Fort Carson "Soldier can saunter to the post at 8 am"

New Winter Hours Start for Fort Carson Soldiers 
The Gazette, Colorado Springs, Colo.
by Tom Roeder
Jan 06, 2015

There also are considerations beyond military necessity. Most Fort Carson soldiers have been to war at least once since 2001 and many of them have headed to combat zones overseas several times. The war years took a toll on military families. The new hours are a step toward healing. Borrelli said the schedule will allow soldiers to spend more time with their children, including that compressed time before they head off to school.

An early December Tuesday was like any other winter morning at Fort Carson.

Thousands of soldiers shuffled into the pre-dawn darkness, shivering in their gray-and-black sweatsuits. Light calisthenics came at 6:30 a.m. before a frigid jaunt down McGrath Avenue.

Platoons of troops resembled locomotives rolling down the street, emitting the steam of respiration against the 23-degree air. But the old Army slogan, "We do more before 9 a.m. than most people do all day," won't apply after Jan. 5.

For the balance of the winter, Fort Carson is going on banker's hours. "It's a cultural change," said Sgt. Maj. Michael Borrelli, one of the leaders who came up with the new schedule. Soldiers can saunter to the post at 8 a.m. and will practice their craft until 3:30 p.m., when they'll do afternoon physical training. What happens next is nearly unmilitary.
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9 months in Afghanistan
Soldiers with the 1st Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), march through the mountains at Fort Carson, Colo., on March 31 during pre-deployment training. The Department of Defense announced Friday that the brigade will be shipping out to Afghanistan for a nine-month deployment this winter.

Fake Wounded Warrior Pulled off Fraud in Florida

Hope Fund was sent a fake from Wounded Warrior Project who needed a place to stay. Isn't that what they are supposed to be doing? Aren't they supposed to know who is really wounded, with a Purple Heart or diagnosed with PTSD or TBI?

The article goes on to stay that WWP has been sending veterans to them for a while. Now Hope Fund's reputation has been tarnished because they believed this veteran sent to them was telling the truth.

Hope Fund fraud uncovered as Army veteran's story falls flat 
Jacksonville.com
By Clifford Davis
Tue, Jan 6, 2015

"Bartlett-King was kicked out of the Army with an other-than-honorable discharge due to drug abuse, according to a copy of his records obtained by the Times-Union.

His official discharge papers, or DD214, also show that he never served in Afghanistan, like he told Brangenberg for the original story."

Will.Dickey Jacksonville.com
Leroy Bartlett-King, 26, was kicked out of the Army with
an other-than-honorable discharge
a copy of his records confirmed.

Leroy Bartlett-King told quite the tale to a University of North Florida senior writing a story for a local project known as the Hope Fund that is published in the Times-Union.

The 26-year-old veteran gave a spine-tingling account of stepping on a landmine in Iraq — pausing long enough on the mine’s pressure plate to allow his fellow squad members to get clear of the blast. He continues to stand behind most of his original story today.

“I completely felt like he was being trustworthy,” said the story’s author, Joshua Brangenberg. “Even when we got into specific details about the event, he seemed like he was getting emotional about potential deaths that may have happened.

“I didn’t feel like I had anything to question because not only was his story being corroborated by the social worker, he was also getting emotional.”

The social worker, Suzie Loving, said Bartlett-King arrived at the door of Five Star Veterans Center hunched over in a wheelchair.
“I had a call come in from the veterans service officer from Wounded Warrior [Project],” Loving said. “We’d been making great strides working with them and they would send people to us who needed a place to stay.

“He said they’d met a young veteran in Tampa at one of the PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder) clinics who would be released soon and needed a place to stay.

“My concern is to preserve the integrity of the Hope Fund, which has been around for 20 years,” said Judy Smith, HandsOn’s CEO. “What I want readers to come away with is that, while we try to screen in every way, shape and form, sometimes someone like this will slip through the cracks for a period of time – and his period of time is up.”
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Shooter at El Paso VA Dead, Doctor Shot

UPDATE
Shooter kills doctor at El Paso VA clinic, then self
El Paso Times
By Daniel Borunda
POSTED: 01/06/2015

FORT BLISS
The FBI is trying to determine what caused a gunman to kill a doctor and then himself Tuesday afternoon at an El Paso veterans clinic.

The shooting led to a massive law enforcement response and a precautionary security lockdown that had people in closed, darkened rooms for hours inside the El Paso VA Health Care System building next to William Beaumont Army Medical Center on Fort Bliss.

"The alleged shooter is dead and we have one casualty and that casualty is deceased. All other VA patients and staff are safe," Maj. Gen. Stephen M. Twitty, commanding general of Fort Bliss and the 1st Armored Division, said at a news conference Tuesday night.

Hours later, white buses arrived to shelter those waiting. The American Red Cross also arrived at the scene.

Douglas Lindquist, the special agent in charge of the El Paso division of the FBI, said agents were interviewing witnesses and FBI crime-scene investigators were working at the clinic. The FBI is leading the investigation because the crime occurred on federal property.

"I also want to stress that we have hundreds of potential witnesses," Lindquist said at the news conference. "We are processing them right now. Those people were here seeking medical assistance. We understand what this situation represents to them. We are trying to expeditiously get through those hundreds of witnesses to find out details about this incident."
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Officials: Doctor at El Paso VA Health Care System shot, shooter kills self
Times staff report
POSTED: 01/06/2015
Update 4:40 p.m.:

A doctor at the El Paso VA Health Care System was shot today and the shooter apparently shot and killed himself, officials said a preliminary investigation shows.

The office of U.S. Rep. Beto O'Rourke, D-El Paso, said the information is preliminary and the investigation is continuing.

The shooting was reported about 4 p.m.
go here for more and update

This is from CNN

No one else has the right report other than the Times

Lawmakers continue to push suicide prevention bill, but can't explain why

I don't know what it will take for all the talk to stop and for lawmakers to actually listen. They keep pushing the Clay Hunt Suicide Prevention Bill, even though all the others just like it failed.

Families have heard all the excuses and speeches. The results were condolences and eulogies said over flag covered coffins that didn't need to be filled.

"Josh took his own life," the Rev. Lisette D. Baxter told the gathering Monday morning at Ira Allen Chapel on the University of Vermont campus. "I think we ought to say that out loud ... and not whisper it so it's a secret among us."

Blumenthal pushing to resurrect vets suicide prevention bill
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
01/06/2015

HARTFORD, CONN.
U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal pledged Tuesday to resurrect federal legislation designed to help prevent suicide among military veterans, calling it the nation's obligation to improve mental health services for those returning from war.

The Clay Hunt Suicide Prevention for American Veterans Act was blocked last year by Republican Tom Coburn, who has since retired from the Senate.

Blumenthal, a Democrat, said he hopes the bill will be one of the first successful bipartisan votes by the new Senate, which opened Tuesday.

"Every day, 22 veterans take their own lives. They take their own lives largely because of unmet needs for help, mental health help that the United States has an obligation and solemn duty to address," said Blumenthal, who spoke of a friend and Afghanistan veteran from southeastern Connecticut who suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder and took his own life in 2013.

"None of those 22 veterans who commit suicide today are destined inevitably to be victims of these inner demons. We can save them," said Blumenthal, flanked by leaders of Connecticut veterans' organizations.
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UPDATE
It is time to know what veterans are saying. They think Congress has no intention of doing what works for them. The American people support veterans. Most lawmakers wouldn't dare vote against them. A lawmaker comes up with some fancy crap on paper and can claim he wrote a bill for them. The end result doesn't seem to matter. They want to know, "Who is getting rich over our deaths?"

Can you blame them? After all, how many more years are they supposed to wait? When will Congress actually hold people accountable they paid to save lives?

Air Force Captain "groping her while she was coming out of anesthesia"

Air Force captain says airman assaulted her after surgery 
By Sig Christenson
San Antonio Express-News (Tribune News Service)
Published: January 6, 2015

Wilford Hall Medical Center at Lackland Air Force Base, Texas, is seen on July 1, 2009. An Air Force captain testified in a court hearing Monday Jan. 5, 2015, that an airman at the hospital serving as a medical technician sexually assaulted her after she came out of surgery. The airman is accused of improperly touching three patients in June 2013. JOSIE KEMP/U.S. AIR FORCE

An Air Force captain Monday accused an enlistee of groping her while she was coming out of anesthesia at a San Antonio military hospital — a claim that two other women have made as well. 

The woman said a medical technician at Wilford Hall Ambulatory Surgical Center grabbed her breasts after an outpatient procedure.

Not long after that, she said, Airman 1st Class Michael Lightsey assaulted her sexually with his fingers, prompting her to twist away from him on the gurney. At one point, she wanted to scream. “I was very upset and shocked and angered,” said the captain, a 14-year veteran who was a day patient at Wilford Hall. “I was thinking I didn’t know what to do, but I didn’t want him to do it again.” 

Lightsey is accused of improperly touching three patients in June 2013 while with the 59th Medical Wing at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland. A medical technician, he faces four specifications of causing bodily harm for what the Air Force called “self-sexual gratification stemming from incidents that occurred in the summer of 2013.”
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