WWII veteran recovering from pneumonia booted from Boston apartment

WWII veteran recovering from pneumonia booted from Boston apartment
WCVB News
June 13, 2018

Two months rent had been paid in advance

BOSTON
Ilya Levin’s WWII uniform is his only physical memento of his past after his entire Boston apartment was wiped clean.

Levin’s family tells Newscenter 5 that the 95-year-old was booted from his apartment while recovering from pneumonia. Everything from the apartment was thrown out in an apparent mistake by the management company at the Patricia White Apartments on Washington Street. “I’m shaking,” Alex Levin said. “I can’t believe it.”

Levin’s family found the apartment empty Monday when they stopped in to check on things.

For the past three weeks, Levin has been recovering from pneumonia in a rehab facility. But the family still has their father’s apartment keys and had paid two months rent in advance.

“He had a little place where he would have all his pictures,” Eugene Levin said. “His pictures of his parents that died during the Holocaust, it’s gone. It’s not here.”

Also missing is a safe that Levin had bolted to the closet floor.

WCVB reached out to the property management company and are waiting for comment. The Mayor’s office is also looking into the matter.
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Veteran Peer Support and Healing Waters

Peer programs key to helping vets move forward
Metro Daily News
By Jeff Malachowski
Daily News Staff May 27, 2018

Young, who spent 42 years in the National Guard, served for 24 months in Iraq and said there was heavy fighting during his second deployment, which took its toll. Young learned of Project Healing Waters while on a group hike with Manson and felt the companionship of his fellow veterans would help be a distraction from his PTSD.

SUDBURY — The tranquility of a peaceful spring evening at Josephine Pond is a far cry from the battlefields of Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan.

Instead of hearing the pop of gunfire, more than a dozen veterans last week listened to the birds chirp and traded stories as they cast their lines into the small pond behind the Wayside Inn in hopes of landing a trout - a welcome respite for some of America’s heroes.

“It’s very rewarding and uplifting,” said George Kincannon, a retired Army first sergeant.

A national program with small chapters across the country, Project Healing Waters Fly Fishing brings together disabled veterans from all branches of the military twice a month for an evening of fly fishing and conversation that doubles as a form of rehabilitation. The organization is one of many aiming to ease the transition back to civilian life and help veterans deal with grief and loss they experienced while serving in combat.

“It’s an opportunity to immerse yourself in an activity that needs your focus and not think about anything else,” said Bill Manson, program leader for Project Healing Waters’ Fitchburg chapter. “It’s something that pays dividends.”

Many of the close to 20 veterans that participate in the Fitchburg chapter suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Joe Young, a retired sergeant major with the Massachusetts National Guard, is one of those veterans. He said spending an evening fishing and socializing with his fellow veterans keeps his mind away from his memories of the battlefield during two deployments to Iraq between 2003 and 2005.
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Stolen Valor--Massachusetts History Teacher Made Up His Own

Mass. teacher admits to lying about military service, Purple Heart awards
FOX 25 News Boston
Updated: Mar 1, 2018

"I made up time in the Army. Over the intervening years I added details as people asked. I am deeply sorrowful for this and did not see a way out," he wrote.

TAUNTON, Mass. – A Taunton teacher whose students thought he was a decorated war hero has been fired after it was discovered he was not telling the truth.

Boston 25 News has learned that when 36-year-old Andrew Gaboury was hired to teach at Coyle Cassidy High School in Taunton four years ago he claimed to be a veteran with two Purple Hearts.

It was a big deal at the school and he was featured in the student newspaper in an article headlined "Gaboury goes from military to history classroom."

"I'm so pleased to have a man like Mr. Gaboury to be on our staff. He had a lot of experiences and was well educated. He even served for our country's military," Principal Kathleen St. Laurent said in that article.
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Firefighters getting PTSD peer-support and stigma out of the way

Survey: Firefighters Struggling With Mental Health and PTSD
NECN
By Karen Hensel
Feb 28, 2018

“You guys all signed up for PTS, that’s what you did when you became a firefighter," Lavoie cautions. "You’re not going to get out of this without some level of PTS.”

They don’t want it to get to “the disorder part of it,” meaning PTSD. It’s why the Worcester Fire Department agreed to share their message with NBC 10 Boston Investigators

Firefighters across the country and in Massachusetts are struggling with mental health issues and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), according to a study where NBC-owned stations partnered with the International Association of Firefighters to anonymously survey firefighters.

The groundbreaking survey gives insight into the everyday challenges facing firefighters.

Long-time Worcester, Massachusetts firefighters talked openly with the NBC10 Boston Investigators about the 1999 Cold Storage Warehouse fire, a subject which few have spoken about publicly. That is part of the issue and now, 18 years later, they face it head-on.

The Parkland, Florida school shooting had the nation gripped with emotions of grief and anger. The focus was initially on the families of the 17 killed and the mental health of the shooter. Unseen was the emotional toll on first responders.
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Marine Recruit Missing--Marines Not Looking For Him?

Marine who recruited missing Winthrop man is in military custody
THE BOSTON GLOBE
By Danny McDonald GLOBE STAFF
FEBRUARY 09, 2018

Authorities searched woods near Turtle Pond in the Stony Brook Reservation in Hyde Park for Brancato last month. Family members continue to comb the reservation every weekend for Brancato, said Brancato Walke. “Why aren’t the Marines doing something, that’s what I’d like to know,” said Brancato Walke. “Why haven’t they stepped up?”

A Marine gunnery sergeant who recruited a 21-year-old Winthrop man who has been missing since mid-November is in military custody, according to a Navy official.

Frank Lipka was the sole recruiter at the Roslindale office where Marine recruit Joseph Brancato was processed, said Ed Buice, a spokesman for the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, in an e-mail.

Brancato was last seen on Nov. 18 in Roslindale’s Mendelssohn Street area, where he was living and training with Lipka in the hopes of passing the physical tests necessary to become a Marine, said Brancato’s aunt, Andrea Brancato Walke.
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Homeless Veteran "They wouldn't help me."

Turned away at Bedford VA hospital, a life lost
Veteran's suicide adds to questions about response, policies
Lowell Sun
By Todd Feathers
UPDATED: 12/30/2017

He sought care at VA hospitals in Arizona, Wyoming, and South Dakota. About three years ago, Earles decided to move to Massachusetts.

BEDFORD -- Byron Wade Earles sat hunched over, his head resting in his hands, by Building 78 of the Edith Nourse Rogers Memorial Veterans Hospital.
The nurse who rushed out to help found him bleeding and despondent.

"They wouldn't admit me," he told her, according to an account of the incident in Earles' medical records. "They wouldn't help me."

As the nurse spoke with him, Earles took out a knife and began to cut his throat.

Byron Earles, a homeless Army veteran,
tried to commit suicide on Nov. 7, 2016
after the Bedford VA hospital s mental
health clinic denied him admission.
He died by suicide two months later.
(PHOTO COURTESY OF PAUL EARLES)

The 44-year-old Army veteran had arrived at the Bedford VA mental health walk-in clinic on Nov. 7, 2016 -- days after being discharged from the Brockton VA -- asking to be admitted to the hospital because he was thinking about hurting himself and others.

The Bedford clinic turned him away, according to a portion of Earles' medical records obtained by The Sun, because a mental health worker did not believe his account of a recent suicide attempt and suspected he wanted to escape the cold.

Maureen Heard, a spokeswoman for the hospital, said Earles left of his own accord after a psychiatrist suggested he seek a homeless shelter. Hospital administrators declined an interview request, but Heard said several clinic policies changed as a result of the Earles incident.

While Earles didn't die that day -- two VA police officers convinced him to drop the knife so the nurse could treat his wound -- he did die by suicide two months later, on Jan. 6, after walking out of a counseling session at the Bedford hospital.
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Parents Left Behind After Suicide Trained to Make a Difference

At first I was getting ready to slam this article as one more empty attempt to get attention. I am happy to admit I am glad I kept reading this article. 

It not only shows how a family left behind by suicide feels the need to help others, they actually invested the time and learned how to do it! Great story and great idea!

Nonprofits team up to help military families deal with suicide

Boston Herald
Marie Szaniszlo 
Saturday, October 28, 2017 

Melida and Carlos Arredondo received their training certification from the state in 2016 after Carlos’ 20-year-old son, Marine Lance Cpl. Alex Arredondo, was shot in the head by sniper fire in 2004 during his second deployment to Iraq. His 24-year-old brother, Brian, with whom he’d been close, hanged himself seven years later. The military’s casualty report explaining how Alex had been killed was found at his feet.

Comfort Cats Roam VA Hospital in Massachusetts

Cats offer comfort to veterans in final moments at VA hospital in Western Massachusetts

MassLive.com

Michelle Williams

August 18, 2017

At the VAMC, staff have noticed quality of life improvements in some veterans, thanks to the cats. 

From a hospital bed on the second floor of the Veterans Administration Medical Center in Leeds, a hushed meow could be heard. 

Michelle Williams | Michelle.Williams@MassLive.comTherapy cats of Veterans Administration Medical Center in LeedsMadison and Zoe are therapy cats at the Veterans Administration Medical Center in Leeds. The pair roam the halls seeking attention from staff and offer comfort to patients, often at the end of their lives.

People were talking outside the room Madison, a sandy blonde cat, was sleeping within. 

This bed and most others on the floor are where she and fellow feline Zoe enjoy taking naps and seeking attention from patients and staff. 

The pair are therapy cats, offering comfort to veterans receiving long-term care at the hospital. 

Madison and Zoe were adopted four years ago when the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs relaxed its stance on comfort animals. 

Soon after hearing the news, officials at the Western Massachusetts hospital began researching their options. 

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Vietnam Veteran Went Back To Find Buddy, Found Forgiveness

Veteran returns to Vietnam in search for soldier left behind

Cape Cod Times
Adam Lucente
August 15, 2017

Michael Cunningham says loss has weighed on him for 49 years.

HARWICH — An expended M16 round, bomb fragments and helicopter scraps sit in Michael Cunningham’s Harwich home. They constitute small pieces of his memories fighting in Vietnam — memories that are with him today.

Cunningham, 67, served as a rifleman in the Army’s 1st Battalion, 46th Regiment, 198th Light Infantry Brigade in 1968 during the Vietnam War. On July 29 of that year, his unit was on a mission in the Que Son Valley when a helicopter arrived with supplies. Wanting to be “first in the chow line,” he went up the hill so he could unload the helicopter and get some hot food.

What happened next would haunt him for decades.

“The enemy planted a 500-pound bomb on the hill,” said Cunningham, and the bomb exploded. “It brought down the chopper and buried alive a whole bunch of guys.”

Three men were killed and a dozen wounded in the explosion, according to Cunningham. But 24-year-old Staff Sgt. Jerry Auxier, of West Virginia, was unaccounted for.

“We looked all night long. The colonel ordered that we had to leave someone behind. It’s not the most pleasant thing,” he said. “It’s been on my mind the past 49 years.”

Two men among the witnesses were in the militia responsible for the bomb, including the man who detonated it. Cunningham walked right up to them. He gave the man who set off the bomb his 198th Light Infantry Brigade hat. The man put it on and gave Cunningham his hat. 

“They thought I was gonna punch the guy, but it was the total opposite. He was taken advantage of just like me,” Cunningham said. “There were no hard feelings. And I could see in his eyes he felt the same.”read more here

Massachusetts First Responders Responding to Traumas on the Job

‘You can’t come to work with emotions’

South Coast Today 
Wesley Sykes 
August 12, 2017

“You can’t come to work with any emotions. You just can’t. It’s different. You may break down after the call, but in the moment it’s like you’re pumping with adrenaline.” Megan Robitaille

Mike Thomas, right, checks with first responders Megan Robitaille and Shain Ramos at St. Lukes Hospital Emergency Room dock after responding to a drug overdose call at Buttonwood Park in New Bedford. David W. OIliveira Standard Times Special SCMG

Life as an EMT, whether it be in city of 100,000 people or a small town of 10,000, can bring many hats to wear. From life-saver to therapist, often there are moments that any amount of training won’t prepare an EMT for.

Some EMTs will tell you that there’s a very vulnerable period that happens in the back of an ambulance. There are moments of clarity that offer a new lease on life. Instances of denial are masked in cockiness or arrogance that can turn into belligerence. Those feelings may give way to tears of remorse or sorrow.

In a four-foot by eight-foot box traveling at speeds in excess of 80 miles per hour, the ambulance is, for some, a confessional on wheels. The paramedics, in a race against time, double as priests hearing what might be a patient’s final words as they come to grips with the grave reality that the EMT may be the last person they ever see on Earth.

“When you get someone to truly open up, or they open up on their own, you hear that they’re a brother, a son, a mother or daughter,” Acushnet Fire and EMS Chief Kevin Gallagher said.

The unsung heroes, Donohoe said, are the wives and husbands at home who make it all work. Families stop by during down hours to check in, bring food and get quality family time when they can.“They put up with our god-awful hours,” Donohoe said. More than the hours, families deal with any residual effects from a traumatic call.

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Widow Wants To Know Why Husband Died At Brockton VA

How did this Marine veteran overdose at a Brockton VA hospital?

The Enterprise
By Tom Relihan
Posted Aug 5, 2017

Marine Corps veteran Hank Brandon Lee was found unresponsive in his room and was later pronounced dead at Good Samaritan Medical Center on March 4. He had overdosed on fentanyl, a powerful synthetic painkiller, according to his death certificate. Now, his widow wants answers.

BROCKTON – Jamie-Lee Hasted had just hung up the phone after a conversation with her husband, retired Marine Lance Cpl. Hank Brandon Lee, and headed out to mail him a package of family photographs.

He would need them, she thought, because he was nearly 1,500 miles away from his home in Saucier, Mississippi, in the Brockton Veterans Affairs Medical Center’s psychiatric unit being treated for severe post-traumatic stress disorder.

Later that day, she sent him a message on Facebook, but received no response.

“You going to call me anytime today or are you sleeping again!” she wrote.

Pallas Wahl, a spokesperson for the VA, said Saturday that it is still not known how Lee acquired the drugs.

“Sadly, Lance Cpl. Lee was a victim of the opioid epidemic that kills nearly six people daily in Massachusetts,” Wahl said. “Lance Cpl. Lee suffered a fatal overdose of fentanyl while a patient at the Brockton campus. Fentanyl was not prescribed to any patient within our inpatient psychiatry unit, and Lance Cpl. Lee had no personal visitors during his inpatient psychiatry stay.”
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Veteran Died of Fatal Overdose, While in VA Lockdown?

Widow wants to know how Marine got drugs before fatal overdose in VA lockdown

Boston Herald

Jack Encarnacao, Chris Villani 

Monday, July 31, 2017

The widow of a Marine who fatally overdosed on fentanyl while on lockdown supervision at the Department of Veterans Affairs psychiatric campus in Brockton is demanding to know how he got the drugs, while the VA has simply attributed his death to the nation’s larger opioid scourge.

‘WHAT HAPPENED?’ Jamie Lee Hasted, right, is seeking answers from the Veterans Administration after her husband, Hank Brandon Lee, left, died in March of a fentanyl overdose.

“Since he has passed, the VA has told us nothing,” Jamie Lee Hasted told the Herald in an emotional interview about her late husband, Hank Brandon Lee. “Answers, the bottom line is answers. ... Did he take it willingly, not willingly, mixed up in the medicine? You have video cameras, where is the video? What happened? Let me try to get some type of closure.”

Lee, a Marine lance corporal and mortarman who served in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan, died at age 35 of acute fentanyl intoxication March 4 after he was rushed to Good Samaritan Hospital in Brockton, according to his death certificate.

The day he died, Lee was found unresponsive by a nursing assistant and medication nurse in the day room of the inpatient psych ward. He “appeared to be sleeping sitting up in chair with head tilted to right, color ashen” when found, and didn’t answer when they called him, according to VA records reviewed by the Herald. First responders found him “unresponsive, pulseless,” according to fire department records.

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Homeland Heroes Providing Comfort When They Come Home

A HERO'S WELCOME

Organization provides comforts of home to those who serve the country

Eagle Tribune
Breanna Edelstein
July 30, 2017

"We meet the vet wherever they are in life. Whatever we can do, we do. And if we can't, we find someone who can." Julie Weymouth

Ryan Hutton/Staff photo
Homeland Heroes Foundation Executive Director Julie Weymouth sits at her desk in Hudson warehouse.

"Weymouth in 2012 started her effort with a trip to the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, where she sat down with a chaplain and asked for some direction."

SALEM, N.H. — The Royer family watched the black faux-leather couch in their Rochester living room slowly dip and sag for a decade without being able to afford a new one.

Several weeks ago, they finally lugged it out of their home when they were given a new one, along with other free housewares, thanks to widespread community support for a local organization dedicated to helping active-duty military personnel, veterans and their loved ones.

Julie Weymouth, executive director of the Homeland Heroes Foundation of Salem, has seen the scenario play out hundreds of times since she helped start the nonprofit back in 2012. For a variety of reasons including financial hardship, emotional struggles and other circumstances, many who have served their country find themselves in need after returning home. So, too, do families while a loved one is deployed. 

Several tours to Afghanistan had taken a toll on Jeremy Royer, 37, a U.S. Army Veteran. The father and husband spent significant time on the aging living-room sofa, struggling with the residual effects of post-traumatic stress disorder, night terrors and unshakably aching joints.

Finances already were tight when his 37-year-old wife, Miranda, was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma last fall. Doctors said the football-sized mass in her chest was encroaching quickly on her heart, and she'd need to fight for her life.
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Community Dedicates Vietnam Memorial

New Milford dedicates Vietnam Veterans Memorial
Danbury News Times
By Anna Quinn
July 15, 2017

“It finally gives us some closure. It seems that our community and other communities are finally recognizing that we were soldiers and we did the job that we were required to do.” Bob Coppola

Martin Titus, of New Milford, wipes away a tear during the New Milford Veterans Committee dedication of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, set on the Village Green, on Saturday morning, July 15, 2017, in New Milford, Conn. Titus served in the Army from 1969 to 1972

NEW MILFORD—When Bob Coppola returned from his two years serving in the Vietnam War, he tried not to talk about his time in the army.

“I was very careful not to mention my experience, because it would have invoked debates that I didn’t feel I was part of,” he said.

Coppola, a sergeant, said he left his teaching position in Massachusetts after being drafted because it was his duty as an American citizen. But when he and his fellow soldiers came home from the war, they felt far from honored.

For him, and for the other nearly 100 veterans on the Village Green Saturday afternoon, the unveiling of New Milford’s Vietnam Veterans Memorial symbolized a long-awaited recognition for their service.
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Army Combat Medic Faced One Death Too Many, His Own

Son’s suicide prompts Boylston mother to raise awareness
Worcester Telegram
By Paula J. Owen Correspondent
Posted Jul 8, 2017

“We honestly didn’t realize how much my mother’s death affected him until he chose to do what he did at her grave,” she said. “We never imagined in a million years. He always wanted to be a doctor and he texted me a few days before that he was accepted to BU.”

BOYLSTON – As a medic in the U.S Army, Sgt. Nathan R. Stark had seen a lot by the time he was 22, including several suicide attempts and a miscarriage. But it was the death of his grandmother to cancer on his birthday last year that seemed to take the heaviest emotional toll on him. It led him to take his own life at her grave.

Two months after his death, his mother, Rebecca L. Stark, 51, from Boylston, who works as a nurse, is raising awareness about high-functioning depression and how cancer affects everyone, not just those diagnosed.

Ms. Stark said her son was very close to his grandmother and that she was his confidante. Mr. Stark’s grandmother, Marion J. Stark, helped raise him while his mother was at work.

“She was his day care provider when he was little,” Ms. Stark said. “They talked a lot and he grew up around there.”

When Mr. Stark enlisted in the Army, his mother said, he felt guilty about leaving his grandmother, who had been battling endometrial cancer since 2006. He also had a hard time leaving his little sister, Jenna L. Stark, who was 6 at the time, Ms. Stark said.

“He felt guilty he couldn’t be there,” Ms. Stark said, holding back tears. “He would call from Korea and ask how his grandmother was doing. I didn’t want to keep bothering him, but I had to keep him informed. He just felt bad he wasn’t there. He was used to being a medic and making everything right.”

“Everyone was in shock,” she said. “Everybody says pay attention – people cry for help – but, sometimes they don’t. I think to myself, ‘I’m a nurse. How did I not see all this?’ I think sometimes you just have a perfect storm.” read more here

Veteran Marine Faces Charges--And Maybe Finally Help

Injured West Springfield explosives suspect released from hospital
Decoteau will be placed in the "Emergency Stabilization Unit"
WWLP 22 News
By Barry Kriger
Published: May 5, 2017

LUDLOW, Mass. (WWLP) – An apparently distraught veteran, who injured himself while awaiting arraignment in Springfield this week, was released from the hospital on Friday and taken to the Hampden County Jail in Ludlow.

Hampden County Sheriff’s Department Spokesman Stephen O’Neil told 22News Baystate Medical Center notified the House of Corrections that 30-year-old Robert Decoteau III was being discharged Friday afternoon.

O’Neil said Decoteau will be placed in the Ludlow correctional facility’s “Emergency Stabilization Unit”, pending his transfer to Bridgewater State Hospital; “The ‘Emergency Stabilization Unit’ is for inmates with severe mental health challenges.”

West Springfield Police Chief Ronald Campurciani had previously described Decoteau as a 5-year veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps, who was suffering from post traumatic stress disorder.
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Staff Sgt Rob Pirelli Remembered in Song for His LIfe

Hear 'Voice' Singer Barrett Baber's Emotional Tribute to Fallen Soldier
Rolling Stone
By Stephen L. Betts
18 hours ago

Inspired by Pirelli's actions, Baber wrote the song, saying, "When I heard the story of Staff Sgt Rob Pirelli, and how, through the outpost he built to protect his fellow soldiers, his legacy remained long after his ultimate sacrifice, I was moved at the depth of this very personal, human story. I'm proud to have been able to tell his story in song."

Barrett Baber, whose full-throated, Southern rock-tinged vocals took him to a third-place finish on Season Nine of NBC's The Voice in 2015, has released "Still Stands," a powerful song from his album A Room Full of Fighters. Penned by Baber with Kenny Lamb, the tune recounts the brave, inspiring story of U.S. Army Staff Sergeant Robert Ryan Pirelli, who was killed in action in Iraq in August 2007, but not before leaving behind a combat outpost that would one day bear his name and inspire a documentary film.

A native of Franklin, Massachusetts, Pirelli volunteered for military service in 2003 as a Special Forces (Green Beret) recruit in the Army. Deployed in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom in March 2007, he used his engineering skill to establish an outpost in the dangerous Diyala province. The outpost Pirelli built protected American soldiers from harm during his deployment and continued to protect American troops for several years after he was killed. Remembered by his fellow soldiers not only for his ingenuity, bravery and a thick Boston accent, Pirelli, a hockey enthusiast, also spent time teaching local Iraqi children how to play baseball. After he was killed, the combat outpost was renamed Combat Outpost Pirelli in his honor and a symbol to remember him - a sword, lightning bolts and fire – became part of what his fellow soldiers called "The House That Rob Built."
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Soldiers Death in Iraq Under Investigation

Death of Mass. soldier in Iraq under investigation 
WCVB 5 News Boston 
Feb 21, 2017

Brian Patrick Odiorne

WARE, Mass. — A soldier from Massachusetts died Monday in a non-combat related incident in Iraq, according to the Department of Defense. 

Pfc. Brian P. Odiorne, 21, of Ware, was part of Operation Inherent Resolve in Al Anbar Province, Iraq. 

The fatal incident is under investigation by the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command, the DOD said. read more here

Man killed by plow at Bedford VA hospital identified

Man killed by plow at Bedford VA hospital identified
Lowell Sun
By Robert Mills
UPDATED: 02/13/2017

BEDFORD -- A 60-year-old man was killed in a parking lot at the Edith Nourse Rogers Memorial Veterans Hospital in Bedford Sunday night when he was struck by a Veterans Administration plow truck as it was backing up.

On Monday, the Middlesex District Attorney's office identified the victim as Gerald Flynn, a resident of 100 Pride Way on the VA hospital's property.

Bedford police Chief Robert Bongiorno and fire Chief David Grunes said in a press release that emergency crews were called to a parking lot on the hospital grounds for a report that a man was in cardiac arrest after being struck by a plow truck about 6 p.m.
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Marine Gets Home For Christmas As Gift From Gold Star Family

Gold Star Family Helps Holland Marine Get Home For Christmas To See Sick Mother
CBS Boston
December 24, 2016

“It just wouldn’t have been Christmas,” his mother said.

HOLLAND (CBS) — The smiles were never-ending after Marine Lt. Josh Peloquin arrived home early Saturday morning.

“I almost toppled him over and I started bawling my eyes out,” said Josh’s mother, Tonya Olsen. “I just didn’t want to let go.”

His coming home was more important than ever this year, because Olsen is very sick.

“This year has been such a hard year,” she said. “We lost my father, his grandmother, and we found out I have pulmonary fibrosis.”

Josh is stationed off the coast of Africa. Two weeks ago, he was told he was going back to the US for Christmas.

But he couldn’t afford the trip home to Holland, Massachusetts.

“My mom is really sick, and I had to make the tough decision to save my money,” he said.

A Gold Star family from the Cape who had lost their son in combat heard about Josh’s family and plight–and they paid for his plane ticket home.
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