Saturday, August 26, 2017

Soldier Missing Five Rescued After Black Hawk Crash in Yemen

U.S. Black Hawk Helicopter Crashes off Yemen Coast, One Crew Member Missing

Associated Press
August 26, 2017

A U.S. military Black Hawk helicopter crashed off the southern coast of Yemen while training its crew, leaving one service member missing, officials said.
Five others aboard the aircraft were rescued, officials said in a statement issued by U.S. Central Command.
The crash took place Friday evening. Officials said the accident was under investigation.
Asked if the crash involved another special forces raid, Central Command told The Associated Press that "this was a routine training event specifically for U.S. military personnel."

PTSD on Trial: Man Went For Help First, Before Shooting

Man on trial in deputy shooting says he intended to only harm himself

Oregon Live
Everton Bailey Jr.
August 25, 2017

Everton Bailey Jr. | The Oregonian/OregonLive Steven Wilson testifies in his own defense during his trial in Clackamas County Circuit Court on August 25, 2017. Wilson, 40, is accused of grabbing a county deputy's gun and shooting them both in November 2016. Wilson said he meant to grab the gun, kill himself and didn't intend to injure the deputy. (Everton Bailey Jr./The Oregonian)
Steven Wilson felt suicidal last fall and had gone to Legacy Good Samaritan Medical Center for help, but was released hours later. He returned to his Portland apartment, later grabbed his psychiatric medication and went to a nearby MAX stop. Then he threw the pills on the ground.
A voice inside his head told him: If you're serious about killing yourself, you don't need your medicine, Wilson told the jury Friday during his attempted murder trial. The voice also said he needed to die to keep his mother alive.
From there, Wilson testified, he remembers only snippets. He's accused of shooting a Clackamas County deputy with the deputy's own gun in a Nov. 15, 2016 encounter that left them both injured.
Wilson, 40, said he somehow got to a home in Clackamas where his mother no longer lived and took a blanket off a neighbor's porch.
He doesn't remember later walking into traffic along Southeast Sunnyside Road during the early morning traffic commute, he said. Nor being hit by at least one car or the two women who stopped to try to help him afterward.
He said he doesn't remember the deputy who responded to the scene, but said he did recall at some point seeing a gun in front of him and a voice in his head repeatedly telling him, "Grab the gun and kill yourself."

New Hampshire AG Shuts Down Veterans Charity

Police Open Probe Into VetCare

Valley News
Rob Wolfe
August 26, 2017
The attorney general said some of Project VetCare’s leaders had diverted money to pay for a range of personal purposes, including a cruise vacation, a heating system for the executive director’s home, and loans and stipends for directors and their relatives.Robert Chambers, co-founder of Project VetCare, was among those named in the report. The investigation found that he used the organization’s fund to pay for a Toyota van and that his daughter had received a stipend payment.
Hanover — The Hanover Police Department says it has opened a criminal investigation into the veterans aid group Project VetCare stemming from a report that some of the organization’s directors took money for personal expenses.
The New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office on Thursday announced that the Hanover-based nonprofit would close and that officials involved in the misuse of the organization’s funds had agreed to repay some of the money.
Officials at area veterans groups on Friday expressed concern that news about Project VetCare’s improprieties could hurt their own efforts.
The state’s Charitable Trusts Unit, which oversees New Hampshire charities, investigated the organization and discovered “diversion of large sums of money for the benefit of the charity’s executive director, her family, an employee and some members of the board of directors,” the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office said in a statement on Thursday.
State officials have passed their findings to Grafton County Attorney Lara Saffo, who said on Friday that Hanover police had begun a probe.

Quiet Hollers Songwriter Takes On Mental Health Challenges


For Quiet Hollers, the song comes first

Lacrosse Tribune
Michale Martin
August 25, 2017
His wife has a panic disorder and Wilde suffers from depression — something alluded to in the song, “Medicine”. Meanwhile a close friend, a veteran with post-traumatic stress disorder, took his own life.

For a while it looked like Quiet Hollers were going to be pegged as an Americana or roots band — or maybe even an alt country band. But the latest album by the Louisville, Kentucky-based band — “Amen Breaks” — makes it clear that those kinds of “boxes” are far too small to contain the band’s creativity.
The Hollers are doing a show at the Cavalier Theater on Sept 2. The band’s latest album has elements of post-punk and indie-leaning sounds, as well as hip-hop-style drum machines, soaring synthesizers, string quartets and harmony-laden choruses. Despite the disparate styles and sounds, it’s all somehow held together by Shadwick Wilde’s thoughtful songwriting.
Wilde, the band’s primary songwriter, explained that the album was inspired by life challenges faced by friends and family. 
“It’s kind of an amalgam of things that have been in the forefront of my mind, about mental health and mental illness — these things that have touched the lives of virtually everyone I know, myself included,” Wilde said.

Siblings Suffer After Suicide But Go Without Help to Heal

After a suicide, sibling survivors are often overlooked

NPR
Cheryl Platzman Weinstock
August 25, 2017 
"I think people don't understand how profound a loss of a sibling can be. They help shape your trajectory and sense of self." Julie Cerel, a psychologist and president of the American Association of Suicidology  

Ryan Steen (left) found himself "on edge" and isolated for years after his younger brother, Tyler, died by suicide. 

When Taylor Porco's brother, Jordan, died by suicide during his freshman year of college in February 2011, people told her to be strong for her parents, who were incapacitated by their grief. Hardly anyone seemed to notice that Porco, only 14 at the time, was suffering and suicidal.

"I was really depressed and in such extreme pain. Nothing, literally, mattered to me after he died. All I wanted was my brother back. I never loved someone as much as I loved him," she says.

Porco's experience is hardly unique. Approximately 25,000 people each year become sibling survivors of suicide, according to the support group, Sibling Survivors of Suicide Loss. Those who lose a sibling to suicide at any age can experience anger, complicated grief reactions, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder and thoughts of taking their own lives.

Until recently, these survivors often fell under the radar. They were overlooked in medical research, and no one understood what they were going through or how to support them. But, according to several studies of survivors, those who lose a sibling to suicide, especially one of the same sex or close in age, have more serious mood disorders and thoughts of suicide themselves than survivors who lose a sibling for any other reason. 
read more here

POTUS Pardons and Harvey Pounds Texas

What was POTUS getting ready for as Harvey headed to US?


1. President Trump Grants Pardon for Former Sheriff Joe Arpaio
NBC News
by PHIL HELSEL and VAUGHN HILLYARD
August 25, 2017

President Donald Trump on Friday pardoned former Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio, who was convicted of criminal contempt for ignoring a judge’s order not to detain suspected undocumented immigrants, the White House said.

Trump at a campaign-style rally in Phoenix strongly suggested he would pardon Arpaio, the former sheriff of Maricopa County. Arpaio had said he would appeal his conviction on misdemeanor contempt.
read more here

Is that what he as focused on as the monster Harvey was headed toward Texas? It looks like he had something else on his mind as well.
2. Trump Halts Pentagon Payments for Transgender SurgeryNBC Newsby ALI VITALI August 25, 2017
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump on Friday stopped funding for sex-reassignment treatment for transgender people currently in the military and barred the Pentagon from accepting any more transgender people into the services.

The president signed a memo giving new guidance to his previously-tweeted ban on transgender individuals serving in the U.S. military, according to a senior White House official who briefed reporters on condition of anonymity.

Trump signed the memo, the details of which were first reported by The Wall Street Journal, on Friday and directed the departments of Defense and Homeland Security to stop funding of sex-reassignment procedures and deny entry of transgender individuals into the military.
Openly transgender individuals will be barred until the Secretary of Defense "provides a recommendation to the contrary that I find convincing," Trump's memo reads. read more here

Hurricane Harvey Slams Texas, Risk of ‘Catastrophic Flooding’

NBC News
Saphora Smith
August 26, 2017

More than 200,000 people were without power Saturday after Hurricane Harvey smashed into Texas, bringing prolonged rainfall that was expected to cause "catastrophic flooding."
It made landfall near Corpus Christi as a Category 4 storm, with maximum sustained winds of 130mph, and weakened as it moved slowly inland to become Category 1 by 6 a.m. ET.
But while the winds eased to 90mph, forecasters warned that torrential rain would be a major threat.
"It's hard to imagine just how horrific and destructive this amount of water will be," NBC News meteorologist Bill Karins said.

VA Data on Homeless Veterans Shows, All of Us Make a Difference

Leveraging data to provide insight into complex issues surrounding Veteran homelessness

VAntage Point
Department of Veterans Affairs
August 23, 2017

It’s not enough to do your best; you must know what to do, and then do your best.” — W. Edwards Deming


Deming, a well-respected statistician, reminds us that identifying the what is critical in determining how to be successful. Deming is widely known for helping to develop the sampling techniques still used by the U.S. Census Bureau and the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
VA has taken a similar approach in working toward its priority goal to end Veteran homelessness, gathering and reviewing data on homelessness that then inform strategies to address it. As a result, the nation saw a nearly 50 percent reduction in the number of homeless Veterans between 2010 and 2016.
For the last four years, VA and partners at the state and community levels have been using a data-driven management platform to determine and update the number of Veterans who are homeless and track those Veterans by name so that they can be served most efficiently and effectively. The platform houses data from multiple sources, including but not limited to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Point-in-Time count and the VA Homeless Registry.
This data-driven approach to ending Veteran homelessness helps all of us — national organizations like VA, community groups, and individuals in every corner of the U.S. — ensure that we’re doing our best to give every Veteran a safe, stable place to call home and the resources they need to stay there.
read more here 

Friday, August 25, 2017

Florida Navy Veteran Left in Road by Hit and Run Driver

Veteran hit by car while riding bike, driver flees



Vincent Crivelli
August 24, 2017


Bloody, bruised, and battered. He served our country, but a local veteran almost died right here at home. The 37-year-old father, left for dead in Delray Beach by a hit and run driver.

On Monday evening, father of two, Ian Rose went on a bike ride down Linton Avenue in Delray Beach when he was hit from behind and thrown off his bike. “So I landed face first, heard a crack of my head hitting the sidewalk was the last thing that I heard until I woke up,” said Rose. He broke several bones in his face, and bruised his ribs.
He isn’t sure how long he was unconscious, but when he woke up the driver was nowhere to be found. “The most painful thing that I’ve experienced,” said Rose. With no one around to help, Rose got back on his bike drenched in blood and peddled a mile to get home.
read more here

Death of Edwards Air Force Airman Under Investigation

U.S. Air Force service member dies on Edwards AFB
By 412th Test Wing Public Affairs 
Published August 24, 2017

EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif.
The U.S. Air Force is investigating the death of an Airman assigned to Edwards Air Force Base.

The deceased is identified as Senior Airman Joseph Connors of the 812th Civil Engineer Squadron, Explosive Ordnance Disposal Flight.

The incident occurred at approximately 6:30 p.m., Aug. 23, near the base’s north gate on Edwards AFB property. The north gate entrance was closed for a period of time due to the investigation.

Brig. Gen. Carl Schaefer, 412th Test Wing commander, issued a statement to the base populace today.

“I'm heartbroken to announce the loss of one of our valuable teammates … Senior Airman Connors was one of our "rock star" Airmen — Airman Leadership School distinguished graduate and our 2016 Wing Airman of the Year. 

He is survived by his active duty spouse, who is also a vital member of our wing. Our thoughts and prayers are with her, our EOD team, and all those supporting in the wake of this tragedy.”

For general questions regarding this release, call the Edwards Public Affairs Office at 661-277-3510.

Thursday, August 24, 2017

Adm. William Moran "Our testimony today may seem like a broken record," But Congress Did Nothing About Any of This!

Many warnings of readiness 'crisis' before latest ship accidents

CNN
Jeremy Herb and Dianna Gallagher
August 25, 2017

"Our testimony today may seem like a broken record," Vice Chief of Naval Operations Adm. William Moran said at a February House armed services committee hearing. "Our Navy faces increased demand without the size and resources required to properly maintain and train for our future. And every year we've had to make tough choices often choosing to sacrifice long-term readiness to make sure we be ready to answer the call today."

(CNN) Military leaders, Congress and government watchdogs have all warned for years that the military faces a possible readiness crisis as it has slashed training and maintenance to keep up with budget cuts and increased operations around the globe.
Monday's collision between USS John S. McCain and a tanker off the coast of Singapore — where one sailor was found dead and another nine are missing and presumed dead — has sparked a new round of questions about the Navy's readiness and training, as it's the fourth major collision for the Navy in the Pacific this year.
But the warnings about the military's readiness problems are nothing new, and the Navy isn't alone in seeing a spike in major non-combat incidents and fatalities.
    "I think it's probably approaching a readiness crisis," Rep. Adam Kinzinger, an Illinois Republican and Air Force veteran. "You have, in many cases, a Navy that is highly operational and may not get the time or the chance to train as deeply or as much as they want. You have old equipment. You have failing equipment because it's not being repaired or invested in. These are all concerns when it comes to this."
    After the McCain collision, the Navy ordered a one-day operational pause across the entire fleet in order to examine the root causes of the accidents. The commander of the Navy's 7th Fleet, which operates in the Pacific, was dismissed in the fallout.
    And all of this is thanks to Congress who did not want to make sure there was a budget to take care of any of our troops! They play politics and troops pay with their lives.