Combat Did Not Kill Iraq Veteran But Burn Pits May

Cancer forces veteran to fight for his life
Daily Times
Hannah Grover
April 16, 2016

Retired New Mexico National Guard Master Sgt. David Montoya hopes a clinical trial in Texas can help save his life

"I knew it was the burn pits," he said. Montoya is among dozens of veterans throughout the country who have sued Halliburton and KBR Inc., companies that were contracted by the military to dispose of waste in Iraq and Afghanistan.

FARMINGTON — After two combat tours in Iraq, a local veteran is now fighting a battle against cancer.

David Montoya, a retired master sergeant with the New Mexico Army National Guard, is battling lung cancer. He talks about the experience on Thursday at the home of his girlfriend, Summer Martinez. (Photo: Steve Lewis/The Daily Times)

And his friends and family are trying to raise the money necessary to help David Montoya, a retired master sergeant with the New Mexico National Guard, receive treatment in Houston.

Montoya, 44, was diagnosed with colorectal cancer in 2012 while serving at the National Guard Armory in Farmington.

"It happened so fast I had to have emergency surgery," Montoya recalled last week.

He said the tumor in his colon nearly caused the organ to burst. At the time, his prognosis was good. Doctors removed the tumor, and chemotherapy destroyed cancerous cells in his lymph nodes.

But at a cancer screening in February 2014, Montoya learned that the cancer was back, and, this time, it was in his lungs.
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Will Female Homeless Veteran in Australia Cause Real Change?

Female war veteran living in her car spurs Hastings village plan
Herald Sun
Kathryn Powley
and Paul Toohey
April 16, 2016

A FEMALE Victorian war veteran living out of her car in Frankston is one of the stories that has spurred a radical plan to house homeless veterans at campground village in Hastings.

Welfare agencies want more support for returned services people, saying some are living in tents in the bush, garages and on mates’ couches.

Mornington Peninsula-based welfare officer with Carry on Victoria Karl Williams said the woman was one of half a dozen veterans he had helped.

He will today join a protest on the steps of State Parliament in Spring St to call for a royal commission into the Federal Department of Veterans Affairs.

“She served in Afghanistan as a drone operator and was affected by post traumatic stress disorder,” he said.

She had run out of money and was sleeping in her car.

He helped get her into an apartment. She and other veterans had gone from being “top of the mountain” to thinking nobody cared, he said. There were former soldiers sleeping under one-man “hoochie” tarps in the bush.

Most of the homeless were unemployed suffering PTSD and some had tried suicide, Mr Williams said.
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WWI Battle of The Somme Chronicle of PTSD

How shell-shock shaped the Battle of the Somme
The Telegraph UK
Taylor Downing
16 APRIL 2016

'The dreams sir, I dare not go to sleep because I dream so of…’

A shell shock victim staggers back from the front and needs help to work.

CREDIT: IMPERIAL WAR MUSEUM

Private Arthur Hubbard, a clerk from Streatham in south London, went over the top at 7.30am on 1 July 1916, the bloody first day of the Battle of the Somme. What he experienced over the next few hours changed him forever. He and his unit, the 14th London, a Pals Battalion, got into the German lines that morning.

They had orders not to take prisoners. When three wounded Germans, badly bleeding, emerged from a dugout Hubbard finished them off. Then a British officer was shot by a sniper as he stood by him. Later that afternoon as he withdrew to the British lines, a mass of soil from a nearby shell buried him. His mates eventually dragged him out and back into the lines.

Hubbard’s family next heard from him in a convalescence hospital in Ipswich. He told his mother not to worry, that he was a bit shaky and suffering from 'severe headaches’ but otherwise he was fit and well and would make a quick recovery. Unfortunately Private Hubbard did not recover.

If the daytime was bad enough, at night it grew even worse. Victims would whisper to Steadman, 'The dreams sir, I dare not go to sleep because I dream so of…’ and he would describe the horrific sights he has witnessed, of mates being blown to pieces alongside, of being buried under debris during one of the massive bombardments.

The worst thing for Steadman was having to send the men back to the front when they seemed to have calmed down. He wrote: 'You cannot help them long, just a few days and then back they must go. If they were kept long the hospital would be absolutely crowded out. There would be no men to fight.’
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Special Forces Veteran Goes From Texas to Liberty Fighting PTSD

Veteran stops in Pinellas during record paddleboarding trip
FOX 13 News
By: Kellie Cowan
POSTED:APR 16 2016

"That was like the lights finally coming on for the first time in a long time in a dark room and it was a wonderful place," said Collins

CLEARWATER (FOX 13) - After 20 years of Special Forces service, which included tours in Afghanistan, Bosnia and Iraq, Josh Collins is now taking on the biggest mission of his life: a 3,500-mile paddleboard trek that will take him from Corpus Christie, TX to the Statue of Liberty on his paddle board.

It's all in the name of bringing awareness to fellow soldiers who, like him, suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and Traumatic Brain Injury.

Collins says Task Dagger Force, a charity dedicated to helping wounded Special Forces veterans and their families, helped save his life.

He's now hoping his recover story will inspire others suffering from TBI and PTSD as well.
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The Proud, The Few, The Hajabed?

Citadel mulls allowing Muslim cadet to wear hijab, first religious uniform exception
The Washington Times
By Kellan Howell
April 15, 2016

The historic Citadel military academy is considering granting its first ever uniform exception to a female cadet who has asked to be allowed to wear a hijab in keeping with her Muslim faith.

Citadel spokeswoman Kim Keelor said Friday that is it the first such request that has been made, although the school has had a number of Muslim cadets, The Associated Press reported.
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