Millions collected, Tampa charity for veterans goes MIA WFLA By: Steve Andrews Posted: Sep 04, 2018
TAMPA, Fla. People donated millions to Tampa charity VetMade Industries, Inc., to help train unemployed, disabled veterans.
The program was designed to teach veterans how to make Adirondack style furniture and get them them used to reporting for work and getting a paycheck.
An 8 On Your Side investigation found as donations from a generous public poured in, the woodworking shop at VetMade Industries stayed empty, the machinery sat idle, the doors closed tight.
According to founder and Executive Director John Campbell, the whole program was on hold.
How long has it been on hold?
"Going on five years, that we're, I call it a caretaker status," Campbell explained.
Caretaking what?
Tax records show that in three years, $5.5 million dollars in donations flowed into VetMade Industries.
During that same period, not one veteran received training.
"Zero goes to the veterans," retired Army veteran Ken Cook said.
Cook was among the original volunteers at VetMade Industries when it launched in 2009.
What he found was disappointing.
"There was a high falutin fancy program on paper, but the reality was that there wasn't any kind of organized training going on in any way, shape or form," Cook stated. read more here
Researchers find photographs of every Floridian whose name is listed on Vietnam Memorial Wall Pensacola News Journal Melissa Nelson Gabriel Sept. 4, 2018
The final photograph posted by the group was of Army Pfc. Thomas J. Burton of Pompano Beach who died on Nov. 20, 1968, in Binh Duong Province at age 21.
After months of intensive work, researchers have found photographs of all 1,957 Floridians killed during the Vietnam War.
The statewide effort, spearheaded by the Vietnam Veterans of America Chapter in The Villages, is part of a national project to create a virtual Wall of Faces. Florida is the 34th state to find photographs for each person who listed the state as home.
The photographs will eventually be included in an education center, which will be built adjacent to the wall in Washington D.C.
John Thomstatter, a Vietnam veteran from The Villages, coordinated the search effort for the photographs. Thomstatter credited his volunteer research team for tracking down the many hard-to-find photos. The volunteers included private investigators, genealogists and people who knocked on doors and scoured libraries and archives around Florida.
read more here
“A Vietnam veteran straightened me out. Survival guilt: If my buddies could come out of the grave, they’d kick my butt up between my shoulder blades for letting their deaths screw my head up. They didn’t die for that.”
Bud Huffman and Jim Muhr left the service decades ago, but have had to cope with post-traumatic stress disorder ever since. Now they hope to reach out to other local veterans struggling to avoid another such tragedy. Artist Roberto Gutierrez says color is in his DNA.
"I continue to seek help. I've tried the kitchen sink. I've tried hypnosis. I've tried traditional therapy. I've tried Qigong. I've tried Tai Chi. Whatever works!" Roberto Gutierrez
“I can tell you with certainty that I thought about killing myself more than once. And so did one of my best friends and former unit companion, Caleb Patton. It was the guys around us, who are now part of IPG, that saved us.” Hunter Garth
Santa Rosa Officer Makes Life Changing Choice For Baby Girl KPIX CBS News September 2, 2108
“We were talking and … I was saying as her — ‘You made this choice for her and that we are so grateful,'” Ashley said. “And she said — ‘You’re her mother now.'”
SANTA ROSA (CBS SF) — Police officer Jesse Whitten could never have imagined the impact chance meetings with a homeless woman on a Santa Rosa street would ultimately have on his life.
The woman was living on the streets, pregnant and battling a drug addiction. While on patrol, Whitten would show compassion to her and on one such meeting last August, his wife — Ashley — was along side. The two women struck up a conversation about motherhood and its challenges. read more here
Does anyone want to tell me how all this awareness stuff is working? Top that off with Veterans Courts, the Suicide/Crisis Line and, Lord only knows how many "awareness" groups are in your state.
Hours after being discharged from a mental health treatment facility, 38-year-old disabled veteran Lee Cole hiked into a wilderness area in southwest Colorado Springs with a backpack and the cellphone on which he planned to record his final message.
A Veterans Affairs employee died Tuesday morning inside an administrative office at Topeka’s Colmery O’Neil VA Medical Center. Joe Burks, spokesman for the VA Eastern Kansas Health Care System, said the employee died of an apparent suicide.
A veteran shot himself yesterday in the parking lot of the VA Health Care Center in Mishawaka -- dead from an apparent suicide.
So when you hear people say they are "raising awareness" tell them, veterans already know they are killing themselves and, if the public is still not aware, they never will be. By the way, I raise awareness for free! The first report we did on veterans committing suicide was back in 2007. That report was used for this video.
