Anchorage Daily News

The commander of the Alaska National Guard swung back Monday at a report critical of his department, saying its claims were an unfounded, partisan attempt to "ambush" Gov. Sarah Palin in the final weeks of the presidential campaign.

Lt. Gen. Craig Campbell, commissioner of the state Department of Military and Veterans Affairs, said at a news conference that the preliminary report, released Oct. 1 by Veterans for America, was "poorly written, lacking substantiation of allegations and basically filled with plain incorrect information.

"This is a political hatchet job," Campbell said. "There are always things that we can improve on, so I'm not saying we couldn't use any help. I'm saying the VFA didn't offer any help."

The report offers a scathing critique of the Guard's alleged lack of assistance -- particularly with health care -- for soldiers returning from overseas deployments. It asserts the Guard was sent to fight without proper systems in place to handle its returning vets and urges deployments to cease until the situation is fixed.

"As a result of inadequate leadership from the Governor of Alaska, among others, the Alaska National Guard has an inadequate understanding of the full range of post-combat issues," the report says.

Veterans for America bills itself as a nonpartisan advocacy and humanitarian group. Jason Forrester, co-director of its National Guard program, said claims that the report has a partisan agenda are simply not true. The report aims to improve the quality of life for guardsmen and was undertaken well before Palin was selected as Sen. John McCain's running mate, he said.

"Veterans for America first sent an employee of our organization to Alaska more than one year ago ... before 99.8 percent of the country had ever heard the name Gov. Sarah Palin," Forrester said. "It's disappointing to have such a defensive response from the leader of the men and women of the Alaska National Guard."

The report was the result of a year of research and a 10-day fact-finding mission in Alaska, he said. In addition to its claim that post-deployment programs are lacking, the report says about 25 percent of Alaska's Guard members live in villages without access to military health care providers, forcing them to travel long distances for health care -- and to front the money to do so.

The report calls for "radical changes" in the way the Guard is run, including mandatory face-to-face mental and physical health screenings following deployments and more time at home between them.

Though he conceded the Guard can always improve, Campbell took issue with a number of the findings. Specifically, the Guard does, in some cases, provide the money patients need to fly into cities for treatment, he said. And, as the Guard's mission has evolved in recent years, its assistance programs have too, he said.

The report also failed to provide any evidence tying the Guard exclusively to an alleged 400 percent increase in military families relying on the services of Food Bank of Alaska, Campbell said.

Campbell called the report "political science" without the science. But Forrester said the report calls on the state to launch its own comprehensive, scientific study of the issues precisely because it is not such a study.

When the report first came out, Campbell said he would not directly respond until the VFA released the final version, which is expected today. But Monday, he said he changed his mind because news of the report had been making waves.

The governor's special assistant for military and veterans affairs, Mark Kelsey, was on hand as an observer.

"(Palin) agrees completely with Gen. Campbell's assessment that Alaska's Guard troops are among the finest in the country," Kelsey said afterward. "So she appreciates his efforts today to provide some factual context to the baseless criticisms leveled by the Veterans for America."

Find James Halpin online at adn.com/contact/jhalpin or call him at 257-4589.

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