Homeless Marine gave millions away

Richard Walters, a homeless man who lived in Phoenix, died two years ago. And he left behind a surprise: a $4 million estate. Courtesy Rita Belle

He just gave up all of the material things that we think we have to have. You know, I don't know how we gauge happiness. What's happy for you might not be happy for me. I never heard him complain.

- Rita Belle


Homeless Man Leaves Behind Surprise: $4 Million
July 27, 2009
Every day on NPR, listeners hear funding credits — or, in other words, very short, simple commercials.

A few weeks ago, a new one made it to air: "Support for NPR comes from the estate of Richard Leroy Walters, whose life was enriched by NPR, and whose bequest seeks to encourage others to discover public radio."

NPR's Robert Siegel wondered who Walters was. So Siegel Googled him.

An article in the online newsletter of a Catholic mission in Phoenix revealed that Walters died two years ago at the age of 76. He left an estate worth about $4 million. Along with the money he left for NPR, Walters also left money for the mission.

But something distinguished Walters from any number of solvent, well-to-do Americans with seven-figure estates: He was homeless.

Walters was a retired engineer from AlliedSignal Corp.; an honors graduate of Purdue with a master's degree; and a Marine. Walters never married, didn't have children and was estranged from his brother. But he wasn't friendless.
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Homeless Man Leaves Behind Surprise
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Acknowledging a POW’s sacrifice, eligible for Purple Heart

Acknowledging a POW’s sacrifice
Decades after their deaths, they are eligible for Purple Heart
By Brian MacQuarrie
Globe Staff / August 2, 2009

EPPING, N.H. - The World War II mess kit still gleams when the sun strikes its aluminum, a treasured family keepsake that bears hundreds of tiny markings chiseled in secret in a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp.

The etchings form a cross, the letters R.I.P., and the date, Dec. 28, 1942: the day when an Epping farmboy, Private Joseph Norman St. Laurent, died in the Philippines after surviving the Bataan Death March, the hell of a prison ship, and a scavenger’s diet of worms, grubs, cats, and monkeys.

If St. Laurent had died in combat, he would have been awarded a Purple Heart, a presidential honor to acknowledge the sacrifices of those killed or wounded while serving with the military. But because he perished in captivity, St. Laurent and 12,000 other US veterans who died in prison camps in World War II never received that recognition.

Now, more than six decades later, the Defense Department has expanded its criteria for the medal to include any POW who died in captivity after the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor. As a result, in the first ceremony of its kind in the nation, the next-of-kin of many of the 61 prisoners from New Hampshire who died during World War II and the Korean War will gather at the state veterans cemetery Aug. 8 to honor their long-deceased loved ones.
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Decades after their deaths, they are eligible for Purple Heart

Hundreds of babies dropped off roof in India

Hundreds of babies dropped off roof in India

By NIRMALA GEORGE, Associated Press
Watch the story NEW DELHI (AP) — Rights activists lashed out Friday at local officials who allowed hundreds of infants to be dropped from the roof of a mosque in western India in the belief that the fall — which ends when the babies are caught in a bedsheet — would ensure good health and prosperity for their families.

The ritual at the Baba Umer Durga, a Muslim shrine, is believed to have been followed for nearly 700 years, and each year hundreds of people, both Hindus and Muslims, take part in the ritual.

Local officials told television news stations there had been no reports of injuries.

The infants, mostly under two years old, were dangled Thursday from the roof of the shrine near Sholapur, about 280 miles south of Mumbai, before being dropped about 50 feet onto a bedsheet held aloft by parents and other believers.

Television channels showed the babies screaming as they were shaken in the air before being dropped.
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http://www.komonews.com/news/national/52209737.html

Woman's search for brother in Pinellas Park leads to ashes

Woman's search for brother in Pinellas Park leads to ashes
By Andrew Meacham, Times Staff Writer
In Print: Saturday, August 1, 2009
PINELLAS PARK — The ashes lay in a white wooden urn, on a shelf in a locked room at the Anderson-McQueen Cremation Tribute Center. A sticky-backed, computer-generated label identified the remains: Brown, Steven. DOB 6/20/52.

The urn had sat on the shelf for about four weeks, next to the labeled remains of others. As the main repository in Pinellas County for unclaimed remains, it represents a kind of mezzanine level between a body's discovery and its dispensation.

If no family came forward to claim Brown's ashes in the next three months, they would be dumped in the Gulf of Mexico.

But on Tuesday, a key fit into the lock. An Anderson-McQueen employee retrieved Mr. Brown's urn and handed it to a courier.

On the other end, someone was waiting.
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http://www.tampabay.com/news/obituaries/article1023804.ece

Wounded Afghanistan Vet to sue Ministry of Defense

August 2, 2009

'My life is ruined and MoD has deserted me'
Steven Swinford
Lance-Corporal Ryan Knight, 23, was badly injured in Helmand Province and now plans to sue the minstry for negligence

A SOLDIER who was offered less than £14,500 compensation for being crippled by a Taliban bomb that killed his two best friends is planning to sue the Ministry of Defence.

Lance-Corporal Ryan Knight, 23, was left with a shattered pelvis after his Land Rover hit two mines in Helmand province, Afghanistan, in September 2007. Today he struggles to walk unaided and suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Knight, a combat medic, decided to speak out for the first time after The Sunday Times highlighted the inequity of the armed forces compensation scheme last weekend.

His case will intensify the pressure for an overhaul of the scheme. Last week the government announced it was bringing forward a review, but ignored calls by the former prime minister Sir John Major and the Royal British Legion (RBL) for it to be conducted by an independent panel.
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My life is ruined and MoD has deserted me