Americans were outraged last year after they saw video footage released by PETA that showed a U.S. military trauma training course in which goats were moaning and kicking as instructors stabbed them, hacked off their limbs with tree trimmers, and yanked out their internal organs. The video brought national attention to the military's crude trauma training procedures on animals.

But outrage turned to cheers when President Barack Obama signed into law a bill containing a clause requiring the Department of Defense (DOD) to create a strategy for replacing the shooting, stabbing, and dismembering of animals in training drills with non-animal methods. It was the first time in history that Congress had passed a measure aimed at protecting animals from abuse in military training exercises.

The deadline has arrived for the DOD to release its strategy, but instead of following congressional orders and taking the opportunity to modernize military training, the DOD instead provided a litany of excuses. Justin Goodman, PETA's director of laboratory investigations, blasted the report in a public statement:

PETA does not intend to let the DOD shirk its responsibility. Help keep the pressure on by urging your congressional representatives to demand that the DOD spare animal lives and better prepare our troops to treat wounded soldiers by replacing animals with lifelike human-patient simulators.

The end is near for the military's cruel trauma training exercises, in which thousands of animals are maimed and killed each year!

PETA has discovered—and the U.S. Army's Office of the Surgeon General has confirmed—that the Army has implemented a major shift in policy that states, "Non-medical personnel are not authorized to participate in training that involves the use of animal models." These nonmedical service members, who previously were allowed to abuse and kill animals in these drills, will now be taught exclusively using non-animal "alternatives such as commercial training manikins, moulaged actors, cadavers, or virtual simulators."

This will likely prevent thousands of animals from being shot, cut apart, and killed each year in crude exercises like the disturbing military training drill that PETA exposed last year showing live goats who had their limbs broken and cut off. 

But that's not all: According to the Army, this change is just one of several that will be unveiled as a result of a series of meetings that began in February about restructuring the military's medical training program. The shift is likely in response to PETA supporters' protests, as well as Congress' request that the Department of Defense (DOD) submit a detailed plan for the phase-out of all animal use in medical training drills in favor modern non-animal methods. That report, which has already been delayed once, is now due in early summer. We'll keep you posted as we learn more about the military's broader plans to make all its deadly animal laboratories history.

What You Can Do

This is momentous progress, but we're not done yet. Please urge military officials to end the cruel use of animals in training for all personnel immediately.

Update: Today, The Washington Post ran a cover story highlighting PETA's efforts to stop the U.S. military from killing thousands of goats and pigs each year in crude medical training drills. As the newspaper points out, a bill that was signed into law last month requires the Department of Defense to submit to Congress by the end of this week a detailed strategy and timeline for the phase-out of these deadly exercises. This is the first time in history that Congress has passed a bill that protects animals from abuse in military training exercises. Please take a moment to write to the Department of Defense and urge it to act quickly to phase out these barbaric exercises.

Originally posted on January 4th: 

The year has just begun, but already 2013 has seen an exciting first for animals! President Barack Obama has just signed into law a bill that requires the Department of Defense (DOD) to create a strategy for replacing the shooting, stabbing, and dismembering of animals in military training drills with non-animal methods. This is the first time in history that Congress has passed a bill that seeks to protect animals from being abused in military training exercises.

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The Camera Shot Seen 'Round the World

Last year, people were outraged when PETA released disturbing, never-before-seen undercover footage showing live goats as they were stabbed, had their organs yanked out, and had their limbs broken and cut off with tree trimmers during a military training drill, all while the animals moaned and kicked.

Multitudes of you contacted your representatives demanding that these archaic forms of "training" end and that the abusers who were caught on video be held accountable. You won. Under a provision in the newly signed National Defense Authorization Act, the secretary of defense has less than two months to present Congress with a strategy for phasing out the use of animals in trauma training. And the people who were caught on camera abusing goats were cited for violations of the Animal Welfare Act. 

Dummies Are Smarter

High-profile military veterans Oliver Stone, Bob Barker, and Gideon Raff have all joined you in asking the DOD to modernize its training program by replacing its deadly animal laboratories with more reliable methods such as human-patient simulators. These realistic models can breathe, bleed, talk, and even "die," and trainees can perform procedures on them over and over again until they master lifesaving skills.

While this monumental law requires the secretary of defense to create a plan to phase out the use of animals, it does not mandate a specific date by which animal training methods must end. Help us keep the pressure on by e-mailing the secretary of defense and other DOD and Department of Homeland Security officials and urging them to switch to superior non-animal training methods immediately.

Update:

We have two hot developments to report in PETA's campaign to expose and end the abuse of animals in cruel and archaic U.S. military medical training drills: Following complaints filed by PETA about the abuse of goats seen in a shocking undercover video, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has cited military trauma training contractor Tier 1 Group for violating the Animal Welfare Act, and the Virginia Beach Zoning Administration (VBZA) has warned the owner of the property where the training allegedly took place that these exercises are not permitted there.

Originally posted July 27:

Teaching Heartlessness

In April, PETA released the video footage taken by a whistleblower during a trauma training session for members of the U.S. Coast Guard. The video showed course instructors with Tier 1 Group repeatedly cutting off the limbs of live goats with tree trimmers, stabbing the animals with scalpels, and cutting into their abdomens to pull out their organs as they twitched, moaned, and kicked. Veterinarians who viewed the video confirmed that these are signs that the goats were not adequately anesthetized and were likely feeling pain.

The video also showed a course instructor from Tier 1 Group who cheerfully whistled as he cut the legs off goats as well as Coast Guard participants who joked about writing a song about mutilating the animals.

Intolerable Cruelty

At the time the video was released, PETA filed a number of complaints with authorities, and two of these agencies have now taken disciplinary action against parties responsible for the training. (A U.S. Coast Guard investigation into PETA's complaint is ongoing.)

The USDA citation for violating the federal Animal Welfare Act was issued because of Tier 1 Group's failure to give adequate anesthesia to the goats who were stabbed and cut into. This is a repeat violation, as Tier 1 Group was cited by the USDA for a similar violation last year.

The USDA's citation of Tier 1 Group for failing to anesthetize animals properly during invasive procedures is made even more alarming by the fact that just days after the USDA citation, the U.S. Navy awarded Tier 1 Group a contract worth nearly $2 million to conduct 24 trauma training exercises on live pigs. A company that has violated federal animal welfare law should not be rewarded with millions of tax dollars.

The VBZA letter not only warned that such exercises aren't permitted but also notified the property owner that legal action may be pursued against him if such unauthorized activities are conducted on the land in the future. These unlawful training exercises have taken place there for years, but officials have now made it clear that they must not occur there ever again.

What You Can Do

Please join PETA and its dedicated supporters—including military veterans Oliver Stone and Bob Barker—in urging the military to replace these cruel animal laboratories with humane and advanced human-patient simulators.

Members of PETA's research staff worked with current and former military medical officers to survey officials in all 28 NATO countries regarding their military medical training programs, and now their findings—showing that more than three-quarters of those nations do not use any animals—have been published in the August issue of Military Medicine, the prestigious journal of the Association of Military Surgeons of the U.S. The study's publication is just the most recent advance in PETA's campaign to end archaic, cruel, and deadly trauma training exercises by U.S. armed forces.

International Compassion, Domestic Cruelty

The 22 enlightened countries—among which are France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, and Spain—rely exclusively on a variety of non-animal training methods, including the use of lifelike human simulators in realistic battlefield scenarios.

Just six NATO countries, including (sadly) the U.S. and Canada, continue to use animals in invasive and often deadly procedures. Each year, the U.S. military and its contractors shoot, stab, mutilate, and kill more than 10,000 live animals in barbaric and antiquated trauma training exercises, even though modern simulators that breathe and bleed have been shown to better prepare doctors and medics to treat injured humans than animal laboratories.

As the study's authors state:

What You Can Do

Tell Congress that it's time to catch up to our allies and completely replace the use of animals in military trauma training with superior non-animal training methods.

Thanks to a donation of simulation equipment from PETA, goats will no longer have holes cut into their chests and necks and be killed for trauma training exercises in Egypt.

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Traumatic Trauma Training

Earlier this year, PETA was contacted by Dr. Abdelhakim Elkholy—director of the Egyptian Life Support Training Center (ELSTC) in Cairo, who conducts Egypt's only Advanced Trauma Life Support (ATLS) course—requesting PETA's help to switch from the cruel and crude use of goats to non-animal trauma training.

While Dr. Elkholy wanted to switch to Simulab Corporation's TraumaMan simulator for ATLS, budget limitations kept him from making the transition. PETA was pleased to donate three TraumaMan simulators—thanks to the generous support of the McGrath Family Foundation—so that the ELSTC can conduct ATLS courses without using any animals.

Better Learning Through Technology

Numerous studies have shown that the TraumaMan simulator better prepares trainees to perform the lifesaving medical techniques taught in ATLS than cruel animal labs. For this reason, TraumaMan and other simulators are used instead of animals in nearly 95 percent of ATLS courses across the U.S. and Canada—and now, thanks to PETA, in 100 percent of ATLS courses in Egypt. Because, unlike animal labs, the simulators are portable and reusable, Dr. Elkholy's team will now be able to offer lifesaving ATLS training at other sites across the country.

Dr. Elkholy wrote: "With the help of PETA, now ATLS can be spread to every part in Egypt. … No more animals will be used in ATLS training in Egypt after PETA['s] donation [of] TraumaMan to [the] Egyptian Life Support Training Center …."

What You Can Do

Please join PETA in urging federal officials to modernize U.S. military trauma training by completely replacing the use of animals with superior simulation methods.

Memorial Day is an occasion to remember all those who have died in the service of their country. Since the end of the draft, the U.S. has boasted about our all-volunteer armed forces. But not all those who have served have been volunteers—and many of our military casualties have worn fur or fins instead of fatigues.

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With the help of its members and supporters, PETA has brought an end to many of the cruel and lethal practices formerly inflicted on animals by military organizations. Because of these victories, ferrets, for instance, are no longer tortured in intubation experiments at Naval Medical Center Portsmouth, dogs and cats aren't wounded in trauma training, and monkeys won't be forced to endure drug overdoses at the army's Aberdeen Proving Ground. But there is still work to be done.

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Please join PETA in honoring those animals who have given their lives—though unnecessarily and under duress—in U.S. military operations by assuring that more animals like them will be spared from misery and death:

• The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) stabs, cuts the limbs off, shoots, and mutilates goats and pigs in deadly and archaic training exercises for medics and soldiers, even though superior non-animal methods exist and are used in nearly every civilian hospital and in many military trauma hospitals.
• In other military tests, animals have been poisoned, irradiated, infected, burned, and blown up in order to (poorly) simulate the effects of warfare on humans.
• Other animals die on the front lines—including dogs deployed with combat troops, dolphins and sea lions used as "lookouts," birds exploited as early detectors for chemical and biological weapons, and rats forced into mine detection. Even the animals who survive their "tours of duty" can suffer for years afterward.
• Sonar equipment tested—and proposed for implementation—by the U.S. Navy has caused often-lethal hemorrhages, embolisms, and nervous system pressure in whales and dolphins.
• More than 90 desert tortoises died when they were ill-advisedly relocated from their homes on land near California's Fort Irwin so that the Army could conduct war games there. Fortunately, further relocation was suspended before more of these endangered animals died.

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Animals don't recognize differences between countries, and they don't start wars. One good way to observe Memorial Day is to send a message to the DoD asking officials to protect our soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines in the line of fire—and leave animals out of it.

The U.S. Army's plans to use animals in trauma training are enough to make a goat faint. The army is in the market to buy up to 3,600 goats to torment and kill in exercises like those seen in this shocking undercover video, which PETA released last month. The video, sent to us by a brave whistleblower, shows instructors as they saw off live goats' limbs with tree trimmers and crudely cut open the animals' abdomens and yank out their organs. Goats moan loudly and kick during the procedures.

Goats are intelligent, inquisitive, social animals who can quickly learn to open latches on farm gates and let themselves out. Moms and kids share a strong bond and have been known to recognize each other even if they have been separated for years.

The Army plans to mutilate thousands of goats even though high-tech human simulators are readily available and offer soldiers superior training in how to treat wounds in the field.

You can help: Send PETA's two goat images included here to the Army and urge it to save thousands of goats from suffering and dying in cruel trauma training exercises by using modern simulators instead. The Army is accepting bids only until June 11, so please act now!

Note: Please do not use the words "goat" or "goats" in your e-mail to the Army because it seems to be blocking e-mails with those words in them.

Navy veteran Bob Barker was appalled at what he saw in undercover video footage of U.S. Coast Guard trauma training leaked to PETA. In the video, live goats are stabbed, have their internal organs pulled out, and have their limbs cut off with tree trimmers. The goats moan loudly and kick while they are being mutilated, a sign that they were not sufficiently anesthetized, while an instructor cheerfully whistles and a soldier jokes about writing songs about mutilating the animals.

As a proud vet, Bob wants members of the armed forces to have the best possible training—and that means replacing archaic and cruel animal exercises  with superior lifelike human simulators that can bleed, breathe, have their bones broken, and even "die." The simulators are already in use at many military facilities, and military regulations even require that non-animal methods be used when available. But the policy isn't being enforced.

Bob wrote to Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano on PETA's behalf to urge them to improve military trauma training by mandating that all programs use only advanced human simulators.

What You Can Do

Join Bob in asking Department of Defense and Department of Homeland Security officials to comply with federal regulations and replace all use of animals with human simulators.

Thanks to a brave whistleblower, PETA has obtained horrific undercover video of live animals whose limbs were cut off for an archaic military training drill. The course was held earlier this year in Virginia Beach, Virginia, by private contractor Tier 1 Group. 

In the shocking video, instructors repeatedly crack and cut off the limbs of live goats with tree trimmers, stab the animals with scalpels to cause internal injuries, and cut into their abdomens to crudely pull out their organs. Some of the goats moan loudly and kick their legs during the mutilations, which veterinarians who viewed the video say are signs that the goats were not adequately anesthetized and may have even been feeling pain.

The disturbing video footage shows a callous course instructor who cheerfully whistles while dismembering goats as well as members of the Coast Guard who joke about writing a song about mutilating the animals.

According to the whistleblower, later in the day the goats were shot in the face with pistols and were hacked apart with an ax while still alive. 

Today, there are high-tech humanlike simulators available specifically for military training that can breathe, bleed, cry, talk, and respond to medications. These human-based methods are obviously more humane and effective than cutting apart, blowing up, shooting, and killing thousands of animals every year. One shockingly realistic simulator is a special suit designed to be worn by a human actor that enables military personnel to safely perform emergency surgical procedures on a live human without any injury to the person.

Last year, PETA helped end an Army course that involved poisoning monkeys with chemicals, and we've saved ferrets and cats from other cruel military training courses by convincing military officials to switch to modern simulators. 

The evidence of the superiority of these state-of-the-art simulation methods is so overwhelming that Congress has introduced legislation to phase out the use of animals in military training in favor of non-animal methods.

We Need All Hands on Deck

Military medical experts, veterans, and civilian physicians are joining PETA in urging U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and other military officials to immediately end the use of animals in military trauma training exercises. And we need your help, too!