Across DoDThursday, april 25, 2013

www.FortHoodSentinel.com

Budget IssuesDoD briefs Senate on fiscal uncertainty AA2

Key Army issues identifiedEach week, the Sentinel will pull

key issues from the Army’s Stand-To! and highlight them here to better inform Soldiers and families on top issues from Washington, D.C. For more on these topics visit www.army.mil/standto.

Health of forceComprehensive Soldier and Fami-

ly Fitness, U.S. Army, recently com-pleted Technical Report #4, which found that Army units leveraging their Master Resilience Trainer are more likely to have a lower rate of diagnoses for mental health prob-lems in Soldiers.The goal of Comprehensive

Soldier and Family Fitness is to improve the health of members of the Army Family by giving them the tools they need to be more psychologically resilient. The Mas-ter Resilience Trainer component of CSF2 is the primary method of delivering resilience skills to Soldiers. Through the MRT course, noncommissioned officers receive classroom training in resilience-building techniques. These NCOs return to their units and provide resilience skills training to Soldiers. In Technical Report #4, research-

ers sought to evaluate the effec-tiveness of CSF2 by determining if providing Army companies with MRTs had a positive impact on objective health outcomes. It was found that over time, units with MRTs had significantly lower rates of substance abuse diagnoses (drug and alcohol abuse) and diag-noses for mental health problems (anxiety, depression and post-trau-matic stress disorder) compared to units without MRTs.This evaluation provides addition-

al evidence that MRTs may help bolster psychological resilience and reduce the incidence of seri-ous mental and behavioral prob-lems among Soldiers. Therefore, Army leaders at all levels should continue to leverage their MRTs as an invaluable resource to Soldiers and their Families. Technical Report #4 is part of an

on-going effort in which CSF2 con-stantly monitors its effectiveness and outcomes. Technical Reports #1-2 focused on the evaluation of relationships between reported resilience and Soldier outcomes. Technical Report #3 looked at the program evaluation and Longitu-dinal Analysis of the Impact of Master Resilience Training on Self-Reported Resilience and Psycho-logical Health Data.Comprehensive Soldier and Fam-

ily Fitness is a key component of the Army’s Ready and Resilient Campaign, and is committed to developing an Army culture of total fitness and increased psychologi-cal health. CSF2 is the primary pro-gram that supports the campaign’s main effort – to build and main-tain resilient Soldiers and units.

STAND-To!

Section AA

By Cheryl PellerinAmerican Forces Press Service

JERUSALEM — On the first after-noon of two days of talks with mili-tary and government officials here, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel toured Yad Vashem, Israel’s living memorial to the Holocaust, and in the Hall of Remembrance laid a wreath on a stone crypt containing ashes of Holocaust victims.

Hagel walked the solemn and evocative displays of the Holocaust History Museum with his son, Ziller, and Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon, later calling the institution “important, inspirational and beauti-ful.”

Yad Vashem was established in 1953 as the world center for docu-mentation, research, education and commemoration of the Holocaust, Nazi Germany’s murder of 6 million Jews during World War II.

After Hagel’s visit to the museum, he participated in a memorial cer-emony in the Hall of Remembrance, visited the Children’s Memorial and signed the Yad Vashem guest book.

Then, sheltered by the building from a steady rain, Hagel took a few moments to speak with reporters and museum guests.

Thanking those who have made the institution possible, the secretary said of Yad Vashem, “I’ve brought my son Ziller with me on this trip

and I particularly wanted him to accompany me here for this experi-ence.”

Such institutions and museums are created as a tribute to generations of the past, and in particular, victims of the past, he said, “but maybe more importantly these institutions are built to instruct future generations.”

The secretary added, “They come together at an intersection that is important for all of us as one dimen-sion or responsibility for each person. There is no more poignant, more touching, more effective way to tell a story than this reality, as painful as it is.

“We must prepare future genera-tions in our time here for a clear understanding that we must never allow this to happen again.”

After Hagel signed the guest book, he read his inscription to the audi-ence.

“For my friends of Israel,” the secretary read, “thank you for this magnificent institution, reminding all mankind of the depths of evil but also the promise and hope and cour-age of man – a beautiful and impor-tant tribute to those victims of the past and an instruction and reminder for the generations of the future.

Signed, your friend, Chuck Hagel, United States secretary of defense.”

The visit was part of a six-day trip to the Middle East, Hagel’s first as defense secretary. He’s scheduled to make stops in Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates before returning to the United States Friday.

Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel places a wreath as Israeli Minister of Defense Moshe Ya’alon, and Robert Ozzett, Director of Libraries at Yad Vashem, watch at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, Israel, April 21. Hagel will spend several days in

Israel meeting with counterparts on a six-day trip to the Middle East, however, Yad Vashem is Hagel’s first stop in Israel, the countries official memorial to the Jewish victims of the Holocaust.

Photos by Erin Kirk-Cuomo, DoD

SecDef lays wreath in remembrance in Jerusalem

Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel observes an exhibit with Israeli Min-ister of Defense Moshe Ya’alon, and Robert Ozzett, Director of Librar-ies at Yad Vashem, during a tour of Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, Israel, April 21.

We must prepare future generations in our time here for a clear understanding that we must never allow this to happen again.

– Chuck Hagel

By DonnA MilesAmerican Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON — A “David-and-Goliath” scenario, an Army instal-lation commander standing up to a multi-billion-dollar industry over the deaths of three of his Soldiers, has borne fruit in a national Food and Drug Administration warning and the drug maker’s decision to stop production of a controversial dietary supplement.

Gen. Dana Pittard, commander of Fort Bliss, and the 1st Armored Divi-sion, lauded USPlabs’s announce-ment that it would stop production of Jack3d.

The supplement contains dimeth-ylamylamine, or DMAA, a stimu-lant popular among bodybuilders and dieters that the Food and Drug Administration, or FDA, last week linked to elevated blood pressure and heart attacks.

Pittard’s crusade against the sup-plement began in 2011 when two Fort Bliss Soldiers, Pfc. Michael Sparling and Sgt. Demekia Cola, died of heart failure during physical training. Their autopsies reviewed that DMAA use was a contributing factor in their deaths.

In July 2012, another Fort Bliss Soldier, Pfc. David Artis, died of heart stroke during physical fitness training. His death also was linked to DMAA use.

Pittard, who instituted a campaign to reduce suicides and other prevent-able deaths on arrival at Fort Bliss, immediately demanded that prod-ucts containing DMAA be removed from the shelves of a commercial vitamin store outlet on the post. It was an unpopular move, he told reporters today, raising the ire of the Fort Bliss community, questions from some Army leaders and criti-cism from manufacturers of supple-mental products.

“But regardless, we stood firm in the face of that criticism,” Pittard said. “We felt it was the right thing to do for our Soldiers.”

The pushback, he said, actually strengthened the resolve at Fort Bliss to take the fight beyond the instal-lation’s gates. Partnering with the Consortium for Health and Mili-tary Performance and the Pentagon’s Department of Military and Emer-gency Medicine, Pittard and his staff set their eye on eradicating DMAA products across not only the Army, but also the entire Defense Depart-ment.

This unified campaign spurred the Army to ban supplements con-taining DMAA from all instal-lations in March 2012. Four months later, the Defense Depart-ment followed suit, banning them from all U.S. installations. In the next promising development, the FDA issued an advisory last week

warning consumers not to buy dietary supplements containing DMAA.

But the biggest victory, Pit-tard said, was the decision by USPlabs, the manufacturer of Jack3d, to stop using DMAA in its products.

“Yesterday’s action by USPlabs really in many ways vindicates those on Fort Bliss who fought so hard and fought the supplement and billion-dollar drug industry on this issue,” he said.

Pittard expressed thanks to the Army and Air Force Exchange

Service and Army and DoD leader-ship for supporting the effort. He acknowledged that it took courage to collectively stand up to power-ful drug companies and others who resisted their efforts.

“And we believe,” he said, “this will save countless lives in the future.”

Army deaths spur successful campaign against dangerous supplements

Courtesy photo