Warrant officer gets Silver Star down range

Warrant officer gets Silver Star down range

By Gidget Fuentes - Staff writer
Posted : Sunday Jul 18, 2010 10:07:39 EDT

OCEANSIDE, Calif. — A Marine warrant officer received the Silver Star on July 15 during a short ceremony in Afghanistan, attended by the top Marine Corps leaders in the region, including Maj. Gen. Richard Mills, commander of Regional Command-Southwest, and Brig. Gen. Charles Hudson, commander of 1st Marine Logistics Group.

On Feb. 26, 2008, then-Staff Sgt. John W. Hermann, an explosive ordnance disposal technician, accompanied a team with Company B, 1st Marine Special Operations Battalion, on a combat reconnaissance patrol through Dahaneh, a village in southern Afghanistan held by Taliban forces.

While on the patrol, the team came under a barrage of fire from rocket-propelled grenades, mortars, machine guns and small-arms fire. Hermann, according to the award citation, jumped out of his vehicle with another Marine and ran toward a group of entrenched fighters.

When the other Marine was hit in the leg by automatic fire, Hermann continued moving over open terrain and into the enemy trench line.

“He single-handedly destroyed the enemy assailants and then crossed back through the machine gun fire of another enemy position in order to treat his fallen comrade,” his citation states.

Hermann was hit in the leg by some shrapnel from an RPG, ignored the injury, and instead put a tourniquet on the wounded Marine’s leg. Then Hermann “moved forward and silenced the remaining enemy machine gun,” the citation states.
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Warrant officer gets Silver Star down range

Marine Corps sees big drop in monthly suicide statistics

UPDATE Aug. 5 2010

Thursday, August 5, 2010

Marine suicide rate up again
Hopes just crashed to the ground. I was wrong to think they finally got it last month,,,,,,

Please, please tell me it is because they get it and are going for help instead. Tell me they are getting the support they need from their CO and their buddies. Tell me they are getting support from their families and friends back home. Tell me that they are finally, once and for all, hearing what they need to know to heal and live. Above all, tell me that this is not just a fluke and the numbers will stay down.

MILITARY: Marine Corps sees big drop in monthly suicide statistics
By MARK WALKER - mlwalker@nctimes.com


The U.S. Marine Corps recorded one suicide in June and nine attempted suicides, the lowest monthly figures of the year.

The numbers are down substantially from May, when the service recorded seven suicides and 16 attempted suicides.

Marine Corps officials designated to speak about the trends were not available Wednesday, but a local civilian counselor cautioned it's too early to say if efforts to identify troops experiencing psychological stress are responsible for the June decline.

"We'll have to wait for two or three more months to see if it is in fact a trend or just an aberration," said the counselor, Bill Rider of the Oceanside-based American Combat Veterans of War. "I would like to think the Marine Corps' efforts are doing something, but there is no question that suicide comes along with war."

Last year, the Marine Corps recorded 52 suicides, the highest number since 2001, when 30 Marines took their own lives. That rate of 24 suicides per 100,000 troops surpassed the 20 per 100,000 in the civilian population.
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Marine Corps sees big drop in monthly suicide statistics

Marine killed in armed police confrontation laid to rest

Marine killed in armed police confrontation laid to rest
Sarah Delage, Multimedia Journalist


MEDWAY, Maine (NEWS CENTER) -- James "Bing" Popkowski was laid to rest with full military honors Tuesday.

The thrity-seven year-old marine veteran from grindstone was shot and killed during an armed confrontation with police near the togus V.A. Hospital last week. Hundreds of people attended services, including family, former classmates from Schenck high school, fellow veterans, and his young daughter Vianca, who was presented with the American flag. Skip Cram is Popkowski's former boss. He says he will remember him as a hard worker and devoted friend.
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Marine killed in armed police confrontation laid to rest


Friends recall life of ex-Marine killed at Togus

Marine Corporal Paul Fagundes died trying to save others

Marine put others first, widow says

Cynthia Marie Fagundes held her son, Cazzian, as a Marine escorted her into a Fall River church for her husband’s funeral. Corporal Paul Fagundes died July 4 in Guantanamo Bay. She is pregnant with the couple’s second child. (Kayana Szymczak for The Boston Globe)

By Alex Katz
Globe Correspondent

FALL RIVER — Cynthia Marie Fagundes mostly kept her head down yesterday — before her was the casket holding her 29-year-old husband.

Sitting beneath a tent at Notre Dame Cemetery, she suddenly lifted her gaze as a voice pierced the silence. “Mommy!’’ her 2-year-old son, Cazzian, belted out. She smiled at the little boy, scooping him up onto her lap.

Together they said farewell to Corporal Paul Fagundes, who drowned July Fourth while trying to save two fellow Marines caught up in an undertow while swimming at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

He enlisted in the Marine Corps about a year ago, serving a 60-day tour on an antiterrorism team that was training in Guantanamo Bay.

Mourners gathered to pay their respects to a man who always put others before himself, his widow said.

“He was an angel on earth, and now he is an angel in heaven,’’ she said during a funeral Mass at St. Anne Parish, wearing a black dress and her husband’s dog tag as she delivered the eulogy.
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Marine put others first, widow says

also on this story

U.S. Marine from Camden dies in swimming accident in Cuba
Published: Tuesday, July 13, 2010,
Military officials say a U.S. Marine from Camden has died in a swimming accident at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The military says 22-year-old Lance Cpl. Giovani "Gio" Cruz drowned while swimming off a recreational beach at Naval Station Guantanamo Bay on July 4.
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US Marine from Camden dies in swimming accident in Cuba

LA police teach Marines how to train Afghan police

LA police teach Marines how to train Afghan police

By: Associated Press

By JULIE WATSON

Associated Press Writer

LOS ANGELES — A tough-talking, muscular Los Angeles police sergeant steadily rattled off tips to a young Marine riding shotgun as they raced in a patrol car to a drug bust: Be aware of your surroundings. Watch people’s body language. Build rapport.

Marine Lt. Andrew Abbott, 23, took it all in as he peered out at the graffiti-covered buildings, knowing that the lessons he learned recently in one of the city’s toughest neighborhoods could help him soon in the war against the Taliban in Afghanistan.

“People are the center of gravity and if you do everything you can to protect them, then they’ll protect you,” he said. “That’s something true here and pretty much everywhere.”

Abbott was among 70 Camp Pendleton Marines in a training exercise that aims to adapt the investigative techniques the LAPD has used for decades against violent street gangs to take on the Taliban more as a powerful drug-trafficking mob than an insurgency.

The Marines hope that learning to work like a cop on a beat will help them better track the Taliban, build relationships with Afghans leery of foreign troops and make them better teachers as they try to professionalize an Afghan police force beset by corruption.
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LA police teach Marines how to train Afghan police

Sgt. Rafael Peralta's brother says "I have big shoes to fill" as he becomes a Marine

Marine hero's brother makes good on his promise

By Tony Perry, Los Angeles Times
Updated: 4:36 AM 7/12/2010

Reporting from Camp Pendleton-- At his brother's funeral nearly six years ago, Ricardo Peralta made him a promise: He would join the Marine Corps and carry on in his example.

On Friday, Peralta, now 19, fulfilled that promise as he graduated from the school of infantry.

He will now report to a battalion in Twentynine Palms, Calif., and, like his brother, probably deploy to a war zone as an infantry "grunt."

"I have big shoes to fill," Peralta, a Marine private first class, said quietly.

His brother, Sgt. Rafael Peralta, was killed at age 25 during the battle for Fallouja, Iraq, in November 2004. He is revered by the Marine Corps as one of the true heroes of the long battle in Iraq.

His story is told to every recruit at boot camp in San Diego — how he saved the lives of fellow Marines by smothering an enemy grenade with his body. Marine brass, famously stingy in recommending battle citations, nominated him for the Medal of Honor.
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Marine hero brother makes good on his promise

Marine, Iraq Veteran, saves 4-year-old's life

Local Marine saves 4-year-old's life
Bruce Brown

Buckles, a squad leader of a mortar platoon with the USMC 323 Weapons Company in Baton Rouge, is a veteran of a 2007-2008 deployment to Iraq. But he didn't get the chance to save a life there.

A 4-year-old boy was pulled from a swimming pool at a local apartment complex, and he was not breathing.

His lips were blue.

Providence was on his side, though, as U.S. Marine Corps Cpl. Robby Buckles was near enough Tuesday night to help.

"I was with a group of friends, and I had gone inside," Buckles said. "Then I heard people yelling my name, saying there was a kid by the pool who wasn't breathing.

"I performed CPR until he started breathing, and then Acadian Ambulance showed up to take him to the hospital. I've been in the Marines for five years, and had EMS training with the Red Cross for three years, so I knew what to do."
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Local Marine Saves 4 year old boy

Friends recall life of ex-Marine killed at Togus

Friends recall life of ex-Marine killed at Togus

By Nick Sambides Jr.
BDN Staff

An ailing Grindstone man and former U.S. Marine fatally shot by law enforcement officers near a veterans hospital Thursday was remembered by friends Friday as a generous, considerate man who struggled heroically to overcome a rare form of cancer and believed strongly in his right to carry a gun.

An autopsy of James F. Popkowski, 37, on Friday determined that he died from a gunshot wound to the neck and was killed in a homicide. The term denotes that he was killed by someone else, not that his death was necessarily caused by or came during a crime, a medical examiner's office spokeswoman said.

“I wished I could write that this was all a bad dream. … I can’t, so I instead will pray for the [lieutenant’s] family. Bing was a great boy and greater man. … He grew up with my boys and he never was nothing but a great kid,” wrote Galen Hale, a friend of Popkowski’s, on a Facebook page dedicated to Popkowski.

The Maine State Attorney General’s Office is investigating whether the two officers believed to have fired their weapons, VA police Officer Thomas Park and Maine Warden Service Sgt. Ron Dunham, were justified in using deadly force.

The investigation likely will take 60 to 90 days.
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Friends recall life of ex-Marine killed at Togus


also

Togus a city within a city
Thursday’s fatal shooting, first ever for police there, shines light on public safety
By Craig Crosby

AUGUSTA -- With thousands of people coming and going and dozens of buildings spread over hundreds of acres, all on federal land, the Togus Veterans Affairs hospital complex can accurately be described as a small city within the capital city.

And like any city, the facility comes replete with its own emergency services.

"A lot of people are surprised we're here," said Joe Stangel, a captain and emergency medical technician for the Togus Fire Department.

The Togus Police Department was cast into the public eye this week when one of its officers, along with a warden from the Maine Warden Service, reportedly shot and killed an armed Marine Corps veteran during a confrontation at the edge of the woods near Togus' Eastern Avenue entrance.

It was the first shooting involving a Togus police officer in the department's history.
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Togus a city within a city

Service for Marine 'rights a wrong' for family

Service for Marine 'rights a wrong' for family

By Jim McNally
Statesville R&L

Published: July 8, 2010

Next to his family and his country, Tommy Padgett loved the Marine Corps more than anything on earth.
"The Marines were everything to him," said his son, Thomas Padgett.
"And being a Marine," added Thomas' wife Amy, "just meant the world to him. He loved his country and he loved fighting for his country."
Indeed, Padgett pulled three tours of combat duty in Vietnam. And then, long after he retired from the Marine Corps, the former master gunnery sergeant requested to be placed back on active duty status after the terrorist events of Sept. 11, 2001, occurred.
"He was nearly 70 years old then," Thomas recalled. "But he still wanted to serve. They sent him a letter telling him he was too old."
But when Tommy Padgett died of natural causes two years ago in Mississippi, those who knew him best, and knew how profoundly Tommy Padgett's definition of himself was intertwined with the U.S. Marine Corps, were not able to make that fact clear enough to those overseeing his funeral.
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Service for Marine rights a wrong for family

Camp Pendleton Marine died in Afghanistan saving another

Camp Pendleton Marine died in Afghanistan while carrying wounded Marine
July 5, 2010 8:33 am

The body of Cpl. Larry Harris Jr., 24, a Camp Pendleton Marine killed in Afghanistan, has been returned to the U.S. and to his family in Colorado.

And the details of Harris' heroism are beginning to emerge.

Harris, a mortar man, was killed July 1 while on combat patrol in Helmand province, a Taliban stronghold. His patrol was ambushed and Lance Cpl. Jake Henry was wounded.

Harris was carrying Henry to safety outside the "kill zone." Brian Henry, the lance corporal's father, wrote on a Facebook page for family members of the 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment:

"He was carrying my son when he tripped an explosive device. His life was lost but my son lives.
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Camp Pendleton Marine died in Afghanistan

Horse rescue group comes to Marine's aid

Horse rescue group comes to Marine's aid
By Bob Hallmark - bio email

LONGVIEW,TX (KLTV)- 23 year old Michael Attaway grew up with a boyhood dream.

"I had asked for a horse ever since I could speak really," says Attaway.

While he was serving in the Marines in Iraq, he got a letter from his father explaining a new girl named Lucy, was waiting for him.

"I was over there in Iraq, and opened up my letter, and he had all these pictures in there of Lucy and another horse and he said 'well I finally got you your horse son,'" he says.

After he got out, Attaway came home and started a family, including Lucy, but struggled financially. When Lucy had a severe leg injury, he had to face facts.

"And I was really short on money and didn't know what to do I wanted her to go to a good home. I was caught between and family and a horse I loved and really wanted to hang on to her," Attaway says.

But that's when Safe Haven Equine Rescue stepped in.
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http://www.kltv.com/Global/story.asp?S=12755038

New details on toxic water at Camp Lejeune

Lejeune details under new study

BY BARBARA BARRETT - Washington Correspondent
WASHINGTON -- A congressional oversight committee has begun looking into new details about historic water contamination at Camp Lejeune.

Investigators in the House Science and Technology Committee have requested hundreds of documents from the state of North Carolina that include details about underground storage tanks buried across the Marine base in past decades. The tanks contained fuel, tricholorethylene (TCE) and other chemicals.

Some of the storage tanks leaked into the groundwater, including some buried about 300 feet from a drinking well. The well was found in 1984 to be contaminated with benzene, a fuel component and a human carcinogen. It was closed in December 1984.

McClatchy has obtained the state of North Carolina documents and reported Friday that federal scientists have learned of the leaking fuel tanks near the historic well as they, too, work to understand the health effects of decades of contamination across the Marine base.

The tanks were buried beneath a former refueling station known as Building 1115; they were removed in 1993.

"That water was stunningly contaminated," said U.S. Rep. Brad Miller, chairman of the oversight panel on the science and technology committee. "It was stunningly toxic, and the fact that Marines and their families drank that water for 30 years is inexcusable."



Read more: Lejeune details under new study

Beloved Marine statue stolen from Larksville home

Beloved Marine statue stolen from Larksville home
By Matthew Harris (Staff Writer)
Published: June 20, 2010

The taciturn-faced Marine stood at attention in his dress blues, gripping an American flag and keeping watch at his post.

For six years, the 175-pound concrete sentinel, who stood barely 3 feet tall, steadfastly protected Florena Sorokas' front yard in Larksville.

Sure, he was a statue. But in a family where two sons are Marine veterans and two more grandsons served the Marine Corps, the oversized figurine was a talisman from the boys to the family matriarch.

"They bought it to protect me while they were gone," said Sorokas, who got the statue before her grandsons left for tours in Afghanistan.

And he never flagged in his duty - until Saturday, and not on his own will.

In the wee hours, someone sneaked onto Sorokas' lawn and made off with the statue, leaving the 71-year-old grandmother heartbroken and her family upset. Larksville police are investigating the theft and offering a reward to anyone with information leading to its return.
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Beloved Marine statue stolen from Larksville home

A Marine, a Mosque, a Question

Leave it to a Marine to ask the right questions!

A Marine, a Mosque, a Question
By JIM DWYER
Published: June 18, 2010
A few hours after the town hall meeting began, deep into the question-and-answer portion, Bill Finnegan lined up for a turn at the microphone. He had not come with any intention to speak, but as the evening dragged on, he changed his mind.

A Muslim group had made a deal to buy an empty convent from the Catholic parish of St. Margaret Mary in the Midland Beach section of Staten Island and open a mosque. A civic association organized a meeting with representatives of the group, the Muslim American Society, on the evening of June 9. Mr. Finnegan had gone, he said later, to “see what all the hoopla was about.”

Mr. Finnegan, 25, began by introducing himself. “I said, ‘My name is Bill Finnegan, and I’m a United States Marine recently returned from Afghanistan,’ ” he said.


Cheers rang out. He turned to the representatives of the Muslim group, seated at a table in the front.


“My question to you is, will you work to form a cohesive bond with the people of this community?” he asked.


The men said yes.


Mr. Finnegan then faced the audience. “And will you work to form a cohesive bond with these people — your new neighbors?” he asked.


The crowd booed. A voice called out: “No!”

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A Marine a Mosque a Question

Marine Corps suicides on near-record pace

MILITARY: Marine Corps suicides on near-record pace
Seven self-inflicted deaths in May raise this year's toll to 21
By MARK WALKER

Seven U.S. Marines killed themselves in May, raising the number of self-inflicted deaths this year to 21 and continuing a trend that saw a record 52 troop suicides in 2009.

An additional 89 among the service's 202,000 men and women have attempted suicide this year, including 15 in May, according to a report from the Marine Corps Suicide Prevention Program in Washington.

Despite a host of outreach efforts, the numbers continue to rise, surpassing the rate of 20 per 100,000 in the civilian population and that for all the other services.

In 2009, the Marine Corps' rate reached 24 per 100,000, according to service statistics. The Army's rate last year was 22 per 100,000 while the Air Force's was 15.5 and the Navy's was 13.3.

The 21 suicides this year compare with 55 Marine combat deaths in Afghanistan since Jan. 1, underscoring the breadth of the problem.
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Marine Corps suicides on near-record pace

Suicide Rivals The Battlefield In Toll On U.S. Military

Stephen Colley, was on suicide watch, he was tested, he said he was suicidal, but still somehow, something along the way was dropped and Stephen Colley is no longer alive. This happens all too often when they don't receive the help they need to heal. They can say they have this program and that program, but if these programs don't work, they do little good. They can say they understand PTSD but to discover how little they really understand, all we have to do is read reports like this and then it becomes clear. The numbers of suicides and attempted suicides go up for a reason.

Suicide Rivals The Battlefield In Toll On U.S. Military
by Jamie Tarabay

Jae C. Hon/AP
Marines wait outside a building to take psychological tests in September 2009. The military assesses troops in search of clues that might help predict mental health issues.

June 17, 2010
Nearly as many American troops at home and abroad have committed suicide this year as have been killed in combat in Afghanistan. Alarmed at the growing rate of soldiers taking their own lives, the Army has begun investigating its mental health and suicide prevention programs.

But the tougher challenge is changing a culture that is very much about "manning up" when things get difficult.

This is the first in an occasional series of stories on the problem of suicides in the military.

Stephen Colley, 22, killed himself in May 2007, six months after returning from a tour in Iraq.


The Case Of Stephen Colley

Military veteran Edward Colley served in the Air Force and the Army. Three of his children also served in the military, and his son-in-law was awarded a Purple Heart after being wounded in Iraq.

Colley, 53, and his wife, who live in Los Angeles, also have three other kids, but the tradition of military service is on hold. "Mom prohibits the younger ones from joining the military now," he says. "You might understand the prohibition in our house."

The mother's ban was imposed after their son Stephen killed himself in May 2007, six months after returning from a tour in Iraq. Stephen, 22, had suffered depression and post-traumatic stress disorder, and his young marriage was in trouble.

Stephen was participating in an Army-run mental health assessment program. His father's main complaint against the Army is what it missed in screening his son. "The day after he told the folks in that reassessment that he was planning on committing suicide, he did," Ed Colley says, pausing. "Yeah, wow."

It was Stephen's second mental health assessment. The first, right after he came back from Iraq, seemed pretty normal.


He was on a superhighway towards suicide and there were many off ramps, many opportunities for something different to have happened.


But during his time in Taji, in central Iraq, the helicopter mechanic spent 24 hours under suicide watch. That information never made it to his new commander in Fort Hood, Texas.
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http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=127860466

Murdered Marine's Family About To File Lawsuit

Murdered Marine's Family About To File Lawsuit
Reporting
Alex DeMetrick

BALTIMORE (WJZ)
While an ex-Marine shot to death in a Baltimore alley is laid to rest, a lawyer is getting to work on behalf of his family. He's filing suit against the Baltimore police department.
CBS

While an ex-Marine shot to death in a Baltimore alley is laid to rest, a lawyer is getting to work on behalf of his family. He's filing suit against the Baltimore police department. Alex DeMetrick has details.

This lawsuit is going to focus on who allowed a Baltimore police officer, now charged with first degree murder, to carry a gun off-duty.

Services for 32-year-old Tyrone Brown centered on his life.

"I just thank God for his life. I know it was cut short, but we'll get through this," said a friend.

A Marine veteran with two tours in Iraq, Brown was shot to death in a Mt. Vernon alley by an off-duty Baltimore police officer.
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http://wjz.com/local/marine.off.duty.2.1756269.html

Vietnam Vet, "Rose Garden" Marine Sgt. Taliano laid to rest

Ex-Marine, S.C. resident on famous poster dies
By PATRICK DONOHUE - The Beaufort Gazette
BEAUFORT —

Sgt. Chuck Taliano was awaiting an honorable discharge at Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island in 1968 when a reservist writing a book about boot camp snapped a picture of him giving a recruit an “attitude readjustment.”


That cemented Taliano’s place in Corps legend.



Chuck Taliano, the mean-mugged drill instructor pictured on the Marine Corps’ ‘Rose Garden’ recruitment poster, died June 4.



The photo captured his snarling mug inches from a fresh-faced recruit with the caption, “We don’t promise you a rose garden.” It was on thousands of Marine Corps recruiting posters printed during the 1970s and 1980s.


The poster made Taliano a celebrity among Marines, said Stephen Wise, curator of the Parris Island Museum, where Taliano worked as manager of the gift shop.


“Everyone from generals to former privates would stop by to see him,” Wise said. “Everyone knew Chuck.”


Taliano, 65, died in his Beaufort home Friday after a long battle with multiple myeloma, a cancer of the plasma cells in bone marrow. A memorial service was held Wednesday for Taliano at the depot’s Recruit Chapel, and he will be buried today at Beaufort National Cemetery.



Read more: Ex Marine SC resident on famous poster dies

Michael Fay reporting with art from war

Drawing Fire
By MICHAEL D. FAY
In 2005, then Chief Warrant Officer Michael D. Fay traveled to Iraq in his capacity as official Marine Corps artist. There he fought with Marines engaged in Operation Steel Curtain against insurgents along the Euphrates River, and documented the events in sketches, photographs and audio recordings.

Michael D. Fay held the the position of combat artist for the United States Marine Corps from 2000 through January 2010. He was deployed several times to Iraq and Afghanistan. He is currently in the Kandahar region of Afghanistan working as a war correspondent embedded with Marine units. His blog is Fire and Ice.

Mr. Fay describes that experience here in “Drawing Fire,” to be published in five consecutive parts this week in Home Fires. It is based on material from his memoir, “The War Artist,” (earlier drafts appeared on his blog in January), and includes artwork and photographs from his time with Marine units in Operation Steel Curtain.

In 2006, Mr. Fay was a contributor to The Times’s Frontlines series, in which he described the orders he followed as Marine Corps artist: “Go to War, Do Art.” He is now retired from the Marine Corps, but is currently in Afghanistan working as a correspondent embedded with Marine units in Afghanistan.
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Drawing Fire
Drawing Fire: Last Day
Drawing Fire: Stay With Us
Drawing Fire: Reckoning

Veteran missing in Yellowstone has PTSD

Veteran missing in Yellowstone has PTSD
Gazette Staff Posted: Friday, June 4, 2010
An Oklahoma man missing in Yellowstone National Park is a former Marine suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder he incurred after surviving two bomb blasts while serving in Iraq.

The news is the latest information released by park officials in a search for Peter Louis Kastner, 25, whose car was found parked at the Hellroaring Trailhead on Monday. The investigating ranger found that the red Cadillac STS sedan with Oklahoma plates had been rented a month earlier and was two weeks overdue.

Kastner is 6 feet, 1 inch tall, weighs 185 pounds and has brown hair and hazel eyes.

According to information provided to the Park Service by Kastner’s family, he was honorably discharged from the Marine Corps after serving four years. During his service, he was twice injured by improvised explosive devices in Iraq. He had moved to Oklahoma City from the Minneapolis-St. Paul area to attend college. His family is concerned about his mental state and said he was suffering from post-traumatic stress syndrome.
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Veteran missing in Yellowstone has PTSD



Search continues for man missing in Yellowstone

Peter Louis Kastner
Courtesy of National Park Service
Rangers and investigators are still hoping the public can help with the ongoing search for Peter Louis Kastner, who has been missing in Yellowstone National Park since Monday, May 31,2010.

Rangers and investigators are still hoping the public can help with the ongoing search for a man missing in Yellowstone National Park since Monday.

A rental car belonging to Peter Louis Kastner, 25, of Oklahoma City, Okla., was discovered early Monday morning at the Hellroaring trailhead in the northcentral section of Yellowstone.

An investigation revealed the red Cadillac STS sedan with Oklahoma plates had been rented a month earlier and was two weeks overdue.

Family members told investigators they had not been in touch with Kastner in recent weeks. He had been honorably discharged from the Marine Corps after serving for four years and was twice injured by improvised explosive devices in Iraq, according to his family. He had moved to Oklahoma City from the Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minn., area to attend college.
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Search continues for man missing in Yellowstone