Lawmakers urge Medal of Honor for San Diego Marine

Lawmakers urge Medal of Honor for San Diego Marine
Fellow Marines say that as Sgt. Rafael Peralta lay dying in Iraq in 2004, he pulled an enemy grenade under his body, saving their lives. A pathologist disagreed, but new evidence has emerged.

By Tony Perry, Los Angeles Times
March 5, 2012

Reporting from San Diego— A bipartisan group of California legislators has asked the secretary of the Navy to reconsider a request from the Marine Corps that the Medal of Honor be awarded posthumously to a Marine from San Diego killed in Iraq.

The group says newly discovered video and a report from a noted pathologist merit a review of the decision by then-Defense Secretary Robert Gates not to recommend that the Medal of Honor be awarded to Sgt. Rafael Peralta.

Peralta, 25, an immigrant from Mexico, was killed in November 2004 while Marines were clearing insurgents from barricaded homes in Fallouja.

Marines who were with Peralta said that as he lay dying from a gunshot wound to the head, he reached out and pulled an enemy grenade beneath his body to shield his fellow Marines, saving their lives.
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Video of Sgt. Rafael Peralta pulling grenade under his body being reviewed for Medal of Honor

Father told body found may be missing Iraq Vet Janice Rubendall

Found Body May Be Missing Iraq Vet
Janice Rubendall's father was told by police that a body found in the Schuylkill River on Sunday afternoon is believed to be that of the missing Iraq war vet.
By David Powell Email the author March 4, 2012


A body found along the bank of the Schuylkill River on Sunday afternoon has been tentatively identified as Janice Rubendall, the former U.S Marine whose car was found abandoned near the Betzwood Bridge in early January.

Robert Rubendall, Janice's father, said Sunday evening that Lower Providence Township Police had visited him at his home to tell him of the discovery.
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No Clues Today in Search for Janice Rubendall, Missing Iraq Veteran

Fort Hood Second Lieutenant Jessica Scott takes to Twitter to take on Rush

On Saturday I posted about what some of my friends had to say about Rush calling a woman a "slut" because she used birth control. Military women do in fact take birth control pills for a lot of reasons but the fact is, they do, the government pays for it and Rush, well he managed to not only insult every woman in the country but also women serving this country and risking their lives.

It turns out that there was a military woman taking on Rush publicly on Twitter and I say BRAVO to her! My friends are proud of her too! Anyone still think Rush is worth defending?

Meet The Soldier Behind The "I Am Not A Slut" Hashtag
Army Lieutenant Jessica Scott was the accidental leader of a successful Twitter campaign against Rush Limbaugh last week. She also writes romance novels. posted Mar 4, 2012

Rosie Gray
BuzzFeed Staff

The most effective online warrior in the recent battles over contraception has been a 35-year-old Army officer in Fort Hood, Texas, whose tweets on March 2 helped galvanize women's outrage over the notion that using birth control would make someone a "slut."

Jessica Scott, a career soldier and company commander based in Fort Hood, Texas, had been folllowing the heated debate over contraception and religious liberty for a month, but Rush Limbaugh's description of a Georgetown University Law student and birth control advocate as a "slut" and "prostitute" pushed the second lieutenant over the line.

"The entire thing is absolutely appalling because her testimony wasn't even about sex," Second Lieutenant Scott told BuzzFeed in an email this weekend. "It was about a woman who'd lost an ovary because her insurance would not cover birth control pills she needed to control the ovarian cysts."

Scott, who has served in Iraq, wrote on Twitter that she "used birth control while deployed with my husband so I *wouldn't* get pregnant and sent home."
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Does Rush Limbaugh think military women are "sluts" too?

Defense News talks about Stolen Valor and why it matters

Returning soldiers find themselves in fragile state

Returning soldiers find themselves in fragile state
By Christopher Curry
Staff writer
Published: Saturday, March 3, 2012

U.S. Marine Marco Grosso. Grosso, a veteran of the war in Afghanistan, committed suicide in Gainesville last November. (Submitted Photo)

From childhood, Marco Grosso dreamed of serving in the military. His family recalls him dressed in camouflage and playing army in the woods behind his family's home near Syracuse, N.Y.

In 2007, he graduated from high school and enrolled in the Marines, a fresh-faced 17-year-old aiming to fight for his country and become a military lifer.

Grosso served two tours in Afghanistan's brutal Helmand Province. There, in March 2010, as he rode in an armored vehicle, a land mine explosion knocked him unconscious and wrecked his life.

He returned to the battlefield three weeks later and was awarded a Purple Heart. It was only after he returned home and was diagnosed with a traumatic brain injury and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder that he learned the blast had cut short his military career.

He and three battle buddies, friends from his Camp LeJeune days, moved to Gainesville when they left the Marines. They were drawn here for school and work but mainly because they had experienced the college town's nightlife on several unauthorized jaunts from the North Carolina base and wanted another taste.

On Nov. 6, 2011, after a Sunday night out at a bar with his friends, Grosso returned to his Gainesville townhouse. Sometime after 11:30 p.m., he put on his Marine Corps dress blue uniform, put a rifle to his head and pulled the trigger.

He was 22 years old.

PTSD rates are as high as 35 percent in returning veterans, and those veterans are four times as likely to have suicidal thoughts, according to three studies the Journal of Traumatic Stress published in 2009 and 2010.

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