Marine from Massachusetts killed in Afghanistan

Marine from Abington dies in Afghanistan
WCVB Channel 5
By Staff
Posted Dec 24, 2013

ABINGTON

The second Massachusetts Marine in two weeks has been killed in action in Afghanistan.

Sgt. Daniel Vasselian, 27, of Abington, was killed Monday, his family said. He was ambushed, two days before Christmas, as he was getting off a Humvee, they said.

Vasselian's death came on the same day Lance Cpl. Matthew Rodriguez, of Fairhaven, was buried.

Family members said this was Vallelian's third combat tour of duty. He had served both in Iraq and Afghanistan after his enlistment in 2006.
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Government still shutdown, Fort Carson soldier killed in Afghanistan

Lancaster Co. soldier, 26, killed in Afghanistan
By Katie Mae Bassler
Oct 14, 2013

QUARRYVILLE, Pa. (WHTM)

The Department of Defense says a Lancaster County soldier died on Sunday in Afghanistan.

Officials released this statement: "The Department of Defense announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Enduring Freedom.

Staff Sgt. Patrick H. Quinn, 26, of Quarryville, Pa., died Oct. 13, in Paktika Province, Afghanistan, of injuries sustained when the enemy attacked his base with small arms fire.

He was assigned to 3rd Battalion, 10th Special Forces Group, Fort Carson, Colorado."
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Stamford officer's son killed in Afghanistan

Stamford officer's son killed in Afghanistan
Father and son both served in Air Force in middle east
Staff reports
Friday, September 6, 2013

STAMFORD -- A city police officer's son was killed in the line of duty while with the U.S. Air Force in Afghanistan on Thursday, according to Stamford police. The airman's father is a city officer.

Staff Sgt. Todd James "T.J." Lobraico was 22. His father was notified early Friday, Stamford Police Sgt. Joseph Kennedy said.

Lobraico's father, also named Todd, is an Air Force veteran and served in the first Gulf War. He has been an officer with the Stamford Police Department for 17 years and lives in Sherman.

"On a personal level, I can fully understand what Todd and his family are going through," Stamford Police Chief Jon Fontneau said. "As for the Stamford police family, we are devastated seeing the loss to Todd's family and the loss to the United States."

Fontneau said Friday morning he had just returned from visiting the Lobraico family and that they were "crushed" and in a state of shock after being notified of the young man's death.
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Florida Marines taking 81 mile hike for fallen

Marines to hike 81 miles over Labor Day weekend to honor Fallujah heroes
INFANTRY IRAQ MARINES
POSTED BY GINA HARKINS
AUGUST 29TH, 2013

A group of Marine reservists are leading a three-day, 81 mile hike in Florida this weekend to honor those who died in the Battle of Fallujah in 2004.

A group of Marines, leading an 81-mile hike in Florida to honor those who died fighting in Fallujah, Iraq in 2004, stand with their governor. From left to right: Cpl. Larry Rubino, Staff Sgt. Denis Vanegas, Florida Gov. Rick Scott, Capt. Jason Wetherington, Capt. Chris Troken and Maj. Charleston Malkemus.
(Courtesy of Maj. Charleston Malkemus)

Maj. Charleston Malkemus, an infantry officer who fought in the infamous Battle of Fallujah in Iraq in 2004, carries a flag he received from a Marine who was killed in action. He said he now displays it in his company office to remind other Marines of their commitment to uphold the expectations of their brothers-in-arms. And this weekend, he will carry the flag 81 miles as he helps lead a hike from West Palm Beach to Miami.

“Picking up a flag and carrying it forward into battle has been an act of inspiration for ages,” Malkemus said. “When my fellow Marine died and I received his flag, I wasn’t only entrusted to carry on his spirit, but to ensure that I carried it forward into greatness.”
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Vietnam Veteran on vacation in Europe informed son killed in Afghanistan

U.S. Soldier Killed In Afghanistan Was Son Of Vietnam Veteran (Video)
KPBS News
By Beth Ford Roth
August 30, 2013

Army Staff Sgt. Michael H. Ollis, 24, died August 28, in Ghazni Province, Afghanistan. The young soldier was killed when insurgents attacked his unit with what the Department of Defense reports as "an improvised explosive device, small arms and indirect fire."

Ollis was assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 22nd Infantry Regiment, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division (Light) at Fort Drum in New York.
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Vermont soldier’s death spurs heartache, healing

Vt. soldier’s death spurs heartache, healing
Times Argus
August 11,2013

“Dear Mom and Dad,” began the handwritten note pulled from his pocket. “By the time you read this I will have died for my country. Please don’t be sad.”

Vermonter Kyle Gilbert’s parents still remember the last words their only child said on the phone before the 20-year-old soldier was killed in Iraq on Aug. 6, 2003: “Just don’t forget me.”

A decade later, they haven’t. They just didn’t anticipate the fallout.

When state leaders and national news crews flocked to Gilbert’s funeral 10 years ago, his hometown of Brattleboro stood united in grief. Then residents split over a proposed memorial on Main Street. His parents divorced. Friends felt torn when his mother and father held separate annual remembrances.

On Saturday, upon his aunt’s urging, Gilbert’s family and neighbors reunited at his hometown VFW.

The public event aimed to honor his memory. But for the hundreds who gathered, it also offered an opportunity to heal.
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Three Fort Stewart Solders Killed In Afghanistan

DOD Identifies Army Casualties
No. 535-13
July 25, 2013

The Department of Defense announced today the death of three soldiers who were supporting Operation Enduring Freedom.

They died July 23, in Soltan Kheyl, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when enemy forces attacked their unit with an improvised explosive device. They were assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 15th Infantry Regiment, 4th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division, Fort Stewart, Ga.

Killed were:

1st Lt. Jonam Russell, 25
of Cornville, Ariz.,

Sgt. Stefan M. Smith, 24
of Glennville, Ga., and

Spc. Rob L. Nichols, 24
of Colorado Springs, Colo.

Vietnam veterans arrested for taking too long to read war dead names?

Forgive our trespasses: Judge tosses convictions for vets arrested in Vietnam Memorial name-reading ceremony
New York Post
By DANA SAUCHELLI
July 13, 2013

They're guilty — but exonerated.

A Manhattan judge today convicted 11 Vietnam veterans and one Bronze Star-holding World War II veteran of trespassing for refusing to stop reading the names of the dead "in a timely manner" at a downtown war memorial last Fall.

But Manhattan Criminal Court Judge Robert Mandelbaum then immediately dismissed the convictions in the interest of justice.

"In these unique circumstances, this is the rare case where justice is served by dismissing the case," the judge told the silver-haired seniors.

A total of 25 people had been flex-cuffed, frisked and tossed in a paddy wagon last October for refusing to observe a 10 p.m. park curfew and leave the Vietnam Memorial between South and Water streets.

The eleven vets who took the case to trial argued that it should not be a crime — no matter what time of day it was — to solemnly read the names of the 1,754 military personnel from New York State who were killed in action during Vietnam, as well as the thousands more names of KIA from Afghanistan and Iraq.
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Honor veterans of the forgotten war

Honor veterans of the forgotten war
Chicago Sun Times
BY WILLIAM A. BALTZ
July 12, 2013

One military historian called it “the century’s nastiest little war.” On June 25, 1950, seven divisions of elite North Korean communist troops invaded the fledgling democracy of South Korea with the intention of conquering their southern neighbor and ally of the United States in three weeks.

Three years and three weeks later — when the United Nations, China and North Korea signed an armistice ending the Korean War — U.S. casualties amounted to 33,629 killed, 103,284 wounded and 7,140 taken prisoner. Millions of civilians had perished.

American soldiers were dubbed “the walking wounded” because they were patched up in the field and sent back into battle — a savage existence where ever-changing front lines, hand-to-hand combat, merciless artillery barrages, amputations from frostbite and death from dysentery were commonplace.

Sixty years after the armistice signing on July 27, 1953, the walking wounded remains an apt description for Bernard Bossov, 83, of Wilmette, and other American veterans who continue to battle physical and emotional trauma caused by the war. “I can handle the pain and the nightmares,” Bossov says, “but worse is that people might forget how well we fought and what we did.”

Bossov, like so many other Korean War veterans, feels his sacrifice has been overlooked.
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Patriot Guard Riders escorting Staff Sgt. Jesse Thomas Jr. body home

The Patriot Guard has been requested to escort and stand in honor for SSgt Jesse L. Thomas Jr.

SSgt Jesse L. Thomas Jr. age 31

Pensacola, Fl.

June 20 and 22, 2013

This will be a two part mission. SSgt Thomas was KIA on June 10, 2013 in Helmand Province, Afghanistan. We will receive SSgt Thomas's remains upon arrival from Dover, DE at the Pensacola Aviation Center, 4145 Jerry L. Maygarden Rd., Pensacola. Aircraft arrival is scheduled for 11:00 AM, June 20, 2013. We will then escort SSgt Thomas to the Joe Morris Funeral Home, 701 N. DeVillers St., Pensacola.

The second part of this mission will take place on Saturday, June 22, 2013. Funeral services are scheduled at the East Hill Church of God in Christ, 400 East Jordan St. Pensacola at 1:00 PM. We will set a flag line up prior to the service. Following the service, we will escort SSgt Thomas to Barrancas National Cemetery for honors. Honors at Barrancas National Cemetery are scheduled for 3:15 PM. Joe Morris Funeral Home, 701 N. DeVillers St., Pensacola is in charge of arrangements.

SSgt Thomas was assigned to the 39th Transportation Battalion, 16th Sustainment Brigade, 21st Theater Sustainment Command out of Kleber Kaserne, Germany.

He leaves behind his wife, Michelle, also an active duty member, 3 step children, and his Mother, Irma Oliver. SSgt Thomas earned the following awards during his service to this country. The Army Commendation Medal (3) {3rd posthumous}, Army Achievement Medal (3), Army Superior Unit Award, Army Good Conduct Medal (3), Afghanistan Campaign Medal, National Defense Service Medal, Global War on Terrorism Medal, Korean Defense Service Medal (2), Military Outstanding Volunteer Service Medal, Non-Commissioned Officer Professional Development Ribbon (2), Army Service Ribbon, Overseas Service Ribbon (2), and posthumous NATO Medal.

Vietnam KIA receives posthumous PHD from University of Pennsylvania

Posthumous Ph.D. to be awarded at Grad Commencement
Monday, May 13, 2013

This year, in addition to conferring standard degrees on our graduates, the department will grant a Ph.D. posthumously to Mortimer Lenane O’Connor, who was a doctoral student in English at Penn from the late 1950s through the mid 1960s. Mort, as he was known, had completed his courses and exams and was nearly finished with his dissertation when he was deployed to Vietnam.

He served there as Lieutenant Colonel in command of the Army’s 1st Battalion, 2d Infantry. He was killed in action in the Iron Triangle north of Saigon on April 1, 1968.
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received via email from Paul Sutton

Staff Sgt. Jonathan D. Davis, 14th Navajo killed in Afghanistan

Marine is 14th member of Navajo Nation to die in Afghanistan
By Alex Pena
Stars and Stripes
Published: February 26, 2013

The Marine who died in Afghanistan on Friday has been identified as Staff Sgt. Jonathan D. Davis, a Navajo from Kayenta, Ariz.

Davis, 34, died Feb. 22 while conducting operations in Helmand province, according to a Department of Defense news release. He was assigned to Headquarters Battalion, 32nd Georgian Liaison Team, Regimental Combat Team 71st Marine Division, 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Pendleton, Calif.

Davis was killed in a bomb attack while working as the liaison for the Georgian military, which has been partnered with the Marines in Helmand province for several years.

According to the Navajo Square, an online community site for the Navajo Nation, Davis is the 14th Navajo to be killed while serving in Afghanistan.
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‘The Revenant,’ Horror Takes On Race And Military Suicide

Sometimes I read an article on Combat PTSD and decide to just move on because it is useless information or so wrong that no amount of countering it with cold-hard facts can fix it. This time, I am stunned by a reporter with a clear attempt of trying to understand Combat PTSD, yet getting it oh so wrong.

In ‘The Revenant,’ Horror Takes On Race And Military Suicide
Think Progress
By Betsy Phillips
Jan 22, 2013

This weekend I stumbled across The Revenant on Cinemax. According to Wikipedia, this film won a ton of awards, but I somehow missed it when it was in theaters (or maybe it never came to Nashville?) Either way, I was just looking for something cheesy to watch and there it was. It’s so good that I ended up watching it twice. (Fair warning: SPOILERS AHEAD.)

Not that it’s a perfect movie. It runs long and calls individual Wiccans “Wiccas.” But it’s really good.

The general premise of the movie is that Bart Gregory, played by David Anders, dies in the Iraq War and his body is shipped home for burial. He comes back from the dead, and his best friend, Joey, played by Chris Wylde, helps him cope, through murder, mayhem, and blood-drinking.

So, here, in The Revenant, when we’re watching a man come back from the dead and prowl through the streets for victims he’s not going to feel too bad about, we’re seeing a man come back from a war and find a society not set up for him to return to. I mean, not to put too fine a point on it, but he comes back from Iraq, scares the crap out of his friends with his behavior, becomes a criminal, accidentally kills his girlfriend, and then tries to kill himself, before being sent back into combat–as if being in combat has made him only good for killing.

It’s terrible to look straight at the fact that more people in the military died last year from suicide than in combat and that the military has an ongoing problem with people coming home and enacting violence on their loved ones. But, again, we see it on screen in The Revenant while we’re looking at something else.
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If you read the rest of this article, know this. This is about a horror movie and not about what is real for our veterans. Veterans with PTSD live with horror movies playing in the theater of their own minds with memories haunting them. To use them in a horror movie, especially one that has the subject being killed in combat coming back to life as zombie vampire.

This pretty much explains it. “The Revenant”: Zombies and vampires, via Tarantino

Sure, I see what some of the issues are – an absence of recognizable stars, most notably – and for the first few minutes you’re not quite sure what kind of movie this is, or who the main character will be. We begin with Bart Gregory (David Anders), a young soldier from California, who gets killed in a mysterious roadside ambush in Iraq. (I told you this was made in 2009!) Back in L.A. at Bart’s funeral, his weepy girlfriend, Janet (Louise Griffiths), and his drug-addled best friend, Joey (Chris Wylde), allow their alcohol-fueled grief to push them into a passionate makeout session. Does that event have something to do with the fact that, later that night, Bart will force open his coffin and dig his way back to the surface?

The fact this movie couldn't get a distributor for years should have been a good indication it should not have been done in the first place. When men and women killed in action are turned into this type of character it is sickening and fuels the image of PTSD veterans as some type of monster instead of what they truly are. As a wife of a Vietnam veteran with PTSD, I wish there were more movies about them in the real world and less movies like this using them to make money.

Staff Sgt. Tracy Dice not considered war widow

Staff Sgt. Tracy Dice not considered war widow, despite loss of wife in Afghanistan
By DREW BROOKS
The Fayetteville Observer
Published: January 20, 2013

RAEFORD - Clutching a copy of her marriage certificate and racked with grief, Tracy Dice steeled herself for a battle.

Dice had just received a call from her in-laws, summoning her to their Hoke County home.

Dice knew what lay ahead. Her wife, fellow National Guard member Donna Rae Johnson, failed to call her that October morning from Khost, Afghanistan. Worse, Dice learned through the Internet that three unidentified soldiers had been killed in the same area hours earlier.
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This story originally reported in October.
Military refused to acknowledge spouse of fallen soldier

A Soldier’s Requiem, Never Fading Away

A Soldier’s Requiem, Never Fading Away
New York Times
By JAMES DAO
Published: January 12, 2013

WOODBRIDGE, Va. — Each December, Jackie Finken pulls plastic bins from the basement and distributes carefully wrapped Christmas decorations to her three daughters. Each girl has her own ornaments. And each of those ornaments has a story. That is a Finken tradition, one of many.

So there Mrs. Finken was on her kitchen floor a few weeks back, telling tales. About the treble clef that she and her husband, Paul, gave Emilie, the cheerful eldest, when she started loving her violin. About the Cinderella they gave to Caroline, the cranky middle one, when Disney princesses were all the rage. About the mouse they gave to Julia, the mischievous youngest, the year a brigade of vermin feasted on her candy stash.

Suddenly Julia stopped to ponder a decoration adorned with a tiny soccer ball, baseball mitt and football. It belonged to her father, the coach. “Should I hang this one?” she asked her mother. The answer, of course, was “Of course.”
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Iowa Vietnam Veteran putting faces to names on Wall

Iowa veteran attempting to put faces to the Vietnam Memorial Wall names
By Dean Reynolds
January 7, 2013
(CBS News)

CEDAR FALLS, Iowa - Every year, more than 3 million people visit the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington. Many others visit replicas that travel around the country.

All have the names of the more than 58,000 of Americans killed in the war -- but just the names.

That gave one Vietnam vet an idea.

Tom Brickman was an Army specialist in Vietnam who has spent most of the last 44 years trying to forget about it.

"I didn't want to talk about the war," he said. "I didn't want any memories of the war. I just wanted to put it deep in the past."

Last summer, Tom and his daughter Shari Kirkpatrick saw what's known "as the wall that heals" -- a traveling replica of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall in Washington.

What he saw moved him, but he wanted to see more than names. He thought photographs would fill an emptiness he felt.

So now with Shari, Tom is on a mission to match a photograph to the 853 names on Iowans who fell in Vietnam.

"It's kind of a healing process... for myself, as well as the people, the families I have talked to. And I have talked to people who have told me about their experiences of what they went through with the death of their brother," he said.
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Burial of Baton Rouge MIA evokes memories for Vietnam Veterans

A Final Homecoming: Burial of Baton Rouge MIA evokes memories for local vets
Tri-Parish Times
By JOHN DeSANTIS
Senior Staff Writer

Roger Songe and Roy Youngblood, two of many Vietnam veterans living in the Tri-parish region, never knew James Johnstone.

But they are among local veterans who said burial of the Baton Rouge army captain last week at Arlington National Cemetery, 46 years after his death during a reconnaissance mission over Laos, stirred emotions, offered comfort and also hope.

The hope is that officials will continue having success as they search for service members still missing from that war and others.

“He is from Louisiana and so that means a lot to all of us,” said Songe. “It is one more of our boys coming home.”

Capt. Johnstone was buried last Wednesday at Arlington National Cemetery. He was the pilot of an OV-1A Mohawk, a helicopter-plane hybrid used extensively during the Vietnam era, when the aircraft crashed in Attapu Province, Laos, on Nov. 19, 1966.
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New rules in works for handling troops’ remains

New rules in works for handling troops’ remains
Army Times
By Rick Maze
Staff writer
Posted : Tuesday Nov 27, 2012

Transportation of remains of service members who die outside the U.S. would become the responsibility of those troops’ military commands under legislation pending in Congress that seems almost certain to become law.

The initiative was proposed in reaction to the mishandling of remains by the military mortuary at Dover Air Force Base, Del. Its aim is to have a uniformed service member be accountable for remains from the initial death or recovery of the remains through burial or interment, unless a family requests otherwise. The designated member would be subject to disciplinary action if something goes wrong.

Under the proposal, already approved by the House of Representatives as part of the 2013 defense authorization bill and introduced Monday as an amendment to the Senate version of the bill, the Defense Department would be responsible for ensuring someone is responsible for each step of the care, handling and transportation of remains of any member of the Army, Navy, Air Force or Marine Corps who dies outside the U.S.
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Making malfeasance in war "look pretty" with PowerPoint

It happens in every war. We've read the books but the men we sent died because needless mission meant more than their lives. Wait until you read this one and then wonder what it must be like for the survivors to know their lives meant so little.

Courage and malfeasance in Afghanistan: “Anyone we drop off will die”
Officers ordered an Afghanistan outpost built knowing it was vulnerable. Then the Taliban arrived and soldiers died
Salon.com
BY JAKE TAPPER
NOV 18, 2012


It was madness.

At Jalalabad Airfield, in eastern Afghanistan in the summer of 2006, a young intelligence analyst named Jacob Whittaker tried with great difficulty to understand exactly what he was hearing.

The 10th Mountain Division of the United States Army wanted to do what?

Whittaker had to choose his words carefully. He was just a low-ranking specialist with the Idaho National Guard, a very low man on a very tall totem pole. A round-faced twenty-six-year-old, Whittaker had simple tastes — Boise State football, comic books — and a reputation for mulishness belied by his innocent appearance.

Whittaker stared at his superior officer, Second Lieutenant Ryan Lockner, who was running this briefing for him and Sergeant Aaron Ives. Lockner headed intelligence for Task Force Talon, the Army’s aviation component at Jalalabad Airfield, in Nangarhar Province, adjacent to the Pakistan border. Military leaders considered this area, officially designated Regional Command East, the most dangerous part of an increasingly dangerous country.

Lockner had an assignment. Soldiers from the 10th Mountain — a light infantry division designed for quick deployment and fighting in harsh conditions — had recently come to this hot corner of Afghanistan and would soon be spreading throughout the region, setting up outposts and bases. More specifically, they would be establishing a camp in Nuristan Province.

Many troops were far more proficient in PowerPoint than they were with firearms, so Whittaker understood just what Lockner meant by “make it pretty”: the slides for the presentation needed to look crisp and to make a compelling case.

“What’s the point of this base?” Whittaker asked. “It’s on the low ground. It can’t be supported in any meaningful way. The troops there will be horribly outnumbered by potential bad guys in the town next door. They can’t even really go out and do anything because the rivers, the town, and the mountains will block any patrol routes.”

He couldn’t stop himself.

“All they can do is die,” he added.
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FOX being sued by fallen soldier's widow for documentary

War widow sues Fox over ‘Inside Afghan ER’ documentary featuring husband’s death
By Associated Press

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — A widow of a U.S. Army soldier killed in a blast in Afghanistan has sued Fox Cable Networks and the National Geographic Society over a documentary that showed her husband and family.

The documentary about a combat hospital called “Inside Afghan ER” featured Staff Sgt. Kevin Casey Roberts, who was serving with the 4th Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division when an improvised explosive device struck his vehicle in Khost province in Afghanistan in 2008.

A year after his death, his wife, Donnice Roberts, got a call from a service member in Germany who saw her husband in the documentary. According to the lawsuit filed in Texas on Nov. 1, she never knew there was video footage related to her husband’s death and that the documentary existed.

She is seeking at least $750,000 in damages and wants a judge to prevent the film from airing again. She also wants the cable network to stop using images of military families without their permission.

The documentary was produced and distributed by the National Geographic Society, and was promoted and distributed by Fox Networks Inc. and Fox Entertainment Group Inc., which owns part of the NatGeo network.

Scott Grogin, a spokesman for Fox Networks Group, said the film never aired in the United States. Instead, it aired on the National Geographic International channel.
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THAT'S THEIR EXCUSE? IT WASN'T SHOWN IN THE USA?