"Last Day of Freedom" Explores Veterans On Death Row

Oscar-nominated film spotlights death-row veterans, combat PTSD
Military Times
By Patricia Kime
February 22, 2016

“They was able to discern his physical wounds and was able to patch them up, but they never got around to patching that wound in his head.” Bill Babbitt

A film that raises questions about veterans' mental health care, capital punishment and justice for troubled troops is on the short list for an Oscar on Feb. 28.

The 30-minute documentary “Last Day of Freedom” tells the story of Marine veteran Manuel Babbitt through the eyes of his brother. Babbitt was executed in California after being convicted of beating an elderly woman to death.
(Photo: Courtesy of Dee Hibbert-Jones)

The 30-minute documentary “Last Day of Freedom” tells the story of former Marine Manuel Babbitt through the eyes of his brother Bill. Babbitt was executed in California in 1999 after being convicted of beating an elderly woman to death in Sacramento in 1980.

Babbitt — “Manny” to family and friends — had suffered a head injury as a child, and despite having learning disabilities and dropping out of school in seventh grade at age 17, was recruited by the Marine Corps. He went to Vietnam and later developed a host of mental health issues, including schizophrenia, severe post-traumatic stress disorder and substance abuse.

“They was able to discern his physical wounds and was able to patch them up, but they never got around to patching that wound in his head,” Bill says in the film.

Through a melange of film footage and animation using more than 30,000 drawings and sketches, filmmakers Dee Hibbert-Jones and Nomi Talisman follow Manny Babbitt's life from childhood to grave, focusing on his struggles but also on the system they believe failed him.

"One of the things we really wanted to uncover is the complexities of the death penalty and of veterans' care," said Hibbert-Jones, an associate professor of art at the University of California-Santa Cruz. "The fact that someone would go to war and serve their country and then be failed by that country is a complete travesty.”
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Community Steps Up For Vietnam Veteran

FOX 11 Investigates report leads to help for Appleton veteran
FOX 11 News
BY MARK LELAND
FEBRUARY 21ST 2016

Appleton — An Appleton Vietnam Veteran is celebrating his new home with many of the volunteers and companies that made it possible.

Jerry Monson's mobile home on his Appleton lot was destroyed by a government program looking to make it more energy efficient. That happened back in 2014.

FOX 11 Investigates uncovered the problems and held government officials accountable for the destroyed mobile home. The program's insurer paid for the lost mobile home.

The money was used along with community donations and volunteer labor to build a 1,200 square foot, 3-bedroom, 2-bathrooms home on his lot. Replacing the mobile home with another mobile home was not an option due to zoning laws.
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Ex-POW Vietnam Veteran Fred Cherry Passed Away

Fred Cherry, POW in North Vietnam for seven years, dies at 87
The Washington Post
By Bart Barnes
Published: February 20, 2016

Fred Cherry, an Air Force fighter pilot, was downed by enemy fire over North Vietnam in 1965, and he spent more than seven years a prisoner of war.

He had grown up in the Jim Crow South, and his captors made it clear he could mitigate the harshness of his incarceration, including routine torture, and improve his living conditions by speaking out against the racial injustice and discrimination that he had faced as an African American in the United States.

When beatings failed to bring him around, his jailers tried another tactic. They assigned a self-described "Southern white boy" as his cellmate, hoping that racial antipathy between the two men would weaken his resolve and produce a propaganda triumph for North Vietnam.

The plan failed.

Instead, the two men, Cherry and a Navy fighter pilot, then-Ensign Porter Halyburton, became fast and lifelong friends. Each would credit the other with having saved his life.
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Body of Missing Veteran Found in Ohio

Missing Morrow man's body found in Little Miami River 
WLWT News 
By Jeff Cousins 
Feb 21, 2016 

Aaron Berns, 27, fled from scene of house fire in January


MORROW, Ohio —A months-long search for a missing Morrow man ended Saturday.

Aaron Berns, 27, went missing Jan. 1 after a fire in the 200 block of Main Street in Morrow.

Berns' family said he had been struggling with post-traumatic stress disorder after serving two tours in the military overseas.

Prior to the identification of the body, the family had planned a vigil for Berns on Sunday.
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UPDATE

Family holds vigil for Morrow veteran pulled from river

Cincinnati News, FOX19-WXIX TV

First U.S. Penis Transplant To Be Wounded Soldier

Wounded U.S. soldier soon to receive first U.S. penis transplant 
BALTIMORE 
BY REUTERS STAFF 
February 18, 2016

"When you meet these guys and you realize what they've given for the country, it makes a lot of sense," Dr. Richard Redett, a plastic surgeon at Johns Hopkins Hospital who will help perform the operation, told Reuters.

A U.S. soldier wounded in an explosion will be the first person in the United States to receive a penis transplant, doctors at Johns Hopkins Hospital said, which could open the way for about 60 other servicemen with genital injuries to have this surgery.

Dr. Richard Redett in an undated photo.

REUTERS/JOHNS HOPKINS MEDICINE

Surgeons hope a donated organ from a recently deceased man will provide full function including urination, sensation and sex. The surgery requires joining nerves and blood vessels under a microscope.
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