Wounded warrior needs community's help FOX San Antonio BY EMILY BAUCUM FEBRUARY 8TH 2016
"At Fort Hood, they were doing a live round training mission for combat. A storm came out of nowhere and he was struck by lightning right in the forehead," Laura says. "He took a direct hit to the head and it went all the way through his body, grounding out as he was running."
SAN ANTONIO - A veteran who served our country hopes you'll open your heart to him.
First Lieutenant Garrett Spears was seriously injured in a lightning strike at Fort Hood. His family showed us his journey, and what you can do to help.
"Ready? Let's see what you got," mother Laura Spears says as she shows Garrett a deck of cards. Life is a lot like poker: you play the hand you're dealt. It's a lesson the Spears family learned all too well.
"My Harry Potter over here," Laura jokes as they play.
Humor has helped the family persevere through a struggle that began a little more than two years ago when Garrett was a chemical corps officer in the U.S. Army.
read more here
Veterans Affairs again denies Agent Orange benefits to Navy vets Virginia Pilot By By Charles Ornstein and Terry Parris Jr. ProPublica 22 hrs ago
“Rather than siding with veterans, VA is doubling down on an irrational and inconsistent policy,” Senator Richard Blumenthal
The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs has once again turned down an effort by Navy veterans to get compensation for possible exposure to Agent Orange during the Vietnam War.
In a document released Friday, the VA said it would continue to limit benefits related to Agent Orange exposure to only those veterans who set foot in Vietnam, where the herbicide was sprayed, and to those who were on boats in inland rivers.
The VA compensates these veterans for a litany of associated illnesses, including diabetes, various cancers, Parkinson’s disease, peripheral neuropathy and a type of heart disease.
Advocates for some 90,000 so-called Blue Water Navy veterans who served off the coast of Vietnam have been asking the VA for more than a decade to broaden the policy to include them. They say they were exposed to Agent Orange because their ships sucked in potentially contaminated water and distilled it for showering, drinking, laundry and cooking. Experts have said the distillation process could have actually concentrated the Agent Orange, which contained the toxic chemical dioxin and was used to kill vegetation and deny enemy cover.
read more here
Share your story ProPublica and the Virginian-Pilot are interested in hearing from veterans and family members for our ongoing investigation into the effects of Agent Orange on veterans and their children.
HAPPY UPDATE
UPDATE: Alec Seager's wife Kayleigh shared on Facebook last night that her husband has been found safe, albeit hypothermic and severely dehydrated.
She also took the time to thank those who helped her story go viral, and everyone else who aided in the effort to bring her husband home to their family.
Wife of missing Marine pleads for help finding husband PIX 11 News BY KRISTINA BEHR FEBRUARY 8, 2016 The wife of a Marine took to Facebook to plead with her followers to help find her husband.
According to the missing veteran's website, 26-year-old Alec Seager is a U.S. Marine who went missing from Camp Lejeune in North Carolina on Saturday, Feb. 6.
His wife posted his photo saying he "suffers from ptsd,depression, and ;anxiety. He also has mentioned suicidal idealizations." read more here
Veterans Charities At War Leave Veterans Out Wounded Times Kathie Costos February 8, 2016
We've all read the reports and seen the news broadcasts about Wounded Warrior Project but there is a lot left out of the discussion as more and more charities come out to publicize the fact they are not part of that group. Seems it was a different story when they used the name to gain publicity for themselves when Wounded Warrior Project was spending huge sums of money for advertising. There is Augusta Wounded Warrior Project saying they are not them.
Montana Wounded Warriors was started six years ago by Rotarian Neil Baumann and Army Maj. Jesse Mann. Both men are from Columbia Falls. Mann served as a Black Hawk helicopter pilot in Iraq. They started Montana Wounded Warriors six years ago.
Seems it was a different story when the publicity was good and working for them.
It happened in 2011,
Appeals Court Upholds Judgment For Wounded Warrior Project Non Profit Times By Mark Hrywna January 12, 2011 In a 19-page decision filed today (Jan. 12), the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit in Nebraska knocked down six alleged key errors in the original case raised in the appeal by Wounded Warrior Family Support (WWFS). A jury in September 2009 awarded $1.7 million to Wounded Warrior Project (WWP) of Jacksonville, Fla., and entered a permanent injunction against WWFS. The $1.7 million included $1.295 million for deceptive trade practices and $400,000 for unjust enrichment as a result of confusion. Wounded Warrior Project originally filed suit in 2007 against Wounded Warriors, Inc., of Omaha, Neb., which changed its name to Wounded Warrior Family Support.
Following oral arguments in November, the appeal was dismissed on Jan. 12. “It’s probably the largest verdict of its kind on the issue of using a confusingly similar name,” said Errol Copilevitz of the Kansas City, Mo., firm of Copilevitz and Canter, which represented WWP. Based in Jacksonville, Fla., WWP also has offices in Washington, D.C., and New York City. “We found all kinds of evidence of people who had donated to them thinking that they had seen the Wounded Warrior Project featured on national TV and sent money,” he said.
About $429,000 of the judgment has been collected so far, according to Copilevitz, and foreclosure is moving ahead on condominiums and property acquired by WWFS, which it offered to wounded veterans and their families for vacations.
A key issue in the litigation was the website, woundedwarriors.org, which WWFS launched in 2004. WWP registered two websites, woundedwarrior.org and woundedwarriorproject.org, in January 2003 and March 2004, respectively. In 2005, the organization registered its trademark logo depicting one soldier carrying another soldier on his back.
The Wounded Warriors in Nebraska only had a passive website that generated about $1,400 a month in donations, and did little or no advertising, fundraising or marketing, said Copilevitz, until WWP was featured on Fox television and it started getting upward of $90,000 or more in donations each month. After WWFS was ordered by the court to shut down its website in July 2008 donations immediately decreased 56 percent while WWP’s donations jumped 29 percent, according to court documents. read more here
I would love to take the easy way out on this and just ignore it but it shows that fame comes with a price. In this case, I actually agree with the lawsuit. (I know, shocking for me to say that.) But when you consider the fact that while both groups did start around the same time in different parts of the country, one was not successful until the other one went onto fame and fortune.
Non-Profit Quarterly was a bit more harsh in their assessment of the reports from CBS and New York Times. "Wounded Warrior Project: The Fundraising Factory Issue"
Why wouldn't they when the CEO Steve Nardizzi says this?
In the article from New York Times there was this,
Mr. Millette said the charity encouraged him to highlight its role in helping him recover from PTSD and traumatic brain injury. “They wanted me to say W.W.P. saved my life,” he said. “Well, they didn’t. They just took me to a Red Sox game and on a weekend retreat.”
In all the reports the thing that is really missing is how veterans are still being left out of the reporting. Not just the Afghanistan and Iraq veterans all these new groups seem oh so interested in, but the older veterans none of the new charities are helping. Why? Anyone care to ask them how they feel to look at their own lives and wonder why they don't matter enough when they waited even longer? Anyone bother to ask them how they feel struggling to keep a roof over their heads when keys are handed to a new disabled veteran to a new home they'll never have to worry about being foreclosed on? Has anyone asked a Gulf War veteran about their disabilities, missing limbs, burns or whatever the illness ravaging their bodies no one seems to be able to figure out? Anyone bother to ask Vietnam veterans what it is like to be left behind and forgotten about as well? What about Korean War veterans and the remaining WWII veterans? What about the "lesser combat veterans" within this long, long list of combat operations?
When you see a commercial on TV for WWP asking you to donate, you see one thing but I see what is missing. I see the veterans I spend most of my free time with. Older veterans disabled by bombs and bullets, along with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and Traumatic Brain Injury. Above all I see veterans over the age of 50 representing the majority of veterans in this nation as well as the majority of the suicides being left out of all the publicity.
"The VA study found that the percentage of older veterans with a history of VA healthcare who committed suicide actually was higher than that of veterans not associated with VA care. Veterans over the age of 50 who had entered the VA healthcare system made up about 78 percent of the total number of veterans who committed suicide - 9 percentage points higher than the general pool."
While the press is focusing on the scandal, as they usually do, they are missing the big story behind all of this. Again it would be very easy for me to just stay out of all this and avoid mentioning the facts but it wouldn't be right for me to do. I've been doing this for far too long to take the easy way out of anything. As for the charities fighting among themselves, veterans end up losing because no one is talking about all of them. Above all else I see the stunning fact that each and every one of the veterans I know live up to the slogan of the Vietnam veterans to never leave another generation of veterans behind.
Older veterans are glad to see the citizens stepping up to help the newer veterans but that does not mean they are not sadden to remember they have been forgotten.
Watch Lady Gaga Perform the National Anthem at Super Bowl 50 TIME Nolan Feeney Feb. 7, 2016
Lady Gaga kicked off Super Bowl 50 with a performance of the national anthem dressed in a custom sparkling red Gucci suit and matching eyeshadow.
