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If you like The Colbert Report but always thought Stephen would be funnier if the craft services table had more authentic hummus, you're in luck! Stephen will soon be taping the show over there, so we don't have to tape it over here. From the Stripes Central military blog:\n\n "I'm not supposed to tell anyone where I'm going, but just say it's sandy and they'd like us to leave," Colbert told Stars and Stripes on Tuesday. The host of Comedy Central's "The Colbert Report" said he was invited by Gen. David Petraeus, head of U.S. Central Command, to entertain U.S. troops downrange. "I'm hoping they're just going to blindfold me, fly the plane around in the air for 12 hours and drop me in New Mexico and tell me it's the Persian Gulf, because I wouldn't know the difference," he said.

Various veterans' issue-related news clips of the day...

A disabled Gulf War veteran who left Norman earlier this month on a hand-propelled bicycle headed for Washington D.C. to honor fallen soldiers has died. Kevin Baker suffered a seizure Friday morning in his sleep at the home of some friends in Lake Charles, La., said Norman resident Diane Zellner. He died in an ambulance en route to a local hospital, Zellner said she was told. Baker, a 39-year-old Navy veteran, had a history of seizures, stemming from a traumatic brain injury, she said. He also had been diagnosed with lymphoma.

"An Air Force Reserve 403rd Wing "Hurricane Hunters" WC-130J is scheduled to depart May 19 as the military's first-ever media flight compromised solely of bloggers. This flight gives bloggers from across the country an opportunity only available to traditional media outlets until now. Members from the international blogging community will be able to share with their audiences what it is like to ride with the Hurricane Hunters while learning what goes into training for one of the most challenging missions in the Air Force. Immediately after their flight, bloggers will be able to update their sites in an adjacent computer room. The two-hour flight over the Gulf of Mexico will give a new audience a better understanding of how the Hurricane Hunters collect life-saving data inside storms and highlighting the coming hurricane season which starts June 1. According to a Pentagon survey, 94% of people born after 1990 actively either blog or use social networking, such as Facebook, and new media ranks number two behind television on how people receive information. The Air Force Reserve and the 403rd are pioneers when it comes to embracing new media and are proud to offer this opportunity to the blogging community. "Social Networking and blogging is not the communication of the future, but of today. This is the way current generations communicate and the Air Force and Air Force Reserve needs to keep up with how technology is evolving and making communication faster and easier," said Brigadier General James J. Muscatell, Jr., commander of the 403rd Wing. This flight is another example of how the 403rd is communicating through new media, the Wing mission that includes the maintainers, the Hurricane Hunters and the Flying Jennies. The public can keep up with news about the 403rd Wing via Facebook Groups listed under '403rd Wing', 'AF Reserve Hurricane Hunters', '815th Flying Jennies' and '41st APS'. In addition, full-resolution photos can be found u

The military will phase out its "stop-loss" program, the contentious practice of holding troops beyond the end of their enlistments, for all but extraordinary situations, Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced Wednesday. Instead, the military will use incentives programs to encourage personnel to extend their service. Starting this month, the department will provide "special compensation of $500 per month" to troops whose tour has been extended, Gates said. "This special compensation will be applied retroactively to October 1, 2008, the date when Congress first made it available."

Scientific American has a knock-out article that questions whether the diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder is a coherent psychological concept or whether it is actually making the situation worse for soldiers with post-combat mental health problems.

* The syndrome of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is under fire because its defining criteria are too broad, leading to rampant overdiagnosis.\n * The flawed PTSD concept may mistake soldiers' natural process of adjustment to civilian life for dysfunction.\n * Misdiagnosed soldiers receive the wrong treatments and risk becoming mired in a Veterans Administration system that encourages chronic disability.\n

U.S. military veterans from three decades pass through Judge Sarah Smith's courtroom here, reporting on their battles with drug addiction, alcoholism and despair. Those who find jobs and stabilize their lives are rewarded with candy bars and applause. Those who backslide go to jail. Smith radiates an air of maternal care from the bench. As the veterans come before her, she softly asks: "How are you doing? Do you need anything?" But if a veteran fails random drug tests, she doesn't flinch at invoking his sentence. Her court is part of a new approach in the criminal justice system: specialized courts for veterans who have broken the law. Judges have been spurred by a wave of troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, battling post-traumatic stress disorder and brain injuries and stumbling into trouble with the law. But advocates of the courts say they also address a problem as old as combat itself. "Some families give their sons or daughters to service for their country, and they're perfectly good kids. And they come back from war and just disintegrate before our eyes," said Robert Alvarez, a counselor at Fort Carson in Colorado who is advocating for a veterans court in the surrounding county. "Is it fair to put these kids in prison because they served and got injured?"

Chris Tucker received a medical discharge from the Army last year and he now is Officer Chris Tucker of the Savannah-Chatham Metropolitan Police Department. "You still get to serve your community and your country in other ways," he said. At age 26, he is a veteran of three combat tours. The patrol skills he learned on the streets of Baghdad, Fallujah and Sadr City come in handy as he drives his police cruiser around the neighborhoods of his Savannah precinct.