Supreme Court will take on Feres Doctrine suit!

Military Medical Malpractice Suit Stays Alive in US Supreme Court

Military.com
By Patricia Kime
2 Apr 2019

The plaintiff, Walter Daniel, is a former Coast Guard officer whose wife, Rebekah "Moani" Daniel died during childbirth at Naval Hospital Bremerton, Washington, in March 2014. The lawsuit alleges that the doctors failed to provide prompt medical treatment when Daniel, a Navy lieutenant who worked as a nurse at the hospital, began bleeding excessively. She died four hours after giving birth.

A court case that challenges the authority of the Feres doctrine in cases of military medical malpractice was not among the 150-plus petitions rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday.

Walter Daniel and Rebekah "Moani" Daniel. (Courtesy Photo)

The Feres doctrine is the controversial 69-year-old court ruling that prohibits service members from suing the federal government for injuries deemed incidental to military service.

The case, Daniel v. United States, was to be distributed to the Supreme Court justices for conference on March 29, meaning they were set to discuss it Friday and to announce their decision to accept or deny it on Monday.

But when the order was released this morning, the court had accepted one new case and rejected hundreds of others. The Daniel case was not among the rejections.

A spokeswoman for Daniel's attorney said he awaits word as to whether the case is being rescheduled for conference.

Attorneys who favor reconsideration of the Feres doctrine say the delay offers hope that the "Supreme Court has taken an immediate interest in revisiting" the ruling.
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Blue Water Vietnam Veterans Will Get Benefits

VA to Drop Fight Against Blue Water Navy Veterans

Military.com
By Patricia Kime
26 Mar 2019

The Department of Veterans Affairs will not appeal a January court ruling that ordered it to provide health care and disability benefits for 90,000 veterans who served on Navy ships during the Vietnam War, likely paving the way for "Blue Water Navy" sailors and Marines to receive Agent Orange-related compensation and VA-paid health care benefits.

VA Secretary Robert Wilkie told members of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee on Tuesday that he will recommend the Justice Department not fight the decision, handing a victory to ill former service members who fought for years to have their diseases recognized as related to exposure to the herbicide Agent Orange.

Last year, the House unanimously passed a bill, the Blue Water Navy Vietnam Veterans Act, to provide benefits to affected service members. But Wilkie objected, saying the science does not prove that they were exposed to Agent Orange. Veterans and their advocates had argued that the ships' distilling systems used Agent Orange-tainted seawater, exposing sailors on board to concentrated levels of dioxin.

However, the bill failed in the Senate when two Republicans, Sen. Michael Enzi of Wyoming and Mike Lee of Utah, said they wanted to wait for a vote pending the outcome of a current study on Agent Orange exposure.

Committee chairman Sen. Johnny Isakson, R-Georgia, also promised a hearing later this year on burn pits and other environmental exposures some troops say left them with lifelong illnesses, including cancers -- some fatal -- and respiratory diseases.
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WHAT KILLS FIRST RESPONDERS

WHAT KILLS FIRST RESPONDERS: Efforts underway to combat deadly stress of emergency work

Idaho State Journal
John O'Connor
March 23, 2019

They convinced Hale, who is a U.S. Navy veteran, to seek treatment and Moldenhauer personally drove him to a Veterans Administration therapy and rehabilitation program in Salt Lake City. Hale later underwent additional mental health treatment at an International Association of Firefighters-affiliated rehabilitation center for emergency workers in Baltimore.

Pocatello Fire Department Capt. Andy Moldenhauer, pictured, recently received an award from the American Red Cross for helping paramedic Dustin Hale, who was suicidal, get help for his severe post-traumatic stress injury. Doug Lindley/Idaho State Journal

Dustin Hale sought to cope with the anguish he routinely encountered as a Pocatello Fire Department paramedic by mentally absorbing victims' pain and cramming it into his own psyche.

"Some of us, like myself, we take a lot of the pain and what the families and patients are feeling and try to take it away from them by taking it on ourselves," Hale explained.

After several years of treating trauma, Hale's inner turmoil boiled over, culminating last fall with him holding a gun to his own head. It's a story he's embarrassed to tell but shares publicly, hoping to convince first responders to be open about the extreme stress they experience and to seek help when needed.

It's a timely message. Four other members of the Pocatello Fire Department have sought help via a post-traumatic stress injury, or PTSI, rehabilitation program during the past year and a half, according to their local union leader. A cross section of department members also plan to take peer support training offered through their international union, during which they'll learn to identify colleagues with PTSI and take appropriate steps to help them.

Snake River Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 35 plans to bring in a renowned speaker on PTSI at 6 p.m. July 15 at the Blackfoot Performing Arts Center, 870 S. Fisher Ave. in Blackfoot.

The state has also taken recent action to address the problem of emergency service workers experiencing PTSI, passing a law on March 13 extending workers' compensation to cover the mental health condition for law enforcement officers, 911 dispatchers, firefighters and paramedics.

"There's no one who does the job that (stress) doesn't affect," Hale said. "Without the proper outlet and the proper care as far as mental health goes, sometimes that can turn into an actual injury. That's where PTSI comes in."
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Cold Case Murder of U.S. Navy Seaman Apprentice

Pamela Cahanes cold case: Cigarette butt, cotton swab, dental floss led to arrest in 34-year-old homicide

Orlando Sentinel
Michael Williams
March 18, 2019

Her body was found early the next morning, in the yard of an abandoned home near Sanford. She was badly beaten and unclothed except for a pair of white underwear. Her uniform was found nearby. There was about $100 in cash in her pocket.

Pamela Cahanes, left, and Thomas Garner (Seminole County Sheriff's Office)

For three days in early February, Thomas Lewis Garner was being watched at his apartment in Jacksonville.

Garner, a dental hygienist, had led an unexceptional life for most of his 59 years. But advancements in DNA technology, along with the proliferation of family genealogy databases, led authorities to consider him a suspect in the slaying of Pamela Cahanes, the 25-year-old U.S. Navy seaman apprentice who was found beaten, strangled and dumped in an overgrown Seminole County lot in 1984.

An arrest affidavit unsealed since Garner’s arrest Wednesday reveals the methods law enforcement used to solve Cahanes’ killing.

All investigators needed to close the 34-year-old cold case was a sample of Garner’s DNA to compare to evidence found on Cahanes’ body. Their chance came Feb. 8, when he was seen walking out of his 600-square-foot, one-bedroom apartment and throwing a trash bag in the complex’s garbage compactor.
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Fire Dept Captain saved "brother" and US Navy veteran

Firefighter honored for saving colleague from suicide

EastIdahoNews.com
Nate Eaton
East Idaho Real Heroes
March 14, 2019

POCATELLO — Dustin Hale was ready to end it all.

The Pocatello firefighter had decided life wasn’t worth it and didn’t care to live anymore.

“I had reached a point where I couldn’t see a way out,” Hale says.

Hale served ten years in the U.S. Navy before joining the department where he worked for five and a half years.

He was a paramedic and dealt with traumatic, life and death situations nearly every day.

“You take those images home and you see all that pain and suffering and some people are ok with it,” Hale tells EastIdahoNews.com. “I seem to absorb all that and take it with me all the time.”

The PTSD from his job led to insomnia and Hale would sometimes go two or three days without sleeping. He turned to alcohol and it got to the point where he could no longer do his job.

“I knew that I wasn’t the person I would want showing up to take care of me,” Hale says.

Hale’s behavior was so bad the department needed to let him go but on the day he was supposed to meet with administrators, he never showed up.

“I reached out to try and contact him and was unable to get a hold of him,” recalls Pocatello Fire Captain Andy Moldenhauer.

Moldenhauer didn’t feel right about Hale’s absence so he met up with Hale’s sister and went to his house.

“The fire department is a brotherhood and I relayed to him that even if he was no longer an employee of the fire department, he was still a brother,” Moldenhauer says.

Those work brothers spoke for four hours with Hale initially refusing to even think about getting help.

“He admitted to having a gun in his mouth earlier that day and that was the point when I tried to turn his experience as a paramedic on him and say, ‘You’ve now obligated me to stay here,'” Moldenhauer says.

Eventually, Hale agreed to go the VA Salt Lake City Center and Moldenhauer, along with a battalion chief, drove him to Utah.
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Audit finds links to preventing suicides missing in Marine Corps

A Navy audit says the Marine Corps could do better at suicide prevention

Marine Corps Times
By: Shawn Snow
March 14, 2019

The Marine Corps wasn't adequately providing links on its websites to the Veterans Crisis Line, a Navy audit found. (Sgt. Priscilla Sneden/Marine Corps)

A Navy audit concluded in 2018 found that the Corps was not complying with guidance and instructions required by the secretary of the Navy that aids in suicide prevention. Specifically, the Marine Corps was not adequately providing links on its webpages to the Veterans Crisis Line.

The audit, obtained by Marine Corps Times via a Freedom of Information Act request, found that none of the 43 reviewed Marine Corps command websites included a link to the crisis line.

A previous 2012 audit found that 54 percent of the Marine websites it searched did not have a suicide crisis link or phone number, and recommendations from that report were still in an “open status” as of March 2018. The 2018 audit was published in June 2018.

Suicide prevention is a serious issue in the Corps as the force faces suicide levels at a 10-year high.

In 2018, 75 Marines ended their lives, the majority of those Marines were under the age of 25 and had no overseas deployment experience.

“When suicide crisis links and phone numbers are not prominently advertised on Marine Corps Web sites, there is a missed opportunity to facilitate and encourage Marines to seek assistance in a critical time of need,” the audit reads.
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*******

I was at an event last year, when a veteran Marine said that their suicide numbers were down. Knowing they were not, I asked where he heard that. He said from the DOD report. Since I track the reports available to the public, I knew he was wrong. I still find it very interesting that too many people will hear a rumor on social media, believe it is true, claim it was from the Department of Defense...and discover they do not even check that.

Navy Commander needs intelligence brief on veteran suicides

If politicians remain clueless about veterans committing suicide, how can they fix anything?

It is not as if he should not know considering his rank in the Navy~

Over the course of the 17 years since 9-11, Ryan Peters of Hainesport made four separate overseas deployments as a Navy SEAL: to Iraq, Afghanistan, Iraq again, and to Central and South America.In the Middle East, he tested that virtue they inculcated at the Naval Academy called loyalty.

We know that ear worm of a number was based on limited data from just 21 states...but we also know that numbers without details mean creative accounting...much like all the bills and "efforts" created by people who did not take any of these suicides they care so much about...seriously enough to learn even basic facts.

I think he does care but needs an intelligence briefing before he can actually do anything to change the outcome! 

Assemblyman Peters introduces resolution to bring awareness to veteran suicide

March 7, 2019
Press Release

TRENTON – Assemblyman Ryan Peters introduced resolution AJR194 on Thursday to raise awareness for veteran suicide.

“The rate of veteran suicide is more than 1.5 times higher than the average population. That is a heartbreaking statistic,” said Peters (R-Burlington). ”These are men and women that fought bravely for their country and are coming home with the feeling of being left out of society.”

According to the 2016 VA National Suicide Data report, the rate of suicide was 1.8 times higher among female veterans compared to non-veteran adults and 1.4 times high in male veterans.

An average of 22 veterans a day commit suicide, according to the US Department of Veteran Affairs.

“The resolution aims to take the startling statistic of 22 veteran suicides a day and turn it into a rallying cry for us all to put more focus into our heroes returning home and for them to know we are there for them,” Peters said.

The resolution would make neon yellow the official color of veteran suicide awareness in New Jersey and call it “Vet 22”. Peters was approached by representatives of the nonprofit VALOR Clinic Foundation from Pennsylvania, who explained that attaching an awareness campaign and a bright color to veteran suicide awareness has helped the foundation connect veterans to services they didn’t know were available.

One VALOR Clinic program connects veterans suffering from depression with other veterans to help heal them through companionship and mutual understanding. Programs like NJ Vet2Vet are available in New Jersey to provide similar support-based treatment.

“Many times we return home and go back to the lives we used to live, and our world gets bigger and lonelier, and we don’t stop to think that there are men and women who have been through this before and can help us out,” said Peters, who served multiple combat tours overseas as a Navy SEAL.

“Let’s bring attention to the programs and support systems we have available locally, and let’s put more focus on the 340,000 men and women in New Jersey who have served our country because we can’t afford to have them slipping through the cracks when they re-enter society,” he continued.

New Jersey Navy Veteran took swim in Passaic to save woman

Car veers off NJ highway, plunges into Passaic River

WPIX News
March 5, 2019

NEW JERSEY — A Navy veteran sprang into action and rescued a woman after her car veered off a New Jersey highway on Monday and plunged into the cold water of the Passaic River.

Michael James, 37, was driving on Route 21 North around 9 a.m. when he saw what had happened. A 22-year-old woman's car hit the guardrail and went want it.

She managed to crawl out a back window and was perched on the car, but she couldn't swim.

" When the car went under, so did she," James said.

So he went into the frigid water after her.

"I just went, I didn't even think about it," he said.
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Vietnam Veteran "Coming back is tough, but a gift toward healing."

Return to Vietnam: Down the Mekong River

WBAY
By Jeff Alexander
Feb 28, 2019

"Peace has come to this country," he said, "and I know peace has come to a lot of vets. And I'm looking at the fellas here, I see peace sinking in."

MEKING DELTA, Vietnam (WBAY) - Thursday, a local Vietnam veteran paid an emotional tribute to his brother and the Old Glory Honor Flight tour spent its final day in southern Vietnam.

In our Return to Vietnam coverage, Jeff Alexander takes us to the Mekong Delta, where the vets received a cultural experience and emotions ran high.

Vietnam veterans tour canals on the Mekong Delta aboard small, low boats called sampan boats (WBAY photo)

The fertile soil in the Mekong Delta makes it the heartland of agriculture in Vietnam, where rice, fruits and seafood are exported around the world.

It's an area Keith Johnson's older brother served in and fell in love with.

"He appreciated the people and their hard work, and he could see beyond the war," said Keith, who's from Appleton.

To honor his late brother Duane's wish of returning to Vietnam, Keith brought his ashes to spread.

"He was a... the real deal... over here," Keith said, getting emotional.

"This gentleman's brother was with the 9th Infantry Division," Tom Sharp of Green Bay said.

A Navy gunner, Tom transported troops up and down the rivers throughout the delta.

Coming back is tough, he says, but a gift toward healing.

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Military leaders blame bad leadership?

Personnel chiefs blame unsafe base housing on leadership failures

Stars and Stripes
By TOM PHILPOTT Special to Stars and Stripes 
Published: February 28, 2019

Three-star personnel chiefs and senior non-commissioned officers of the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps testified Wednesday that unsafe and sometimes scandalous conditions of base housing units, which has sparked waves of complaints from military families, can largely be blamed on leadership failures.

Urgent reforms are underway, they contend, after military leaders and private partnership contractors that operate on-base housing analyzed failings which harmed the health of, and lowered quality of life for, some military families.

Commands across the military had not been attentive enough to the performance of housing contractors who, under a 1997 Military Housing Privatization Initiative, became responsible for construction of new housing and refurbishing legacy units on base. Under long-term contracts, companies profit from maintaining, managing and renting to military tenants who in turn forfeit their monthly Basic Allowance for Housing and sometimes even pay a little more.

Increasingly dissatisfied military families say maintenance problems and health hazards from leaky roofs or pipes, dangerous mold, problem-plagued heating or air conditioning systems, high radon readings or infestations of bugs and rodents have gone unaddressed or resulted in only temporary fixes to await new renters.

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But...they want to take money from their budget to build a wall instead of FIX THE PLACES WHERE THEY MAKE TROOPS AND FAMILIES LIVE?

7 month old military baby died at unlicensed daycare

Death of 7-month-old military child fuels questions about unlicensed daycare on base

Military Times
By: Karen Jowers
February 28, 2019

The Honolulu Police Department is investigating the Feb. 24 death of a 7-month-old military child found dead in the home of a daycare provider at a military installation in Hawaii, officials said.

This 7-month-old girl died Sunday, Feb. 24, at a reportedly unlicensed daycare home at Aliamanu Military Reservation, Hawaii. (Photo courtesy of the family)

A neighbor who lives near the home where the child died said the death came four days after she filed a complaint alleging the provider, a Navy wife, was operating an unlicensed daycare after being shut down at least three times by base officials who allegedly found violations. The daycare is in privatized housing at Aliamanu Military Reservation, part of U.S. Army Garrison-Hawaii.

The neighbor, Katie Camario, told Military Times that she had reported her concerns for more than a year about numerous young children crying and left unattended outside the home, citing various incidents such as the children playing with a lighter, and one child’s head being stuck in playground equipment. Other neighbors also said they reported similar concerns.
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Blue Water Veterans Closer to Justice

'Blue water' Vietnam veterans may finally be able to seek help with Agent Orange side effects

WCPO 9 News
Craig McKee
February 19, 2019

A Jan. 29 federal appeals court ruling could expand the pool of Vietnam veterans able to claim disability benefits connected to Agent Orange, a chemical weapon known to cause serious health problems in those exposed.

“It’s about time,” veteran John Ranson said Monday.

That category — those exposed — for years did not technically include Navy veterans like him.

Agent Orange was a defoliant herbicide American soldiers deployed to thin out the Vietnamese jungle, depriving guerilla insurgents of both cover and food. When its deadly long-term health impacts became clear, Congress passed the Agent Orange Act of 1991 to provide some financial relief for all those who served.

However, the Department of Veterans Affairs repeatedly denied the claims of so-called “Blue Water Veterans,” claiming only soldiers present on the Vietnamese mainland could reasonably claim to have interacted with the substance.

That’s not what Rex Settlemore, who served from 1967 to 1998 and spent two tours in Vietnam, thinks. He watched from the U.S.S. Durham and U.S.S. Richard S. Edwards as airplanes releases chemical weapons overhead, and he remembers how close to the shore both ships sailed.

Agent Orange particles must have made it into the ocean water he and the rest of the crew used, he said, if not the air they breathed. He believes some of the early deaths among his comrades from that time are connected to that exposure.

“Ships who ingested the sea water, even if the sea water was distilled for fresh water on board, would still contain the Agent Orange contaminants,” he said.
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Will the US do the right thing finally after Australia did it for their Vietnam veterans?

Famous Kissing WWII Sailor passed away

George Mendonsa, Navy veteran identified as 'kissing sailor' in WWII photo, dies at 95

NBC News
By Erik Ortiz
February 18, 2019

"He was very proud of his service and the picture and what it stood for," Mendonsa's daughter said Monday.

George Mendonsa, a World War II veteran whose claim of being a sailor kissing a nurse in an iconic image was verified using facial recognition technology, died early Sunday, his daughter said. He was 95.

Mendonsa was living in an assisted living facility in Middletown, Rhode Island, and had been suffering from severe congestive heart failure, daughter Sharon Molleur told NBC News. He would have turned 96 on Tuesday, she added.

Mendonsa, a retired fisherman, had maintained for years that he was the sailor locking lips in a picture taken on Aug. 14, 1945, by Alfred Eisenstaedt and published in Life magazine as a scene from "V-J Day in Times Square." On that day, Americans crowded the streets to celebrate the Japanese surrender to the Allies and the end of the war.
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Navy Veteran arrested after threats at VA Outpatient Center

Bethlehem man charged after threats, standoff

The Morning Call
Andrew Scott
February 14, 2019

A 30-year-old man is awaiting a court hearing on charges of threatening to shoot police during a standoff at his Bethlehem apartment, prompting the evacuation of his apartment building, three days after reportedly threatening to “shoot up” the Veterans Affairs Outpatient Center in South Whitehall.

Jonathan Simmons, 30, of Bethlehem, is awaiting a court hearing on charges of threatening to shoot police during a Feb. 5 standoff, prompting the evacuation of his apartment building. (FILE PHOTO / THE MORNING CALL)

U.S. Navy veteran Jonathan Simmons was arraigned this week on charges of terroristic threats in connection with the Feb. 5 incident at his Allwood Drive apartment building.

On Feb. 2, Simmons caused a disturbance at the Veterans Affairs Outpatient Center on Hamilton Street, South Whitehall, during which he used his fingers to mime firing a gun and threatened to “shoot up” the building.

On Feb. 4, Lehigh County Crisis staff went to Simmons’ Allwood Drive apartment and tried serving him with a warrant to involuntarily commit him to a mental health facility. Simmons refused to go with the crisis staff, which led to a standoff ending with them staff leaving his apartment without him.
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Disabled veteran has chance to talk again...but VA won't pay for it

CLINICAL TRIAL OFFERS HOPE FOR VETERAN AND LONGTIME FIREFIGHTER TO SPEAK AGAIN

AP
By RILEY BUNCH
February 12, 2019

GARDEN VALLEY — When William “Bud” Paine descended to the lower levels of the Naval Destroyer Escort to stand by on fire watch as welders took to maintenance of the ship, he was handed a canteen and a bandanna.

“'Just keep the bandanna wet,' they said. 'This stuff won’t hurt you,'” Paine, now 63, recalled.

"This stuff" was the 96,000 pounds of asbestos sharing living quarters on board with the Navy sailors.

His exposure to insulation material during his service led to a throat cancer diagnosis in 2001, a year of failed radiation treatment and the final option of removing his voice box in 2002.

Paine has communicated for over 15 years by forcing air through a prosthesis that acts as his vocal chords and must be changed every three months. Relearning how to talk took him six months after the procedure.

Hope to regain his voice again came by an ad for a new clinical trial on his Facebook feed last spring. The Mayo Clinic campus in Arizona is attempting to give individuals who have had their larynx removed — about 60,000 Americans — the chance to get it back by organ transplant or rebuilding their own with stem cells.

Though Paine's disability resulted from his military service, the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs' strict policy against funding clinical trials has left him in a desperate search for the funds.

Clash for funds

Paine loved being at sea. Now, he can’t even step foot in a boat.

“If something happened,” he said, “I’d drown immediately.”

He doesn’t know if any other members of his Navy crew from 1972 to 1974 suffered cancer or other radiation-related illnesses, but he can’t imagine they didn’t.
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Veteran with PTSD shot by police, refused to get help

Madera police identify man shot and killed: Had PTSD, left officers no options, chief says

The Fresno Bee
By Jim Guy
February 08, 2019

The chief said Novak refused to get treatment from the Veterans Administration hospital. Neighbors and friends urged Novak to get help, to no avail.

A Madera man shot and killed by police Thursday night was a U.S. Navy veteran suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder who left an officer no option when he advanced with a knife, Chief Dino Lawson said Friday afternoon.

He was identified as Michael Robert Novak, 59.

“It’s very sad, on so many levels,” Lawson said.

The incident took place about 10:15 p.m. on the Cleveland Avenue exit from northbound Highway 99. 

A police spokesman described the chain of events: The driver of another vehicle was involved in a possible DUI collision with Novak. 

When a police officer arrived and tried to contact Novak, he refused to get out of his car. 

Then, Novak pulled out a large knife, became aggressive and refused orders to drop the weapon before getting out and charging the officer. 

The officer retreated, again commanded Novak to drop the knife and fired several rounds when Novak continued to advance. 

Novak died from gunshot wounds at the scene.
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Historical flights and the woman who inspired them

The Navy's first all-female flyover will honor a woman who helped make it possible

CNN
Lauren M. Johnson
January 31, 2019

"She not only kicked doors open, she put a doorstop in the door and told others behind her to go through. Her mentorship was legendary," said Katherine Sharp Landdeck, a history professor at Texas Women's University who studied under Mariner at the University of Tennessee.

Rosemary Mariner in the 1990s, when she was commanding officer of a Naval squadron in California.

(CNN)The first woman to fly a tactical fighter jet in the US Navy opened the door for more than just women in combat. She also helped them with the transition to civilian life.

Now, at her funeral, retired Navy Captain Rosemary Mariner will receive the first-ever all-female flyover.

The special tribute, officially (and datedly) named the "Missing Man Flyover," honors aviators who have died serving their country. It features four jets flying above a funeral service in formation before one of the aircraft peels away and climbs into the sky.

Mariner died January 24 after a long battle with ovarian cancer. She was 65. Mariner was the Navy's first female jet pilot and the "first female military aviator to achieve command of an operational air squadron," according to a Navy statement.
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Suicide Prevention Office Sucks At Saving Lives

Active-Duty Military Suicides at Record Highs in 2018

Military.com
Patricia Kime
January 30, 2019

Editor’s Note: This story has been updated to include Army year-end totals.

The U.S. military finished 2018 with a troubling, sad statistic: It experienced the highest number of suicides among active-duty personnel in at least six years.

Lt. Cmdr. Karen Downer writes a name on a Suicide Awareness Memorial Canvas in honor of Suicide Awareness Month at Naval Hospital Jacksonville, Sept. 10, 2018. (U.S. Navy/Jacob Sippel, Naval Hospital Jacksonville).

Active duty Military members could save more with GEICO. Get a quote today! A total of 321 active-duty members took their lives during the year, including 57 Marines, 68 sailors, 58 airmen, and 138 soldiers.

The deaths equal the total number of active-duty personnel who died by suicide in 2012, the record since the services began closely tracking the issue in 2001.

Suicide continues to present a challenge to the Pentagon and the military services, which have instituted numerous programs to save lives, raise awareness and promote prevention. Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Robert Neller, in his 2019 guidance to Marines released Friday, urged them to consider the lasting impact that a "permanent solution to a temporary problem" can have.

According to Air Force officials, 58 active-duty airmen took their lives, while three Reserve members died by their own hands. The number represents a decline from previous years, down from 63 in 2015 and 2017, and 61 in 2016, but is still troubling, said Brig. Gen. Michael Martin, director of Air Force Integrated Resilience.
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Blue Water Veteran Wins in Court

Court decides 'Blue Water' Navy veterans should be eligible for Agent Orange benefit

Stars and Stripes
Nikki Wentling
January 29, 2019

WASHINGTON — A federal court ruled Tuesday that Vietnam veterans who served on ships offshore during the war are eligible for benefits to treat illnesses linked to exposure to the chemical herbicide Agent Orange – a decision that has the potential to extend help to thousands of veterans.

The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled 9-2 in favor of Alfred Procopio, Jr., 73, who served on the USS Intrepid during the Vietnam War. Procopio is one of tens of thousands of “Blue Water” Navy veterans who served aboard aircraft carriers, destroyers and other ships and were deemed ineligible for the same disability benefits as those veterans who served on the ground and inland waterways.

The decision comes one decade after the Department of Veterans Affairs denied Procopio’s disability claims for diabetes and prostate cancer. The court’s ruling reverses a previous decision from the Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims, which upheld the denial because Procopio couldn’t show direct exposure to Agent Orange.

“Mr. Procopio is entitled to a presumption of service connection for his prostate cancer and diabetes mellitus,” the decision issued Tuesday states. “Accordingly, we reverse.”

Judge Kimberly A. Moore, who wrote on behalf of the majority, added: “We find no merit in the government’s arguments to the contrary.”
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Virginia Navy Veteran needs help after house fire

Henrico veteran – living in tent – needs your help fixing his fire damaged home

WTVR 6 News
BY SHELBY BROWN
JANUARY 23, 2019

HENRICO COUNTY, Va. -- Fifty-six years ago Walter Flanagan was 17 years old and eager to start his stint in the U.S. Navy. The 73-year-old Henrico man has many stories to tell of his days in the military and working in the fishing industry.

He’s not nearly as comfortable talking about his current situation.

“Every morning I would get up and look at this mess and say oh, what’s going to happen?” Flanagan explained.

In mid-December, fire damaged his West End home.

Flanagan said the house used fuses.

Financial challenges kept him from being able to upgrade the electrical system. Because of that, the insurance company would not cover the home.
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