Detained Marine veteran moved to Salem VA hospital

UPDATE August 24, 2012
Va. judge orders release of detained veteran

Detained Marine veteran moved to Salem VA hospital
By: KRISTEN GREEN
Richmond Times-Dispatch
Published: August 21, 2012
HOPEWELL, Va.

Brandon J. Raub, the 26-year-old Marine Corps veteran who was detained involuntarily last week after federal and local officials questioned him about his Facebook posts, was being moved to the Salem Veterans Affairs Medical Center on Tuesday, his attorney said.

John W. Whitehead, founder of The Rutherford Institute, a Charlottesville-based civil liberties organization, filed an emergency motion in Hopewell General District Court to keep Raub at John Randolph Medical Center. Special Justice Walter Douglas Stokes, who on Monday ordered Raub held for up to 30 additional days, denied the motion Tuesday afternoon, Whitehead said.

Stokes said in the hearing Monday that Raub would get better care in a VA hospital and that the Hopewell center where he had been held since Thursday was only appropriate for a temporary placement, said Raub's mother, Cathleen Thomas.

Whitehead said hospital officials indicated that Raub could not be kept in a closer VA hospital, such as the Hunter Holmes McGuire VA Medical Center in Richmond, without voluntarily committing himself.

An Aug. 13 post said, "Sharpen up my axe; I'm here to sever heads." Raub also accused the government of perpetrating a "great amount of evil." "The day of reckoning is almost at hand," an Aug. 5 post on his Facebook page said. His attorney said many of the things he wrote on his page were song lyrics.

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Former Marine detained by FBI

Former Marine detained by FBI for Facebook posts?

UPDATE Mom says veteran has hearing today Depending on what you read online, this story is very confusing. I've been reading about this over the weekend and still not sure what to make out of all of this. Some say his posts were "patriotic" but others say they were subversive. I have not read everything he posted so I can't really be objective here.

I hope the whole story comes out soon and we know the rest of it.

Chesterfield man, former Marine, detained over Facebook posts
August 19, 2012
WTVR.com
by Alix Bryan

CHESTERFIELD COUNTY, Va. (WTVR) – A Chesterfield County man, and former Marine, was taken away in handcuffs without charges, and is being held for medical evaluation after questionable Facebook posts.

Brandon Raub, 26, was led away from his house in handcuffs around 7:30 p.m. Thursday night, according the video shot and uploaded to YouTube.

That video and information was sent to several CBS 6 News staffers and to the station’s main Facebook page late Friday afternoon.

The video, posted Friday afternoon, has amassed almost 67,000 views on YouTube as of 5:00 p.m. Sunday. The video has enlisted video responses as well. A Facebook group has been started in support of Brandon Raub, and currently has over 3,000 members.

The man was taken away from the scene by Chesterfield Police, but multiple supervisors with the department say that the police have not placed any charges on him and that they were just the transporting agency in this case.
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It really is a shame that this many people pay this much attention to one of them getting into trouble and only a few pay attention to the rest of them when they come home. So many with PTSD, so many committing suicide, so many trying to, even more come home and are forgotten about. Over 2 million served yet the stories of them getting into trouble spread like wildfire across the web.

Social media creates spokesmen at Camp Lejeune

Social media creates spokesmen
August 9, 2012
Camp Lejeune Globe
Lance Cpl. Jackeline M. Perez Rivera
Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune

Marines use social media the same way everybody else does, said Sgt. Mark Fayloga, Headquarters Marine Corps head of Social Media. Through Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, Hi5, MySpace, Flickr, Reddit and many more, Marines connect and interact with people and ideas across a wide variety of avenues.

Social media gives people numerous ways to share any detail of their lives. The military community has used those resources to blog about their wartime experiences. YouTube videos have landed Marines dates and brought smiles back home through groups’ renditions of popular songs matched to complicated choreography.

Questions can be posted and answered by not only everyone in the Marines’ social network, but their friends’ social networks as well. They can find people willing to share their experience about a duty station, a job or a temporary additional billet such as recruiter or Drill Instructor.

“(With social media) you can be the voice of the Marine Corps,” said Fayloga. “You can share your story.”

Social media can serve as a soapbox to present information and opinions, or it can provide an interactive experience to can help clarify misinformation.

However, it’s very important to cite sources, said Capt. Joshua Smith, the Deputy Public Affairs Officer of Marine Corps Installation East – Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune. Without proper citation it’s just an opinion, he added.

Social media can also make anyone a micro-journalist, said Smith.
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Hero Marine Lance Cpl. Kyle Carpenter promoted

Wounded warrior Marine promoted, 19 months after grenade blast
JULY 3RD, 2012
POSTED BY DAN LAMOTHE

Then-Lance Cpl. Kyle Carpenter is shown here at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center during a November interview with Marine Corps Times. (Colin Kelly/Staff)

It was Nov. 21, 2010, when Lance Cpls. Kyle Carpenter and Nick Eufrazio were rocked with a grenade blast that changed both of their lives.

Nineteen months later, Carpenter’s miraculous recovery continues. Profiled in a Marine Corps Times cover story I wrote late last year, he has continued to heal slowly from life threatening injuries. The blast mangled his jaw, destroyed one of his eyes and most of his teeth and caused severe trauma to his right arm, which had severe tissue damage and more than 30 fractures.

Carpenter has been strikingly open about his recovery since, launching a Facebook page called Operation Kyle tracking his recovery.
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January 27, 2012
Marine Lance Cpl. Kyle Carpenter, injured by a grenade, discusses his recovery

September 24, 2011
U.S. Marine Lance Cpl. William Kyle Carpenter getting help from his neighbors

March 10, 2011
Marine Lance Cpl. William Kyle Carpenter, hero Marine honored

Brendan Haas gives Disney to fallen soldier's family

Boy Who Donated Disney Trip to Soldier’s Family Wins Vacation of His Own
By ABC News
May 31, 2012
ABC News’ Linsey Davis and Lauren Sher

Nine-year-old Brendan Haas, who spent three months trading things so he could win a vacation to Disney World and then gave it away to a girl whose father was killed in Afghanistan, was surprised with his own Walt Disney World trip today on “Good Morning America.”

To reward Brendan for his generosity, the Disney Company, the parent company of ABC, awarded Brendan’s family with an all-expense paid trip of their own, and made Brendan an “honorary citizen of Walt Disney World.”

But instead of accepting the trip, Brendan said he wanted to pay it forward yet again and that he’d be able to find another family of a fallen soldier who deserves it.

“We can’t accept a trip to Disney but we have many more people who would like to have an all-expenses paid [trip] …so we can do another raffle,” he said today from his home in Kingston, Mass.
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Marine Who Criticized Obama On Facebook, Other-Than-Honorable Discharge

Gary Stein, Marine Who Criticized Obama On Facebook, Will Receive Other-Than-Honorable Discharge
By ELLIOT SPAGAT
04/25/12

SAN DIEGO — A sergeant will be discharged for criticizing President Barack Obama on Facebook in a case that called into question the Pentagon's policies about social media and its limits on the speech of active duty military personnel, the Marine Corps said Wednesday.

Sgt. Gary Stein will get an other-than-honorable discharge and lose most of his benefits for violating the policies, the Corps said.

The San Diego-area Marine who has served nearly 10 years in the Corps said he was disappointed by the decision. He has argued that he was exercising his free-speech rights.
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Fake sites target reporter, editor covering DoD

Fake sites target reporter, editor covering DoD
By Gregory Korte - USA Today
Posted : Thursday Apr 19, 2012

WASHINGTON — A USA Today reporter and editor investigating Pentagon propaganda contractors have themselves been subjected to a propaganda campaign of sorts, waged on the Internet through a series of bogus websites.

Fake Twitter and Facebook accounts have been created in their names, along with a Wikipedia entry and dozens of message board postings and blog comments. Websites were registered in their names.

The timeline of the activity tracks USA Today’s reporting on the military’s “information operations” program, which spent hundreds of millions of dollars on marketing campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan — campaigns that have been criticized even within the Pentagon as ineffective and poorly monitored.

For example, Internet domain registries show the website TomVandenBrook.com was created Jan. 7 — just days after Pentagon reporter Tom Vanden Brook first contacted Pentagon contractors involved in the program. Two weeks after his editor Ray Locker’s byline appeared on a story, someone created a similar site, RayLocker.com, through the same company.
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Wife learns husband killed in action from Facebook?

Gold Star wife learns of husband’s death through Facebook
APRIL 13TH, 2012
OUTSIDE THE WIRE
POSTED BY JOE GOULD

The wife of a Fort Carson, Colo., staff sergeant killed in Afghanistan said she learned of his death when soldier from his unit posted on her Facebook page that there was an emergency.

“I was told via Facebook,” said Ariell Taylor-Brown told a local NBC affiliate. “It was a girl in his platoon. She wrote to me and told me to call her immediately.”

The move short circuited the military’s solemn and sacrosanct casualty notification process and broke a staunchly defended taboo. Taylor-Brown called her, and the soldier told her of the death. Taylor-Brown, who has two children and is pregnant with the couple’s third was at home alone with the kids.

“She told me over the phone, right in front of my kids and I completely had a meltdown. She wasn’t supposed to but I guess she took it on her own power to do it,” she said.

Hours later, two soldiers arrived at her home in Mobile, Ala., but she knew about it already. Protocol dictates the Army is the first to notify the family through messengers who come to the house.
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Wife Learns Of Soldier's Death Via Text, Facebook; Outrage Or The Future?
By Colin Clark
Published: April 17, 2012

We're all about social media here at AOL Defense so we would usually applaud the use of Facebook or similar to make the lives of the military better or easier.

But the respected Spouse Buzz website reports that a military spouse was notified of her husband's death via a text message and Facebook by people in her husband's unit, before the Army could reach her.

Megan Born, 22, learned Thursday first from a text message and then from a Facebook post that her husband, Sgt. Joshua Born had been killed in action earlier that day. Although her husband was stationed at Fort Stewart, Ga., Megan had moved home to Olive Branch, Ill. for the deployment.

For those of us who talk with, eat with and sometimes live with members of the military, this would seem to violate everything the military tries to achieve through use of its highly ritualized and carefully designed means of notifying next of kin of the death or serious wounding of a loved one. On top of handling the notification with as much care and dignity as possible, there can be operational security reasons for keeping the information quiet. It doesn't seem to have been the case here, but you never know.
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Facebook tea party Marine defended by ACLU, Hunter and Issa?

RESTRAINING ORDER SOUGHT FOR MARINE
Panel has backed discharge for sergeant; his attorneys want to stop proceedings
Written by Nathan Max
April 7, 2012
A Camp Pendleton Marine who is fighting expulsion from the Corps for his criticism of President Barack Obama on Facebook returned to federal court Friday, hours after a military panel unanimously found him guilty of misconduct and recommended he be given an other-than-honorable discharge.

Attorneys for Sgt. Gary Stein, 26, of Temecula, are seeking a temporary restraining order for the second time in a week in an attempt to stop the discharge proceedings.
Stein’s social media activities have become the focus of national debate about what is and what isn’t acceptable speech for a service member. He has even gained the support of two local congressmen.

A three-member administrative panel recommended that Stein be kicked out of the Marine Corps late Thursday night after a 13-hour hearing, meaning he would be demoted to lance corporal and forfeit his military benefits. His fate now rests with Brig. Gen. Daniel Yoo, the commanding general for the San Diego Marine Corps Recruit Depot and Western Recruiting Region.

Stein is a nine-year veteran of the Marine Corps, and he has been backed by a team of civilian and military attorneys, including those from the United States Justice Foundation and American Civil Liberties Union. Two Republican congressmen, Duncan Hunter of Alpine and Darrell Issa of Vista, have voiced support for Stein, who is fighting to stay in the military and testing its longtime policy of limiting the free speech of its members.

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Marine says Corps kicking him out for criticism on Facebook

Marine says Corps kicking him out for criticism
By Julie Watson - The Associated Press
Posted : Thursday Mar 22, 2012 5:39:18 EDT
SAN DIEGO — A Marine sergeant who started a Facebook group that is openly critical of President Obama and posted comments saying he will not follow the unlawful orders of the commander in chief is facing possible dismissal from the Corps.

The Marines on Wednesday told Sgt. Gary Stein — a Camp Pendleton Marine who started the Facebook page called Armed Forces Tea Party — that he is in violation of Pentagon policy barring troops from political activities.

Stein, a nine-year member of the Corps, said he started the page to encourage fellow service members to exercise their free speech rights. He has also criticized Defense Secretary Leon Panetta for his comments on Syria.
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42 Years Later, Vietnam Veterans Reunite on Facebook

42 Years Later, Vietnam Veterans Reunite on Facebook

Veterans become "friends" again after a Las Vegas man contacted Ron Colby of Saukville using the social media site. Now, the two continue to rekindle their relationship, sharing photos of family and stories from their lives since the war.
By Rory Linnane

1,800 Miles Apart and a Click Away

Forty-two years after serving in the Vietnam War, Michael Sanzaro was flipping through old photos with his daughter Melissa in his Las Vegas home, lamenting how he had lost touch with the men he fought beside in Marines Corps Battalion 2/5.

“Have you tried Facebook?” Melissa asked. "Give me a name."

Sanzaro remembered Ron Colby, a Saukville resident who left his tour by helicopter when his lung was punctured by shrapnel from a booby trap. Having no knowledge of what became of Colby, they plugged in his name and Melissa composed a brief message.
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Gay marine homecoming sealed with a kiss

Gay marine homecoming sealed with a kiss


Posted: Feb 27, 2012

KANEOHE (HawaiiNewsNow) – A kiss is still a kiss, right?

Sgt. Brandon Morgan and his partner embrace after returning from a recent deployment. Photo Credit: Gay Marines Facebook Page

A Kaneohe couple wasn't planning on becoming famous or making splashy headlines, but the pair's happy homecoming has done just that.

In 1945, an impromptu kiss in Times Square New York for V-J Day - between a sailor and a nurse - chronicled a generation. In 2012, it's another kiss that could be changing one.

Last Wednesday, during a routine homecoming at Marine Corps Base Hawaii, 25 year old Sergeant Brandon Morgan jumped into the waiting arms of his new boyfriend, Dalan Wells. The image - framed by the American flag - is going viral and getting thousands of Facebook comments nationwide.

"We've known each other for four years, but we only just started going out this last deployment," explains Morgan. "And I've known how I've felt about him - ever since we've met but had to keep it down."

"Down" because it's only been six months since the Don't ask, Don't tell law was repealed. Without it, the couple says they'd likely have reunited with a simple handshake.

"Apparently this photo has been dubbed 'The Kiss Seen or Heard ‘Round the World' and is breaking barriers," says Morgan. "People feel more confident to live their own life and be truthful to who they know they are."
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Fake "casket" airmen "conduct brought discredit both to the military and themselves"

No criminal wrongdoing in casket photo case
By Jeff Schogol - Staff writer
Posted : Monday Jan 30, 2012

FACEBOOK Airmen attending Air Transportation technical school at Lackland Air Force Base, Texas, posed for this photo dated Aug. 23. Air Force investigators have concluded there was no criminal wrongdoing by the airmen who posed for the photo.

Investigators have concluded there was no criminal wrongdoing by the airmen who posed for a picture around an open casket case with another airman inside wearing a noose around his neck and chains across his body.

However, the instructors in charge of the airmen in the picture have received administrative punishment because “their conduct brought discredit both to the military and themselves,” according to a news release from the 37th Training Wing at Lackland Air Force Base, Texas.Dated Aug. 23, the photo was taken by airmen with the 345th Training Squadron at Fort Lee, Va., where airmen learn to load and unload aircraft.
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Wounded Marine gets 6,000 followers on Facebook

Wounded Marine gets some fresh air during treatment at Walter Reed
1/25/2012
ANDREA L. CHAFFIN
Staff Writer

Despite being in a hospital bed, Cpl. Josh Sams, Wilmington, is showing he has a lot of strength left.

Sams was moved off the critical care floor Tuesday, where he is a patient at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Maryland. Wound wash surgeries went well and the family received a good report from the trauma team, said his mother, Barb Regan. In addition, his wife, Hillsboro High School graduate Lindsey Sams, was able to spend the night with him for the first time.

“We have a long way to go, but it’s a step in the right direction,” Regan said.

The Marine was on routine patrol Jan. 11 when he stepped on an improvised explosive device (IED) and was rendered a double amputee. Since, a Facebook page supporting him titled, Support WIA Marine Scout Sniper Josh Sams, has steadily gained popularity and now has more than 6,600 followers.
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Joint Base Lewis-McChord Facebook page spreads false crash rumor

McChord Facebook page spreads false crash rumor
The Associated Press
Posted : Saturday Jan 21, 2012
TACOMA, Wash. — A rumor of a cargo jet crashing into military housing was quickly spread on a popular Facebook page at Joint Base Lewis-McChord just a month after a helicopter crash killed four Army aviators near the base.

Someone wrote on a garrison Facebook page that a C-17 Globemaster IIIs plane had crashed on Thursday, The (Tacoma, Wash.) News Tribune reported.
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Fort Hood commander to host live Facebook and TV Town Hall

Fort Hood commander to host live Facebook and TV Town Hall

Fort Hood Public Affairs Office
Courtesy Story
FORT HOOD, Texas – Fort Hood is hosting its first (and the Army's first) multimedia Facebook and TV Town Hall 5-7 p.m., Jan. 26.

At 5 p.m., Fort Hood’s Facebook portion of the town hall will begin taking and answering town hall questions. At 6 p.m., Lt. Gen. Don Campbell Jr., Fort Hood and III Corps commanding general, Carl R. Darnall Medical Center commander and Fort Hood housing director will begin a live TV town hall, answering Facebook and call-in questions.

All Facebook queries will be routed and answered by dozens of subject matter experts live during the two-hour session.Their appearance will be broadcast via satellite using DVIDS, a DOD contracted media agency in Atlanta, Ga.
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Fort Carson soldier left suicide note on Facebook

Soldier wrote Facebook suicide note before Springs crash
January 07, 2012 11:00 AM
JAKOB RODGERS
THE GAZETTE
Fort Carson Pvt. Jordon DuBois visited Facebook a little more than an hour before he was killed Thursday in a Colorado Springs crash.

The 20-year-old wrote a message. “I’m goin to kill myself this is my last post ever ill will miss u all…” he wrote at 5:49 p.m. Then he posted a picture of himself.

By 7:09 p.m., DuBois was dead.

The Army on Saturday confirmed DuBois’s death. Colorado Springs police have said they suspect suicide in the crash, but haven’t finished an investigation.

DuBois, a soldier with less than a year in the Army who’d never seen combat, died when his speeding truck veered into a streetlight, a metal-and-concrete bus bench and slammed though several landscaping boulders. The battered truck came to rest at the base of a tree off Westmeadow Drive in a quiet neighborhood at the foot of Cheyenne Mountain.

There is no sign DuBois braked or turned the wheel to avoid the obstacles.

“At this point, it doesn’t appear there was anything he was trying to avoid,” said Colorado Springs police Sgt. Robert Weber, on Thursday evening.
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Original report

Facebook users care about troops sacrifices and love

For those I love I will sacrifice is a post that has me stunned right now.

Sometime yesterday, someone on Facebook managed to do what I have not been able to do in the four years this blog has been up. They sent this post out and the hits kept coming.

Usually I am thrilled with 1,000 hits a day on this blog. Last night the blog was getting that many in an hour.

I have no clue what Facebook user managed to do this but I want to offer my heartfelt appreciation!

Above this post about combat medics in Afghanistan on Forward Operating Base PASAB. One of the photos taken was of a young soldier, Pfc. Kyle Hockenberry, wounded by an IED. What made him stand out from the other outstanding pictures in this Stars and Stripes article was his tattoo. On his right side he has the words, For those I love I will sacrifice.

To me, there could not have been a more clear message. That is exactly what they are like. I've been doing this for almost 30 years now and I can tell you that they are brave beyond measure but they are also more loving than they get credit for. You can't do what they do every day if they did not love so deeply. Imagine being willing to die for the sake of someone else by choice and not by circumstance. That requires love.

Anyway, click the link above and you'll know what else I had to say about this. The blessing went beyond this post. My video documentaries also received more views and these videos are my passion. They are about people the media pretty much ignore. The National Vietnam War Museum is getting more attention. First Church of Christ, the church that took in a homeless Vietnam veteran out of love is getting more attention. Pastor Joel took in Staff Sgt. Andrew Wright and his son managed to find him after searching for all his life for him. He found him while serving in Iraq in the Marines. Homes for Our Troops is getting more attention and the outstanding veterans in the video are being paid attention to.

This act of love out of a Facebook user will end up helping more than they ever dreamed of and much more than I prayed for.

If you are the one who spread the word about this post, please contact me so that I can know who my guardian angel is.

Social media bridging gap between troubled vets and treatment

If Facebook and all the other online sites were around when Vietnam Veterans came home, there would be a lot more of them still here today!

Social media bridging gap between troubled vets and treatment
By MATTHEW M. BURKE
Stars and Stripes
Published: September 23, 2011
SASEBO NAVAL BASE, Japan — Marine Cpl. J.P. Villont returned from Iraq a broken man.

The married father of four was angry, paranoid, hyper-vigilant, aggressive and withdrawn — telltale signs of post-traumatic stress disorder.

Yet, for seven years, the former Marine was reluctant to seek help.

“Obviously I had PTSD and it was undiagnosed,” Villont, 40, said recently from his Phoenix home. “It’s a huge stigma, so I didn’t want to find that out. I pretended I didn’t have it for many years.”

Then, following a couple of violent outbursts, Villont finally contacted a few veterans facilities in Arizona. He was told he would have to wait months for treatment.

With seemingly nowhere to turn, his wife, Lisa, starting posting messages on the Wounded Warrior Project’s Facebook page.

“Its been over 7 years since my husband returned home from Iraq, just last week he finally decided to seek help for what we assume will be diagnosed as PTSD,” she wrote.

Her words caught the attention of Jennifer Boyce, social media manager for the Wounded Warrior Project, who provided the Villonts with people who could help immediately.
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Facebook behind Vietnam Vet finding daughter after 39 years

Danielle Petratos holds a photo of her and her father 42 years ago. (Photo/Mona Rivera/1010 WINS)

Dad, Daughter Reunite Via Facebook After 39 Years
October 21, 2010 2:31 PM


Reporting Mike Xirinachs

MANHASSET, NY (WCBS 880/ 1010 WINS) – All her life, the only thing Danielle Petratos had of her father was a single photograph.

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Dad Daughter Reunite Via Facebook After 39 Years