The Vietnam vet who thinks MTV can make the world a better place

The Vietnam vet who thinks MTV can make the world a better place

Bill Roedy runs MTV in 162 countries and hopes to unite people through music, with help from Fidel and Bono. Ian Burrell reports

Bill Roedy is the international statesman who never got voted out of office. To step into his London office is to enter a museum filled with artefacts featuring the global leaders, world-changing events, natural disasters and cultural icons that have characterised the past two decades. Every photograph, painting and ornament relates to the media career of this tough-looking Vietnam veteran, the chairman and chief executive of MTV Networks International.


"That's Shanghai, Sarajevo, there's Bono, that's our trip to Cuba where we had a couple of meetings with Fidel," he says pointing to a large photo of the Cuban leader with Ernest Hemingway, actually autographed by Castro. "I've met Shimon Peres a few times over the years. There are the Rolling Stones. Warren Buffett, who gave me poker tips. There's the Dalai Lama..."

Roedy, who oversees MTV's output in 162 countries and 33 languages, resists the suggestion that he has the role of a globe-trotting ambassador – "I don't know if I would take it that seriously" – but then says: "I have met over 30 heads of state and seven or eight Nobel prize winners."

Another photograph shows him on a recent trip to Afghanistan, holding aloft his BlackBerry alongside an Afghan solider posing with an AK47. Trained at the elite West Point military academy, Roedy is a former airborne Ranger who later specialised in deactivating nuclear missile bases. The soldier's life is behind him now, but he still has battles on his hands.
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The Vietnam vet who thinks MTV can make the world a better place Independent

Web site helps veterans reconnect after combat

Web site helps veterans reconnect after combat
Posted: Nov 16, 2009 6:15 PM EST

Posted by Sarah Harlan - email

(NBC) - A new web site is helping veterans re-connect after combat.

It's also helping servicemen and women recover from post traumatic stress disorder.

Retired Marine Matthew Brown will never forget the moment he was shot by a sniper while fighting in Fallujah.

"They weren't really sure where I was shot because there was blood everywhere," Brown said. "Sorry, little difficult to talk about sometimes."

There were operations, there were months of rehab.

He learned to walk again but there was something else that wasn't right.

Brown had post traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD.

"What we know is that a third of vets returning from Iraq and Afghanistan are suffering from some type of combat-stress injury," Tom Tarantino with Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America said.
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http://www.14wfie.com/Global/story.asp?S=11516476

Oklahoma doctor held in death of 9 year old son

Oklahoma doctor held in death of son, 9
November 16, 2009 5:09 p.m. EST

STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Third-grader was dead when authorities arrived at family's home after several 911 calls
Dr. Stephen Wolf, 51, faces first-degree murder charges in death of Tommy Wolf
"There had been some type of altercation," and knife was found at home, sheriff says
Stephen Wolf's wife suffered defensive puncture wounds to her hands, wound to her mouth
(CNN) -- A doctor in suburban Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, was arrested Monday and accused in the early morning death of his 9-year-old son, police said.

Dr. Stephen Wolf, 51, faces first-degree murder charges, said Nichols Hills, Oklahoma, Police Chief Richard Mask.

Third-grader Tommy Wolf was dead when authorities arrived at the family's home about 4 a.m. CT in response to several 911 calls, Mask said.

"It was obvious there had been some type of altercation" when police arrived, Mask said. Arriving officers disarmed Wolf, he said, but did not elaborate except to say a knife was found at the home.

Although the investigation is still under way, authorities believe the altercation may have begun in the boy's room "and proceeded from there" to other rooms, Mask said.
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Oklahoma doctor held in death of son

Tests widen for streamlined disability system

Tests widen for streamlined disability system

By William H. McMichael - Staff writer
Posted : Monday Nov 16, 2009 14:49:59 EST

The test of a streamlined system for examining and evaluating disabled veterans will be expanded to an additional six U.S. bases beginning in January, the Pentagon and the Department of Veterans Affairs announced Monday.

The new locations offering the Disability Evaluation System pilot program will be Fort Hood, Texas; Fort Benning, Ga.; Fort Bragg, N.C.; Fort Lewis, Wash.; Fort Riley, Kan.; and Portsmouth Naval Medical Center, Va., which serves bases in the greater Hampton Roads, Va., area. The expansion, to be completed by March 31, 2010, will bring the total number of facilities using the pilot to 27.
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Tests widen for streamlined disability system

Soldier mom refuses deployment to care for baby

Soldier mom refuses deployment to care for baby
By RUSS BYNUM (AP) – 1 hour ago
SAVANNAH, Ga. — An Army cook and single mom may face criminal charges after she skipped her deployment flight to Afghanistan because, she said, no one was available to care for her infant son while she was overseas.
Spc. Alexis Hutchinson, 21, claims she had no choice but to refuse deployment orders because the only family she had to care for her 10-month-old son — her mother — was overwhelmed by the task, already caring for three other relatives with health problems.
Her civilian attorney, Rai Sue Sussman, said Monday that one of Hutchinson's superiors told her she would have to deploy anyway and place the child in foster care.
"For her it was like, 'I couldn't abandon my child,'" Sussman said. "She was really afraid of what would happen, that if she showed up they would send her to Afghanistan anyway and put her son with child protective services."
Hutchinson, who is from Oakland, Calif., remained confined Monday to the boundaries of Hunter Army Airfield in Savannah, 10 days after military police arrested her for skipping her unit's flight. No charges have been filed, but a spokesman for the Army post said commanders were investigating.
Kevin Larson, a spokesman for Hunter Army Airfield, said he didn't know what Hutchinson was told by her commanders, but he said the Army would not deploy a single parent who had nobody to care for his or her child.
Soldier mom refuses deployment to care for baby