(USA Today)-- More than 10,000 Iraq and Afghanistan veterans are homeless or in programs aimed at keeping them off the streets, a number that has doubled three times since 2006, according to figures released by the Department of Veterans Affairs.

The rise comes at a time when the total number of homeless veterans has declined from a peak of about 400,000 in 2004 to 135,000 today.

"We're seeing more and more (Iraq and Afghanistan veterans)," says Richard Thomas, a Volunteers of America case manager at a shelter in Los Angeles. "It's just a bad time for them to return now and get out of the military."

The VA blames the rise on a poor economy and the nature of the current wars, where a limited number of troops serve multiple deployments.

The result is a group of homeless veterans where 70 percent have a history of combat exposure with its psychological effects, says Pete Dougherty, a senior policy adviser on homelessness at the VA.

Among all homeless veterans, perhaps 20 percent to 33 percent were in combat, he says.

LaShonna Perry, a former Army mechanic who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, was homeless for more than year after leaving the military. She rented an apartment last year with a federal voucher.

"Some soldiers still have issues they're dealing with from what they've seen, what they've experienced," she says. "Some think, ‘There's nothing wrong with me.' They can deal with it on their own. Until it gets out of control."

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(USA Today) -- The Army will outfit a brigade of soldiers in Afghanistan in the next few weeks with gauges worn on their bodies that can alert medics to an explosion's severity - proof of possible brain injury.

It is the beginning of an effort over the next several months to wire up soldiers and vehicles with sensors, black boxes and digital cameras.

The data may shed light on how blast exposures damage the brain, even when a soldier appears only dazed, researchers say. An estimated 300,000 troops have suffered mild brain injuries, mostly from blast, in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"(This) is the beginning of a process...that's going to lead us to collecting the data researchers need to untie this Gordian knot," says Gen. Peter Chiarelli, the Army vice chief of staff.

Sensors will measure blast effects from buried bombs known as improvised explosive devices that have killed nearly 3,000 troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and wounded about 30,000. The newest sensor, developed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)for nearly $1 million, is about the size of the time piece on a wristwatch and weighs less than an ounce.  

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(Reuters) - Photojournalist Tim Hetherington, the co-director of Oscar-nominated war documentary "Restrepo," died in the besieged Libyan town of Misrata on Wednesday, doctors said.

Getty photographer Chris Hondros was in critical condition in intensive care, doctors at the hospital where he was being treated said. He had suffered brain injuries.

The photographers were among a group caught by mortar fire on Tripoli Street, the main thoroughfare leading into the center of Misrata, the only major rebel-held town in western Libya and besieged by Muammar Gaddafi's forces for more than seven weeks.

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This from the Los Angeles Times: Reporting from Landstuhl, Germany, and Helmand- Grim combat statistics that one military doctor called "unbelievable" show U.S. troops in Afghanistan suffered an unprecedented number of catastrophic injuries last year, including a tripling of amputations of more than one limb.

A study by doctors at the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany, where most wounded troops are sent before returning to the U.S., confirmed their fears: The battlefield has become increasingly brutal.

In 2009, 75 service members brought to Landstuhl had limbs amputated. Of those, 21 had lost more than one limb.

But in 2010, 171, 11% of all the casualties brought to Landstuhl, had undergone amputations, a much higher proportion than in past wars. Of the 171, 65 had lost more than one limb.

Injuries to the genital area were also on the increase. In 2009, 52 casualties were brought to Landstuhl with battlefield injuries to their genitals or urinary tract. In 2010, that number was 142.

Dr. John Holcomb, a retired Army colonel with extensive combat-medicine experience, said he and other doctors involved in the study were shocked by the findings, which he labeled as "unbelievable."  

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This from The News Tribune: The Army announced today that it will prosecute the fifth and final member of a group of Stryker soldiers who allegedly murdered Afghan civilians during patrols last year despite a review that cited weaknesses in the case against the soldier.

The announcement is a setback to Spc. Michael Wagnon, 30, whose family had hoped that the Army would dismiss charges against him after an investigating officer reviewed the case in November and reported that there was little evidence against him.

That report went to Lt. Gen. Curtis Scaparrotti, the senior general at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, who determined the Army has evidence to proceed with a court-martial against Wagnon.

Wagnon will face a court-martial on charges that he murdered an Afghan civilian during a February patrol, shot at unarmed Afghans in March and participated in conspiracies to harm Afghans. He could be sentenced to life in prison if he's convicted.

The Army dismissed two charges from Wagnon's case. One alleged that he kept a piece of skull from an Afghan corpse; the other accused him of trying to obstruct the Army's investigation into his platoon's misconduct by destroying images of Afghan casualties on his computer.

His attorney debunked both of those charges at an Article 32 hearing in November. Wagnon's platoon mates said the skull fragment he kept came from a camel, not a person.

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WASHINGTON - Two military families shared their stories - one of perseverance through deployment, one of recovering from a life-changing war injury - with the nation Thursday.

The families, and the mother of a soldier killed in Iraq, appeared along with First Lady Michelle Obama and journalists Tom Brokaw and Bob Woodward on "The Oprah Winfrey Show." The episode, "The Bravest Families In America," aired Thursday.

The first family to appear, former Army Sgt. Corey Brest, his wife, Jenny, and their two children, live in the small town of Yankton, S.D.

Brest was serving in Iraq with his National Guard unit when a roadside bomb wounded him in 2005. The injury left him nearly blind and unable to move or speak as he once did.

Jenny said she has gone from being wife to caregiver, and though she accompanies and encourages the man she calls "the love of my life" to job training sessions and speech and physical therapy appointments, their lives will never be the same.

"Our biggest sacrifice is time," she said. "When we picked up the pieces at the hospital, we lost time there because I left home and I missed our son's first steps, his first words. We both missed it. Even here without [Corey's] sight, he feels like he's missing out. Yes, he's living every moment with us, but he's not getting to see his kids grow up."

Brokaw comes from the same small town as the couple, and helped to arrange their appearance on the show. Author of the World War II book "The Greatest Generation," he has in recent years striven through his writing and speeches to bring America's attention to today's veterans and how their lives, and their families' lives, have been changed by the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

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This from The News Tribune: Spc. Emmitt Quintal, 22, was given a bad-conduct discharge at a court-martial Wednesday at Joint Base Lewis-McChord.

He also must do hard labor for 90 days and take a demotion to private for frequently using drugs during his combat deployment, joining an assault on a comrade and keeping digital photos of Afghan casualties.

He pleaded guilty to those three offenses, as well as a conspiracy charge related to the assault.

"I have put discredit not only on myself and my family, but also on the uniform I wear every day," Quintal said in the courtroom.

It could have been worse for the soldier from Weston, Ore. He negotiated a pre-trial agreement that capped his punishment and required him to testify at hearings for his codefendants in an Army war crimes investigation.

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This from Stars and Stripes: Plagued by one scandal after another, from violent mental breakdowns to steroid abuse and allegations of killing for sport, Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington state this year developed a reputation as the most troubled base in the military.

As the year wound down, the Army was conducting a top-to-bottom review of the 5th Stryker Brigade amid reports of misconduct from a wide swath of its soldiers and a failure of its leaders to curtail the issues.

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This from The News Tribune, Seattle Times: An investigating officer has recommended that the Army drop one of three murder charges against Staff Sgt. Calvin Gibbs, the alleged ringleader of a group of Stryker soldiers who reportedly killed Afghan civilians in staged incidents, The Seattle Times reported Monday.

Col. Thomas Molloy's recommendation is not binding, and Gibbs still could go to trial for all three murder charges. That decision rests with Lt. Gen. Curtis Scaparrotti, the commanding general at Joint Base Lewis-McChord.

Molloy reportedly found that the Army didn't have enough evidence to put Gibbs on trial for murdering an Afghan man on a January patrol.

Gibbs, of Billings, Mont., allegedly provided a grenade to Spc. Jeremy Morlock, who used it to kill the Afghan as part of a scheme they devised to murder civilians in combat-like situations. Pfc. Andrew Holmes also shot at the Afghan and is charged with murder.

No witnesses have said that Gibbs shot a weapon at the Afghan on the January patrol.

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This from The Olympian: While his family plods through the holidays, Pfc. Andrew Holmes sits in a detention block, one of five soldiers at Joint Base Lewis-McChord charged in the deaths of three civilians in Afghanistan's Kandahar province this year.

His parents, sisters, brother and new baby niece are waiting at home as complicated legal wrangling plays out to determine whether he'll face a court-martial.

An appeals court must decide whether Holmes' attorney can use controversial photos of a dead Afghan man that his defense team says will clear his name.

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