Body of Missing Former Marine from South Jersey Found in Clementon Lake
NBC 10 News
By Brian X. McCrone
January 13, 2017
Lance James disappeared in early December. He went missing after leaving a Camden County bar. His body was found Friday, Jan. 13, 2017, authorities said.
A former Marine who disappeared Dec. 2 after a confrontation at a local bar in Camden County was found in a nearby lake, authorities said Saturday.
Lance James, 29, disappeared on Dec. 2 following an altercation at Hide-A-Way Tavern in Clementon. Family and friends searched with the help of state police the week before Christmas, but his body was not found in three nearby lakes and a wooded area.
The Camden County Prosecutor's Office announced that James's body was found Friday during a search of Bottom Lake. The prosecutor's office said the cause of death was not yet determined, but there were no signs of trauma.
The bar, Hide-A-Way, was less than a mile from James' apartment.
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New veterans court opens in Miami Dade
Miami Herald
David Ovalle
January 13, 2017
“This program will help a lot of other veterans, I was just one of the first,” said Lovette, who is now sober and studying engineering at Miami Dade College.
Presentation of the colors by a joint honor guard from Southenn Command during opening ceremony for Miami's new veteran court at the Miami Dade criminal court on Friday, January 13, 2017
Robert Koltun
Former U.S. Army soldier Elliot Lovette can trace his mental breakdowns — years of flashbacks, panic attacks and hallucinations — to the day a roadside bomb in 2004 ripped apart his Humvee during a patrol in Iraq.
Struggles with post-traumatic stress disorder and drugs eventually landed him in a Miami jail, charged with fighting a police officer during a breakdown in October 2015.
But Lovette got back on track when he entered a fledgling program designed to help Miami-Dade’s large veteran population, hooking them up with specialized treatment, substance abuse rehab and even mentoring from fellow former members of the military.
Earlier this month, Miami-Dade prosecutors officially dropped the charges against the 35-year-old after he completed the yearlong program.
On Friday, Lovette celebrated the occasion on a grander stage, joined by judges, lawyers, mental-health professionals and the head of Miami’s Veterans Affairs healthcare office as they officially marked the formal creation of a Miami-Dade veterans court.
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Great idea but far from new. That is why the Nam Knights did it back in 1989.
In the summer of 1989 a small group of Harley-riding combat vets of the Viet Nam War, who were also police officers, banded together to form the Nam Knights.
The Club was founded in New Jersey by Jack Quigley, now retired Undersheriff of The Bergen County Sheriff's Department. Jack served as a platoon sergeant with the 11th Motor Transport Battalion, First Marine Division.
As Jack has said: "The club was formed to recapture the brotherhood its founding members shared while serving in Southeast Asia, and to help other veterans of all wars who are unable to physically or financially help themselves."
Armor Down looks to connect "warriors" and "healers" through The Honor Brigade
Pentagram
By Hannah Troyer Editor
January 13, 2017
Hannah Troyer
At an Armor Down event January 10, a display for meditation and a moment of mindfulness featuring the battlefield cross was available for attendees to use
Memorial Day may not be for months, but Armor Down Founder and Iraq War Army veteran, Ben King, is hard at work to grow his organization and its purpose. King, along with 100 other people, gathered at the Mazza Gallerie in Washington, D.C. Jan 10 to create a new connection – a new community of what he calls “warriors and healers.”
The group came together to watch a screening of “Thank You for Your Service,” a gut-wrenching documentary by Tom Donahue that discusses the failed military mental health policies and their consequences. The documentary follows four Iraq War veterans as they face a new war within themselves and figure out ways to heal.
The mental health crisis facing the military is nothing new, but King believes there is a new way to approach it. By uniting the “warrior” community – active duty military members, first responders, veterans and their family members with the “healer” community – yoga therapists, mindfulness practitioners and friends, King believes a new conversation and form of healing can begin.
“We know warriors recognize the value of honoring the fallen and then there is the healer community and this mindfulness community, and we know they value honoring the fallen,” King said. “So, we figured why not create a conversation around honoring the fallen that both of these communities can totally get behind and feel authentic about. We just needed something to start the conversation and Tom Donahue’s film came up on my radar, and we started there.”
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Airport shooting survivor shielded stranger from gunfire
USA TODAY NETWORK
January 13, 2017
NAPLES, Fla. — Tony Bartosiewicz called his children to let them know he was alive shortly after gunshots were fired at the baggage claim area of Terminal 2 at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport last week.
Tony Bartosiewicz, left, with his grandchild and daughter, Jenny Miller. Bartosiewicz was in the baggage claim area of Terminal 2 at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport when gunshots rang out. The man used his body to shield a Annika Dean, a Broward County teacher.
(Photo: Submitted Photo)
What he didn’t tell them was that during the shooting, he used his body to shield a woman he didn’t know.
Annika Dean, the Broward County woman Bartosiewicz shielded, sent his son a message on Facebook to say how grateful she was for what Bartosiewicz did.
Jenny Miller, Bartosiewicz’s daughter, tried to call her dad to ask him whether it was true, but he didn’t return her calls. Bartosiewicz, of Rochester, N.Y., had flown into the Fort Lauderdale airport to take a cruise with his wife, Jennifer Cleeton. The couple wanted to go home but decided to get on the ship Friday evening.
“We didn’t find out until my niece texted him to ask, ‘Papa, did you land on someone and save their life?’”
Miller, who lives in Denver, said. “He wrote back, ‘Yes I did.’”
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Yes, there are more civilians with PTSD than veterans, but there are also more civilians than veterans. Percentages are a different story. Plus you would also have to consider the difference between "civilian PTSD" which comes with surviving trauma, and occupational PTSD, which comes from putting your life on the line on a daily basis, topping off all the other causes that can include you in the group.
Illuminating Canadian documentary puts spotlight on PTSD
MONTREAL GAZETTE
BILL BROWNSTEIN
Published on: January 13, 2017
Nary a day goes by without hearing a story about someone suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and its tragic consequences. Too often, the public hears the story of a traumatized soldier returning home and unable to come to terms with the horrors witnessed in war thousands of miles away.
Just last week, Canadian veteran, retired corporal Lionel Desmond, 33, still shaken by a tour in Afghanistan, is alleged to have shot and killed himself, his wife, their 10-year-old daughter and his mother at their family home in Nova Scotia.
On that note, the timing of the world broadcast première of PTSD: Beyond Trauma, Thursday at 8 p.m. on CBC’s Nature of Things, couldn’t be more auspicious. The sad reality, however, is that PTSD has been around for far too long and is becoming ever more prevalent.
Among this documentary’s fascinating findings are that PTSD affects more civilians than soldiers. The doc also notes the disorder affects twice as many women as men. Written and directed by award-winning filmmaker Patrick Reed (also the producer of Shake Hands With the Devil: The Journey of Roméo Dallaire), PTSD: Beyond Trauma makes for disturbing yet most compelling viewing.
One of the subjects Reed came into contact with while filming last year was Steve O’Brien. As it turns out, the soldier was based at the same New Brunswick outpost as Desmond, but didn’t know him personally. Ironically, while O’Brien had done several tours overseas, his PTSD is actually the result of dealing with an air crash in the Arctic that left seven people dead, including a young child whom he had uncovered.
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