9 years later, Iraq veteran gets welcome home

9 years later, Iraq veteran gets welcome home
By Stephanie Loder - The (Vineland, N.J.) Daily Journal
Posted : Friday Dec 28, 2012

Former Army Sgt. Wayne U. Games returned from Iraq in 2003, but never got a welcome home celebration.

A 1987 graduate of Vineland High School, Games became seriously ill during his deployment and had to be flown directly to Walter Reed Army Medical Center. He was admitted to the intensive care unit suffering from high blood pressure, heart and lung problems, and had to be placed on dialysis.

Games, 42, has been classified as 90 percent disabled by the Department of Veterans Affairs. Most recently, he was diagnosed with Waldenstrom lymphoma.

“I never got a homecoming. I just remember getting sick, being flown to Ramstein Air Base in Germany, then to the United States. It took two days and when we got to Walter Reed it was nighttime and we were met by veterans who handed us some bags,” said Games. “That was my homecoming.”

On Dec. 16, Games received a much more appropriate welcome home and thank you from family, friends and officials who arrived at his Myrtle Street home.

The event was initiated by the “Welcome Home Committee” formed by Mayor Robert Romano to welcome back every soldier. The event was attended by Romano, as well as state Sen. Jeff Van Drew and state assemblymen Nelson Albano and Matthew Milam. read more here

Fort Jackson soldiers get old fashion dinner for Christmas

Soldier: "We Didn't Expect Much, Not Like This"
WLTX News
Dec 27, 2012
Written by
Steven Dial

Columbia, SC (WLTX) - The Christmas holiday is a time that many people spend with family. However, getting home to see family can be hard for some of the soldiers stationed at Ft. Jackson.

With that in mind, a local organization donated their time and made a home made old fashioned spaghetti dinner.

"It's just to thank them," said Mike Mancari with the Mother Teresa Knights of Columbus Assemblies.

For the men and women who protect our country, there's no such thing as a Christmas break.

"We didn't expect much, not like this," said Sergio Mendez.

About 200 Soldiers at Ft. Jackson didn't get to go home for Christmas, so volunteers with the Mother Theresa Knights of Columbus brought home to them.
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US Sailors exposed to radiation after Japan earthquake

US Sailors Sue Japan Utility in Radiation Exposure
Dec 28, 2012
Stars and Stripes
by Matthew M. Burke

SASEBO NAVAL BASE, Japan -- Eight sailors from the USS Ronald Reagan are suing Japan’s nationalized Tokyo Electric Power Co., claiming it lied about dangers from a radiation leak when they helped out after last year’s nuclear plant disaster and that they will almost certainly die prematurely as a result.

Their complaint, filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California, seeks a jury trial and damages of $40 million each for being “rendered infirm” and their bodies being “poisoned” by radiation. It was filed on behalf of Lindsay Cooper, James Sutton, Kim Gieseking, Charles Yarris, Robert Miller, Christopher Bittner, Eric Membrila and Judy Goodwin.

Within days of the March 11, 2011, earthquake, tsunami and subsequent radiation leak from the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant, the USS Ronald Reagan was aiding in the search for survivors and bodies from just off Japan’s devastated east coast.

Six of the eight sailors worked on the flight deck during the operation and two worked in the air contamination department. Gieseking is also suing on behalf of her daughter, Autumn, who was born shortly after the deployment.
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Murder Trial Set For February In Brutal Slaying Of Camp Pendleton Marine

Murder Trial Set For February In Brutal Slaying Of Camp Pendleton Marine
KPBS
Friday, December 28, 2012
By Beth Ford Roth

Camp Pendleton Marine Lance Cpl. Darren Evans will face court-martial in February for the premeditated murder of his roommate, 19-year-old Lance Cpl. Mario Arias.

A Marine Corps spokesman told Camp Pendleton Patch the trial will begin on February 4.
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A newspaper exposes the addresses of its local gun owners

This country has gone gun crazy! Gun owners ran to the store to buy assault weapons because they were "afraid" they would stop selling them. Did that makes sense? Why would anyone want one so badly that it didn't matter what it was designed for and how it has been used way too many times? Then the NRA pushes for teachers to take guns to school? They think more guns is the answer but didn't say much about people shopping at a mall, going to a movie and responding to put out a fire. Well, no I have to take that back since they also thought the answer for those murders was more guns too. Since when was it mandatory to have to have a gun to be a teacher or administrator?

On the flip side we have a newspaper treating legal gun owners like criminals when the names and addresses of gun owners was published and taken from the county clerk's office. In other words, the legal gun owners were outed but they didn't do a damn thing about illegal gun owners. Since when is it a crime to own a gun?

Like I keep pointing out, I know a lot of gun owners and feel safe with them because they know how to use them and respect them. That is the way most gun owners are. Now legal gun owners are being treated like criminals? This is bad all the way around.

Even this bleeding-heart liberal believes gun owners have a right to privacy
A newspaper exposes the addresses of its local gun owners — which violates our rights as much as shoddy gun laws
BY MARY ELIZABETH WILLIAMS
Salon.com
DEC 28, 2012

In the two weeks since the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary, much has been written and said about our national obsession with guns – and what do about it. But a suburban New York newspaper’s unorthodox take on the issue has created a brand-new controversy over guns, rights and privacy.

Earlier this week, the White Plains Journal News ran a story with the provocative title “The Gun Owner Next Door: What You Don’t Know About the Weapons in Your Neighborhood.” The story, written by Dwight R. Worley, made few bones about its slant, opening with the chilling details of the shooting murder of a Katona woman last spring.

But it wasn’t the story that raised eyebrows. It was the revelation that after a Freedom of Information request, “Westchester provided the names and addresses of the county’s 16,616 active permit holders” to the paper. And, even worse, its online version featured an interactive map of all the “pistol permits registered with the Westchester County Clerk’s Office,” along with the invitation to “zoom in and out for more information and click on a dot to see details of a permit.” The Journal did also mention, in an editor’s note, that writer Dwight R. Worley owns a .357 Magnum. It didn’t, however, include his New York City address.

The map, thickly dotted with pins, is certainly a stunner to anyone who’s opposed to guns. And of course, inevitably, an irate blogger — and gun owner — swiftly retaliated by publishing the home addresses of the newspaper’s staff. He told CNN Thursday, “I felt they were using this to harass gun owners. So I harassed them back.” The map has also generated a deluge of polarizing responses. On Facebook, one commenter called it “disgusting, just disgusting — and you hacks should be ashamed of what you pass for ‘journalism,’” while another argued, “If someone has a right to a gun, do we not have a right to know if someone has a gun?” Well, do we? And just because a newspaper can do something, does it mean that it should?
read more here