Wave American Flag for Suicide Awareness or White Flag to Surrender More Lives?

While I do not question their motives or their intentions, they might as well replace the American flag they wave with a white one to surrender more lives to suicide. Raising awareness has failed. When well meaning folks like these quote the number of "22 a day" it means they are unaware of the truth behind the numbers. 

A decade of talking about the problem has actually produced worse results than when no one was doing public displays. The VA report had the number of "20 a day" in their report back in 1999 when we had over 5 million more veterans in the country. If that does not prove these stunts do not work, then please drop to ground and do some push-ups to make yourself feel better about the results we allowed to happen.

Waving flags to raise awareness
KSWO News
By Chelsea Floyd
Sunday, January 1st 2017

LAWTON, OK (KSWO)- If you were passing through Duncan on January 1st you may have seen people waving American flags on the side of highway 81.

Proposition USA, a focus group targeted to helping veterans, asked people to wave the flag to bring awareness to issues that face the men and women who have served our country.

Veteran Cori Gilbert says she's been raising awareness for veterans for years and was glad to take part in waving the flag for the group.

"This flag is the single most important symbol for our government, for our troops,” said Gilbert. They wave this flag when they go into battle and come out of battle. This is what they stand for and this is what I stand for."

Since the organization's start in 2007 volunteers like Gilbert and Vietnam veteran, David Cook will continue their support for many reasons.

"Twenty-two veterans a day commit suicide, 200,000 veterans are homeless at any given moment, three hundred and seven thousand veterans have died from the lack of care,” said Cook. “We are trying to bring awareness to it."

Cooks son spent a year in Afghanistan and now suffers from PTSD.
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Vietnam Veteran Went From Hamburger Hill to Facing Homelessness

Veterans in need? They’ve got friends, indeed
East Bay Times
By SAM RICHARDS
PUBLISHED: January 1, 2017

Metsiou served in the Army’s 101st Airborne “for 366 days in 1968 and ’69,” he said. “I’m one of the lucky ones who made it back from Hamburger Hill,” referring to a battle against the North Vietnamese in May 1969 in which 400 Americans died and which drew criticism from some lawmakers for its questionable strategic value. His landlord consented to give him until New Year’s to find a new place to live.

Disabled American Veterans Chapter 154 vice commander Sean Poynter, of Pittsburg, unloads a child’s bicycle at the new home of Vietnam veteran Richard Metsiou, 68, in Antioch on Friday, Dec. 30. Richard Metsiou and his wife, Zitta, were facing eviction from their home in Pittsburg, but with the help of Shelter, Inc. and the Disabled American Veterans Chapter 154, the couple were able to move into a new home in Antioch. They are also raising three adopted grandchildren. (Jose Carlos Fajardo/Bay Area News Group)

ANTIOCH — Finding a place to live can be an expensive challenge in the Bay Area, and for Richard Metsiou, a Vietnam veteran battling cancer and a bad credit score, an almost impossible one.

So when his longtime landlord died and her family chose to sell the Pittsburg house where he and his family have been living, he had to act fast. Metsiou needed a little help from his friends, and he got it.

Some of them were friends he’d never met before.

“A friend of mine came to me and said Richard was in a bind,” said Sean Poynter, of Pittsburg, who knows Metsiou from the Mount Diablo Disabled American Veterans post in Pittsburg, where he is senior vice commander. “I put it out in an email, that a fellow (veteran) needed some help, and all these guys showed up.”

On Friday, eight members of veterans groups from East Contra Costa County, and from Shelter, Inc. of Contra Costa, a nonprofit whose main mission is fighting homelessness, were unloading trailers in front of a house on West 10th Street in Antioch, where Metsiou, his wife, Zitta, and their three adopted grandchildren will soon live.

But before that, Poynter called Shelter, Inc. for help, and it came though big time, he said. The agency helped find an affordable house with an owner who could deal with Metsiou’s credit issues.

“They’ve been absolutely great,” said 68-year-old Metsiou, who is physically weak and also battling post-traumatic stress disorder.
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Veterans Combat PTSD Choosing to Dance

Veterans Dance to Combat PTSD 
VOA News 
December 31, 2016

Many veterans struggle with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD, after returning home from war fronts. Symptoms may include panic attacks, flashbacks of horrible memories or nightmares. 

A program in Louisville, Kentucky, is designed to help veterans overcome PTSD symptoms through dancing. Faiza Elmasry has the story, narrated by Faith Lapidus.

My wish for all veterans with PTSD is, "I Hope You Dance!" And promise to "give faith a fighting chance."

Will Ronald A. Gray Be Executed?

Murdered woman’s sister backs execution of former soldier
By Fox News
December 30, 2016

The sister of a woman murdered more than 30 years ago in North Carolina says she and her family fully support the military’s planned execution of the woman’s killer, a former soldier.

Ronald Gray leaves a courtroom at Fort Bragg in 1988. AP

The execution would be the first by the US military in more than a half-century. A Kansas federal judge earlier this month lifted the stay of execution for the former Fort Bragg soldier, Ronald A. Gray, who is being held at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.

Gray was convicted in military and civilian courts of raping several women and killing four, including 18-year-old Tammy Cofer Wilson. He was sentenced to death in a Fort Bragg court-martial in 1988.
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Neighbors Rush to Help Disabled Veteran Escape Fire

Bed-ridden with cancer, veteran crawls to safety with girlfriend from Springdale fire
WTAE News 4 Pittsburg
Sheldon Ingram
December 30, 2016

SPRINGDALE, Pa.
A fierce and rapid fire tore through a two-story Springdale house on Butler Street, chasing a disabled military veteran and his girlfriend into the street.

Mike Elliot, 65, crawled to safety, though disabled, on oxygen and battling cancer.

Neighbors who rushed to his aid say he was wearing boxer shorts, a T-shirt and no shoes while on his knees in the frigid night air.

"It just tore my heart apart to see this right after Christmas," said Joe Kuchek, a neighbor who gathered blankets to assist Elliot.

He shared the house with his girlfriend, Janis Schweitzer, 69. Both escaped without injury, but the house is destroyed.
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