Life already ruined, lying First Coast vet gets light sentence

In all honesty, I want to feel sorry for this man because I'm sure he helped a lot of people, but I can't. I really want to understand why he did this and ended up hurting the very people he was claiming he cared about. How can any of them do this?

I've met award recipients and most downplay the medals they earned. I've met heroes that never received a medal but the service they give to others is outstanding. One is not a prerequisite for the other. So why fabricate a story they know is false and sooner or later will be proven false? Did they think about the people that trusted them? Did they think about what something like this would do to them? No one wants to be made a fool out of but to be made to feel foolish for believing in someone you trusted for years leaves a bitterness beyond belief behind.

Life already ruined, lying First Coast vet gets light sentence
Florida Times-Union - Jacksonville,FL,USA
By Timothy J. Gibbons Story updated at 6:24 PM on Wednesday, May. 27, 2009

In the past five months, Charles T. White has lost most of his friends.

After pleading guilty to lying about being a prisoner of war in Vietnam and earning a Purple Heart, the veteran was kicked out of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, an organization he’d been part of for 40 years, holding offices and serving on the honor guard.

U.S. Magistrate Monte Richardson decided Wednesday that punishing the St. Augustine man more would be egregious. Instead he sentenced White to one year of probation, waiving mandatory drug tests and fines.

He faced up to two years in prison and a $200,000 fine for violating the Stolen Valor Act, which makes it a crime to claim unearned medals.

Last year White served as a VFW honor guard and was keynote speaker at a prisoner of war recognition event at Jacksonville Naval Air Station. During both he claimed to have been a POW and earned the Purple Heart.

White also falsely claimed to have served on the USS Miller, to have been head corpsman on the USS Dealey and to have worked at Cuba Naval Hospital during the Cuban missile crisis.

The sentence he received Wednesday was just, White said during a brief conversation after the hearing.
“I made a mistake in life,” he said. “I paid for my mistake.” click link for the rest

Brig. Gen. Stephen J. Townsend issues orders to stay alive

You may think this sounds dumb right now, but therapists have been having patients sign contracts stating they will not commit suicide for years.

May 27th, 2009
Commander ‘orders’ soldiers against suicide
Posted: 08:36 PM ET
FORT CAMPBELL, Kentucky (CNN) — The 101st Airborne’s senior commander in-effect ordered his soldiers Wednesday not to commit suicide, a plea that came after 11 suicides since Jan. 1, two of them in the past week.

“If you don’t remember anything else I say in the next five or 10 minutes, remember this — suicidal behavior in the 101st on Fort Campbell is bad,” Brig. Gen. Stephen J. Townsend told his forces. “It’s bad for soldiers, it’s bad for families, bad for your units, bad for this division and our army and our country and it’s got to stop now. Suicides on Fort Campbell have to stop now!”

Fort Campbell’s suicide rate, the highest in the Army, “is not a good statistic,” he said in remarks to one of four divisions he addressed during the day.

After nearly one soldier per week committed suicide at the base between January and mid-March, the Army instituted a suicide prevention program that “seemed to be having good effects” until last week, when two more suicides occurred, he said.

“Suicide is a permanent solution to what is only a temporary problem,” Townsend said. “Screaming Eagles don’t quit. No matter how bad your problem seems today, trust me, it’s not the end of the world. It will be better tomorrow. Don’t take away your tomorrow.”
http://cnnwire.blogs.cnn.com/

For Memorial Day, Buffalo police honor Vietnam vets

For Memorial Day, Buffalo police honor Vietnam vets
By Gene Warner
News Staff Reporter

Those who served both their country and their community — first in Vietnam, later on the streets of Buffalo — finally received some recognition today with the unveiling of a plaque listing 66 Buffalo police officers who also served in Vietnam.

"It's much too little and much too late, but please accept this as a [token] of our gratitude," Buffalo Police Commissioner H. McCarthy Gipson told more than 100 people at a Memorial Day ceremony in police headquarters.

Two high-ranking Buffalo police officers who never stepped foot in Vietnam, Lt. Kenneth Bienko and Detective James A. Lema, spearheaded the four-year effort to remember other police officers who served.

"It's long overdue for these guys," Lema said after the 10-minute ceremony. "They put their lives on the line twice, once for our country and once for our city. This is just a small way of saying thank you."

Bienko, a Gulf War veteran, served 22 years in the Navy, Coast Guard and Army. Both the military and the Buffalo Police Department have been a huge part of his life.
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http://www.buffalonews.com/home/story/682357.html

National Guardsman Struggles to Find a Job

The Penalty for Serving: After Iraq, a National Guardsman Struggles to Find a Job

This article is adapted from Christian Davenport's book, "As You Were: To War and Back With the Black Hawk Battalion of the Virginia National Guard," which is being published June 1 by John Wiley & Sons Inc. (Courtesy John Wiley & Sons Inc.)

Craig Lewis, now a captain in the Army National Guard, found job prospects grim when he returned from Iraq. (Hector Emanuel)

Craig Lewis and Christian Davenport
Captain, Army National Guard; Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, May 26, 2009; 12:00 PM

Craig Lewis is a helicopter pilot with combat experience and a college degree. So why didn't anyone seem interested in hiring him after he returned from Iraq?


Craig Lewis, a captain in the Army National Guard, was online Tuesday, May 26 to discuss his efforts to find a job and return to life at home after serving in Iraq. Joining him was Christian Davenport, a Washington Post staff writer who covers military affairs and chronicles Lewis's story in his new book, "As You Were: To War and Back With the Black Hawk Battalion of the Virginia National Guard."
Christian Davenport: Greetings,

Welcome to the chat. Craig and I are eager to get to your questions about the piece. But I wanted to first give a little background about how I came to write about Craig and some of his fellow soldiers returning to civilian life after Iraq. I embedded with their unit, the Virginia Army National Guard's 2nd Battalion, 224th Aviation Regiment, for a couple of weeks at the beginning of 2007, then flew home with them and spent the next year following their reintegration. I wanted to tell this story because the National Guard has played such an important role in this war, and yet has been, I think, overlooked.

Unlike the active duty, which returns home to big bases and are surrounded by fellow service members, the citizen-soldiers of the Guard come almost immediately back to civilian life, where they're expected to pick up where they left off. And as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan continue, they face multiple tours and repeat the jarring process of leaving families and civilian jobs again and again. Then there are the domestic emergencies they respond to, such as Hurricane Katrina.

Craig's story obviously focuses on what can happen to reservists' civilian careers, and let's be clear: soldiers aren't the only ones who sacrifice. The deployments create quite a hardship on employers as well, who often have to scramble to fill vacancies on short notice. But there are often other issues that come up, some of which I explored in the book. For example, one of the soldiers I followed was asked, eight days after he got home, if he would return to Iraq with another unit in a few months -- a decision that weighed heavily on him. Another was a Vietnam veteran, who deployed to Iraq at age 58, a time when his wife thought they should be thinking about retirement, not war. Another was a medic who struggled to get treatment for her post traumatic stress disorder.
go here for more
The Penalty for Serving

Quilt of Tears recalls Agent Orange victims

Quilt of Tears recalls Agent Orange victims

By Audrey Stanton
Register-Herald Features Editor

By Audrey Stanton

REGISTER-HERALD features editor

RAINELLE — Living veterans aren’t the only ones honored in Rainelle this weekend.

Under a large white tent in the town’s industrial park, “The Quilt of Tears” exhibit features a collection of 26 quilts honoring victims of a deadly herbicide used primarily during the Vietnam War.

“It’s an emotional sight for many of the veterans who see it,” said Henry Snyder, a veteran who is suffering for the ill effects of Agent Orange. He and his wife Shelia travel with the exhibit, sharing its message anywhere they can. The Florida couple took over the cause after the widow who started it could no longer do so.

They say hundreds of thousands of Vietnam veterans have suffered and died from the effects of Agent Orange. Yet an accurate figure is anyone’s guess because most cases aren’t traced. They place it around 500,000. Most death certificates list the cause of death as cancer unless a widow states otherwise, the Snyders say.
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Quilt of Tears recalls Agent Orange victims

Email from Sheila and Henry


Dear Friends,

Henry & I just got home yesterday from our trip to Rainelle, W. Va. where we displayed The Quilt Of Tears during the L.Z. Rainelle Veterans Reunion 2009 (http://www.lzrainelle.com/). It was a very nice town & event which began with a biker group Task Force Omega from Kentucky (http://www.greasyonline.com/events/tfo_rainelle.pdf) traveling & stopping in Rainelle on their way to The Wall in DC. Part of "Run For The Wall".

The color scheme used for the L.Z. Rainelle Veterans Reunion this year was orange & black. I've included a beautiful wreath that was given to us & was displayed with The Quilt of Tears during the event.

Rainelle is a pretty small West Virginia town but during the five day Quilt display we had the special opportunity to meet many Veterans & families that are affected by illnesses that AO has caused.

The school children from Rainelle Elementary also visited us during that time which is always a pretty special experience & one that we enjoy.

I believe that we helped many of those people with information along with education about AO & the Quilt Of Tears project. We were honored to have been in Rainelle.

Rev. John Steer (***see note below) joined everyone in Rainelle & performed Sunday morning services, which is an honor but one that Henry & I missed.

I do think he would have understood & forgiven us though... A local elderly WW2 Veteran come to see what The Quilts were all about & led to quite a long, very enjoyable visit. He talked of Rainelle, where he spent all of his life with the exception of his service in WW2. (I just love talking & listening to folks like that :o) He had such a proud, knowledgeable soft spoken way about him that blended sense of humor as most of the older Vets do. He left us for a little bit then returned with an old painting of the local area years before, explaining how it used to be. It was indeed a joy to listen to him & tears came to his eyes as he said " You know there is people today that say the Holocaust never happened" I hugged him wiping my own tears & knew that I was exactly where I should have been for Sunday services.

Unfortunately, Henry & I were unable to take extra time off from our jobs this year to travel on to DC to display The Quilts near The Wall on Memorial Day but perhaps next year we will have the time to display both places.