Community mourns after deputy wounded in ambush dies
by KING Staff
Posted on December 28, 2009 at 4:23 PM
SEATTLE – The law enforcement community is mourning another loss after Pierce County Sheriff's Deputy Kent Mundell, critically wounded in a shootout a week ago, died Monday night.
Mundell's family was at his side Monday evening at Harborview Medical Center when doctors turned off life support. Officials say Dep. Mundell passed quickly and died at 5:04 p.m.
Dozens of deputies and police officers from at least six law enforcement agencies filed into Harborview Monday afternoon in the hours before Mundell died.
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Community mourns after deputy wounded in ambush dies
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Female aircrew eager for Afghan mission
Female aircrew eager for Afghan mission
(CNN) - Sgt. Stephanie Cole joined Britain's Royal Air Force more than three years ago to fly into battle - and not, as she says, to stay on the ground and "fly a desk."
Soon, she'll finally get to do what she signed up for - working on a helicopter crew in dusty and rugged southern Afghanistan, where British, U.S., other international forces and Afghan soldiers are slugging it out with Taliban militants.
"I'm looking forward to it," said Cole, 24 (on the far left in the photo above).
She will be among four female air crew members deployed to a pool of more than 100 pilots and loadmasters beginning New Year's Day to handle the newly-deployed Merlin helicopters in battle-scarred Helmand province, a haven for insurgents and an illegal drug trade.
The other three are pilots Flight Lt. Michelle Goodman, 32, the first woman to win Britain's Distinguished Flying Cross for her actions in Iraq; Flight Lt. Joanna Watkinson, 29; and loadmaster Sgt. Wendy Donald, 31 (pictured left to right after Cole). Three others are still in training.
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Female aircrew eager for Afghan mission
Lab works to solve Korean War MIA mysteries
Lab works to solve Korean War MIA mysteries
By William Cole - Honolulu Advertiser via Gannett News Service
Posted : Tuesday Dec 29, 2009 7:03:15 EST
PEARL HARBOR, Hawaii — The mottled brown skull and other remains — a lower jaw with eight teeth and a pair of fillings, seven right side ribs, part of a pelvis and some arm and leg bones — showed evidence of dirt and looked like they were buried at one time.
It’s up to forensic anthropologists like Gregory Berg to build from the ground up the U.S. service member who died in North Korea more than half a century ago.
There are plenty of challenges to doing so faced by the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command, but there’s been a big advance relating to Korean War fallen, and a new Pentagon impetus to speed up all identifications.
In September, the Hawaii-based accounting command, charged with investigating, recovering and identifying missing U.S. war dead, opened a new lab at Pearl Harbor devoted to identifying Korean War remains. About 8,100 Americans remain missing from the Korean War.
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Lab works to solve Korean War MIA mysteries
By William Cole - Honolulu Advertiser via Gannett News Service
Posted : Tuesday Dec 29, 2009 7:03:15 EST
PEARL HARBOR, Hawaii — The mottled brown skull and other remains — a lower jaw with eight teeth and a pair of fillings, seven right side ribs, part of a pelvis and some arm and leg bones — showed evidence of dirt and looked like they were buried at one time.
It’s up to forensic anthropologists like Gregory Berg to build from the ground up the U.S. service member who died in North Korea more than half a century ago.
There are plenty of challenges to doing so faced by the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command, but there’s been a big advance relating to Korean War fallen, and a new Pentagon impetus to speed up all identifications.
In September, the Hawaii-based accounting command, charged with investigating, recovering and identifying missing U.S. war dead, opened a new lab at Pearl Harbor devoted to identifying Korean War remains. About 8,100 Americans remain missing from the Korean War.
read more here
Lab works to solve Korean War MIA mysteries
USS Cole survivor died after years of PTSD
Obituary: Johann Gokool of Homestead, victim of attack on the USS Cole
BY ELINOR J. BRECHER
ebrecher@MiamiHerald.com
The October 2000 terrorist assault on the USS Cole killed 17 sailors and injured 39, among them Petty Officer 3rd Class Johann Gokool of Homestead, an electronic warfare technician who lost his left leg.
Last Wednesday, a week after his 31th birthday, Gokool transitioned from survivor to victim. Relatives say he died in his bed, apparently during one of the violent panic attacks that had plagued him since the incident.
His younger brother found Gokool about 7 p.m. on Dec. 23 in the house they shared. Medical examiners still haven't said what killed him, but relatives believe that a deadly attack stopped his heart.
The U.S. Navy classified Gokool 100 percent disabled due to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). The attacks came without warning, lasting from a few minutes to hours, and because of them, Gokool couldn't work, drive or even bowl -- his favorite pastime.
``He was afraid of having an attack with a ball in his hand,'' said his sister, Natala, 29. ``I'll pick him up to go somewhere and he'll sit in the back seat so if he has an attack, he won't distract or hurt me.''
Gokool, say relatives, frequently stayed up all night chatting online with military buddies around the world, During the day, ``he couldn't make plans,'' his sister said. ``He didn't like to be in public in strange places . . . He'd be stuck in his room for days. He lived like an owl.''
He talked about the explosion ``all the time,'' she said. ``Anybody who would listen, he would talk.''
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Johann Gokool of Homestead, victim of attack on the USS Cole
BY ELINOR J. BRECHER
ebrecher@MiamiHerald.com
The October 2000 terrorist assault on the USS Cole killed 17 sailors and injured 39, among them Petty Officer 3rd Class Johann Gokool of Homestead, an electronic warfare technician who lost his left leg.
Last Wednesday, a week after his 31th birthday, Gokool transitioned from survivor to victim. Relatives say he died in his bed, apparently during one of the violent panic attacks that had plagued him since the incident.
His younger brother found Gokool about 7 p.m. on Dec. 23 in the house they shared. Medical examiners still haven't said what killed him, but relatives believe that a deadly attack stopped his heart.
The U.S. Navy classified Gokool 100 percent disabled due to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). The attacks came without warning, lasting from a few minutes to hours, and because of them, Gokool couldn't work, drive or even bowl -- his favorite pastime.
``He was afraid of having an attack with a ball in his hand,'' said his sister, Natala, 29. ``I'll pick him up to go somewhere and he'll sit in the back seat so if he has an attack, he won't distract or hurt me.''
Gokool, say relatives, frequently stayed up all night chatting online with military buddies around the world, During the day, ``he couldn't make plans,'' his sister said. ``He didn't like to be in public in strange places . . . He'd be stuck in his room for days. He lived like an owl.''
He talked about the explosion ``all the time,'' she said. ``Anybody who would listen, he would talk.''
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Johann Gokool of Homestead, victim of attack on the USS Cole
Mom fights to be buried with soldier son
What is she asking for that could be viewed as any kind of issue? She wants to make sure she can be buried with her son and that's all. Why is this a problem at all? This is what she feels will give her a bit of comfort while she still lives. Is this too much to ask for?
Mom fights to be buried with soldier son
By Andrew Miga - The Associated Press
Posted : Tuesday Dec 29, 2009 9:16:04 EST
WASHINGTON — Denise Anderson lost her only son in the Iraq war. She’s determined not to lose her fight to be buried with him in a national veterans cemetery.
Army Spc. Corey Shea died Nov. 12, 2008, in Mosul, with about a month left on his tour of duty in Iraq. He was buried at the Massachusetts National Cemetery in Bourne, about 50 miles from his hometown of Mansfield, Mass.
A grieving Anderson, 42, soon hit an obstacle in her quest to be buried in the same plot with her son. That chance is offered only to the spouses or children of dead veterans; Corey Shea was 21, single and childless.
The Veterans Affairs Department grants waivers and has approved four similar requests from dead soldiers’ parents since 2005.
Anderson also sought a waiver. But under the VA’s policy, she has to die first to get one, a limbo that Anderson finds tough to live with.
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Mom fights to be buried with soldier son
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