Dishonorable Discharges Will Now be Reviewed by Mental Health Specialists
ALLGOV
December 16, 2014
Soldiers suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, many of whom have been unfairly kicked out of the service because of their condition, will now have their discharges reviewed by mental health experts.
The new defense authorization bill approved by Congress included a provision requiring the military to add one mental health professional to review boards that determine service members’ discharge status. The mandate applies both to current military personnel and those previously discharged who received less-than-honorable designation. The latter group will have the opportunity to have their discharges reviewed by a board that includes a mental health professional.
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Wednesday, December 17, 2014
Marines recoiled at media reports that link Stone to PTSD
A simple reminder of facts substantiated by numbers. Over 22 million veterans in this country yet suicides claim more lives than crimes like this. They are more likely to harm themselves than someone else and news reports from all over the country prove that everyday. PTSD does not make them dangerous. If it did then we'd be reading more reports like this than about them committing suicide.
UPDATE
WHO WAS BRADLEY STONE? FRIENDS SAY HELPFUL, LAID-BACK GUY
After Former Marine's Killing Spree, Questions Raised About PTSD
Questions linger as ex-Marine sought in Montco killing spree stabs self to death
Philly.com
DAVID GAMBACORTA, JASON NARK, WENDY RUDERMAN
DANA DIFILIPPO and BARBARA LAKER
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS
December 17, 2014
A community pray vigil at Emmanuel Lutheran Church in Souderton for the shooting victims in Montgomery County, Tuesday, December 16, 2014. ( STEVEN M. FALK / Staff Photographer )
A GENERATION FROM NOW, people will still talk about the way Bradley William Stone went about butchering his ex-wife and her family, leaving a trail of blood and gore across Montgomery County as he moved from house to house, town to town, ambushing them in the middle of the night like a demon from hell.
But no matter how many times the story is revisited, no one will ever be able to answer the question that gnaws at the soul of anyone who discovers all of this heartache and horror: Why?
Any hope of making sense of the Monday morning massacre that claimed the lives of Nicole Stone and five of her relatives was snuffed out yesterday afternoon, when investigators found the killer's body in the woods in Pennsburg, about a half-mile from his house.
Brad Stone, 35, committed suicide, apparently hacking away at himself in his final moments with a knife, District Attorney Risa Vetri Ferman said.
The discovery of his body brought an end to a manhunt that had left the area increasingly on edge as authorities struggled to pinpoint Stone's whereabouts.
Those who were friendly with Stone and his ex-wife, meanwhile, were left with the impossible task of trying to reconcile the guy they thought they knew - a father who adored his two daughters - with the cold-blooded killer whose fury made national headlines.
Military veterans who served with Stone in the Marines recoiled at media reports that seemed to link the bloodshed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder that Stone was supposedly saddled with from a tour in Iraq.
"A lot of us come home with it, but you can't blame what happened there on PTSD," said a veteran who once worked alongside Stone. "It really is the person you are underneath that will decide if you do something like this."
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UPDATE
WHO WAS BRADLEY STONE? FRIENDS SAY HELPFUL, LAID-BACK GUY
After Former Marine's Killing Spree, Questions Raised About PTSD
WWI Hero Closer to MOH and out of "bureaucratic no-man’s land"
World War I veteran one step from getting Medal of Honor
St. Louis Post Dispatch
By Jesse Bogan
December 15, 2014
WEBSTER GROVES • Twelve years and many phone calls since Elsie Shemin-Roth started on a mission through bureaucratic no-man’s land, her father, a deceased World War I veteran, is one step away from getting the military’s highest decoration.
Under normal circumstances, the Medal of Honor is awarded within five years of an act of heroism. A waiver of time limitations cleared the U.S. Senate Friday as part of a minuscule addition to the massive military spending bill. The vote clears the deck for a final obstacle: approval from President Barack Obama.
“I am just so pleased that we are finally going down the homestretch,” Shemin-Roth, 85, said from her home in Webster Groves.
In 1919, her father was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for “extraordinary heroism,” according to a citation signed by Gen. John J. Pershing. That medal is the Army’s second-highest award.
Decades later, Shemin-Roth heard about a group of Jewish-American World War II vets getting their Army Distinguished Service Cross, Navy Cross and the Air Force Cross citations reviewed for an upgrade due to anti-Semitism. She wanted her father and other World War I vets to have a shot at the Medal of Honor, too.
St. Louis Post Dispatch
By Jesse Bogan
December 15, 2014
A family photo of Sgt. William Shemin during his service in World War I.
WEBSTER GROVES • Twelve years and many phone calls since Elsie Shemin-Roth started on a mission through bureaucratic no-man’s land, her father, a deceased World War I veteran, is one step away from getting the military’s highest decoration.
Under normal circumstances, the Medal of Honor is awarded within five years of an act of heroism. A waiver of time limitations cleared the U.S. Senate Friday as part of a minuscule addition to the massive military spending bill. The vote clears the deck for a final obstacle: approval from President Barack Obama.
“I am just so pleased that we are finally going down the homestretch,” Shemin-Roth, 85, said from her home in Webster Groves.
In 1919, her father was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for “extraordinary heroism,” according to a citation signed by Gen. John J. Pershing. That medal is the Army’s second-highest award.
Decades later, Shemin-Roth heard about a group of Jewish-American World War II vets getting their Army Distinguished Service Cross, Navy Cross and the Air Force Cross citations reviewed for an upgrade due to anti-Semitism. She wanted her father and other World War I vets to have a shot at the Medal of Honor, too.
But first she’d have to get a new law passed. She succeeded with passage of the William Shemin Jewish World War I Veterans Act in 2011.
It allowed a one-year window for cases like her father’s to be resubmitted. There were strict guidelines. Eyewitnesses were needed to verify acts of valor being studied nearly a century later.
read more here
Tuesday, December 16, 2014
Watertown Police Standoff with Man Barricaded in Home
Watertown man barricades himself in home, shoots at officers
By Jesse Gosselin,
News 8 Digital Executive Producer
Published: December 16, 2014
WATERTOWN, Conn. (WTNH) — Watertown police are negotiating with a man accused of firing bullets at police after he barricaded himself inside his home Tuesday.
Watertown police tell News 8 they responded to 179 Bryant Road at 9:15 a.m. after a family member called for help.
The family member told police that their relative was suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Officers arrived on the scene discovered that the man was alone in the house, armed, and refused to come outside.
Police immediately setup a perimeter around the home and called in the Regional Emergency Response team for assistance. read more here
By Jesse Gosselin,
News 8 Digital Executive Producer
Published: December 16, 2014
The family member told police that their relative was suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Officers arrived on the scene discovered that the man was alone in the house, armed, and refused to come outside.
Police immediately setup a perimeter around the home and called in the Regional Emergency Response team for assistance. read more here
Veterans living in hell in Pompano Beach Florida
Veterans living with bed bugs in building not zoned for residential use
Building cited for improperly using upstairs unit as rental property
Local 10 News
Published On: Dec 15 2014
POMPANO BEACH, Fla.
Bed bugs, broken doors, and a moldy bathroom describes the condition that Local 10 News found some South Florida veterans living in a Pompano Beach building zoned for "heavy business" use and recently cited for renting a unit which the violation read is an improper use.
Several were stacked in a room; another veteran was sleeping in a closet.
The veterans who spoke with Local 10 said they were placed there by the Veterans In Need Foundation, which is located on the first floor of 1350 S. Dixie Highway.
Michael Janet, a Navy combat veteran in Vietnam, told Local 10 the organization is not delivering the services it promises when it solicits money from people at rest stops all across South Florida.
"These are veterans who have served with dignity and honor and deserve better treatment," Janet said.
"They deserve a clean place to sleep (and) a clean mattress to sleep. Take some of that money that is given to you and give it to the veterans, provide better living conditions, doing things that you say in this brochure."
On a Veterans In Need Foundation solicitation card obtained by Local 10, the organization writes that donations collected will provide "free temporary housing assistance for homeless veterans." Janet said he was asked by the organization's leader, Joseph Haddy, to pay more than $500 in rent from his Veteran Affairs-issued benefits check.
read more here
Building cited for improperly using upstairs unit as rental property
Local 10 News
Published On: Dec 15 2014
POMPANO BEACH, Fla.
Bed bugs, broken doors, and a moldy bathroom describes the condition that Local 10 News found some South Florida veterans living in a Pompano Beach building zoned for "heavy business" use and recently cited for renting a unit which the violation read is an improper use.
Several were stacked in a room; another veteran was sleeping in a closet.
The veterans who spoke with Local 10 said they were placed there by the Veterans In Need Foundation, which is located on the first floor of 1350 S. Dixie Highway.
Michael Janet, a Navy combat veteran in Vietnam, told Local 10 the organization is not delivering the services it promises when it solicits money from people at rest stops all across South Florida.
"These are veterans who have served with dignity and honor and deserve better treatment," Janet said.
"They deserve a clean place to sleep (and) a clean mattress to sleep. Take some of that money that is given to you and give it to the veterans, provide better living conditions, doing things that you say in this brochure."
On a Veterans In Need Foundation solicitation card obtained by Local 10, the organization writes that donations collected will provide "free temporary housing assistance for homeless veterans." Janet said he was asked by the organization's leader, Joseph Haddy, to pay more than $500 in rent from his Veteran Affairs-issued benefits check.
read more here
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