Navy Veteran Lives in Storage Unit

Hope and Honor: U.S. Navy veteran calls storage unit his home (VIDEO)
The Daily Courier
Nanci Hutson
February 7, 2016

"I've tried to talk to him about a lot of things, but he's done this for years," declared homeless advocate Jean Lutz, the founder and director of Everybody's Place, an art-related program for the homeless. Findlay relies on Lutz for rides to the VA and other appointments, describing her as one of his "best pals."

Les Stukenberg/The Daily Courier A U.S. Navy veteran, Richard Findlay lives in a large storage unit in the Prescott area.

PRESCOTT - Richard Findlay's motorized walker crunches on the snow-covered driveway as he slowly glides toward his hillside storage unit, the metal door squawking as he steps inside out of the frigid air.

He maneuvers through a narrow passageway lined with wood-framed photographs and old calendars. He turns left, and heads down a wider aisle between a maze of wood-making tools, a metal-frame bunk bed, and a row of rocking horses he designed and crafted in this very space.

On the rear wall is a dorm-sized refrigerator, a microwave, crock pot and coffee pot. He brews fresh coffee with bottled water. Across from where he stands is a lime green sofa turned on its side, blocking off a less cluttered space where he has mounted copies of his bachelor's and master's degrees from Northern Arizona University and a portrait taken in his U.S. Navy uniform during the Vietnam War.

The drafty space is warmed by a small, propane heater located next to a tray table covered with Findlay's daily medications and wine bottle bird-feeders he hopes to sell at local craft fairs.
read more here

Vietnam Veteran Memorial's In Memory Program

Veteran 'carried the sorrow; he carried the pain' 
Messenger-Inquirer, Owensboro, Ky. (Tribune News Service)
By Don Wilkins
Published: February 6, 2016

For Vietnam veterans who died later, the criteria are post traumatic stress disorder, exposure to Agent Orange and similar chemicals, diabetes, cancer, heart attack and cholangiocarcinoma. An application can be found at Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund and inclusion is free.

Sharon Westerfield didn't see her late husband, Larry Westerfied, receive the honor he deserved for serving his country in Vietnam.

But she will see it in June when her husband, who died in 2012 at age 63, becomes part of the Vietnam Veteran Memorial's In Memory program in Washington, D.C.

Westerfield will be going to the nation's capital to participate in the 18th annual ceremony June 18.

"I feel like he carried Vietnam with him emotionally and physically all of those years," Westerfield said about why she applied to be part of the program. "He carried the sorrow; he carried the pain. I feel like he deserves the recognition as much as those on The Wall because they died quickly."

Larry Westerfield served in Vietnam from 1969 to 1970 as a member of the Army's 14th Engineer Battalion. The Westerfields, of Owensboro, were married in March 1971.

Westerfield said her husband experienced the backlash that came from being a Vietnam soldier.
read more here
Linked from Stars and Stripes

More Central Texas Veterans Seeking Help for PTSD

VA stats show increase in number of Central Texas veterans receiving mental health treatment for PTSD
Killeen Daily Herald
Jacob Brooks
Herald staff writer
February 7, 2016

Statistics from the Central Texas Veterans Health Care System show an increasing number of veterans are seeking treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder.

In five years, the number grew 38 percent to 5,780 at the system’s three Department of Veterans Affairs medical locations in Temple, Waco and Austin.

A similar increase was seen in the overall number of mental health patients, whose afflictions can range from anxiety to depression to severe PTSD.

In 2015, the three VA locations treated 30,336 patients for mental health, up from 22,411, a 35 percent increase in five years.

The numbers were given to the Herald after a request to the VA.

The Temple VA hospital saw the biggest increases: 3,877 PTSD patients last year, compared to 2,485 in 2010. In 2015, the hospital had 15,827 mental health patients, up from 11,853 in 2010, according to the VA.
read more here

Veterans Widow Shocked "Candy Man" Doctor Starting Practice

Fired 'Candy Man' Tomah VA chief of staff to start own practice
WTMJ Exclusive
Michelle Richards
Feb 3, 2016

TOMAH - The wife of a veteran who died from an overdose at the Tomah VA was shocked to learn the former chief of staff, whom veterans nicknamed "Candy Man," may soon be prescribing drugs to others.

Dr. David Houlihan was fired last fall after an investigation into over-prescribing painkillers at the VA Medical Center.

WTMJ has learned Houlihan is soliciting new patients in LaCrosse while also being considered for a job at a practice in Minnesota.

"I am shocked," Heather Simcakoski told WTMJ. Simcakoski's husband, Jason, died from an overdose in 2014. "I am just shocked to know he would be able to open a practice."

Houlihan has not been charged. Calls to his practice were redirected to another practice in Minnesota.
read more here

UK Veteran Sleeps In Car, Syrian Refugees Get Housing?

Awesome update to this story
Kind-hearted former soldier offers war hero home after he was left living in car for 6 MONTHS

War veteran homeless and sleeping in car
Coventry Telegraph
By Mike Lockley
7 FEB 2016

The father of three, who joined the Irish Guards at the tender age of 16, has served in Northern Ireland, Bosnia, Kosova, twice in Iraq – and three times in Afghanistan.

Veteran of two wars Richard Storer who says he is homeless and being forced to sleep in his car

A veteran of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq has been living in his car for six weeks after being made homeless.

Richard Storer, from Solihull , tormented by the horrors he witnessed during a 21-year army career, burrows deep into a sleeping bag on the back seat of his battered VW Golf each night.

Occasionally, if he is lucky, he is able to doss down on a friend’s sofa but that is the exception to the rule.

The 41-year-old, wrapped tight against winter’s bite, has become a familiar sight in Lea Village, on the outskirts of Chelmsley Wood.

The ex-corporal, invalided out of the Army with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder last June, says his country has forgotten him.

“I don’t expect special treatment,” he said. “I don’t expect special treatment because I fought for this country, I just want what’s right.

“But I recently saw a programme about Syrian refugees, and it said 80 per cent of those shown had been given homes.
read more here