The IRE Resource Center is a major research library containing more than 23,250 investigative stories — both print and broadcast. These stories are searchable online or by contacting the Resource Center directly (573-882-3364 or rescntr@ire.org) where a researcher can help you pinpoint what you need. Browse or search the tipsheet section of our library below. Stories are not available for download but can be easily ordered by contacting the Resource Center:
Search results for "U.S. Army" ...
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Lost to History: When War Records Go Missing
"Lost to History: When War Records Go Missing" revealed that military field records from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were never kept, destroyed or simply could not be found, leaving veterans with combat injuries or disability claims unable to prove they saw action. The widespread failure by the military to keep and preserve these records - records that have been kept since America's Revolutionary War - leaves war historians in the dark about the granular details that, when woven together, tell larger stories hidden from participants in the day-to-day confusion of combat. “Lost to History" showed that dozens of Army units and U.S. Central Command lacked adequate war records, how Pentagon leaders had years of warnings but never sufficiently addressed the problem, and how commanders failed to take record keeping orders seriously. The stories vividly narrate the personal costs of this failure. The lack of field records forced Spc. Christopher Delara to struggle for years before receiving treatment he was entitled to for post-traumatic stress syndrome. And the missing material deepened the grief of Jim Butler, who searched for years to find the truth about his son’s death in combat.
Tags: War; war records; Iraq; Afghanistan; veterans
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World’s Untold Stories: Secrets of the Belfast Project
Forty years ago, during the height of Northern Ireland’s sectarian violence known as "The Troubles," a widowed mother with 10 children disappeared. Today, the answers to what happened could be found in audio recordings locked away in a U.S. college archive. But some don’t want the truth to come out. The audio recordings were collected for the Boston College Oral History Archives, from members of groups on both sides of the fighting. But this history project may contain evidence, that could threaten a delicate peace agreement – and the man credited with helping bring that peace to Northern Ireland, Gerry Adams. Adams, a prominent Irish politician and alleged former head of the Irish Republican Army, has vigorously denied the allegations. But many think the tapes could hold the key to solving the widowed mother’s murder – and more. In this episode of CNN’s documentary series “World’s Untold Stories”, Nic Robertson examines the risks and the benefits of exposing what truths may be on the tapes – and explains the ongoing battle between families, politicians, the courts, and academia, who are either seeking the truth, or seeking to protect it.
Tags: Northern Ireland; Boston College; Gerry Adams; politicians; courts; academia
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Bales: Army suspect in Afghan shooting was liable in financial fraud
On the day that tips arose about a U.S. soldier who may have strafed two Afghan villages, I left the office for a flight to Tacoma. Within 48 hours of the soldier’s being identified as Staff Sgt. Robert Bales, I and two colleagues broke the news that the emerging hagiography of Bales drafted by family and attorneys had more to it than the story of a soldier who enlisted at the ripe of 27 driven by outrage over the 2001 terrorist attacks—and then broken down by an unrelenting cycle of deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. Our story started with pure spidey senses: Bales’ s family and lawyer said he had left a stockbroker’s career to enlist, as they explained his call to serve. Yet he had not finished college and clearly had financial troubles, I had determined. And he was active in brokerage in the late 1990s in Florida I learned by checking assorted online records—which raised my suspicions about the quick-money penny stock trading that was commonplace then. Based on those instincts, while also doing the running daily story from Bales’ Army base in Washington state, I had checked some online brokerage records and enlisted Julie Tate to look at others and run through civil and criminal filings in Ohio (Bales’s home state and then nationally). Within an hour, I had found one suspicious record and Julie had found others and we were off on a 30-hour run of investigative reporting and boots on the ground interviews that yielded the breaking news of Bales’s more complicated—and less laudatory—past in the period just before he joined the Army. We located and I interviewed an elderly couple who had lost substantial savings in accounts managed by Bales and received copies of detailed financial records that corroborated their claims and showed Bales as the account manager. We also peeled back corporate records for a now-shuttered firm run by Bales and his brother with backing from a longtime friend and reached him to further flesh out the checkered professional history of the Staff Sgt. at the center of an explosive, fast-moving and intensely competitive story. The story demanded intense investigative reporting that netted notable results in far far less than 30 days of a breaking event.
Tags: U.S. soldier; Afghanistan; military draft; terrorist attacks; deployment
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Brian Ross Investigates: Jesus Rifle
The U.S. military bars the proselytizing of any religion by troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. However, an ABC News investigation found that the U.S. military had been distributing thousands of weapons to U.S. troops that were inscribed with coded references to Bible passages about Jesus Christ.
Tags: Jesus; guns; military; Afghanistan; Iraq; Trijicon; army
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Disposable Soldiers
The article exposes a stunning crime: the U.S. Army tortured an American soldier. The reporters discover that this case was not an isolated incident.
Tags: torture; Fort Hood; Camp Taji; army; soldier; Afghanistan; Iraq
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"Disposable Soldiers"
Reporter Joshua Kors exposes the story of Sergeant Chuck Luther who was severely injured by "mortar fire while serving in Iraq." His injury took the form of intense headaches that caused his vision to black out. He was asked to sign documents that claimed he had a "pre-existing condition," and when he refused, he was locked in a closet for more than "a month, with armed guards enforcing sleep deprivation." Finally, Luther signed the documents, which stripped him of disability benefits and long-term medical care.
Tags: Iraq; disability; fraud; Camp Taji; U.S. Army; Fort Hood; medical care; pre-existing condition
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Burn Pits
"Open air" burn pits are used by private contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan to destroy military waste. U.S. soldiers living near the pits reported that they were constantly inhaling the smoke, were smothered in ash and suffocating from the smells. The story finds a link between the burn pits and the health problems that soldiers reported when they returned home.
Tags: open air burn pits; military; army; soldier; Afghanistan; Iraq; soldier health
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Impossible Dream: Rebuilding Afghanistan amid corruption, nepotism, and mismanagement
The investigation examines the Obama administration's efforts to create a modern, secure nation in Afghanistan.
Tags: Afghanistan; War on Terror; al Qaeda; U.S. Army Corps of Engineers; reconstruction
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Domestic Abuse Inside the U.S. Military
Domestic violence acts in the Army have been “steadily rising over the last decade, despite Army reports to the contrary”. Many Army spouses’ slain as a result of the domestic violence and many involving soldiers who saw action in Iraq. Also, a level of violence was soaring around some of the largest Army installations “through examination of police records and court filings”.
Tags: Congressional; Pentagon; weapons; FOIA; Fort Hood; Army Rangers; families; abuse; bureaucracy; advocates; mental health
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"Breach of Trust"
Soldiers on all levels of the U.S. Armed Forces used fake college diplomas to increase chances of "promotions and pay raises." WHNT-TV revealed that several AMCOM employees had also presented "fake degrees" to the "Department of the Army." The investigation spurred a reconstruction of HR Specialist training, as the command's "ability to detect" to false diplomas was severely flawed.
Tags: U.S. Army; National Guard; Army Reserve; Department of the Army; U.S. Army and Department of Defense; General David Grange; Major General Jim Pillsbury; Army Aviation and Missile Command; U.S. Army Human Resource Command