More Than 500 Bikes in New Hampshire For Rolling Thunder Freedom Ride

Veterans on motorcycles ride to bring home POWs, MIA soldiers
Rolling Thunder Freedom Ride now in its 23rd year
WMUR News
Kristen Pope
Published Jun 16, 2016

MEREDITH, N.H. —More than 500 people took over the streets of Meredith Thursday in the 23rd Rolling Thunder Freedom Ride.

The annual ride is to show solidarity with prisoners of war and soldiers missing in action.

“You know the old saying: You don’t ever leave anybody behind,” said Vietnam War veteran Claire Starnes. "The mission of the Rolling Thunder is concentrating on bringing back all the POWs and MIAs.”

Starnes is committed to that mission.

“We're going to die or bring them home,” she said. “Even if it’s just the remains. We're going to find them and bring them home.”

It’s easy to marvel over the beautiful, shiny bikes, but the ride is really about people who aren’t here.

“We cover each other,” said veteran Timothy McCarthy. “No matter what happens. We’re all family. It’s another family.”

The ride started at Lowe’s parking lot in Gilford and ended at Hesky Park in Meredith.
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Civil War Soldier's Dying Letter Written by Walt Whitman

Rare Walt Whitman letter, written for a dying soldier, found in National Archives
Washington Post 
By Michael E. Ruane
March 9, 2016

The rare Whitman “soldier letter,” one of only three known to exist, was discovered last month by a National Archives volunteer who is part of a team preparing Civil War widows’ pension files to be digitized and placed online.

Pvt. Robert N. Jabo, of the 8th New Hampshire infantry, was dying of tuberculosis in Washington’s Harewood Hospital and needed to write to his family.

The Civil War had been over for months. Most soldiers had gone home. And Jabo’s wife and six children were no doubt wondering where he was.

But he was sick and illiterate. So a cheerful, bearded man who regularly visited hospitalized soldiers offered to write a letter for him.

“My dear wife,” it began, “you must excuse me for not having written. . . . have not been very well.” The letter explained that it was penned by “a friend who is now sitting by my side.”

And in a postscript, the friend identified himself: “Walt Whitman.”
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Paralyzed Veteran Fighting Cancer Inspires Community

Community comes together to help disabled veteran 
WMUR News
By Shelley Walcott
Jan 09, 2016

"And then we had a team of people, including folks from New Boston fire, Team Rubicon and other community members here today to help build it."
Dan MacDonald

NEW BOSTON —A disabled veteran living with cancer in New Boston was stuck at home in bed until his community came together to help give him part of his life back.

Volunteers were hard at work in New Boston, motivated by Craig Maciaszek, a veteran who they called a source of inspiration.

"He's an amazing person with what he's facing," said Dan MacDonald, chief of the New Boston Fire Department. "His spirit just inspires you to want to do something for people."

Maciaszek spent several weeks in the hospital battling cancer.

"On my birthday, I was released from the hospital on Nov. 13 and found out I was paralyzed," Maciaszek said.
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Fort Stewart Army Ranger Killed During Live Fire Training

Afghanistan veteran Army Ranger, 21, dies after being 'seriously wounded during a live-fire exercise'
By ASSOCIATED PRESS and DAILYMAIL.COM REPORTER
PUBLISHED: 14:15 EST, 11 December 2015

Cpl Andrew Aimesbury was injured during in southeast Georgia on Wednesday
The 21-year-old elite Army Ranger from Strafford, New Hampshire, served one tour of duty in Afghanistan
He died after being rushed to a hospital

The military is investigating the death of an Army Ranger who was injured during a training exercise in southeast Georgia.

The Army said in a news release Friday that 21-year-old Cpl Andrew Aimesbury was training with his squad at Fort Stewart when he was 'seriously wounded during a live-fire exercise.' He died after being rushed to a hospital.

Tracy Bailey, a spokeswoman for the Army's 75th Ranger Regiment, declined to provide more details on how Aimesbury was injured in the incident Wednesday, citing an open investigation by the Army.
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Navy SEAL From New Hampshire Killed in Florida Skydiving Accident

Navy SEAL killed in skydiving accident at Skydive DeLand 
Witness: Something flew off parachute
WESH News Orlando
Claire Metz
Jan 12, 2015

DELAND, Fla. —A 31-year-old Navy SEAL was killed in a skydiving accident while training in DeLand early Saturday morning. 

DeLand police said they were called to Skydive DeLand just before 8:30 a.m. for a report of a hard landing. Petty Officer First Class William "Blake" Marston was found unconscious near 2000 Brunswick Lane, which is on airport property, police said.

According to the police incident report, Marston appeared to have a broken leg when he was found. He was rushed to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead. A witness told investigators he saw something fly off Marston's parachute as he was between 40 and 60 feet in the air, police said. read more here

Members of National Guards Hit By Budget Cuts

Federal budget crunch idles Guard units across US 
The Associated Press
By Russ Bynum and Dan Sewell
Published: September 6, 2014

A member of the Ohio Air National Guard carries a bag of water to a nearby car at Woodward High School in Toledo, Ohio, on Aug. 3, 2014. Tens of thousands of Army National Guard members from New Hampshire to Hawaii have been idled because of a $101 million gap in a federal funding shortfall.
HARAZ N. GHANBARI/AP

"When you're a young college student and working hard to make ends meet and trying to serve your country right now, it's not good," said Robbie McGalliard, a 27-year-old artillery gunner in the Georgia National Guard. He would have been at Fort Stewart this weekend firing 105mm howitzer shells in his training, earning about $350.

CINCINNATI — Many of the nation's citizen-soldiers, whose motto is "Always Ready, Always There," won't be at regular training drills this weekend because of a federal funding shortfall.

Tens of thousands of Army National Guard members from New Hampshire to Hawaii have been idled because of a $101 million gap that has led to drills being postponed and travel being suspended, National Guard spokesman Capt. John Fesler said. Meanwhile, there are efforts underway in Congress to get funding reallocated so drills can be held later this month and so Guard members will get pay they were counting on.

Decisions to postpone or cancel drills were being made by state Guard leaders. Among states that announced they put off training exercises are Alabama, California, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Montana, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Texas and Utah. Some, including Alaska, New Jersey, Oregon and Vermont, planned to go ahead as scheduled. Texas authorities said Guard members already on border missions won't be affected by the training delay.

Among reasons for the shortfall are fewer Guard deployments overseas that are funded separately and higher-than-expected attendance for training paid by the Guard.
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Army Staff Sergeant Ryan Pitts Medal of Honor

Ex-paratrooper receives Medal of Honor for bravery
USA Today
Gregg Zoroya
July 21, 2014

WASHINGTON — A former paratrooper who became the sole survivor of an Afghanistan outpost under heavy attack in 2008, choosing to fight on to the death with the bodies of six U.S. soldiers around him, survived to receive the Medal of Honor Monday in a White House ceremony.

"Against this onslaught, one American held the line, bloody but unbowed," President Obama said Monday of former Army staff sergeant Ryan Pitts. The soldier, who was 22 at the time, exemplified the virtues of integrity, humility and courage, the president said.

"For me, this was a team effort," Pitts told the Army Times. "I'm going to receive it. But it's not going to be mine. We did it together. No one guy carried that day."

Pitts received a medical discharge from the Army in 2009 and lives with his wife, Amy, and 1-year-old son, Lucas, in Nashua, N.H., where he works for a computer software company.

His wife and son, with dozens of other current or former soldiers who fought with him, stood by in the East Room of the White House on Monday as Obama draped the medal around Pitts' neck. It was Pitts' second wedding anniversary.

He is the ninth living recipient of the award from either the Iraq or Afghanistan wars. Sixteen of the medals have been awarded in the conflicts for recipients living or dead.

Pitts is the second soldier from the small unit he served with in Afghanistan — Chosen Company — to receive the honor. A Medal of Honor went to Kyle White in April for heroism during an ambush Nov. 9, 2007, that left six Americans and three Afghan soldiers dead.

Pitts and his fellow paratroopers were only a few weeks or days away from going home after a 15-month deployment when they fought on July 13, 2008, to defend a partially completed combat base adjacent to the village of Wanat in northeastern Afghanistan.
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Full Medal of Honor ceremony from the White House

President Obama Presents the Medal of Honor to Staff Sergeant Ryan M. Pitts
The White House
Tanya Somanader
July 21, 2014

At a ceremony at the White House this afternoon, President Obama presented the Medal of Honor to Staff Sergeant Ryan M. Pitts for his unwavering courage in one of the fiercest battles of the Afghanistan war.

In the summer of 2008, when our forces in Afghanistan were stretched thin across isolated outposts, Ryan was serving alongside 48 American soldiers charged with using little resources to defend a post with significant vulnerabilities. Mountains stood sky-high on every side of the village of Wanat, diverting aerial surveillance and delaying the heavy equipment they needed for their defense.

In the pre-dawn darkness of one fateful July morning, while manning this small, unfinished base, Ryan and his fellow soldiers were attacked by 200 assailants who were determined to take their post. “Those 200 insurgents were firing from ridges and from the village and from trees,” President Obama said. “Down at the base, a vehicle exploded—scattering its missiles, back at our soldiers. It was, said a soldier, ‘hell on earth.’”

Pounded by the relentless attack, every soldier was wounded almost instantaneously. Bleeding from the arm and both his legs, Ryan, at 22 years old, was the last man standing between the insurgents and his base. In his remarks, President Obama described how Ryan’s heroic acts helped not only prevent the fall of his post but save lives of his fellow soldiers:

As the insurgents moved in, Ryan picked up a grenade, pulled the pin, and held that live grenade—for a moment, then another, then another—finally hurling it so they couldn’t throw it back. Then he did it again. And again. Unable to stand, Ryan pulled himself up on his knees and manned a machine gun. Soldiers from the base below made a daring run—dodging bullets and explosions—and joined the defense. But now the enemy was inside the post—so close they were throwing rocks at the Americans; so close they came right up to the sandbags. Eight American soldiers had now fallen. And Ryan Pitts was the only living soldier at that post.

Soon, the enemy was so close Ryan could hear their voices. He whispered into the radio—he was the only one left and was running out of ammo. “I was going to die,” he remembers, “and made my peace with it.” The he prepared to make a last stand. Bleeding, barely conscious, Ryan threw his last grenades. He grabbed a grenade launcher and fired—nearly straight up, so the grenades came back down on the enemy just yards away. One insurgent was now right on top of the post, shooting down—until another team of Americans showed up and drove him back. As one of his teammates said, had it not been for Ryan Pitts, that post “almost certainly would have been overrun.”

But even with those reinforcements, the battle was not over. Another wave of rocket-propelled grenades slammed into the post. Nine American soldiers were now gone. Still, the fighting raged. Ryan worked the radio, helping target the air strikes that were hitting “danger-close”—just yards away. And with those strikes the tide of the battle began to turn. Eventually, the insurgents fell back. Ryan and his fellow soldiers had held their ground.

Ryan’s steadfast bravery and selfless dedication to his brothers-in-arms exemplifies the quintessential strength of America’s servicemen and women. To Ryan, the Medal does not belong to him alone but serves as a tribute to all who fought with valor that day and as “a memorial for the guys who didn’t come home.” Today, the President honored the nine men who made the ultimate sacrifice for us all that day in Wanat:

The son who “absorbed love like a sponge”; the expectant father whose dream would later come true: a beautiful baby girl—Specialist Sergio Abad.

The boy who dominated the soccer field, fell in love with motorcycles, and there in that remote outpost took a direct hit in the helmet and kept on fighting—Corporal Jonathan Ayers.

The photographer whose pictures captured the spirit of the Afghan people, and who wrote to his family: “Afghanistan is exactly [where]…I wanted to be”—Corporal Jason Bogar.

The father who loved surfing with his son; the platoon leader who led a dash through the gunfire to that post to reinforce his men—1st Lieutenant Jonathan Brostrom.

An immigrant from Mexico who became a proud American soldier, on his third tour, whose final thoughts were of his family and his beloved wife Lesly—Sergeant Israel Garcia.

A young man of deep faith, who served God and country, who could always get a laugh with his impersonations of his commander—Corporal Jason Hovater.

The husband who couldn’t wait to become an uncle; the adventurous spirit who in every photo from Afghanistan had a big smile on his face—Corporal Matthew Phillips.

The big guy with an even bigger heart; the prankster whose best play was cleaning up at the poker table with his buddies and his dad—Corporal Pruitt Rainey.

And the youngest, just 20 years old, the “little brother” of the platoon, who loved to play guitar, and who, says his dad, did everything in life with passion—Corporal Gunnar Zwilling.

“Their legacy lives on in the hearts of all who love them still, especially their families,” the President said. “Mothers. Fathers. Wives. Brothers and sisters. Sons and daughters.” For Ryan, who is celebrating his two-year anniversary today with his wife Amy and his one-year-old son Lucas, that is the story he wants people to remember: “Soldiers who loved each other like brothers and who fought for each other; families who have made a sacrifice that our nation must never forget. ‘I think we owe it to them,’ he says, to ‘live lives worthy of their sacrifice.’”

The President reflected on the lessons we learned from Ryan and those who fought in the battle of Wanat:

When this nation sends our troops into harm’s way, they deserve a sound strategy and a well-defined mission. They deserve the forces and support to get the job done. That is what we owe soldiers like Ryan and all the comrades that were lost. That is how we can truly honor all those who gave their lives that day. That is how, as a nation, we can remain worthy of their sacrifice. I know that’s a view that’s shared by our Secretary of Defense, our Joint Chiefs of Staff, and all the leadership here. They’re hard lessons, but they’re ones that are deeply engrained in our hearts.

It is remarkable that we have young men and women serving in our military who, day in and day out, are able to perform with so much integrity, so much ability, so much courage. Ryan represents the very best of that tradition and we are very, very proud of him as we are of all of you. So God bless you, Ryan. God bless all who serve in our name. And may God continue to bless the United States of America.

Next Medal of Honor says "We were a family"

Lowell native to receive Medal of Honor for Afghanistan actions
Boston Globe
By Bryan Bender
GLOBE STAFF
JUNE 23, 2014

Looking back, Pitts said, as he struggled to maintain his composure, “We were a family.”

NASHUA, N.H. — Some of the 200 enemy fighters were hidden in the trees. The Americans heard nothing. All seemed quiet until the pre-dawn darkness exploded into the deadliest single firefight involving US troops in the war in Afghanistan.

Nine soldiers died and 27 were wounded when a remote outpost was assaulted by a much larger Taliban force on July 13, 2008. But it could have been a lot worse had it not been for Ryan Pitts, a Lowell native who grew up just over the border in Mount Vernon, New Hampshire.

On Monday, President Obama announced he will bestow upon Pitts the Medal of Honor - the nation’s highest award for valor - for his role in the Battle of Wanat, one of the most analyzed engagements of the 12-year-old war.

“When I think of that day, I think of the valor that was displayed by everyone who was there,” Pitts, a business development consultant at Oracle Corporation in Burlington, Mass., recalled in a interview in his home here. “Guys who came home and especially the guys who didn’t.”

His is a story of an emotionally difficult childhood in Massachusetts and New Hampshire, a horrific scene in a remote valley near the Pakistan border, and the continuing struggle to heal.

“No one man carried the day,” he said. “We did it as a team. I remember looking around seeing other guys fighting so hard that I had to do my part, too. Everybody risked their lives for each other and some of them paid for it with their lives. But they saved other people.”

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New Hampshire Volunteer Firefighter Killed in Afghansitan

New Hampshire Marine Among 3 Killed By IED in Afghanistan
NBC News
June 21, 2014

A New Hampshire Marine who was barred from wearing his military uniform to his high school graduation was killed by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan on Friday, along with two other American soldiers and a military dog, officials said.

Lance Corporal Brandon Garabrant was 19 years old. The names of the fallen soldiers have not yet been released by the military, but New Hampshire Gov. Maggie Hassan confirmed his identity and offered condolences to the family.

“As a volunteer firefighter and dedicated Marine, Lance Corporal Garabrant was committed to serving his fellow citizens, and he was tragically taken from us far too soon,” the governor said in a Facebook post. “Our thoughts and prayers are with Lance Corporal Garabrant's family, as well as those of the other American heroes who were lost, and we will be forever grateful for his selfless service.”
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New Hampshire Air National Guard Soldier Died in Afghanistan

IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Release No: NR-109-14
March 03, 2014

DOD Identifies Air Force Casualty

The Department of Defense announced today the death of an airman who was supporting Operation Enduring Freedom.

Master Sgt. David L. Poirier, 52, of North Smithfield, R.I., died Feb. 28, from a non-combat related incident currently under investigation.

He was assigned to the 157th Operations Support Squadron, Pease Air National Guard Base, N.H.
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Soldier found unresponsive at Fort Hood identified

Death of a Fort Hood soldier
DVIDS
Fort Hood Public Affairs Office
December 24, 2013

FORT HOOD, Texas - Fort Hood officials have released the name of a soldier who found unresponsive Dec. 21 in his barracks on Fort Hood, Texas.

Spc. Ryan Jeffrey McDermot, 26, whose home of record is listed as Newington, N.H., entered active duty service in July 2010 as a UH-60 Helicopter repairer. He was assigned to the 2nd Batalion, 227th Aviation Regiment, 1st Air Combat Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division, Fort Hood, since March 2012.
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Survivor Guilt "For some reason, I’m alive and he’s not"

'For some reason, I’m alive and he’s not'
PRESENT-TRAUMATIC STRESS
Stars and Stripes
Martin Kuz
December 1, 2013

ESPANDI, Afghanistan — The Polish sergeant took one step off the dirt path that the U.S. soldiers ahead of him had scanned for buried bombs. Those few inches marked the line between Jan Kiepura’s life and death. His foot triggered an improvised explosive device that forever separated him from his wife and two sons.

First Lt. Joshua Fosher was 15 feet in front of him; Capt. Dusty Turner was about as far behind. The distance saved the two Americans from his fate. Yet they were casualties in a less obvious sense. The blast inflicted hidden wounds, physical and psychological, that lingered long after Kiepura returned to Poland in a metal box.

Fosher and Turner suffered brain injuries that were slow to heal, injuries that magnified the mental trauma of their close exposure to death. Their ordeal resembles that of thousands of U.S. troops affected by brain injuries during the war in Afghanistan, now 12 years old, and the eight-year war in Iraq that ended in 2011.

In the weeks after the blast, as the two soldiers continued to endure the rigors of a nine-month deployment, they searched for order amid war’s uncertainty.

“He was there, then he wasn’t,” said Fosher, 26, of Exeter, N.H., referring to Kiepura. “When you realize how fast that can happen, it makes you aware in a very real way how everything can end.”

It is an awareness that, for each man, remains bereft of answers.

“For some reason, I’m alive and he’s not,” said Turner, 28, of Center Point, Texas. “For some reason, God allowed me to be here. I have no idea why.”
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Fort Hood soldier from New Hampshire killed in motorcycle crash

NH soldier killed in motorcycle crash in Texas
Houston Chronicle
September 3, 2013

LONDONDERRY, N.H. (AP) — A funeral service will be held this week for a 22-year-old soldier from New Hampshire who died in a motorcycle crash in Killeen, Texas, while stationed at Fort Hood.

Police said Cpl. Tyler Pimpis died Wednesday, Aug. 28, in a collision with a pickup truck. Pimpis, who wasn't wearing a helmet, was ejected from the motorcycle.

He joined the U.S. Army in January 2010, and served a combat deployment in Afghanistan in 2011 and 2012.
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War veteran doctor experience vital

War veteran doctor experience vital
By GRETYL MACALASTER
Union Leader Correspondent
April 19. 2013

Dr. Fred Brennan with Seacoast Orthopedics and Sports Medicine in Somersworth and head team doctor for the University of New Hampshire hugs his daughter, Alyssa, 18, after two bombs exploded near the finish line of the Boston Marathon on Monday, where Brennan was serving as a volunteer in medical tent B, two blocks from the finish line. (COURTESY)

SOMERSWORTH - As a member of the New Hampshire Air National Guard, and a veteran of foreign wars, Dr. Fred Brennan knew there was always a chance he would again be exposed to casualties. But he never expected to see them on the streets of Boston.

Brennan, a doctor with Seacoast Orthopedics and Sports Medicine and the team doctor for the University of New Hampshire athletic program, was helping to lead the medical team in tent B at the Boston Marathon on Monday, just two short blocks from the finish line.

About 200 doctors, nurses, athletic trainers, sports medicine practitioners and other medical staff were treating a nearly full tent of runners with blisters, cramps, and some hypothermia due to the day's cold temperatures when the first bomb went off.

Brennan immediately recognized the sound of an improvised explosive device, and when he heard the second blast, he knew it was no accident. He told his team to get ready.
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Veterans to discover no man is an island but can live on one

Family to make island a veterans retreat
April 17. 2013
By GRETYL MACALASTER
Union Leader Correspondent

By 2014, Bruce Montville hopes to have this family-owned island on Bow Lake developed into a retreat for veterans and their families. (click link to see place)

STRAFFORD - The Montville family has owned a 10-acre undeveloped island for many years off the shores of Bow Lake.

As Bruce Montville, founder and CEO of LifeWise Community Projects in Hampton, began to learn of the plight of returning veterans - some troubled with traumatic brain injury, physical disabilities or challenged in returning to everyday life - he began envisioning the island as a retreat for those veterans.

He talked to his family and earned its blessing to begin development of a veterans family island retreat.

The idea is still in the planning stages, but already Montville has received buy-in and support from the N.H. State Veterans Committee, local businesses and other volunteer groups.

Landscape architect Jonathan Halle, who designed the New Hampshire State Veterans Cemetery in Boscawen, has agreed to create a conceptual design for the retreat.
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Soldier dies of breast cancer, but her widow won’t get benefits

Soldier dies of breast cancer, but her widow won’t get benefits
Washington Post
Posted by Andrea Stone
February 10, 2013

Charlie Morgan didn’t get her last wish.

On Sunday morning, the New Hampshire National Guard soldier succumbed to Stage IV breast cancer after a long battle against the disease and a federal law that now leaves her widow with none of the benefits a grateful nation bestows on its straight warriors.

As I wrote here on Thanksgiving, Morgan, who came out as a lesbian on MSNBC in September 2011, the day the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy became history, hoped she would outlive the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). The Clinton-era law forbids Karen, her legally married wife, from receiving the survivor benefits other military widows get.

That money would have gone a long way toward helping raise their young daughter Casey. Just like the death benefits Charlie’s mother got when her soldier husband died in an accident during the Vietnam War went to pay for food and a roof for young Charlie.

“I’m praying that they take it up soon,” Morgan told me in a phone interview from her home in New Durham, N.H. a few days before Thanksgiving. “It’s my motivation for staying alive. I really need to be alive when they actually do overturn DOMA, otherwise Karen is not guaranteed anything.”
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Wounded Iraq War Veteran Injured In Avalanche

Sgt. Keith Zeier, Wounded Iraq War Veteran, Injured In Avalanche While Raising Money For Charity
By HOLLY RAMER
01/18/13

CONCORD, N.H. — An avalanche has halted an attempt by a retired Marine and amputee to climb the Northeast's highest peak, but if his past comments are any indication, he'll likely try again.

Retired Sgt. Keith Zeier was in the hospital Friday, a day after he and two fellow climbers were injured in an avalanche on Mount Washington. The climb was part of a project called "Ascents of Honor" and was the latest of several grueling challenges the 26-year-old has taken on to raise awareness and money for the families of special operations forces killed or wounded in action.

"In the middle of anything that is difficult, we have the option of quitting, slowing down, or changing course. My life has been about ignoring that option," Zeier wrote last month on the Ascents of Honor blog.

According to an update on the group's Facebook page, Zeier was part of a 12-member crew trying to reach the 6,288-foot summit Thursday evening when a slab avalanche brook loose and swept three climbers to the bottom of Huntington Ravine. Zeier and the other injured climbers were able to slowly make their way to rescuers who assisted them off the mountain, the group said.

"While this is certainly not the outcome we had hoped for, we are thankful that all in our party are safely off the mountain," wrote Thom Pollard, the project's head cameraman.
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New Hampshire Nam Knights welcome home Jose Pequeno

If you know the Nam Knights, they do this kind of thing all the time and I do mean "kind" so it is great to see the New Hampshire Nam Knights get some recognition for how much they really do care about the men and women risking their lives everyday. Jose Pequeno was a police chief and was wounded in Iraq. The Nam Knights are members of law enforcement, firefighters and veterans.

Former police chief Jose Pequeno, injured in Iraq, comes home
By RAY DUCKLER Monitor staff
Wednesday, December 26, 2012

Iron Mike and Rhino never saw it coming.

They never figured Jose Pequeno, the former Sugar Hill police chief, would react as he did Friday at the Concord airport. Hadn’t that brain injury Pequeno suffered in Iraq pushed him into a world of darkness? Hadn’t that grenade tossed into his humvee nearly seven years ago wiped clean his memories, his emotions, his very identity?

That’s what people like Iron Mike and Rhino, along with the others with the rugged nicknames and the biker jackets and the barrel chests, thought when they greeted Pequeno on his trip home for Christmas.

Instead, Pequeno cried.

So the tough guys did, too.

“I saw him shortly after he came home from Iraq, and he was still in and out of surgery back then, in real rough shape,” said Iron Mike, whose real name is Mike Dempsey. “It’s very personal, but I feel as if he recognizes who we are now. When we talked to him, you could see his eyes light up and his face light up. To me, that tells me that he recognizes the voice, that he gets excited and makes it known through his own way.”

Dempsey is a 51-year-old former Marine with a gravely voice and a passion for motorcycles. He rode with Pequeno’s father in the Nam Knights of America, a philanthropic organization of retired law enforcement officers and military veterans.

They raise money, and they roll out the red carpet for people like Pequeno.

Four Nam Knights joined hands to lower Pequeno down the stairs, off a plane flown by a volunteer pilot from Land O’ Lakes, Fla., where Pequeno is now being cared for by his mother and sister. His wife and three kids still live here, in the small North Country town of Lisbon.
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Soldier’s last wish: Let DOMA die before I do

Soldier’s last wish: Let DOMA die before I do
Washington Post
Posted by Andrea Stone
November 22, 2012

Charlie Morgan should have been dead by now.

“I was to have expired last month, in October,” said the 47-year-old career soldier who has battled Stage IV breast cancer for four years and was given less than six months to live when she voluntarily stopped chemotherapy in April. “But I’m still here.”

She hopes to live to see the United States Supreme Court do right by her and her family.

You see, as a chief warrant officer in the New Hampshire National Guard, Morgan is eligible for all the benefits a grateful nation can provide its military service members. But as a lesbian married to another woman, her wife will not receive the survivor benefits other military widows get and which she will need to help raise their daughter Casey, 5, after she is gone.
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It took 43 years to clear Decorated Vietnam veteran missing and murdered

Woman finally has proof her brother wasn't a deserter
Mari A. Schaefer
Inquirer Staff Writer
POSTED: Saturday, November 17, 2012

Marine Cpl. Robert Daniel Corriveau had been under psychiatric treatment.

Virginia Cleary never gave up.

In the 43 years since her older brother, Marine Cpl. Robert Daniel Corriveau, a decorated Vietnam veteran, went missing from the Philadelphia Naval Hospital and was declared a deserter, she never stopped searching for him.

She wrote countless letters, pestered senators and congressmen, traveled from her New Hampshire home to Philadelphia to search news archives, scoured faces in crowds, battled with military and state officials for records, and enlisted police and private detectives.

Every roadblock she hit, she said, only strengthened her resolve and pushed her forward.

Finally, on May 31, Pennsylvania State Police were able to identify the remains of Corriveau, found stabbed to death in Chester County, and they are now seeking the public's assistance in solving the cold case.

"He was matched through my DNA," said Cleary, 58, of Conway, N.H.

On Nov 18, 1968, the same day the 20-year-old Marine from Lawrence, Mass., disappeared from the hospital, an unidentified man was found dead alongside the Pennsylvania Turnpike near the Downingtown interchange.

He was stabbed once though the heart and covered with a Navy pea coat. He carried no identification and became known as "Bulldog John Doe" after the distinctive tattoo on his upper right arm. He was buried at Longwood Cemetery in Kennett Square.
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