Two soldiers shot at recruiting office in Little Rock

Soldier killed in recruiting office shooting

By Noah Trister - The Associated Press
Posted : Monday Jun 1, 2009 15:53:42 EDT

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — A new soldier helping to attract others to the military was shot and killed outside an Army recruiting office Monday and a second soldier was wounded. Police arrested a suspect a short time later.

A man inside a black vehicle pulled up outside the Army-Navy recruiting office in west Little Rock and opened fire about 10:30 a.m., police spokesman Lt. Terry Hastings said.

The soldiers were outside the office when they were shot. They were taken to a hospital, where one died.

Lt. Col. Thomas F. Artis of the Oklahoma City Recruiting Battalion, which oversees the Little Rock office, said the victims had just completed basic training and were not regular recruiters. He said they were serving two weeks in the Little Rock office.

go here for more

http://www.armytimes.com/news/2009/06/ap_recruiter_shootings_060109/

UPDATE
Police: Shooting suspect targeted military

By Noah Trister - The Associated Press
Posted : Monday Jun 1, 2009 20:33:40 EDT

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — Police say a man with “political and religious motives” confessed to fatally shooting a new soldier and wounding another Monday in an attack on a military recruiting center.

The shootings were not believed to be part of a broader scheme.

William Long, 23, of Conway died in the attack on the Army-Navy Career Center in a west Little Rock shopping center, and Quinton Ezeagwula, 18, of Jacksonville was wounded and is stable, Police Chief Stuart Thomas said.

Police arrested Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad, 23 of Little Rock along a crosstown interstate moments later. Thomas said Muhammad, previously known as Carlos Bledsoe, would be charged with capital murder, plus 16 counts of committing a terroristic act.
click same link for the update

Cheney Says There Was No Iraq Link to 9/11 Terrorist Attacks

This comes as no shocker for the people paying attention to all of this all along, but what it does is prove there was no legitimate need to rush to invade Iraq. We already had the military campaign in Afghanistan going on and US-Coalition lives on the line. Bush and Cheney pulled troops out of Afghanistan to send them into Iraq needlessly. Years ago, NATO generals were screaming for help in Afghanistan as the Taliban began to regain territory. Aside from putting the lives of the troops on the line in Iraq, they further endangered the lives in Afghanistan.

Today we see the results of this farce from the Bush Administration. Today I posted how the claims backlogged in the VA system are over 900,000. We see a nation full of veterans coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan needing help to heal their wounds at the same time their claims are tied up and they are not receiving income between the time they are discharged and the time the VA finally gets around to approving their claims for treatment and compensation. While it's great the time they are provided with free care has been extended, this does little to help them and their families pay their bills. This is one of the glaring, screaming facts about what Bush and Cheney did to the troops.

After the troops were sent into Afghanistan, there were less doctors and nurses working for the VA than there were following the Gulf War. They did not increase the budget or staffing. As a matter of fact, they cut the budget. Next came the push to invade Iraq. Cheney, having been Secretary of Defense during the Gulf War, had forgotten that when he was explaining the need to withdraw the troops from Iraq was so that they would not be "stuck in a quagmire" if they had taken control over Iraq. In other words, he knew full well what he was sending the troops into this time along with the fact there would be many, many wounded veterans needing care.

This is the most appalling aspect of the Bush Administration. It was not just the loss of lives paying the price for what they wanted to do, the Iraqi lives and the lives of the Coalition forces, but the lives of the veterans wounded in service to this nation under their orders. Bush and Cheney forgot that part of being "a war president" was their responsibility to the men and women serving under their command. They always seemed to mention the obligation of the troops but never quite seemed to understand their own obligation to the troops.

This report is just one more reminder of how callous Cheney was with the lives he had no problem sending into Iraq or the ones he had no problem abandoning in Afghanistan.

Cheney Says There Was No Iraq Link to 9/11 Terrorist Attacks

By James Rowley

June 1 (Bloomberg) -- Former Vice President Dick Cheney disavowed intelligence he once cited to suggest that then-Iraq dictator Saddam Hussein collaborated with al-Qaeda to stage the Sept. 11 attacks.

Cheney said reporting by the Central Intelligence Agency of collaboration between Iraq and al-Qaeda on Sept. 11 “turned out not to be true.” Still the vice president said there had been a longstanding relationship between Hussein and terrorist groups, including al-Qaeda, that justified the U.S. invasion in 2003.

“I thought it was strong at the time and I still feel so today,” Cheney said at a National Press Club lunch today in Washington. “There was a relationship between al-Qaeda and Iraq that stretched back 10 years. That’s not something I made up,” Cheney said, citing 2002 Senate testimony by George Tenet, then the CIA director. “We know for a fact that Saddam Hussein was a state sponsor of terrorism.”

On whether Hussein helped al-Qaeda carry out the 2001 terrorist attacks, Cheney said,

“I do not believe, and I have never seen any evidence, that he was involved in 9/11.”

Several months after the Sept. 11 attacks, Cheney said it was “pretty well” confirmed that Mohamed Atta, one of the leaders of the attack, had met with a senior Iraqi intelligence official in Prague in April 2000, according to a Washington Post account. Cheney later said the meeting’s existence couldn’t be proven, the Post said.
go here for more
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=a3vvPsCY8pYA&refer=us

Family-to-Family Partners with Veterans Health Administration

Family-to-Family Partners with Veterans Health Administration
The launch a year ago of an initiative between NAMI and the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) to host a Family-to-Family class in designated VHA facilities in each of the 49 Family-to-Family program states has already yielded impressive results: Since the initiative’s inception, more than half of the program states have started classes.

NAMI affiliate representatives and designated Family-to-Family teachers have participated in numerous VHA staff meetings and sponsored events to introduce the Family-to-Family program model to VHA personnel. With the aid of presentations, a designated point person helps to promote the initiative within the VHA facility.

Reaching veterans’ families with information about Family-to-Family is a challenge at many of the project sites. At sites where outreach has been successful, using “family day” events, distributing Family-to-Family brochures in packets and sending program information for display in waiting room areas are just a few strategies that have sparked interest and increased attendance.

The project is nearing its goal of having a designated site serve as a model for other VHA facilities to implement Family-to-Family classes, and exciting news is coming from Family-to-Family program states about nondesignated VHA facilities interested in starting Family-to-Family classes, as well. Many designated VHA sites are requesting more information about NAMI consumer programs (IOOV, Peer-to-Peer and NAMI Connection), and NAMI hopes to offer these additional programs at the sites along with the Family-to-Family classes.

Family-to-Family graduates familiar with military culture (either as veterans or dependents) are asked to help with this project. There are hundreds of untapped families of veterans with serious mental illnesses who will benefit from finding NAMI. They will learn they are not alone. We hope this exciting NAMI/VHA partnership will offer continuing opportunities for veterans’ families to get the help and support that they need.


**Upcoming New Class**

Family-to-Family is a FREE 12-week peer education program designed to foster learning, healing, and empowerment among families of individuals with mental illness.

Beginning June 11, 2009 - SW Orlando

Program helps police, firefighters cope with trauma

"Imagine just lying in bed and you can smell the crime scene 10 years later. Or look in the mirror and see a dead person who isn't there. These are symptoms people really have."

Healing the badge: Program helps police, firefighters cope with trauma
By John Simerman
Contra Costa Times
Posted: 05/31/2009 02:18:35 PM PDT
He smiles now, with earnest, gleaming eyes, but Joseph Banuelos easily recalls standing in his yard two years ago, shooting rounds into the grass and thrusting a gun in his mouth.

A state drug agent who had worked in West Contra Costa, buying undercover on the same Richmond streets where he grew up, Banuelos was arrested twice over a weekend for driving drunk, he said. A year earlier, he had blown a 0.26 on a breathalyzer — more than three times the legal limit.

He had screwed up at work and his days as a law enforcement official would soon end. Worse, the images of past calls haunted him:

Turning a corner and seeing a 16-year-old boy who had shot himself in the head "looking at me, and as God is my witness I thought I heard him say, 'Mom, please help.'"‰"

The bullet that hit a 12-year-old, with Banuelos unable to move as rifle shots flew and the father pleaded for help as the boy bled out in his arms.

That triple murder-suicide in Novato.
go here for more
http://www.mercurynews.com/crime/ci_12490591?nclick_check=1

Cpl. Chad Oligschlaeger's death still under investigation a year later?

How long will the military be allowed to leave this family suffering, wondering and in pain over the death of their son?

A year after corporal's death, family still awaits answers
North Austin family mourns death of Marine who suffered from PTSD.
By Joshunda Sanders

AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF


Monday, June 01, 2009

A year after Cpl. Chad Oligschlaeger, 21, was found dead in his room at the Twentynine Palms Marine base in California on May 20, 2008, his family is still searching for answers from officials about how his life might have been saved.

Friends and relatives of the Marine commemorated Memorial Day without him or any details of how he died because Oligschlaeger's autopsy results and the events leading up to his death are still under investigation, his father said. His parents have said that they think his death may have been related to post-traumatic stress disorder, with which he had been diagnosed.

"We've tried a couple of times to get his personal effects," said Eric Oligschlaeger, who lives in North Austin with his wife. "But here we are a year later, and the Marines won't release anything until the investigation is completely finalized. To say it's frustrating would be an understatement."

Capt. Lawton King, a Marine Corps spokesman, confirmed that no information about Chad Oligschlaeger's death is being released because of the ongoing investigation.

Friends and relatives of Oligschlaeger's have started a foundation named for him to raise awareness about post-traumatic stress disorder.

Last month, Eric Oligschlaeger and some of Chad's friends gathered at Rattan Creek Park in North Austin near a bench that honors the Marine. A plaque on the bench reads, "If love could have saved you, you would have lived forever."

Chad Oligschlaeger had returned from Iraq in early 2006, unsettled by flashbacks and nightmares. His family said he was taking medication for PTSD after his diagnosis.
go here for more
http://www.statesman.com/news/content/news/stories/local/06/01/0601chado.html