Think it would be easier without you here for your family and friends? Think again!
If I Could I'd protect you from the sadness in your eyes give you courage in a world of compromise, yes I would If I could.
I would teach you all the things I've never learned and I'd help you cross the bridges that I've burned yes, I would if I could.
I would try to shield your innocence from time but the part of life I gave you isn't mine I've watched you grow so I could let you go if I could
I would help you make it through the hungry years but I know that I can never cry your tears but I would if I could
If I live in a time and place where you don't want to be you don't have to walk along this road with me my yesterday won't have to be your way
If I knew how, I'd try to change the world I brought you to and there isn't very much that I can do but I would if I could.
If I Could Higher Ground, Miller, Ron / Hirsch, Kenneth / Sharron, Marti
February 6, 2016, Dan Rush left his Mom and Dad at the age of 26.
The family of 30-year-old army veteran Terry O'Hearn is holding a memorial service for him at the VFW Post in Antioch this Saturday. His mother Robin Kiepert wants to help other military families struggling to cope with PTSD.
This is a story that we begin at the end. July 23rd, 2015. Tom Young is struck and killed by a Metra train headed to the northwest suburbs. "He took his life," says Will Young, Tom's brother. "And, uh, the day after, we got a call from the VA that, um, a bed was available and then about 20 minutes later, we got a call from the suicide hotline returning his call."
As an Army medic, Ray Burnside was called upon to save many lives during two tours of duty in Afghanistan and Iraq. In addition to administering care that included performing emergency surgery on fellow soldiers in combat, he was credited with providing medical help to more than 4,000 Iraqis and veterinary services to 2,000 head of livestock. In the small hours of the morning on Jan. 27, nearly four years after he was honorably discharged and returned home to Santa Rosa, Burnside checked into a Santa Rosa motel and texted his mother, Lynnette Casey, that he had a rope with which to hang himself.
Maj. Troy Donn Wayman, 44, was found in his home in Nolanville, Texas, near Fort Hood. He was pronounced dead by Bell County Justice of the Peace Bill Cooke shortly after 10 p.m. Saturday, according to the statement from First Army Division West officials. Wayman's death has been ruled a suicide, according to the death report prepared by the Southwestern Institute of Forensic Sciences in Dallas. The report was released to Army Times via an open records request.
Don't leave your family and friends wondering what they could have done to save your life. Let them know how they can help!
VA suspends DeVry University from a key veterans program
Washington Post
Danielle Douglas-Gabriel
March 14, 2016
The Department of Veterans Affairs on Monday suspended DeVry University from participation in a program that identifies schools doing a good job of serving former troops, in light of a federal lawsuit accusing the for-profit chain of misleading consumers about the employment and earnings of its graduates in advertisements.
The agency is taking action after reviewing a Federal Trade Commission case against the school filed in January, VA spokesman James Hutton said in a statement. The lawsuit alleges that DeVry deceived consumers about the likelihood of finding work, with claims that 90 percent of its graduates seeking employment land jobs within six months of graduation. DeVry is under threat of losing access to federal financial aid from the Education Department if it fails to pull those advertisements and notify students of its inability to substantiate the claims.
read more here
Retired Marine Awaits Double Arm Transplant
The Free Lance-Star, Fredericksburg, Va.
by Kristin Davis
Mar 15, 2016
For more than two months after the blast, Peck lay in a medically induced coma at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington. He'd endured more than two dozen surgeries; three times, his heart had stopped. An infection had nearly killed him.
In the evenings, in the echoes of the expansive home built and equipped for him, retired Marine Sgt. John Peck imagines a new life.
He wills the phone to ring. Perhaps this is it, he thinks when it finally does. The call from the Boston hospital that will set it all into motion.
Peck was clearing the way for his fellow Marines while on patrol in Afghanistan in May 2010 when he stepped on an improvised explosive device. The blast claimed both of his legs and part of his right arm. Later, as he fought a virulent infection, doctors took his left arm to spare his life.
Peck, a hulking, 6-foot-tall, 200-pound Marine, had become a quadruple amputee at age 24.
It was like somebody hit the pause button on his life. Now he waits for a double arm transplant from Boston's Brigham and Women's Hospital in the hope that it will start again.
From the sun deck of his home at the Estates of Chancellorsville where he has learned to live in relative independence, he lists in order all he intends to accomplish when that day finally comes.
They are big dreams, he concedes, with an unlikely chance of total success.
He shrugs.
"I've had worse odds."
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Remembering ‘what we lost’ ... Nov. 5, 2009, Fort Hood Memorial dedicated in Killeen
Killeen Daily Herald
Jacob Brooks
Herald staff writer
March 16, 2016
Gabe Wolf | Herald
Ft Hood Memorial-4
Ashlee Nemelka and Kevin Harmer visit PFC. Aaron Nemelka's bronze Friday at the Fort Hood Memorial dedication.
KILLEEN — Three small boys, all children or grandchildren of those killed on Nov. 5, 2009, approached the stage as about 800 people quietly watched.
They placed their hands over their hearts and began to speak in unison: “I pledge allegiance to the flag...”
The audience quickly joined in, creating a resounding, unifying “Pledge of Allegiance” inside the Killeen Civic and Conference Center on Friday.
It was one many emotional, yet also patriotic, moments that marked the long-awaited dedication ceremony of the November 5, 2009, Memorial, which honors the 12 soldiers and 1 civilian who were killed and dozens wounded in the mass shooting that day.
“The memorial itself will always be a sobering reminder of what we lost,” said Maj. Gen. John Uberti, deputy commander for III Corps and Fort Hood.
He was one of several speakers at the nearly three-hour event, which ended with the families of the fallen, the wounded and others visiting the memorial adjacent to the conference center.
The $400,000 memorial — which was paid for through donations and in-kind services — includes a gazebo, 13 statues symbolizing those killed and a flag pole in the center.
read more here
Living in pain: For some wounded on Nov. 5, 2009, fight for benefits continues
Shawn Manning and Alonzo Lunsford Jr. — both former staff sergeants who were shot multiple times by Nidal Hasan — said despite earning the federal Purple Heart medals last April, their struggles with the government’s lack of labeling their wounds as “combat related” remain.
They said the pain they live with is an everyday reminder of what happened.
“I just had surgery last summer to remove a bullet out of my thigh and a bullet out of my back,” said Manning, who in addition to physical pain, also deals with post-traumatic stress disorder stemming from the shooting.
“I still have a bullet in my back,” Lunsford said. “It cant be removed because it’s so close to my spine.”
He, too, has complications from lingering pain and PTSD, as well as a traumatic brain injury from a bullet that hit close to one of his eyes.
Once again, something sounds like a good thing to do until you actually notice what is missing.
Intrepid Fallen Heroes Fund Receives More Than $2.1 Million Donation From NAPA Auto Parts’ Annual “Get Back and Give Back” Campaign
One hundred percent of the donation goes to the IFHF’s mission of building nine Intrepid Spirit centers around the country that diagnose and treat Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) and psychological health conditions in U.S. service members. Currently, Intrepid Spirit Centers are operational at Fort Belvoir, VA; Camp Lejeune, NC; Fort Campbell, KY; Fort Bragg, NC; and Fort Hood, TX. Each Intrepid Spirit center costs approximately $11 million to construct and equip with the latest in brain technology and treatment facilities and spans 25,000 square feet.
The Center for the Intrepid
In January 2007 the Fund completed construction of the Center for the Intrepid, a $55 million world-class state-of-the-art physical rehabilitation center at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, Texas. The Center serves military personnel who have been catastrophically disabled in operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, and veterans severely injured in other operations and in the normal performance of their duties. The 60,000 square foot Center provides ample space and facilities for the rehabilitation needs of the patients and their caregivers. It includes modern physical rehabilitation equipment and extensive indoor and outdoor facilities.
What's missing? The majority of the veterans in this country, Pre-2001, who fought the wars and carried the scars the same as the newer veterans.
