Nova Scotia Abandoned PTSD Veteran--Family Paid Price With Gunshots

I struggled with the headline I used. There is no other way to put it. Governments, like the US, send them to fight battles yet do not seem interested enough in making sure they are properly taken care of afterwards. Now a veteran is gone. His family is gone. As you will read, he tried to get help that should have been ready and waiting for him. Much like weapons, uniforms, supplies and transportation are prepared to welcome them to the war zones. No one welcomed them to the war zone of having to fight for the care they needed because they went.

Veteran, his wife, child and mother found dead in apparent murder-suicide
CBC News
By Elizabeth McMillan, Sherri Borden Colley
Posted: Jan 04, 2017

Lionel Desmond appears to have shot himself, 3 others died of gunshot wounds, RCMP say

Lionel Desmond was part of the India Company, 2nd battalion, Royal Canadian Regiment, in Afghanistan in 2007. (Facebook)

A military veteran, his newly graduated nurse wife, their 10-year-old daughter and her grandmother are dead after an apparent murder-suicide that has rocked a rural Nova Scotia community.

CBC News has confirmed the deceased are Lionel Desmond, 33, his wife, Shanna Desmond, 31, their 10-year-old daughter, Aaliyah, and Brenda Desmond, 52, who was Lionel's mother.

Nova Scotia RCMP said Lionel Desmond appeared to have shot himself, and the three others died of apparent gunshot wounds. Police said they found two guns in the house and are continuing to search the area.

Police were called to the house in northeastern Nova Scotia, about 29 kilometres north of Guysborough, shortly after 6 p.m. AT. Insp. Lynn Young, officer in charge of the Nova Scotia RCMP major crimes unit, told reporters two people found the bodies and called 911.

"This is incredibly tragic for everyone involved," she said.

Shanna Desmond's aunt, Catherine Hartling, said she went to the home in Upper Big Tracadie on Tuesday night because she thought Lionel Desmond had taken his own life. She arrived to learn everyone inside was dead.

'No beds available'

Rev. Elaine Walcott, who lives just outside of Halifax and is related to the victims, said Lionel Desmond had recently spent time in a Montreal clinic for post-traumatic stress disorder.

"He's been crying out for help from the mental health system," she said.

Shanna Desmond recently graduated as a registered nurse and was working at St. Martha's Regional Hospital in Antigonish, N.S. — the same hospital where her husband had tried to get treatment within the last week, Walcott said.

"I understand that there were no beds available," Walcott said.

"He suffered in physical ways, he suffered in emotional ways, and spiritual ways," she said of his tours in Afghanistan.
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Hell No! Congress Seeks To Privatize or Pulverize the VA?

Congress has been writing the rules, bills and funding (or underfunding) the VA since 1946. Here is what they were supposed to be responsible for.

Legislation Within the Jurisdiction of the Committee on Veterans’ Affairs

1. Veterans' measures generally.

1. Pensions of all the wars of the U.S., general and special.

1. Life insurance issued by the government on account of service in the Armed Forces.

1. Compensation, vocational rehabilitation, and education of veterans.

1. Veterans' hospitals, medical care, and treatment of veterans.

1. Soldiers' and Sailors' Civil Relief.

1. Readjustment of servicemen to civilian life.

1. National Cemeteries.

Complete Jurisdiction of the Committee

The Department of Veterans Affairs

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) was established March 15, 1989, with Cabinet rank, succeeding the Veterans Administration and assuming responsibility for providing federal benefits to veterans and their dependents. Led by the Secretary of Veterans Affairs, VA is the second largest of the 14 Cabinet departments and operates nationwide programs of health care assistance services and national cemeteries.
Care for veterans and dependents spans centuries. The last dependent of a Revolutionary War veteran died in 1911, the War of 1812's last dependent died 44 years ago, the Spanish American War's, in 1962. There are widows and children of Civil War and Indian War veterans who still draw VA benefits. Some 2,190 children and widows of Spanish-American War veterans are receiving VA compensation or pension benefits.  The last American Doughboy, Corporal Frank Buckles, passed away on February 27, 2011. His passing signified the passing of the last of the World War I veterans.

So if the VA has been getting stuff wrong, ask Congress why they didn't fix it to make sure it worked for our veterans? 

VA Backlog, their fault
VA Appointment Delays, their fault
VA Drug Problems, their fault

VA is not the enemy but it may be the way Congress planned on it becoming so they could pulverize it and then be done with having to answer to us.

Oh, by the way, we still don't know why veteran suicides have gone up after they started to write bills to prevent them. Anyone ask them how that is working out too?

Marine dog handler wounded in Iraq

Marine dog handler wounded in Iraq
Marine Corps Times
By: Jeff Schogol and Andrew deGrandpre
January 2, 2017

A Marine was severely wounded in Iraq on Dec. 30, according to an online fundraising campaign for his family.

Staff Sgt. Patrick Maloney was on his fifth combat tour when he was “critically wounded,” according to a GoFundMe account that was established on Dec. 31.

The “Help wounded Marine and his family” account raised $11,201 out of a $15,000 goal by Monday afternoon. It did not contain any information about how Maloney was wounded.

“Please consider donating to help Patrick and his entire family during this very tragic time and the long road they have ahead of them,” the account said. “Donations will be used to offset any expenses accrued during Patrick's long road to recovery.”
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VA Advisory Committee on Women Veterans

New Members Appointed to VA Advisory Committee on Women Veterans
01/03/2017

WASHINGTON – Four new members have been appointed to the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Advisory Committee on Women Veterans, an expert panel that advises VA’s Secretary on issues and programs impacting women Veterans. Established in 1983, the committee makes recommendations to the Secretary for policy and legislative changes.

“VA values the transformational guidance the Committee has provided over the past 33 years, and relies on to the members to utilize their diverse perspectives in anticipating the emerging needs of women Veterans,” said Secretary of Veterans Affairs Robert A. McDonald. “The new appointees will provide unique insight, as VA strives to gauge the evolving needs of women Veterans.”
New Members VA Advisory Committee on Women Veterans

Lisa Kirk Brown, Bellingham, WA. A retired Maryland Air National Guard Lieutenant Colonel; currently serves as a member of the Washington State Department of Veterans Affairs’ Women Veterans Advisory Committee, a member of the Whatcom County Veterans Advisory Board, and a Disabled American Veterans service officer.

Kate Germano, Upper Marlboro, MD. A retired U.S. Marine Corps Lieutenant Colonel; currently serves as chief operating officer for Service Women’s Action Network (SWAN), a non-profit organization solely focused on supporting the needs of service women and women Veterans.

Karen O’Brien, University Place, WA. A retired U.S. Air Force Colonel, with deployments in support of Operation Enduring Freedom; currently serves as a compensation and pension physician for the Veterans Benefits Administration in American Lake, WA.

Betty Yarbrough, Springfield, VA. A retired U. S. Army Colonel, with deployments in support of Operation Desert Shield/Desert Storm and Operation Iraqi Freedom; immediate past military director of the Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Services, where she served as the primary advisor to the Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness on all matters pertaining to women in the armed forces.

Committee members Octavia Harris (Retired Command Master Chief Petty Officer) San Antonio, and Shannon McLaughlin, Esq. (Major, Massachusetts National Guard) Sharon, Mass. have been reappointed for an additional term.
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Fort Campbell Wife Celebrated Birth of Quads...Battling Cancer

AWESOME UPDATE
CLARKSVILLE, Tenn. (CLARKSVILLENOW) – A GoFundMe campaign for a Fort Campbell soldier and wife with newborn quadruplets has now topped $1 million dollars.



Fort Campbell woman gives birth to quadruplets while battling cancer
WKRN News
Josh Breslow
Published: January 2, 2017

“We know that He’s gotta have a different plan up there for us, and surely everything’s gonna work out in the end,” said Kayla Gaytan.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) – A Fort Campbell soldier and his wife have four tiny reasons to celebrate 2017.

Kayla and Sgt. Charles Gaytan are the proud parents of quadruplets born Friday afternoon at Vanderbilt University Medical Center without fertility treatment of any kind.

“It was exciting. It was nerve-wracking. But to see them when they all came out and to hear them crying, that was really exciting,” Kayla told News 2.

Diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma last January, Kayla had just finished five months of chemotherapy and was in remission when she learned she was pregnant.

Already a mother-of-two, the 29-year-old was excited to tell her husband Charles, a Fort Campbell soldier.

“She called me on the phone, and we’re in a Humvee and I kinda couldn’t really hear her,” recalled Charles. “It was truly some of the best news I’ve ever gotten in my life.”
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