk of symptomatic disease. This new study combined with a growing body of literature should prompt researchers to re-examine recommendations for those with significant water exposure in areas with high leptospirosis levels.

Which Jihadists Group Ambushed US Marines in Tongo - Tongo Niger

Which Jihadists Group Ambushed US Marines in Tongo - Tongo Niger

Differences between US Army and Marines in self-reported combat-relevant physically demanding tasks

Differences between US Army and Marines in self-reported combat-relevant physically demanding tasks

Effect of concussion and blast exposure on symptoms after military deployment

To examine whether blast exposure alone and blast-associated concussion result in similar neurologic and mental health symptoms. A 14-item questionnaire was administered to male US Marines on their return from deployment in Iraq and/or Afghanistan. A total of 2,612 Marines (median age 22 years) completed the survey. Of those, 2,320 (88.9%) reported exposure to ≥1 blast during their current and/or prior deployments. In addition, 1,022 (39.1%) reported ≥1 concussion during the current deployment, and 731 (28.0%) had experienced at least 1 prior lifetime concussion. Marines were more likely to have sustained a concussion during the current deployment if they had a history of 1 (odds ratio [OR] 1.5, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.2-2.0) or ≥1 (OR 2.3, 95% CI 1.7-3.0) prior concussion. The most common symptoms were trouble sleeping (38.4%), irritability (37.9%), tinnitus (33.8%), and headaches (33.3%). Compared to those experiencing blast exposure without injury, Marines either experiencing a concussion during the current deployment or being moved or injured by a blast had an increased risk of postinjury symptoms. There appears to be a continuum of increasing total symptoms from no exposure to blast exposure plus both current deployment concussion and past concussion. Concussion had a greater influence than blast exposure alone on the presence of postdeployment symptoms. A high blast injury score can be used to triage those exposed to explosive blasts for evaluation.

The Violence of Peace: Seeking Political Futures from Ugandaas Northern War

The guns have fallen silent, and peace has returned to northern Uganda after two decades of brutal war against the LRA. The Acholi population has left the squalid camps where they were interned for years and returned to their land, and the long process of reconstruction and reconciliation has begun. Or so the official narrative proclaims—just as it had proclaimed the war to be a black-and-white struggle waged by the Ugandan government with their Western partners, seeking to rescue the civilian population from the terrorist LRA. Today, instead of humanitarianism, peace is the sign under which policies are legitimated and interventions occur, from reconciliation, development, reconstruction, rehabilitation, and reparations, to statebuilding, peacebuilding, protection, and transitional justice. They are being carried out by the Ugandan state, foreign states, and international bodies: whereas during the war there was a clear division of duties between the national and the international—the state focused on violence, while aid agencies provided rudimentary welfare and administration— now there is a significant convergence of national and international around common policies and interventions. However, given the divorce of the war-time narrative from actual events in the north, it is perhaps not surprising that today’s peace is rife with violence. Fighter jets roar overhead almost every day. The political protests in the wake of last year’s elections were met with extreme force, as they were in other urban areas of Uganda. Strange diseases erupt among the rural population, for whom the state has disavowed almost all responsibility, as it had during the war. Land, the only thing left to most people, is being lost through often violent dispossession. Paramilitaries occupy rural schools, game wardens have killed farmers, and the military is staking out land for its own use. The main town in the region, Gulu, is seeing rapid urbanization into slums, increasing poverty, inequality, and crime. The UPDF is spread throughout the region in the name of hunting the remnants of the LRA. US military contractors fly reconnaissance missions, drones buzz overhead, and US marines operate openly in Kitgum. Rumors circulate of new rebel groups and there is widespread talk of another war. How do we make sense of the fact that today’s peace is shot through with violence? That is the puzzle I start with. My approach will be to argue that this peace-time violence is not to be seen as a remnant of the war or as a product of social breakdown caused by the war, which can be solved with the consolidation of peace and more extensive peacebuilding. Instead, I argue that violence is a central element in the re-constitution of structures and relations of power in northern Uganda, a re-constitution that is occurring in the name of peace. Thus, violence and peace are not antithetical: the violence of peace is not residual, destructive, and non-political, but rather is productive political violence, pointing towards a specific future.

Antibiotic resistance in Campylobacter and other diarrheal pathogens isolated from US military personnel deployed to Thailand in 2002\u20132004: a case\u2013control study

BackgroundCampylobacter continues to be an important cause of diarrheal disease worldwide and a leading cause in Southeast Asia. Studies of US soldiers and marines deployed to Thailand for a 2 to 3 week field exercise provide a unique population in which to study traveler’s diarrhea.MethodsA case–control study of 217 deployed military personnel was conducted from 2002 through 2004. Of these, 155 subjects who presented to a field medical unit with acute diarrhea were enrolled as cases. These subjects referred an additional 62 diarrhea-free colleagues who served as controls. Frequencies of isolation of Campylobacter spp. and other enteric pathogens were compared in cases and controls, and antibiotic resistance of isolates was described.ResultsOf the 155 subjects with diarrhea, Campylobacter spp. was the most commonly identified pathogen, found in 54 (35%) of the subjects, followed by non-typhoidal Salmonella species found in 36 (23%) subjects. Of the 57 separate C. jejuni and C. coli isolates from these individuals, 51 (89%) were resistant to ciprofloxacin by the disc diffusion method. Nearly one-third of the Campylobacter species were resistant to ampicillin and trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole. Resistance to azithromycin remained low at 2% (n = 1).ConclusionsThe significant morbidity and marked fluoroquinolone resistance associated with Campylobacter infections in Thailand are important considerations for clinicians providing counseling on appropriate antibacterial regimens for civilian and military travelers.

Longitudinal analyses of the DNA methylome in deployed military servicemen identify susceptibility loci for post-traumatic stress disorder

In order to determine the impact of the epigenetic response to traumatic stress on post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), this study examined longitudinal changes of genome-wide blood DNA methylation profiles in relation to the development of PTSD symptoms in two prospective military cohorts (one discovery and one replication data set). In the first cohort consisting of male Dutch military servicemen (n=93), the emergence of PTSD symptoms over a deployment period to a combat zone was significantly associated with alterations in DNA methylation levels at 17 genomic positions and 12 genomic regions. Evidence for mediation of the relation between combat trauma and PTSD symptoms by longitudinal changes in DNA methylation was observed at several positions and regions. Bioinformatic analyses of the reported associations identified significant enrichment in several pathways relevant for symptoms of PTSD. Targeted analyses of the significant findings from the discovery sample in an independent prospective cohort of male US marines (n=98) replicated the observed relation between decreases in DNA methylation levels and PTSD symptoms at genomic regions in ZFP57, RNF39 and HIST1H2APS2. Together, our study pinpoints three novel genomic regions where longitudinal decreases in DNA methylation across the period of exposure to combat trauma marks susceptibility for PTSD.