There's a shocking military scandal that you may not know about: the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) is directly responsible for the extreme suffering of countless goats, pigs, monkeys, and other animals.

Every year, thousands of live animals are shot, stabbed, dismembered, burned, and poisoned in routine trauma-training exercises under the misguided notion that such cruelty will prepare medics and members of the infantry to deal with battlefield injuries. It's horrific but true: The DoD subjects animals to every kind of violent injury that happens on the battlefield.

But despite effective and painless non-animal alternatives available for these trainings-including the DoD's own Combat Trauma Patient Simulator-the Department continues to maim and kill countless individual animals in gruesome and totally unnecessary ways, including the following:

Goats are stabbed, their veins are cut open, their chests are wounded, and their legs are amputated.For military trauma training in Hawaii, pigs are shot, mutilated, and killed after enduring a five-day journey on crowded cargo ships. These and other DoD-authorized but needless training exercises-and the horrific pain and suffering that they inflict on countless individual animals-could be stopped today without compromising military readiness or training.

It's urgent that we take action NOW to save these animals. Please join with PETA today by asking President Obama to issue an executive order immediately requiring the DoD to replace its use and abuse of live animals with more effective non-animal methods.

Just last month, after intense pressure from PETA and our supporters around the world, the Bolivian government banned "the abuse and sacrifice of animals" in military exercises. This came just days after we released a shocking video that showed dogs who were mutilated alive during "training" exercises conducted by the Bolivian military. It's also that country's very first animal protection regulation.

Also please consider Telling Congress to End Military Trauma Training on Animals.

Thanks for taking action!

Souce: PETA