Army IDs soldier found dead in Fort Hood barracks

Army IDs soldier found dead in Hood barracks

Staff report
Posted : Thursday Jan 29, 2009 10:45:10 EST

A soldier who died Jan. 25 at Fort Hood, Texas, has been identified as Sgt. 1st Class Christoffer Hans Tjaden, according to a press release.

Tjaden, 48, was found in his barracks room by fellow soldiers who were conducting a morale check. Officials are investigating the death; the press release said the cause of Tjaden’s death is unknown.

Tjaden joined the Army in January 1987 as an infantryman. He had been assigned to 1st Battalion, Warrior Transition Brigade since November 2007.

EXCLUSIVE: Army to recall armor

EXCLUSIVE: Army to recall armor
Sara A. Carter (Contact)
Thursday, January 29, 2009
The Army will withdraw from service more than 16,000 sets of ceramic body armor plates that the Pentagon's inspector general believes were not properly tested and could jeopardize the lives of U.S. service personnel, The Washington Times has learned.

A Defense official, speaking on the condition that he not be named, said the Army is acting proactively while challenging the contention of Inspector General Gordon S. Heddell that the armor could be unsafe.

"This decision reflects the Army's commitment to do everything within its power to be sure only the very best equipment is fielded to its soldiers," the official said.

He said, however, that there have been no reports of defects in the plates or deaths or injuries resulting from their use. The plates are being recalled so that soldiers will not worry that they are wearing unsafe armor, he said.

The equipment in question was manufactured between 2005 and 2007 and accounts for 1.6 percent of the 1.9 million plates that the Army has purchased to date, he said.

The recall was announced a day before the inspector general's office is to brief the chairman of the House Rules Committee, Rep. Louise M. Slaughter. Mrs. Slaughter, New York Democrat, has focused on the issue of body armor failures and procurement.

"Two years ago, I asked the Department of Defense Inspector General to make sure that the U.S. Army was doing their due diligence in ensuring that the quality of body armor being used by our Armed Forces meets the very highest standards to save lives," Mrs. Slaughter said in a statement.

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Iraq, Afghanistan VA Patients Exceed 400,000

Iraq, Afghanistan VA Patients Exceed 400,000
Thursday 29 January 2009
by: Maya Schenwar, t r u t h o u t Report


As the number of veterans seeking health care continues to rise, the VA is straining to meet demands.

Amid talk of a drawdown of troops in Iraq, new statistics from the Department of Defense (DoD) and the Department of Veterans' Affairs (VA) show that US casualties are still climbing quickly. Iraq and Afghanistan battlefield injuries and deaths number 81,361, up from 72,043 last January, according to data obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request by Veterans for Common Sense (VCS). Veteran patients - including those who didn't seek care until their return home - shot up to 400,304 (from 263,909 in December 2007).

For the thousands of soldiers flooding the VA, mental illness tops the list of ailments. Forty-five percent of VA patients have already been diagnosed with mental health conditions, including a startling 105,000 diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). These data do not include the incalculable number of mentally ill veterans who have not received a diagnosis or haven't sought treatment at the VA.

Health care for veterans has improved substantially in the past year, mostly due to legislative changes and funding boosts, according to Raymond Kelley, legislative director of AMVETS. The recently passed Dignity for Wounded Warriors Act entitles veterans to up to five years of free health care for military-related medical conditions. Other legislative victories include improvements to VA facilities, increased mental health care research and a boost for the claims processing system, which has been vastly understaffed and overburdened throughout the "war on terror."

However, many barriers to adequate care and compensation remain, particularly for veterans filing for disability benefits. Delays and denials of those claims are routine. Among vets with PTSD, 59 percent have not been approved for benefits, meaning that their claims are pending or rejected - or that, due to any number of deterrents, they have not filed a claim.

According to Paul Sullivan, executive director of VCS, the average wait-time for veterans to receive an answer after filing for disability compensation is more than six months. A recent VCS lawsuit against VA showed that PTSD patients face even longer delays.
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Orlando area veterans are about to get more support

by
Chaplian Kathie
I recently took a job with Veterans Outreach/
It's no secret how I feel about veterans, especially the wounded and in need of care from the VA. I am very careful about putting my limited time into any group but I have to say I'm totally excited about brining Veterans Outreach into the Orlando area. The site has not been chosen yet, but we're looking at opening an office by April.

Go to the web site and take a look at what Veterans Outreach has to offer the veterans as well as the people working for them. I will be in need of putting together a dedicated team to get the office fulfilling the needs of the veterans as I put my total focus on veterans and their families living with PTSD.

The need right here in the Orlando area is dire. As the VA builds the Lake Nona VA hospital, we only have the clinic, which is the size of a hospital, but as you've read in the past, they are overwhelmed. My last visit there, security was directing traffic because they had over 3,000 cars. This was a first since we moved into the area over 4 years ago. We have over 400,000 veterans in Florida and their numbers are growing as the troops along with the National Guard return from deployment to Iraq and Afghanistan. The numbers will also grow because of the fact outreach work on PTSD has begun to penetrate into the Vietnam veterans minds. They are finally becoming aware of exactly "what's wrong" with them by having a name attached to it. PTSD is not new to them, only the term is. They've been living with it since the 70's.

With the backlog of VA Claims, along with the backlog of appeals to be processed, there is a veteran in need. Most of the time there is also a family in need as well. That's what Veterans Outreach is going to be there for.

So far we've received support from the Orlando area Nam Knights. They are having a dedication ceremony for the memorial they built at the site of their club house on February 28th. I'll be there to spread the word about Veterans Outreach along with seeking donations to open the office.

Nam Knights Orlando
Feb 28- Bike Week party and Memorial dedication for the "Nam Knights Eternal Chapter" Everthing starts at 2:00 pm at our club house (official function)
Click here for (flyer)

If you live in the Orlando area or are coming in for bike week, it would be great to see you there. Go to the site for directions and for more about this event.

Please go to the Veterans Outreach site to find out more about what we will do for the Orlando area veterans and think about giving your financial support as well as prayers. There is another office in Bonita Springs. I was in Arcadia to meet some other members of the team there. We had a couple of tables outside of Wal-Mart. Most of the people were generous and donated but one woman really stands out in my mind. She said she didn't have money to donate. She seemed embarrassed by this. I put my arm around her and said, "That's ok because you can do something even better. Say a prayer." Relief came on her face, she smiled, said she could do that, and then walked away. A few minutes later, she pulled up in her car and handed me a dollar. She said that she would say a prayer as well. That reminded me of the story Christ told of the woman with two cents. She didn't have a lot of money, but she gave what she had. That one dollar that kind woman gave out of the goodness of her heart meant more to me than someone clearly with enough money to afford to be generous.

Most of the time the people who are the most generous are also in need themselves or have been in need at one time or another in their lives. It's not the big donations that make a difference but the little ones because those donating have taken it into their hearts. (Naturally I won't turn down large donations from companies in the area because I know they care about our veterans.)

Come back for more details on how this is going and when the office will be opened. Please also say a prayer for us that we receive the funds needed as soon as possible so that we can open as soon as possible. If you have any questions, you can contact John Ely, the President of Veterans Outreach for more information. I'm not giving his email because I want you to go to the site first.

Suicides up again last year according to the Army

Do you really need more to know what the Army/DOD is doing has not worked and will not work? Suicides keep going up. If their programs worked they would be going down instead of up. While they cannot prevent PTSD, they can, should and must prevent them from committing suicide. BattleMind has done more harm than good and they need to stop using it. It's not better than nothing. There is no excuse for not taking action on this. The Army can figure out how to kill. It's about time they figured out how to save lives as well.

Officials: Army suicides at 3-decade high
The Associated Press
By PAULINE JELINEK – 1 hour ago

WASHINGTON (AP) — Defense officials say suicide among U.S. soldiers increased again last year and is at a nearly three-decade high.

The Army plans to announce figures later Thursday, but senior officials told The Associated Press that at least 128 soldiers killed themselves last year.click link for more

Unseen wounds:Woman says PTSD led to husband's arrest

I just published this post without any comment from me, but just as I closed the post, I changed my mind. The fact this wife is crying out for help for her husband was just too much. It's the same cry I had 26 years ago and wives before me had. Why are we still crying for help for the men and women we trust the government with? We trust their lives and their futures, in a sense our own futures, expecting nothing in return but the government lives up to their obligation if they end up wounded. Is that too much to ask? Apparently it is when after all these years of researching PTSD they still have yet to come up with appropriate care for those wounded by it.

Unseen Wounds: Local woman says PTSD led to husband’s arrest
KGET 17 - Bakersfield,CA,USA

A Bakersfield woman says post-traumatic stress disorder led to her husband being arrested. After serving his country for 17 years as a U.S. Marine, Lisa Beville says her husband was diagnosed with P.T.S.D. two years ago, and over the weekend, he snapped.

Beville says her husband is joining hundreds of other veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder that end up behind bars or homeless. The Bakersfield woman is crying out for help, not to get her husband out of jail, but to get him the treatment he needs.

“He literally gave his mind and body for his country and I think it's time for his country to step in and take care of him,” Beville tearfully said.

Beville says numerous medals and 16 confirmed kills later, Walthall Beville was diagnosed with P.T.S.D. and forced to medically retire two years ago.

“He doesn't remember anything except shooting and the next memory he has is the C.O. saying, ‘Ok, you need to stop. You need to stop,’” Beville said of the incident that led to her husband medically retiring from the Marines.

Since then the Bakersfield woman says her husband has suffered from severe depression and nightmares. But it wasn't until early Saturday morning that she says she saw a completely different side of him. Police say Walthall Beville was drinking with friends when a fight broke out and he beat three people.
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200,000 Desert Storm vetearns disabled, plus their kids

Suffer the children of Desert Storm veterans
The Dallas Morning News on Sunday had a compelling story about an American "child of Desert Storm," a local star athlete who excels despite a partial limb that begs a question:

Now that the federal government finally has recognized Gulf War Illness as real, does that mean the collateral damage suffered by the children of that war's veterans will be similarly recognized?

The Dallas paper's story is about Dominique Dorsey, an inspiring 17-year-old star basketball player who is also the child of a 1991 Gulf War veteran. It is a reminder of the innocent and continuing casualties of war, not only in war zones, but brought home from them.

Nearly 150 American combat deaths and another nearly 450 combat wounded were suffered in the 1991 Persian Gulf War, which ended after a 100-hour ground campaign into Iraq in late February 1991.

Despite that relatively low-cost blitzkrieg led by the United States at the time, in the ensuing years nearly 30 percent of the 700,000 American men and women in uniform who served in that war have suffered disproportionately, and died, from an array of symptoms that were not officially recognized by the federal government for nearly 18-years.

Nearly 200,000 are considered severely disabled.
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Distraught Father Kills Wife, 5 Kids, Self

Distraught Father Kills Wife, 5 Kids, Self
By THOMAS WATKINS, AP

LOS ANGELES (Jan. 28) - In one upstairs bedroom, the bodies of twin 2-year-old boys were found beside their dead mother. In another bedroom, 5-year-old twin girls and their 8-year-old sister lay next to their lifeless father.

Officers discovered the horrific scene after rushing to a home in Wilmington, prompted by the father's distraught letter faxed to a TV station describing a "tragic story" and a call to authorities.

Police believe Ervin Lupoe, 40, killed his five children and his wife before turning the gun on himself. Both adults were recently fired from their hospital jobs.

"Why leave our children in someone else's hands?" Lupoe wrote in his letter faxed to KABC-TV. The station posted the letter on its Web site with some parts redacted.

The station called police after receiving the fax, and a police dispatch center also received a phone call from a man who stated, "I just returned home and my whole family's been shot." Police are unsure who the male caller was, but they suspect it was the father.

Officers rushed to the home in Wilmington, a small community between the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, about 8:30 a.m. Tuesday and found the bodies.

All the victims were shot in the head, some multiple times, coroner's Assistant Chief Ed Winter said. The killings may have occurred between Monday evening and early Tuesday, based on neighbors' accounts of firecracker sounds, he said.

Although the fax — addressed to "whom it may concern" and explaining "why we are dead" — asserted that the wife, Ana Lupoe, planned the killings of the whole family, police Lt. John Romero said Ervin Lupoe was the suspect. A revolver was found next to his body.
click link for more and please pray for the family and friends left behind to cope with this.

War? What War?

Carissa is a dear friend and tenacious fighter for the troops. I wholeheartedly agree with what she wrote. I run into this attitude all the time. Carissa sees the lives of the families on base. I see them in everyday life. No one really seems to care what's going on when they have their own problems. At least that's what I want to excuse it as. It's very difficult to contemplate the American people are so self-absorbed with their own lives they don't care there are two military operations claiming lives of our men and women on a daily basis. It's even more difficult to get it through my own brain they don't care about them coming back to a backlog of claims, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and Traumatic Brain injury, no money when they can't work and faced with having to prove they were wounded. If I ever accepted this appalling fact, my faith in human nature would erode to the point of no return.

When people ask me what I do, they reveal how little they have paid attention. They have a puzzled expression as I explain what my days are like. When I tell them that financially I'm suffering on top of it they are stunned. They cannot understand that most of the people in this country are doing without for the sake of the troops and the veterans. I'm only one of them.

Carissa is another one. With two small children and a husband deployed, she has been doing this work instead of making money as a lawyer. Think of the kind of money she could be making instead of spending countless hours working for free. Why does she do it? Because it is important to her to make sure she changes what's wrong so that we finally get this right. She set aside her own personal needs for the sake of the greater good and finds the American people taking their cues from the media ignoring what is happening in Iraq and Afghanistan. Her husband's life is on the line and so are the lives or a lot of her friends.

Read what she has to say and then ask yourself how you could possibly ignore any of this.

War? What War?
Posted on January 27th, 2009
by Carissa Picard in Iraq War, New York News, North American News, Op-ed, US Government News, US News
I am beginning to wonder if the American public thinks former President Bush went ahead and brought home all 140,000 troops from Iraq as an inaugural gift for President Obama (you know, so Obama wouldn't have to trouble himself with it) or if they simply forgot we were still there. Then again, considering the precipitous drop in media coverage of the war in Iraq (the war in Afghanistan was always under-covered in my opinion), who knows what most Americans think is going on in Iraq now.

For example, according to a study by the Project for Excellence in Journalism, Iraq composed 23 percent of network news stories in the first 10 weeks of 2007 but only three percent during that same period in 2008. For cable networks, it dropped from 24 percent to one percent.

Conventional wisdom is that the American public has "lost interest" in the war. I find this troubling. If media coverage is the measure of American interest, we were never particularly interested in the war in Afghanistan and that was the source of the terrorist attacks that led to where we are today.

This lack of coverage—excuse me, "interest"–to date has reached a new low. On 26 January, there was a mid-air collision between two Kiowa helicopters outside of Kirkuk, Iraq, at approximately 2:15 AM. The collision resulted in the death of all four pilots—one of whom was the husband of a friend of mine. My friend and her husband were happily married for many years and had several children together. At 7 AM the following day, my friend was informed that the man she had spent nearly half of her life loving was dead. At 7 AM, she went from being an Army wife to an Army widow; as did, potentially, three other spouses when those helicopters hit one another.

Meanwhile, aviation spouses around the country came together to support her, clicking closing ranks around her. Many are making plans to go visit her, coming from all parts of the country to where she is. Collectively, our hearts are breaking—not only for her loss, but for the losses sustained by all four families. The day after we learned of the collision, most of us remained somber, unable to shake the sadness of losing so many of our own in one night. This collision, like all crashes, was an unasked for and costly reminder of the dangers our loved ones face, and of the emotional Russian roulette we unwittingly play every time we know our soldier is going to fly: it was her husband today, it could be mine tomorrow.

Although this was the deadliest "incident" in Iraq for U.S. soldiers in four months and resulted in the loss of multi-million dollar airframes and soldiers whom the military had invested millions of dollars to recruit, promote, train, retain, and deploy, it did not grace the front page of any major news site after two PM CST Monday. This life changing event for these four families was relegated to the Iraq war page on CNN's, MSNBC's, and yes, even FOX News' websites. After looking for coverage of this collision, I went back and looked to see if any of these three sites had a single story on their main pages about the war in Iraq OR Afghanistan at all. None did. It was infuriating.

Words get used like "war fatigue" to describe the American public and its waning interest. Americans are tired of hearing about war so if the media covers it (or so the logic goes), viewers or readers will tune out and/or go elsewhere for their news. Evidently, men and women dying overseas while carrying out our government's foreign policy just got old.

War fatigue is a luxury not afforded the military community. Those four pilots volunteered to serve this country and their families supported this service. When we choose to love and support our servicemembers, we forego the ability to experience "war fatigue." Quite the opposite, we unwittingly facilitate this luxury for others by keeping the specter of a draft at bay as these wars grind on. In fact, I find it more than a little ironic that voluntary service, which protects Americans from having to face being sent to war involuntarily, seems to be appreciated less by our nation, as opposed to more. Instead, it leads to apathy and "war fatigue." I wonder if those who don't feel like thinking about these wars realize why they are able to do so?

On behalf of every deployed servicemember as I write this—and on behalf of the families who love and support them—I would like to say to the American public, "your welcome."

Carissa Picard is a freelance writer whose husband is a pilot currently serving in Iraq. -- Carissa Picard, Esq.
President Military Spouses of America

I watched the story on CNN of a family selling everything they have on eBay because their kids have health problems. A very admirable thing to do. What ended up happening is that people don't want to buy their possessions. They want to donate instead. So far they've raised $10,000 of the money they need to cover the health care needs of their kids. This proves the American pubic are generous. The need was known and money came in. I'm sure after the story was on CNN, even more donations will flow into them.

In November CNN covered the story of Brenden Foster, an 11 year old boy with Leukemia offering his dying wish for the homeless. KOMO covered the story and then CNN picked up on it. The donations flooded in from around the world soon after.

11 year old Brenden Foster's dying wish, feed the homeless

I have to think that it's not that the American people are so self-centered they fail to step up and help when I've read countless stories like these. The media will say that the people have lost interest in Iraq and Afghanistan but I believe it's the other way around. They made a financial decision and the troops have paid for it with the lack of attention they've been getting. To think of what we could be doing for the troops and the veterans of this nation if the need were known and understood by the American people instead of a tiny percentage of us. Two thirds of the American people do not even know what PTSD is but there are millions of people wounded by it. Ask someone how many died in Iraq or Afghanistan and they don't have a clue.

When the media paid attention and reported on what was going on, there were people in this country slamming them for focusing on the negative without thinking that at least they were reporting on it and connecting the people of this nation with the troops. Now there is nothing being reported and the same people that complained have gone off on their merry way ignoring all of it.

When the protestors focused on Iraq, they ignored Afghanistan. Now there is a new President and a foreseeable conclusion to the occupations of Iraq while the same people who took to the streets protesting it are back to their own lives and not paying attention any longer. Do they feel they've done their job and it's over? No longer claiming lives? The death count in Afghanistan has gone up every year. Do they even know this? Do they think that supporting the troops, as they all claimed they did, ended when they felt as if they won something?

I've complained in the past about the disconnect between the people willing to protest and counter protest across this nation being oblivious to what they could really do to help the men and women serving this nation. I think what Carissa wrote nailed it. When it comes to really supporting the troops they have really been ignored instead.

Fort Campbell soldier dies on I-24

Fort Campbell soldier dies on I-24
By JIM BELLIS • Gannett Tennessee • January 27, 2009
A single vehicle crash on Interstate 24 at the Highway 49 interchange left the lone occupant dead as a result of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head.

Coopertown Police, Tennessee State Highway Patrol, and Pleasant View Fire personnel responded to the incident just after 6 p.m., Monday. A TBI investigator was called to the scene when the cause of death appeared to be non-vehicle related.

The subsequent investigation revealed that a 21-year-old Fort Campbell soldier apparently administered a self-inflicted gunshot wound to his head while traveling towards Nashville on the interstate.
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