WWII veteran's Tampa panhandling stirs offers of help

WWII veteran's Tampa panhandling stirs offers of help

By Jessica Vander Velde, Times Staff Writer
In Print: Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Anthony Jacondino, 84, a World War II veteran, turned to panhandling along Tampa streets to help pay the bills after his wife suffered a stroke and couldn’t work.

[STEPHEN J. CODDINGTON | Times]

TAMPA — Monday started with a call from Veterans Affairs for a World War II veteran who had turned to panhandling to pay his bills.

Anthony Jacondino said the VA wants to see if he might qualify for a disability pension. His appointment: 10 a.m. Friday.

For the first time in months, he feels hopeful.

Jacondino, 84, was the subject of a story in Saturday's St. Petersburg Times, after he caught the attention of motorists at Dale Mabry Highway and Columbus Drive.

He served in the Philippines before leaving the Army in 1947 and then worked most of his life as an apartment maintenance man. His first wife died years ago, and in April, his second wife suffered a stroke.

They had been living on his $980 Social Security check and her income cleaning rooms at a local nursing home. With her unable to work at 62, they fell about $400 behind on their bills each month.

So Jacondino bought an orange vest and penned a message on cardboard: World War II vet in need of help.
read more here
WWII veteran's Tampa panhandling stirs offers of help

Spec. 4 Robert Towles, who fought in the Vietnam War nominated for Medal Of Honor

4 soldiers from past wars nominated for MoH
By Michael Hoffman - Staff writer
Posted : Monday Jan 10, 2011 5:46:25 EST
Ancestors of 1st Lt. Alonzo Cushing found the Civil War soldier’s name in the 2011 defense authorization bill along with such futuristic initiatives as the Joint Strike Fighter.

Cushing’s name appears 147 years after he died on the third day of the Battle of Gettysburg.

He and three other soldiers from past wars had their names added to the legislation, qualifying them to receive the Medal of Honor, the nation’s highest award for military valor.

Cushing is joined by Pvt. John Sipe, who also fought in the Civil War; Chaplain (Capt.) Emil Kapaun, a prisoner of war in Korea; and Spec. 4 Robert Towles, who fought in the Vietnam War.

Each military service has a time limit to submit troops for the Medal of Honor. The Army and Air Force set the deadline at two years after the action for which they are nominated, while the Navy and Marine Corps lengthen the deadline to three.

Once past the limits, Congress must approve an extension. Each year, lawmakers submit the names of service members for inclusion in the annual defense policy bill rather than as individual pieces of legislation, in hopes of winning easier approval.
read more here
4 soldiers from past wars nominated for MoH

Also on this

A Lawmaker’s MoH Push for WWII Icon

January 11, 2011
Military.com|by Bryant Jordan
A Texas congresswoman says she will soon file legislation to waive the statute of limitations on awarding the Medal of Honor in an effort to bestow the country's supreme valor award to one of the iconic figures of World War II.

It will not be the first time Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson has filed her bill on behalf of Doris "Dorie" Miller. Miller was the African-American mess attendant who took control of the machine gun on deck of the USS West Virginia on Dec. 7, 1941, at Pearl Harbor; for some 15 minutes, he was fully exposed to the guns and bombs of attacking Japanese aircraft as he returned fire.

He was awarded the Navy Cross, but as early as 1942 lawmakers -- sensing racism played a part in the decision -- have pushed for the Medal of Honor.

Johnson believes Miller deserves the award, and she champions him as both a hometown hero and a national one.

"Doris Miller was a friend of my father's and a neighbor in Waco, Texas, when I was a little girl," said Johnson, who was 6 when Miller made his stand on the West Virginia. With so much time gone by, Johnson's bill seeks to have the time limit waived for awarding the Medal of Honor to Miller.

Miller's bill is not the only legislation seeking to have the Medal of Honor awarded to a hero of a past war.
A Lawmaker’s MoH Push for WWII Icon

Heroes acted to stop shooter

Crowd members took gunman down
Two men tackled the shooter and a woman took away his ammunition clip before kneeling on him. Authorities also credit a staff member for helping the wounded Rep. Gabrielle Giffords.
By Sam Quinones and Nicole Santa Cruz, Los Angeles Times
January 9, 2011, 8:36 p.m.
Reporting from Tucson — Patricia Maisch watched a gunman shoot a woman who was using her own body to shield her teenage daughter.

"I thought: 'I'm next. I'm next to her. He's going to shoot me. I'm next,' " she said in an interview Sunday.

But two men tackled the gunman when he stopped to reload, and Maisch, 61, restrained his hand as he reached for an ammunition clip, helping stop the attack in a Tucson shopping center that killed six people and wounded 14, including U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords.

Maisch did not get a good look at the gunman's face as she struggled with him. "I was too busy in the outcome, that things not go any further," she said.
read more here


Crowd members took gunman down

Transition back into civilian life is rarely easy

Returning to Raleigh

By Will Huntsberry • Jan 10th, 2011

Divorce, unemployment, substance abuse and suicide are the most common problems associated with post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury, the most common mental ailments of war.

Even for those who don’t come home with such injuries, the transition back into civilian life is rarely easy.

“It’s a little bit different,” said former Army Captain Chris Creasy of Raleigh, with more than a little irony in his voice. Creasy graduated from NC State University in 2006 and in 2009 was Executive Officer of the 664 Ordinance Company tasked with ammunition distribution in Iraq.

“It’s easy to miss the Army,” Creasy said. “The Army provided. It told you where to be. It told you when to be there. The Army told you everything.”

The military tries to smooth the transition for vets by providing a host of services–counseling, help finding jobs, career classes, health care, and money to go to school. With the enormous increase in active duty suicides over the past decade, the military has even introduced mandatory screening for PTSD and brain injury, at the urging of groups such as Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America.

Still, as IAVA notes, follow-up appointments are not currently mandated for all service members who screen positive for possible combat stress injuries.

“I drank a little at first,” said Chris Ruder, another NC State graduate and Army Captain, who is still active in the National Guard.

Ruder, who has been deployed twice and served during the initial push to clear Baghdad of insurgents, said that his drinking calmed down after the first couple months back home but that some servicemen are never able to make a full transition back into civilian life.

“After the first time I came home I was still working at Bragg,” said Ruder. “There were a lot of other guys in the same situation as me who I could talk to. That was helpful. Me and a couple buddies who were also platoon leaders did everything together.”

According to a 2010 Defense Department report (PDF), more than 1,100 active service men and women committed suicide between 2005 and 2009. Divorced service members had the second highest rate of suicide, just less than members with a GED, according to the report.

“A lot of guys overseas are experiencing troubles back home,” said Creasy. As an officer in a foreign war, “You become a parental figure for a lot of these kids. Some of them aren’t making enough money to support their families back home or they’re going through a divorce and they’re having a really hard time.”
read more here
Returning to Raleigh

Mass Burial Planned for 20 Unclaimed Vets

Mass Burial Planned for Unclaimed Vets
January 08, 2011
Associated Press
GARDEN CITY, N.Y. -- Anderson Alston served as an Army master sergeant in World War II. Private Frederick Hunter was a soldier from 1968 to 1971. Myron Sanford Mabry was in the Navy from May 1960 to July 1971. All of them died recently in New York City with no one to claim their remains.
Ordinarily, they would have been quietly buried in a potter's field, their graves unmarked.

Instead, they and 17 other veterans who died in recent months will receive full military honors at a mass funeral this weekend, including prayers over their flag-draped coffins, bagpipers, the playing of taps and local congressmen offering condolences.

The mass service Saturday at Calverton National Cemetery on eastern Long Island - the largest of it kind in U.S. history, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs - is part of a national initiative in recent years to clear a massive backlog of unburied or unclaimed cremated remains of both veterans and non-veterans.

"Our government promised every veteran a decent burial; that doesn't include sitting on a shelf in some funeral home basement," said Fred Salanti of Redding, Calif. The retired Army major is the founder and executive director of the Missing in America Project, which strives to provide a respectful funeral for any veteran who received an honorable discharge.
read more here
Mass Burial Planned for Unclaimed Vets

Too many to blame for Loughner

UPDATE
It looks like Sarah Palin is "locked and loaded" with regrets now.

Palin: 'I hate violence'
By: CNN Ticker Producer Alexander Mooney
(CNN) – Sarah Palin is responding to heat from some commentators that her at-times charged rhetoric during the 2010 campaign may have helped inspire attacks against government officials similar to that which occurred in Tucson, Arizona over the weekend.
"I hate violence," Palin told Fox News' Glenn Beck in an e-mail, which Beck relayed on his radio program Monday morning. "I hate war. Our children will not have peace if politicos just capitalize on this." Palin's response was first reported by Politico.

Is it because all the people who kept shooting off hatred now understand that what they say is dangerous? Do they feel to blame or do they fear it could have been them? What is really going on behind all of these regrets when it is too late for all these people? Will any of this really change anything? Will Palin among others stop saying things like "locked and loaded" or will they stop putting gun targets over their political enemies? When does this end?

"News" stations reported that Congresswoman Giffords was dead but that turned out to not be true. Were they so eager to report the death first that no one thought of waiting until they knew for sure? Some bloggers had their fingers flying as fast as the "reporter" talked posting about it.


On FOX it was reported that Jared Loughner was an Afghanistan veteran.

Veterans Demand an Apology From Arizona Rep. Linda Lopez
Posted by Mr. Wolf Jan 9th 2011
Yesterday was a HORRIBLE day.
We’ve seen an obviously unstable and deranged individual, Jared Loughner, shoot and kill innocents; we’ve seen a US Congresswoman declared dead, then not-dead, and we vets have been accused of being the shooter by none other than a state Congresswoman from Arizona.

While listening and watching all of the activity and coverage of this horrific event, one thing has become even more clear- the MFM has come unglued on the Right, on Veterans, and on grass roots organizations. This vitriol has GOT to stop, in both directions. But blaming Veterans just because it involved a gun is over the top. Especially for someone who should know better than to spread rumors.
The topper statement is from State Congressional Representative Linda Lopez, who is about as far-Left as you can get. Not that that’s a particular issue, but, given her next statement, we’ve got a HUGE problem …
”the shooter is likely, from what I’ve heard, an Afghan vet..”
During an interview with Shep Smith (please, do NOT get me started on him) she made these statements- you can hear them about 5 minutes into this interview:

Ms Lopez, on behalf of ALL veterans, and especially the Afghanistan veterans you have repeatedly defaced, I would like to ask this-
WE DEMAND AN APOLOGY
read more here
Veterans Demand an Apology From Arizona Rep. Linda Lopez

Shep Smith just let it go never once asking where she "heard" the shooter was a veteran. This kind of thing is part of the problem in this country. If people are on what is called a news station, they are thought of as being reputable and knowing the facts so that when they are lied to, they know how to respond.

The above article added fuel to the fire by the comment that Lopez is "as far left as you can get" as if that is the blame veterans attitude is rampant among Democrats. What happened to people being responsible for their own actions and what they say? This country has turned everything into a political war and there are no reporters on TV to stop any of it.

People like Sarah Palin were created by the media. What she had to say was taken as truth by the "right" and made fun of by the "left" but there were very few people with no political motivation to tell the truth and stop any of it. When Palin thought it was good to put a target over districts with Democrats, she was allowed to inflame the hatred. Too many others were allowed to say what they wanted just as they were allowed to make any claim they wanted to while the political ads were taking up most of the air time across the country.

Loughner was allowed to get his hands on a gun legally when even the college he attended thought he was dangerous. The list of what went wrong goes on and now the media and politicians seem to want to stop it? It is all a bit too late to be wondering and asking what part they played in all of this. They may have wanted to increase ratings by feeding the divide but what they did was make it impossible for American citizens to just be Americans. Everything has turned into a political war.

The fact that the troops can be in real wars serving side by side with others with a different political view, willing to die for them, is one of the biggest factors that is missed by everyone. When veterans get together, there may be debates about political views but they are not all so important that they forget what really matters and the brotherhood is firm. The bond they share as veterans matters more than anything else.

We as Americans need to stop allowing all the hatred on both sides. We are not stronger when lies are allowed to live on. We are not united in the common good of this nation when hatred replaces a difference of political opinion.

When you listen to the comments made on both sides now, each side points the finger at the other wanting to blame someone and score some points. The point is, no one won anything but too many lost everything.

Members of congress no longer will feel safe to hold an event in their communities. People going to the political events will not feel safe. Shoppers at the grocery store will not feel safe even though they were not part of the small group meeting the Congresswoman. The families of the people killed including a 9 year old girl will not feel safe and their lives are changed forever. The survivors and their families will not feel safe again. While a political war may seem harmless it destroys everything.

If you know the truth and do not speak up when you hear a lie, you are a liar. This is what many in the media have forgotten so whatever political opinion viewers have, they hear what they want to by the station they watch and this is all they need to know. If you watch FOX cable news, you get support if you are on the "right" and if you are on the "left" you get support from MSNBC. If you are in the middle, you can count on CNN to feed into both sides but they seem to try harder to be fair. What happened to just reporting the news with no opinion or agenda?

What happened to being a member of congress and wanting what is best for the nation instead of what is best for your political side? When politicians say their number one job is to defeat Obama, elected by a majority of the nation, they should have been forced to be too ashamed to admit it but they were cheered no matter what problems this nation had going on that needed to be foremost in their thoughts. When Bush was president there was a war going on from the other side and no matter what he did, he was attacked for it. All of us suffered and will keep suffering as long as this goes on without anyone doing anything about any of it.

Blind Iraq Vet runs Disney Marathon with Lt. Colonel

Disney marathoner lost his eyesight while serving in Iraq
By Mark Jenkins, Reporter
Last Updated: Sunday, January 09, 2011 2:17 PM
LAKE BUENA VISTA --
At 5:30 a.m. and 45 degrees, more than 18,000 athletes pounded the pavement for a morning marathon.

The runners ranged from professionals to amateurs, to those who can't walk and another who can't see.

While serving in Iraq, Captain Ivan Castro was nearly killed in a mortar attack that took his eyesight.

After numerous surgeries, he is now more active than most people.

"I cycle swim, I climb, I do triathlons. But the most important thing is that I can still serve," said Castro.

This was his 14th marathon.

Lieutenant Colonel Jeff Bryan ran with Castro in the Disney marathon, attached to each other by a shoe lace.

Castro has been called courageous and heroic, but today he respectfully earned the title "Goofy".

He was one of 5,000 runners that took the goofy challenge of running both the half marathon Saturday and the full marathon Sunday.
read more here
Disney marathoner lost his eyesight while serving in Iraq

PTSD on trial, Jail time for veteran who threatened to kill wife

Jail time for veteran who threatened to kill wife

Shawn Hogendorf of the Prior Lake American reports:

A 31-year-old Prior Lake man, arrested for threatening to kill his wife last fall, was sentenced to serve about four months in jail.

Iraq War veteran who has been diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), was arrested Sept. 24 after he allegedly threatened to kill his wife during a domestic situation
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Jail time for veteran who threatened to kill wife

PTSD on trial, Iraq veteran gets treatment

Judge: Accused veteran treated for trauma
BY DOUGLAS WALKER • MUNCIE STAR PRESS • JANUARY 8, 2011

WINCHESTER, Ind. -- After nearly 15 months in custody, a Randolph County man who allegedly opened fire on sheriff's deputies has been released and placed on electronic home detention.


Court documents in the case of Andrew S. Ward, 27, reflect negotiations are under way on a plea agreement.

Delaware Circuit Court 1 Judge Marianne Vorhees -- appointed special judge in the Ward case -- said the Marine veteran of the Iraq War had completed an extensive treatment program for those suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.

Court records show Ward was transferred Oct. 27 from the Randolph County jail to the Veterans Administration Medical Center in Battle Creek, and remained there until this week.

Vorhees on Tuesday signed the court order allowing Ward -- who had been held under a $500,000 bond -- to return to his home along Randolph County Road 600-S.

The rural Lynn man was ordered to "follow all treatment recommendations as to aftercare," not to possess guns, drugs or alcohol and to have no contact with his alleged victims.

Ward was arrested Oct. 9, 2009, after he allegedly fired four shotgun blasts at three Randolph County sheriff's deputies as they responded to a 911 call at his sister's house. The deputies were not wounded.
read more here
Accused veteran treated for trauma

PTSD Gulf War Vet wants to know who killed his dog

Family says dog poisoned, killed
Updated: Friday, 07 Jan 2011, 10:32 PM MST
Published : Friday, 07 Jan 2011, 10:32 PM MST

Reporter: Ian Schwartz
ALBUQUERQUE (KRQE) - Is there a dog killer is on the loose?

An Albuquerque area family said someone poisoned their young dog and now they want to warn everyone about it.

Charlie was more than a dog to the Walters family, he was a form of therapy.

"I'm a gulf war veteran, and have been diagnosed with PTSD," said Thomas Walters.

Charlie was a good dog, Jeanette Walters said.

He protected their Corrales Heights home in Rio Rancho and he was friendly with the kids, she said.

"You know, he was only a year and a half old, and with what a good dog he was at a year and a half old, I can just imagine how great he would have been down the road with my kids," Jeanette said.

But her young kids Vince and Teri will not grow up with Charlie.
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Family says dog poisoned killed

6 dead, 12 wounded for one man's actions

Posts of the shooter show someone with a lot of hatred and under some kind of mental breakdown. What he wrote is nonsense. Above that what he wrote shows a lot of hate. This kind of hate wounded 12 people and left six more dead. One was a nine year old child. Imagine that kind of hatred that this "man" did not care who had to die, who had to suffer for what he decided to do. Imagine Congresswoman Giffords getting up this morning and planning on meeting the people from her district to hear what they wanted to say to her, then someone also woke up this morning planning to take a gun or a Mom taking her child to meet their congresswoman then having to plan a funeral or any of the other people attending this event having their lives shattered in an instant. THIS IS WHAT HATRED DOES.
(Correction. It was a neighbor who took the child to the event.)

Federal judge dead, congresswoman among 12 wounded in shooting
By the CNN Wire Staff
January 8, 2011 8:16 p.m. EST

STORY HIGHLIGHTS
NEW: Giffords aide Gabe Zimmerman is among the six dead, press secretary confirms
The aide, a federal judge and four other died in a shooting outside supermarket
U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was wounded along with 11 others
A suspect is in custody; law enforcement sources identify him as Jared Lee Loughner

(CNN) -- A federal judge was killed and a congresswoman gravely wounded Saturday in a shooting outside of a Tucson, Arizona, grocery store, according to police and government officials.
In all, six people died and 12 were wounded in the shooting, including U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Arizona, according to Rick Kastigar, bureau chief for the Pima County Sheriff's Department.
President Barack Obama later said Chief Judge John Roll of the U.S. District Court for Arizona was among the dead.
Gabe Zimmerman, the director of community outreach in the congresswoman's Tuscon office, died in the attack, Giffords' press secretary C.J. Karamargin said, as did a 9-year-old girl, according to authorities.
Who is Gabrielle Giffords? Suspect identified in shooting spree Rep. Giffords reads the 1st Amendment Congresswoman wounded in shooting
Gallery: Rep. Gabrielle Giffords
The girl is one of four victims whose identity has not yet been released.
An Arizona law enforcement source and a federal law enforcement source identified the suspect as Jared Lee Loughner. Other law enforcement sources put his age at 22. U.S. Capitol Police said the suspect was in custody.
read more here

Federal judge dead, congresswoman among 12 wounded in shooting

Rep. Michael Grimm's Bill would have disabled vets train dogs

Bill would have disabled vets train dogs
By Rick Maze - Staff writer
Posted : Saturday Jan 8, 2011 9:42:21 EST
A Marine veteran newly elected to Congress wants to establish a pilot program to see if training dogs to help disabled veterans can be therapeutic for veterans with post-traumatic stress or other combat-related mental conditions.

Rep. Michael Grimm, R-N.Y., a veteran of the first Gulf War who spent a combined eight years in the Marines, says the Veterans Dog Training Therapy Act “is about veterans helping veterans.”

Grimm’s proposal is modeled after legislation that passed the House last year but was never taken up in the Senate. One change he made in the bill — encouraging that the dogs come from shelters — has earned the measure an endorsement from the Humane Society of the United States.

Getting dogs from shelters not only saves animals’ lives but also reduces costs, because specially bred service dogs can cost up to $50,000 each, according to a press release jointly issued by Grimm and the Humane Society.

Reps. Peter King of New York and Leonard Lance of New Jersey, both Republicans, and Michael Michaud, D-Maine, are original co-sponsors of the bill, which was referred to the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee for consideration.

“So many servicemen and women returning from combat struggle with severe PTSD,” Grimm said in a statement. “My legislation provides an opportunity to ease these symptoms through the process of training service dogs. These dogs — many of which I hope will be saved from shelters — will then be given to physically disabled veterans to assist them with their daily activities.”

read more here
Bill would have disabled vets train dogs

Religious test to curb suicides or get converts?

For my Christian friends out there with the idea this is a good thing, you really need to begin to understand exactly what is going on here. This is not about sending them to any Christian Church but telling them if they are not part of the Fundamentalist Christianity faith, they are basically not good enough. In other words, if they are Catholic, they're going to hell. If they have no faith at all or happen to be Muslim or Hebrew, they need to convert and accept their version of what is right.

Over 60% of the Chaplains in the military have no problem with proselytizing by military chaplains

NPR reported that the Academy would be hosting mandatory religious tolerance seminars for cadets. The Department of Defense has also proactively built worship facilities for those of minority faiths and improved pluralist training for chaplains. Still, of the 2,900 active chaplains with the military, two-thirds are evangelical -- and that number continues to rise.

So yes, even you should fight against forcing faith on the troops since this is not about faith is a good thing but more about one certain branch of one certain faith is all that matters.

Other chaplains have a huge problem with this for a reason. They are there to help soldiers with their spiritual needs and not there to convert them. Many conversations I've had with others ministering to veterans feel the same way. Faith does help them heal and on this we agree that it is vital in the healing process but this does more harm than good when it is coerced. Plus there is a fear they don't know how to do it in the first place even if they begin to discuss the emotional healing that is possible.

Let's say a soldier goes to a chaplain and tells them that he thinks he's evil because he killed someone in Afghanistan. Now let's say he happens to be a member of the Catholic faith. The Fundamentalist Chaplain will tell him that basically he is evil because he does not know Christ the way he should and must convert to be born again. This even though the Catholic faith was one of the first to follow Christ and is right up with there with Orthodox Christians particularly the Greeks, who helped Paul spread Christianity throughout the world. But these two branches of the faith are just not good enough for certain Fundamentalists telling even them they are not right with God.

Now take a soldier with no set of beliefs or one with their own ideas about God and then have them come up against a Fundamentalist supposedly there to take care of the emotional crisis the soldier is going through. Instead of talking to them the way any therapist would, they rebuke them. This is an assault on their beliefs and their right to worship as they see fit to do. It does not gently guide them in the process of building any kind of faith but instead pushes them away.

Each person has the freewill to follow their own path and they decide to go to church or not, which church or group they feel connected to and to believe according to their own understanding and growth. None of this can be forced. If you have teenagers, you know this is true. How many of us have taken our kids to church all their lives only to have them walk away from it for a time? They are lead, then they return of their own freewill or not. It is up to them. Some switch to another church finding they fit in better with another group. This is not only the right of an American to worship as they see fit or not at all, but the basic desire of God for each person to worship of their own freewill.

If a Chaplain fails to take care of the people placed into their lives, they have failed God but if it is a military Chaplain, they have not only failed God, they have failed the country formed for the free practice of religious matters. This has also been complicated since military Chaplains are used in place of mental health workers. If they are not taking care of the soldier in crisis situations because they are too busy trying to convert them this leaves the soldier with nowhere to turn. They end up abandoned.

Every member of the clergy, every Chaplain and every service organization needs to take a stand and stop this now before more suffer under this abuse. Sixty percent of the military Chaplains may have no problem with this, but forty percent are still trying to do what they took an oath to the constitution to do. This article talks about atheists having a problem with Fundamentalists but it isn't just them. It is anyone who is not one of them.

OLBERMANN: The Military Is Trying To Curb Suicide Rates By Sending Soldiers To Church
Steven Loeb
Jan. 7, 2011, 10:59 AM

Boy, atheists are getting a lot of attention on the cablesphere these days.
Just when we thought that discrimination had finally been eradicated from the military, now Keith Olbermann is reporting on a new lawsuit from The Military Association of Atheists and Free Thinkers. The military has been giving tests to curb suicide rates and post traumatic stress disorder, but part of the test asks about the soldier's spirituality. And if they fail that portion of the test? The recommendation is that they go to church or pray.


Read more: The Military Is Trying To Curb Suicide

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Psychologist who inspired CIA's Torture Program behind spiritual test?

How did this happen? Torture is anti-spiritual but the same person came up with a test to measure the spiritual aspects of soldiers? Did they have a clue when they were paid if this would work or not? Trauma is Greek meaning wound and trauma is an assault on the spirit/soul so it is vital that the spiritual is included in on healing as much as the mind and body but it cannot be forced or it has the opposite result. Just one more thing the military has done that shows not only poor judgement but a total lack of understanding.

Army's "Spiritual Fitness" Test Comes Under Fire
Wednesday 05 January 2011
by: Jason Leopold, t r u t h o u t | Investigative Report

Test Was Designed by Psychologist Who Inspired CIA's Torture Program

An experimental, Army mental-health, fitness initiative designed by the same psychologist whose work heavily influenced the psychological aspects of the Bush administration's torture program is under fire by civil rights groups and hundreds of active-duty soldiers. They say it unconstitutionally requires enlistees to believe in God or a "higher power" in order to be deemed "spiritually fit" to serve in the Army.

Comprehensive Soldier Fitness (CSF) is a $125 million "holistic fitness program" unveiled in late 2009 and aimed at reducing the number of suicides and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) cases, which have reached epidemic proportions over the past year due to multiple deployments to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the substandard care soldiers have received when they return from combat. The Army states that it can accomplish its goal by teaching its service members how to be psychologically resilient and resist "catastrophizing" traumatic events. Defense Department documents obtained by Truthout state CSF is Army Chief of Staff George Casey's "third highest priority."

CSF is comprised of the Soldier Fitness Tracker and Global Assessment Tool, which measures soldiers' "resilience" in five core areas: emotional, physical, family, social and spiritual. Soldiers fill out an online survey made up of more than 100 questions, and if the results fall into a red area, they are required to participate in remedial courses in a classroom or online setting to strengthen their resilience in the disciplines in which they received low scores. The test is administered every two years. More than 800,000 Army soldiers have taken it thus far.

But for the thousands of "Foxhole Atheists" like 27-year-old Sgt. Justin Griffith, the spiritual component of the test contains questions written predominantly for soldiers who believe in God or another deity, meaning nonbelievers are guaranteed to score poorly and will be forced to participate in exercises that use religious imagery to "train" soldiers up to a satisfactory level of spirituality.
read more here
Army's Spiritual Fitness Test Comes Under Fire

Support, donations pour in for CNN Hero homebuilder

Support, donations pour in for Hero homebuilder
By Kathleen Toner, CNN
January 6, 2011 9:55 p.m. EST


Free homes for injured troops
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Dan Wallrath and his group, Operation Finally Home, build houses for injured U.S. veterans
For his efforts, Wallrath was named a top 10 CNN Hero in November
The exposure has helped Wallrath help more troops and their families
He just partnered with "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" to help a victim of the Fort Hood attack

Salado, Texas (CNN) -- Dan Wallrath spent 30 years as a homebuilder in Texas, but it wasn't until 2005 that he found his life's work.

After helping renovate the home of a young Marine who had been severely wounded in Iraq, Wallrath realized there were thousands of other injured war veterans who needed a hand. So he decided to help them by doing what he knew best -- building homes -- and giving them away, mortgage-free.

For his efforts, Wallrath was recognized in November as one of the year's top 10 CNN Heroes. The exposure has helped take his organization -- now known as Operation Finally Home -- to the next level.

"It's just been incredible," Wallrath said last month. "We've been getting phone calls and e-mails and donations from all over the world."

Since the airing of "CNN Heroes: An All-Star Tribute," Operation Finally Home has received more than $100,000 in contributions -- as well as three pieces of property that will be used for future homes. All told, being honored as a CNN Hero has enabled Wallrath to more than double his impact.

So far, his group has completed nine homes, and it has 13 more planned or under construction.
The spotlight also led "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" to partner with Wallrath on a special project last month: building a home for one of the victims of the 2009 shooting spree at Fort Hood, Texas.
read more here
Support, donations pour in for Hero homebuilder

Homeless Vietnam Veteran Remembered For Compassion, Kindness

Homeless Vietnam Veteran Remembered For Compassion, Kindness
Services to honor Dale Grunder scheduled for Saturday.
By Kristofer Noceda
The homeless Vietnam veteran found dead Sunday morning was known in the streets as "Papa."

Dale Grunder, 65, a longtime transient known for carrying an American flag around town, is remembered by friends as a compassionate, giving and kind-hearted man.

"He had a smile that was so big it could light up the world," said Darcie Gardiner, who referred to Grunder as her "street father."

"Dale always took care and looked after me," she said.

Gardiner, 44, and also homeless, was drinking alcohol with Grunder the night before he was found dead on a bench near the water fountain and park plaza on Railroad Avenue, just behind the Grocery Outlet.

"I was drunk in the park and he was, too," she said. "I blanked out and woke up to cops kicking me and telling me to get out of there."

Grunder, however, never woke up.

read more here
Homeless Vietnam Veteran Remembered For Compassion, Kindness

Unemployment jumps in December for young vets

Unemployment jumps in December for young vets
By Rick Maze - Staff writer
Posted : Friday Jan 7, 2011 9:59:55 EST
Labor Department employment statistics released Friday show that young veterans continue to have serious and growing problems finding work in a tight job market, while older veterans are doing better than the general population.

The Jan. 7 release of December data shows the national unemployment rate fell slightly, from 9.8 percent in November to 9.4 percent in December, and that the unemployment rate for all veterans over the age of 18 remained steady, at 8.3 percent.

For younger veterans, the new report shows a dramatic increase in unemployment, from 9.4 percent in November to 11.7 percent in December.
read more here
Unemployment jumps in December for young vets

Hood sees twofold increase in suicides from prior year

Hood sees twofold increase in suicides from prior year

Did it do any good to have predicted this would happen well over a year ago?

Thursday, November 5, 2009

Aftermath of Fort Hood shootings may be worse


As the news reports kept coming out today about the carnage at Fort Hood, my greatest fears were not for today, but for the next few months ahead. No one is talking about "secondary stressors" and this needs to be addressed quickly.

There are crisis teams heading there according to the press briefing by Lt. Gen. Robert Cone. This is one of the best things they can do. I spent months taking this kind of training and it is very thorough. The issue that we need to be concerned about is when there are thousands of soldiers, combat soldiers with multiple tours, many of them are dealing with mild PTSD. Mild PTSD is not that hard to cope with. They live pretty normal lives while covering up the pain they have inside. Many even cope well the rest of their lives but many do not. Like a ticking time bomb, PTSD rests waiting to strike if untreated. It waits for the next traumatic event and then mild PTSD turns into PTSD on steroids.

These are the soldiers that will need the greatest help as soon as possible.

These bases are very well secured. That makes the soldiers and their families feel safe. Think about going into combat and then making it home alive where you are supposed to be safe. Then having this happen.

I was at Fort Hood in March. I had an auto rental and even though I had a military issued ID, that was not good enough at the guard house. I had to show my rental agreement every time I drove onto the base. Even if you have a Department of Defense sticker on your car, you still have to show your military ID. That makes them feel they are safe. Then away from harm, away from combat, they end up having to face something like this from not only one of their own, but a Major and a Doctor who is supposed to be there for them, trying to kill them.

Crisis teams will address the traumatic events of today, but the soldiers that have already been involved in traumatic events cutting into them will need far greater help than anyone is really prepared to deliver. This is my greatest fear for them.

Then we have troops from Fort Hood and other bases deployed into Iraq and Afghanistan wondering who they can trust now after one of their own did something like this. None of this is good and the aftermath may be worse than this day itself.
Aftermath of Fort Hood shootings may be worse

There was not enough being done to address it before the shootings and there wasn't enough done after. I know trauma, human nature and what can follow, but if anyone in charge knew the same thing but did nothing, they should face a trail to answer for what they did not do.

They boosted staff but say nothing about the kind of training or understanding these people had. If they were anything like Hassan, they would do more harm than good. Maybe Col. Christopher Philbrick should have asked some of us what we think is not being done and then maybe, just maybe they'd finally save some lives.

Army: 22 suicides in 2010 at Fort Hood

One was Army Sgt. Douglas Hale Jr., who had been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder after completing his second tour in 2007. He texted his mother, Glenda Moss, on July 6 asking forgiveness before shooting himself to death in a restaurant bathroom near Fort Hood.

During the last week of September, four soldiers committed suicide.
Despite suicide prevention efforts, Hood sees twofold increase in suicides from prior year; some say shooting massacre may have been contributing factor
By Gregg Zoroya - USA Today
Posted : Wednesday Jan 5, 2011 21:57:41 EST
The Army’s largest post saw a record number of soldiers kill themselves in 2010 despite a mental health effort aimed at reversing the trend.

The Army says 22 soldiers have either killed themselves or are suspected of doing so last year at Fort Hood, Texas, twice the number from 2009.

That is a rate of 45 deaths per 100,000, compared to 20-per-100,000 rate among civilians in the same age group and a 22-per-100,000 rate Army-wide.

The Army had boosted staffing and psychiatric services to address the problem, particularly after the fatal shootings of 13 people on the post in November 2009. The Army says that Maj. Nidal Hasan, a psychiatrist, fired his pistol indiscriminately at soldiers waiting for routine medical care.

Fort Hood now has one of the largest counseling staffs in the Army with more than 170 behavioral health workers.

“Any time they’ve asked for it, the Army has done everything it can to provide assistance,” said Army Col. Christopher Philbrick, deputy commander of an Army task force on reducing suicides.

Philbrick said it “has been very frustrating for us to figure out what we haven’t done right.”

Many of the 48,000 soldiers at Fort Hood have either returned from war zones or are on their way to them.
read more here
http://www.armytimes.com/news/2011/01/gannett-army-hood-sees-22-suicides-010511/

President Signed Improvements to Post-9/11 GI Bill

President Signed Improvements to Post-9/11 GI Bill
Many Non-College Programs and State Service of Reserves and Guard now
Covered

WASHINGTON (Jan. 5, 2011) - To bring the educational benefits of the
Post-9/11 GI Bill closer to more Veterans and Service Members, President
Obama signed legislation Jan. 4 that streamlines the 18-month-old
education program administered by the Department of Veterans Affairs
(VA).

"Since the first GI Bill in 1944, this unique educational program has
adapted to the needs of America's Veterans, active-duty personnel,
reservists and Guardsmen," said Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric K.
Shinseki. "Like its forbearers, the Post-9/11 GI Bill is growing to
ensure the men and women who serve this nation in uniform receive
valuable education benefits from a grateful nation.

"On behalf of Veterans and the many who serve them at VA, we would like
to thank the president for his support, as well as members of Congress
and our Veterans service organization partners for helping make this
bill a reality," Shinseki added.

Among the provisions of the legislation are:

* Paying for on-the-job training, some flight training;
apprenticeship training and correspondence courses;

* Allowing reservists and Guardsmen to have their time supporting
emergencies called by their state governors credited to the time needed
to qualify for educational benefits;

* Providing one half of the national average for the program's
housing allowance to students enrolled in distance learning;

* Pro-rating the housing allowance to exclude payments when
students are not in class;

* Allowing students on active duty receive the stipend for books
and supplies;

* Allowing people eligible for the Post-9/11 GI Bill, but
participating in VA's Vocational Rehabilitation and Employment (VR&E)
benefits to choose between the GI Bill's housing allowance or VR&E's
subsistence allowance;

* Permitting reimbursement for more than one "license and
certification" test;

* Reimbursing fees to take national admission tests, such as SAT,
ACT, GMAT and LSAT; and

* Establishing a national cap of $17,500 annually for tuition and
fees in a private or a foreign school, not including contributions by
educational institutions under the "Yellow Ribbon" program.

Information about the new provisions is available on the Internet at
www.gibill.va.gov .

By the end of December 2010, VA issued nearly $7.2 billion in tuition,
housing, and stipends for more than 425,000 Veterans or eligible family
members pursuing higher education under the Post-9/11 GI Bill.

Bun pit linked to another soldier's death

Soldier from W. Babylon dies of rare cancer
Originally published: January 3, 2011 4:58 PM
Updated: January 3, 2011 9:28 PM
By SOPHIA CHANG AND VICTOR MANUEL RAMOS


After a long year of watching the slow death of her husband, Army Sgt. William McKenna, Dina McKenna decided the final goodbye should be dignified without painful lingering.

"Because of my children, I wanted to keep it brief. We've been suffering for a whole year with his cancer and how much he has deteriorated," she said Monday after her husband was buried at Calverton National Cemetery. He died in Florida on Tuesday at the age of 41 from a rare form of lymphoma.

There was no eulogy at his funeral at the Johnstons' Wellwood Funeral Home in Lindenhurst, just a few miles from the West Babylon neighborhood where McKenna grew up.
read more here
Soldier from W. Babylon dies of rare cancer

September 11 survivors show lasting traumatic stress

15% seems low considering we've been talking about one out of three for PTSD (some experts say one out of five) but you have to consider another factor here. Right after 9-11 trauma teams rushed out and got to work taking care of survivors. This shows that even with immediate help, 15% had their lives changed that day above others. What do you think the chances are for the troops coming back from multiple times with their lives on the line and not getting any help after each time? Not good odds at all. So why is it that no one in the government was ready for the troops coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan? They never thought to treat them like humans instead of "soldiers" trained to do their jobs.

September 11 survivors show lasting traumatic stress

By Amy Norton
NEW YORK | Tue Jan 4, 2011 4:41pm EST
(Reuters Health) - Many civilian survivors of the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center were still suffering from symptoms of post-traumatic stress several years after the 2001 disaster, a new study finds.

Surveys of nearly 3,700 people who escaped the Twin Towers that day found that nearly all -- 96 percent -- still had at least one symptom of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) two to three years later.

And of those, 15 percent screened positive for full-blown PTSD -- a rate about four times higher than that seen in the general population in any given year.

The study, reported in the American Journal of Epidemiology, is the first to focus on the long-term mental health of the people who were actually in the Twin Towers on the morning of September 11.

Past studies have looked at the general public, or people who lived near the World Trade Center, said senior researcher Dr. Sandro Galea, of Columbia University in New York.

The study found that people who had escaped from floors above the planes' "impact zone" were at greater risk of PTSD than those who escaped from lower floors. Similarly, people who were evacuated relatively later, or who had to run from the cloud of debris sent out by the collapsing towers, were also at elevated risk.

read more here

September 11 survivors show lasting traumatic stress

Study of Guard soldiers shows effects of mild brain injury not forever

Readers of this blog know I had TBI when I was very young and there was very little known about what happens to the brain after injury. I really should not have survived the fall but by the grace of God for some reason, I did. There are some things that will never be right about my brain, (stop thinking about jokes for now like my friends always come up with) but considering what my head went through, it's not all so bad. You can learn how to adapt. I had to see a speech therapist for a couple of years. Memory problems were overcome by learning some tricks like focusing on what I had to remember, writing down what was important and pretty much tossing things out once I was done with some useless information that really meant nothing. Unfortunately this meant that names were forgotten just about as soon as I was introduced to someone but their face was always remembered. This is a good report because it shows that while PTSD does not "go away" mild brain injury does and as far as traumatic brain injury, if my life is any indication, that can get better too.

Study of Guard soldiers shows effects of mild brain injury fade over time
by Jessica Mador, Minnesota Public Radio
January 4, 2011
St. Paul, Minn. — Results from an ongoing survey of Minnesota National Guard troops conducted by researchers at the Minneapolis VA Medical Center show that most cases of mild brain injury or concussion are likely to fade over time.

Researchers say the survey, which was published in the January issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, also sheds more light on post-traumatic stress symptoms.

The findings could be good news for the thousands of Iraqi and Afghanistan veterans believed to have suffered mild brain injury during combat, although it's unclear how many troops have come home with TBI.

Minneapolis VA Medical Center psychologist Melissa Polusny says the number of soldiers who report an injury that made them feel dazed or confused, or forced them to lose consciousness, varies widely.

Polusny and her colleagues surveyed more than 950 Guard soldiers, and in one survey, as many as 22 percent of them reported suffering a mild traumatic brain injury while deployed.

"When someone hears the word brain injury, I think they make assumptions about what that is," she said. "What we are talking about is concussion, which is sometimes referred to as mild traumatic brain injury."

Mild traumatic brain injury differs from moderate to severe TBI. Polusny says there are a number of common symptoms.

"Like headache, or difficulty concentrating, or irritability or memory difficulties, maybe ringing in the ears or tinitis," she said. "These are grouped together and referred to as post-oncussive symptoms."

The survey followed National Guard soldiers who served in Iraq in 2006 and 2007. Researchers were looking at the associations between concussion and PTSD symptoms, and whether mild TBI caused long-term effects.
read more here
http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2011/01/04/brain-injury-study/

PTSD signals longer-term health problems

Study: PTSD signals longer-term health problems
U. S. soldiers who experienced post-traumatic stress disorder during combat in Iraq were more likely to experience longer-term health problems including depression, headaches, tinnitis, irritability and memory problems compared with soldiers who experienced only concussions without PTSD. The study concludes that screening for PTSD among troops is critical for identifying and treating long-term health problems. The findings are published in the JAMA Archives of General Psychiatry.

Since Operation Desert Storm launched 20 years ago, millions of U.S. troops have been deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan. Combat exposure often places troops at risk of suffering psychological trauma and injury when they are exposed to the blasts from improvised explosive devices, according to background information in the study, and traumatic brain injury has often been called the “signature injury” of the conflicts. The study says that most TBIs are mild – better known as concussions. The symptoms of concussion, or MTBI, include loss of consciousness, loss of memory, dizziness, and headache.

Recognizing the increased risk of MTBI and PTSD, the Department of Defense and the VA have instituted post-deployment screening to identify service members who may require further treatment or evaluation. The researchers explain that while other studies have shown that PTSD is linked to long-term health problems and disability, less is known about the long-term effects of concussion on health problems.

University of Minnesota Medical School and Minneapolis Veterans Affairs health care system researchers surveyed 2,677 soldiers from a U.S. National Guard Brigade Combat Team stationed in Iraq. Participants completed their first questionnaire in 2007, one month before their 16-month deployment ended. They answered questions about whether they had experienced a concussion, and whether they were experiencing symptoms of PTSD and depression. 1,935 of those who took the first survey agreed to participate in further research. One year after they completed their first survey, the soldiers were mailed a second survey and 953 soldiers responded.

The first survey revealed that 9.2% of soldiers experienced symptoms of concussions and 30.2 percent of those soldiers had probable PTSD at the time of the survey. When they took the second survey, 22 percent of soldiers, twice as many, reported they had experienced concussions and of those, 30.4 percent got a diagnosis of probable PTSD. Reporting PTSD at the time of the first survey was strongly associated with having long-term health problems.
read more here
PTSD signals longer-term health problems

Soldier's send off followed by tragedy when fiance dies in accident

Woman Sends Off Fiance To Afghanistan, Dies In Crash

Woman, Daughter Killed In I-85 Wreck

Gordon Dill, WYFF News 4 Anchor/Reporter
POSTED: 8:06 am EST January 5, 2011


CHEROKEE COUNTY, S.C. -- Just hours after her seeing her fiancé off for a tour of during in Afghanistan, a woman and her daughter were killed in a single-vehicle wreck, Cherokee County Coroner Dennis Fowler said.

Fowler said 27-year-old Shawna Geraldine Zamora and her 9-year-old daughter Lillyana Zamora died in the crash on Interstate 85 just after 2 a.m. Tuesday. Both were pronounced dead at the scene.

read more here
Woman Sends Off Fiance To Afghanistan

After cheating death, the real challenge of living begins

I supposed that I must be part of the two thirds considering the worst experiences to be life changing for the better. I am not as insane as that sounds. For me, each time changed me, made me more loving, living in the moment and above all, more forgiving. I value the people in my life more because I know that at any moment something can change all of it. Someone else may worry about it to the point where they stop living and enjoying the living but this is a story about what is possible after trauma and it is possible for anyone. Even people with PTSD can heal if not be cured and the next set of changes for them can be for the better.


After cheating death, the real challenge of living begins
How trauma can upend lives and, wondrously, transform some for the better


By Jennifer Wolff Perrine

When Julia Ferganchick learned storms had delayed her connecting flight from Dallas to Little Rock, Arkansas, she found a seat at an airport bar and ordered a Bloody Mary. The 30-year-old writing and rhetoric professor had just spent Memorial Day weekend on Coronado Island, off the coast of San Diego. She was eager to return home to start the summer semester at the University of Arkansas, where she had applied for tenure. Now she was irritated; the bad weather would push her arrival close to midnight.
Two hours and 12 minutes behind schedule, American Airlines flight 1420 took off. Once above the clouds, the flight was relatively smooth, but as it neared Little Rock, they flew into lightning and severe thunderstorms. “Quite a light show off the left-hand side of the aircraft,” the pilot announced. “I’m going to have to slightly overfly the airport in order to turn back around to land.” As the plane circled and dipped, it jolted in the wind. “I knew—all of us knew—that this wasn’t the feeling of a plane touching down,” Ferganchick says.
The McDonnell Douglas MD-82 slammed into the ground going 184 miles an hour, careening off the end of the runway into a flood plain, where it smashed into a steel light stanchion and split in two just four rows behind Ferganchick’s seat. Her seat belt kept her torso in place, but the impact ripped her blue clogs from her feet and wrenched her back so badly she herniated a disk in her spine. Still, she was alive. And as fire enveloped the cabin, she could see a way out, through a jagged gash in the plane’s ceiling. Ferganchick clawed her way over mangled seats and carry-on bags until she found herself in the open air in the middle of a hailstorm, standing barefoot atop a plane that seemed ready to explode.

Some never recover. But most do. In fact, nearly two thirds of trauma victims, even those who had extreme pain, say they ultimately benefited from the aftermath of their experience, according to the research of Richard G. Tedeschi, Ph.D., professor of psychology at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Tedeschi and his colleagues have tracked outcomes for people who survived accidents and other traumas, such as life-threatening illnesses or the death of a child, and identified a phenomenon they call post-traumatic growth: Some survivors grow closer to people they love; others develop a sense of personal strength or appreciation for life. Still others deepen their spiritual beliefs or change their career and life goals. Women are more likely than men to report these benefits, and even those who are most impaired at first can find their way, as Ferganchick did, to feeling enriched by their ordeal.
What can these women teach the rest of us? As researchers learn more about what makes people resilient, they hope to develop therapies that could lessen negative responses and promote post-traumatic growth instead. “It’s not about getting over it‚ it’s about processing it in the most meaningful way,” Tedeschi says. “You still have your fears and grief and suffering, but you have made your suffering meaningful. If you can learn to do that, you can get through the bad stuff in life and find value in the struggle.”
read more here
After cheating death, the real challenge of living begins

Our New Puppy

Last year we had to put down our Golden Retriever Brandon. He almost made it to 14. Sunday we went to Pet Smart in Oviedo FL and adopted a 7 month old Lab-Border Collie mix, Mac from Save A Life. It's been a long time since we had a puppy and he is wearing me out but he is a very lovable BIG puppy so I am sure once we get past the hard part of getting him used to not eating my husband's slippers and thinking the dining room is his bathroom, we'll be all set! So meet Mac.

Police Chief forced out after Sanford police officer's son hit homeless man

Sanford police chief forced out the same day cop's son goes to jail, accused of attacking homeless man

By Rene Stutzman, Orlando Sentinel
5:13 p.m. EST, January 3, 2011


There's a new casualty in the case of a Sanford police officer's son who threw a sucker punch that floored a homeless man: retiring Police Chief Brian Tooley.

Sanford's City Commission voted Monday to dismiss Tooley.

He was scheduled to retire Jan. 31, but at a special meeting, commissioners voted to oust him immediately.

As of Tuesday, the department will be headed temporarily by former chief Steve Harriett, who currently works as chief deputy at the Seminole County Sheriff's Office.

Also Monday morning, Acting Chief Capt. Jerry Hargrett admitted at a public meeting that the officer's son, Justin Collison, 21, should have been arrested a month ago, the night he punched the homeless man. Sanford police questioned Collison, put him in the back of a patrol car but did not handcuff or arrest him.

read more here
Sanford police chief forced out

Central figure in Vietnam Memorial Wall body found in land fill

Dumped body was Vietnam War vet
Slay victim a defense consultant for US
BY CHAD LIVENGOOD • THE NEWS JOURNAL • JANUARY 3, 2011

Newark police have identified the body discovered on New Year's Eve at the Cherry Island Landfill in Wilmington as 66-year-old John P. Wheeler III of New Castle.

Wheeler, a U.S. Army veteran of the Vietnam War who lived part time in Old New Castle, was a defense consultant in Washington, D.C., and had a long career in public service, working in the administrations of Presidents Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush. Wheeler was past chairman of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, which built the memorial on the National Mall in Washington.

His death has been ruled a homicide.

Newark police had a crime-scene van at Wheeler's home at 108 W. Third St. in New Castle on Sunday, with crime-scene tape roping off the prominent three-story brick home with black shutters.

Friends and neighbors were shocked to learn Wheeler had died.
read more here
Dumped body was Vietnam War vet

Army has learned nothing and redeployed soldier after suicide attempts

The Army declared him fit for duty and ordered him to Afghanistan after he had twice attempted suicide at Fort Campbell, Ky., and after he had been sent to a mental institution near the base, the home of the 101st.

Several Warnings, Then a Soldier’s Lonely Death

By JAMES RISEN
Published: January 1, 2011

WASHINGTON — A gentle snow fell on the funeral of Staff Sgt. David Senft at Arlington National Cemetery on Dec. 16, when his bitterly divided California family came together to say goodbye. His 5-year-old son received a flag from a grateful nation.

But that brief moment of peace could not hide the fact that for his family and friends and the soldiers who had served with him in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, too many unanswered questions remained about Sergeant Senft’s lonely death in a parked sport utility vehicle on an American air base in Afghanistan, and about whether the Army could have done more to prevent it.

Officially, the Army says only that Sergeant Senft, 27, a crew chief on a Black Hawk helicopter in the 101st Airborne Division’s aviation brigade, was killed as a result of “injuries sustained in a noncombat related incident” at Kandahar Air Base on Nov. 15. No specific cause of death has been announced. Army officials say three separate inquiries into the death are under way.

But his father, also named David Senft, an electrician from Grass Valley, Calif., who had worked in Afghanistan for a military contractor, is convinced that his son committed suicide, as are many of his friends and family members and the soldiers who served with him.

The evidence appears overwhelming. An investigator for the Army’s Criminal Investigative Division, which has been looking into the death, has told Sergeant Senft’s father by e-mail that his son was found dead with a single bullet hole in his head, a stolen M-4 automatic weapon in his hands and his body slumped over in the S.U.V., which was parked outside the air base’s ammunition supply point. By his side was his cellphone, displaying a text message with no time or date stamp, saying only, “I don’t know what to say, I’m sorry.” (Mr. Senft shared the e-mails from the C.I.D. investigator with The New York Times.)

With Sergeant Senft, the warning signs were blaring.
read more here
Then a Soldier’s Lonely Death

Hero “neighbor” lives in his car

Hero “neighbor” lives in his car
January 2, 2011 posted by Chaplain Kathie
This headline sounds like a good story as it is but it only gets better from here. One of the neighbors, it turns out, is no longer living in the building. He’s living in his car.

Neighbors rescue man from blaze
An evicted former tenant is among those who help pull the resident to safety
By Gordon Y.K. Pang
POSTED: 01:30 a.m. HST, Dec 30, 2010
Infamous as a drug haven, Kalihi’s Akepo Lane can now also be called the home of a hero.
An elderly man was rescued from his burning first-floor studio apartment at Akepo and North King Street by neighbors late Tuesday night.
The man who stepped into the apartment to pull out the victim was Gerald Arthur, 61, who had lived in the building himself until he was evicted about three months ago.
“I lost my job, my old lady lost hers, we couldn’t pay the rent,” Arthur said. He moved into his car, “the Honda Inn,” parked a few hundred yards down Akepo. His girlfriend, who he said is suffering from cancer, is now staying with family in Ewa Beach.
read more here
Hero “neighbor” lives in his car

Navy Officer dead after jumping to his death

Officer Jumps to Death After Cocaine Arrest
December 27, 2010
Deutsche Presse-Agentur
MANILA -- A 35-year-old US Navy officer jumped to his death on Monday in the Philippines after he was arrested at an airport for allegedly carrying cocaine, police said.
Lieutenant Commander Scintar Mejia was about to board a flight to Los Angeles from Manila on Sunday when a pack of cocaine was found in his luggage.
read more here
Officer Jumps to Death After Cocaine Arrest

Mason is one of many veterans suffering from PTSD

When you take a person, train them to kill, you get someone that usually does not miss when they aim. This veteran could have hit people if that was what he wanted to do. His shots were called random but that in itself shows he was not aiming to hit people. Shoppers were terrified all the same. Justice in this case is that this veteran needs help and it looks like he will finally get it but true justice would have been to get him help before it ever reached a point like this.

EDITORIAL: War’s invisible wounds
Mason is one of many veterans suffering from PTSD

Published: Thursday, Dec 30, 2010 05:01AM

Every month, Americans return from military duty in Iraq and Afghanistan having seen intense combat. Researchers estimate that nearly 20 percent of the 1.6 million veterans of these wars suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder.

That’s a cold statistic. Each of those more than 300,000 veterans has a face and a name. One of them is Michael Thomas Mason. He’s the 27-year-old Springfield man who was shot and wounded by two Eugene police officers Dec. 15 after Mason fired shots in the Valley River Center parking lot.

Mason remains in intensive care, recovering from wounds that left him mostly paralyzed from the neck down. His medical condition is tenuous — Lane County District Attorney Alex Gardner described it as “touch and go.”

Gardner called a news conference Tuesday to announce his finding that the two officers who shot Mason were justified in doing so. It was a reasonable decision, even though it is certain to be criticized by some in the community who believe the city’s police officers are too quick to resort to lethal force.

After randomly firing multiple gunshots that injured no one and struck a car in the parking lot, Mason left the mall and drove to the Santa Clara area. Police confronted Mason as he sat in his stopped sport utility vehicle, ordering him to put both hands out the window. Mason dropped a handgun out the window but reached back into his vehicle several times, not responding to officers’ commands and leading them to believe he might be reaching for a second gun.

The officers fired three times. Two bullets hit Mason, one striking his spinal column.

In addition to announcing that the police shooting was justified, Gardner said he would not prosecute Mason for the mall shootings, saying the veteran was in the throes of a PTSD episode at the time of the incident.

Gardner cited Mason’s extensive combat record: He arrived in Iraq as a member of the 173rd Airborne Light Infantry Brigade shortly after the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003. Mason saw repeated and intense combat during his yearlong tour in Iraq, and he was cited by superiors for bravery under intense and prolonged fire and his efforts to protect fellow soldiers. Mason, who also served as a combat medic, later was for a year sent to Afghanistan, where he also saw heavy fighting.

read more here
http://www.registerguard.com/csp/cms/sites/web/opinion/25715777-47/mason-veterans-gardner-ptsd-officers.csp

First Responders, Rescuers Come Forward With PTSD

First Responders, Rescuers Come Forward With PTSD
by NPR STAFF

December 30, 2010
Post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, is a condition closely associated with the battlefield. But Michael Ferrara developed PTSD without going to war — he spent three decades living and saving lives in Aspen, Colo., as a search-and-rescue man, ski patrol officer, paramedic and firefighter.

After several years, horrific images from those rescues started playing over and over in his mind.

"Little by little, it just started to build, and then one day, the slideshow that was all these events started running in my head and I couldn't control it," Ferrara says. He was seeing "an eviscerated man from an automobile crash"; burned, dismembered bodies; and climbers who had fallen 2,000 feet.

Therapy has helped him, but Ferrara says such rescues are very difficult, especially when his good friends are killed, which has happened numerous times.

We have to recognize that having this stuff mess with your head is not abnormal. You're not supposed to see stuff like this.
- Michael Ferrara, veteran first responder
"The last one was a very close friend of mine in December of 2008 who had been killed in an avalanche," Ferrara tells NPR's Audie Cornish. "I was at bottom at that point."

Ferrara says he handled it by isolating himself. "I didn’t leave the house," he says, "and I had begun using Percocet that had been prescribed for physical ailments for my emotional trauma."

'Why Would You Be Fine After That?'

Ferrara isn't alone in his experience — other rescuers and first responders have had to cope with their own post-traumatic stress. Hampton Sides, a writer for Outside magazine, covered Ferrara's case and other cases of civilian PTSD in the January issue of the magazine.

"It's only recently become apparent that PTSD is rampant among the community of first responders," Sides says. "I think that the last community that has come to recognize this has been these mountain communities — these people who essentially get to do what they love to do, and yet they come across this trauma. They see these horrible things — often people that they know."

Sides says that part of the reason for the lack of diagnosis of PTSD is the culture of the responders themselves. "There's the kind of 'he-man' quality to this," he says. "These guys don't like to recognize when they're hurting."

Ferrara recounts the story from several years ago of a young man riding his motorcycle on a mountain road who was hit by an 18-wheeler.

"He was conscious when I got there, begging me not to let him die," Ferrrara says. "He died on me, in my arms. And I talked to a psychologist afterward, and she said, 'How are you doing?' And I said, 'Ah, I'm fine.' And she said, 'Why would you be fine? You've just had a man beg for his life die in your arms. Why would you be fine after that?' "

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First Responders, Rescuers Come Forward With PTSD

Police: Man Stole Video Games From Teen's Casket

Police: Man Stole Video Games From Teen's Casket
Dec 30, 2010 – 8:00 AM
Theunis Bates
Contributor
A Pennsylvania man was arrested for snatching video games out of the casket of a teenager who died in a Christmas Day car crash, police say.

They said Jody Bennett, 37, grabbed a Game Boy from the coffin of family friend Bradley McCombs, 17, during a Monday night wake in Montgomery Township, 65 miles northeast of Pittsburgh. The boy's uncle, Robert McCombs Jr., confronted the robber outside the funeral, and Bennett handed back the Game Boy, The Tribune-Democrat reported.

However, when the uncle returned to the open-casket viewing, the family realized that three game cartridges and a Game Boy light also were missing. The stolen items were worth $46.90, according to The Tribune-Democrat.

Police recovered one of the cartridges but don't know what happened to the other items, Sgt. Michael Schmidt told The Associated Press.

"I can confidently say this is the first time in my 22 years that I've had anybody go into the funeral home while the family was there and take something right under their noses and try to get away with it," Schmidt said.

Bradley McCombs -- an avid video games player -- died on Christmas morning when he lost control of his SUV and smashed into a utility pole.
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Man Stole Video Games From Teen's Casket

PTSD made war hero a homefront casualty

PTSD made war hero a homefront casualty

By Kelly Koopmans KVAL News

EUGENE, Ore. - The son of a retired Eugene police officer, Michael Mason returned from two tours of the Middle East a decorated war hero.

According to documents obtained by KVAL News, the Army awarded Mason with awards for valor and heroism during wartime.

Mason “voluntarily exposed himself to direct and effective enemy fire” to protect his fellow soldiers in 2005, according to award recommendations.

"He was the kind of young man that every family in every community hopes to raise," said Alex Gardner, the Lane County district attorney.

Mason is now mostly paralyzed from the neck down, the result of being shot by Eugene police officers responding to a report of shots fired at a shopping mall.


Hero 'watched firsthand the loss of dozens of his fellow soldiers'

Four years and two tours of the Middle East took a traumatizing toll on Mason’s mental stability.

“He watched firsthand the loss of dozens of his fellow soldiers during his combat service,” said Mason’s sister Sara Mason.

Gardner said Mason witnessed the deaths of at least 26 fellow soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan.

And two Wednesdays before Christmas 2010, Mason went shopping at Valley River Center - and snapped.
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PTSD made war hero a homefront casualty

Freeport disabled Vietnam Vet faces homelessness

The good news is that Bank of America is working with him now to save his home. The bad news is how it got to the point where he had to worry about how to support himself in the first place.

Freeport veteran faces homelessness

by Brad Woodard / 11 News
khou.com
Posted on December 29, 2010 at 11:18 PM
Updated today at 8:23 AM

HOUSTON -- A local veteran is struggling to hold on to his home and he's not alone. Since the foreclosure crisis began four years ago, it has claimed five million homes.

John Aguirre says his heart is in pieces.

"Sometimes I just want to swallow a bullet," the 58-year-old man said.

A veteran of the Marine Corps and U.S. Army who served in Vietnam, Aguirre later worked for a lawn and tree service until old injuries and declining health forced him to quit.

"I've been going to the V.A. hospital for depression, stress, heart problems and blood pressure," said Aguirre.

He's in the process of seeking full disability benefits from the V.A., but with no income to speak of, Aguirre had no choice but to move in with his mother who passed away in April.
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Freeport veteran faces homelessness

VFW learning it is all veterans or none

When the established service organizations fail to adapt to take care of all veterans, they end up with shrinking numbers resulting in less power to be heard by Washington. Above that they understand that as an organization helping veterans, they need to change the way they do things to fit the needs of newer veterans as well as older ones.

VFW seeks reform of image as old man's drinking club by reaching out to younger vets, women

HEATHER HOLLINGSWORTH
Associated Press
December 29, 2010, 7:42 a.m.

LEAVENWORTH, Kan. (AP) — The Veterans of Foreign Wars' post in Leavenworth traditionally was dominated by aged ex-servicemen. But in recent years a revolution has occurred in the Kansas Army town, with a new young leadership transforming the post into a center providing support and entertainment for male and female veterans of all ages and conflicts.

It's a scene that the VFW, considered the nation's largest and most active organization advocating for military veterans, is burnishing as several hundred thousand of its mainstay members — World War II veterans — die each year.

"We have to battle that perception that we are an old man's club," said Lynn W. Rolf III, a 36-year-old Iraq war veteran and the commander of the Leavenworth post. "We have to transform ourselves or we won't survive."

Since its peak membership in 1992, the VFW's ranks have fallen from 2.17 million to 1.49 million nationwide. About 500,000 of its members are above the age of 80 while just about 100,000 are under the age of 39.

John Barrett said the WWII vets at an Alabama post treated him with such disregard when he returned from Vietnam that he turned his back on the organization back in the 1970s.

"They said it wasn't a real war, that we just went over there and messed around, that we were nothing but a police action and we didn't see what they called 'real combat,'" Barrett said.
"They called us 'baby killers,' and they didn't feel like we should even be in their organization."

When Rolf walked through the door at the Leavenworth post in 2007, he found a bunch of old-timers drinking at the bar.

Sure, they understood combat and all the things that are hard to explain to people who haven't been there.

But Rolf, who had been drinking too much and had been struggling with bad memories of the war in Iraq, said members seemed more focused on what kind of liquor to stock at the bar than with providing support for returning troops and their families.

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VFW seeks reform

R.I. National Guard fights battles abroad and at home

R.I. National Guard fights battles abroad and at home
08:49 AM EST on Thursday, December 30, 2010
By Katie Mulvaney

Journal Staff Writer

While Cummings has had success re-acclimating, other Rhode Island National Guardsmen had a tough year. Three guardsmen committed suicide within 30 days early in the year and a fourth died two months earlier in an accidental drowning.

They are called citizen soldiers. They work as prison guards, police officers, investment portfolio managers, Harvard University professors. And at any moment, they could be called to fight a war or lend a hand during a natural disaster and leave their jobs and loved ones behind.

They are Rhode Island National Guardsmen and women, and they trace their history to the first Colonial defense force started in Portsmouth in 1638. Today, they number 3,300, with 2,200 in the Army National Guard and 1,100 in the Air National Guard. They serve at the behest of the U.S. president and Rhode Island’s governor, fulfilling federal and state missions under Adjutant Gen. Robert T. Bray’s leadership.

And since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, they’ve seen the country’s second-highest per-capita deployment rate behind South Dakota with 5,600 mobilizations — a figure only surpassed in Rhode Island during the Civil War. They are in demand because they are skilled in providing support services to soldiers on the frontlines as military police officers and helicopter pilots.


In addition, as the governor’s militia, 614 Rhode Island National guardsmen and guardswomen helped with traffic control and evacuations during the spring floods. Another 206 were activated to assist during Hurricane Earl.

“There’s a minuteman ethos to drop their figurative plowshares and pick up their muskets,” says Lt. Col. Denis J. Riel, spokesman for the state Guard.
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National Guard fights battles abroad and at home

Extra
War hits home for family of newly deployed captain from R.I. National Guard

Three tour Marine Sniper dead after standoff

UPDATE

Marine's Wife Gives Birth Day After His Death

Friend: Roxanne Gonzales, Baby Doing Well

POSTED: 11:16 pm MST December 30, 2010
SANTA FE, N.M. -- The pregnant wife of a Marine, who died after a shootout with state police in Santa Fe, gave birth to their second child on Thursday.
Lawrence Lujan said his friend, Roxanne Gonzales, gave birth to a baby boy named Cruz.
“Today was a big day for the Gonzales family,” Lujan said. “The baby and Roxanne are doing well. We are kind of in a mixed state.”
Lujan said Gonzales is also mourning the loss of her husband, Diego Gonzales. State police said they tried pulling Gonzales over after getting reports he kidnapped his wife and their other child, but the Marine shot at them before turning the gun on himself.
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http://www.koat.com/news/26328689/detail.html



TSA officer kills himself during police shoot out
A TSA spokeswoman confirmed that Diego Gonzalez was a TSA behavior detection officer who had been employed at the Albuquerque Sunport for almost four years.
http://www.KOB.com/article/stories/S1900502.shtml?cat=500

Sister: Man Who Shot Himself Troubled By PTSD

Marine, 27, Dies In Shootout With State Police On I-25
http://www.koat.com/news/26317539/detail.html



Three tour Marine Sniper dead after standoff
December 30, 2010 posted by Chaplain Kathie
The police are not sure if is this veteran shot himself or not but all seem to agree PTSD was behind it all.

Man dead after shootout on I-2527-year-old veteran suffering PTSD may have fired fatal bullet himself
Geoff Grammer | The New Mexican
Posted: Wednesday, December 29, 2010
Diego Gonzales wanted help.
It didn’t come in time for the 27-year-old Pecos High School graduate, who was suffering post-traumatic stress disorder after two tours of duty in Iraq and another in Afghanistan as a U.S. Marine Corps sniper. He died late Tuesday in a shootout with police on Interstate 25 south of Santa Fe.
It’s still unclear whether the fatal shot came from state police or from Gonzales’ own gun. That won’t be determined until an autopsy is completed by the state Office of the Medical Investigator in Albuquerque.
“He was owning up to the fact that he had problems he knew he had to fix to be the best dad he could be,” said Lawrence Lujan, a childhood friend who spoke on behalf of the Gonzales family. “He did his thing in Iraq, served this country, and did so honorably. God only knows what he saw. But he was affected deeply, and he was seeking treatment for PTSD.”
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Three tour Marine Sniper dead after standoff

Dishonorably discharged man posed as homeless veteran

Reading this my knee-jerk reaction was anger. A veteran living on the streets begging for money is more heartbreaking for most people than to see someone else asking for money. We give to charities, like the Salvation Army, never knowing where our money or clothing goes because we just want to help someone with less than we have. We don't know how they ended up homeless, if it was their "fault" or not any more than we care if they are on drugs or drinking because as humans they have basic needs like clothing, shelter, food and to know that someone thinks they are worth helping. When it comes to veterans, most of us look at them differently because they were willing to die for the rest of us. To see them living on the streets after that is heartbreaking. To have someone claim to be a veteran just to get more money makes us wonder if every other person we see begging claiming to be a veteran is really a veteran or not.

Then I finished reading this coming to the part where it says this faker was dishonorably discharged. I wasn't so angry after that. I wondered if he was one of the 26,000 or more discharged under personality disorder instead of taken care of because they had PTSD. This kind of discharge left them without everything. No income, no help from the VA or service organizations, no jobs and no hope. It would be very interesting to find out why he was discharged but I doubt we'll see any reports getting further into this.

POLICE: Beggar posed as veteran


Posted: Dec 29, 2010 10:59 AM

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB Fox 41) -- Police say a homeless man went too far when he impersonated a veteran.

Paul Kaemerer was apprehended by officers Tuesday afternoon when he was seen walking near the I-264 westbound off-ramp to eastbound U.S. 31. A police citation indicates that he was holding a sign that said, "homeless hungry veteran."

When officers asked Kaemerer to prove that he was a veteran, he couldn't do so, according to the report.

Officers quickly became suspicious.

"It is common knowledge that persons will lie about their veteran status to attempt [to] gain additional monies from begging," the citation states.

Police say Kaemerer was disturbing traffic and had previously been warned not to beg for money at that location.

Kaemerer eventually told them that he had been dishonorably discharged from the military and that he was begging for money, police say.

He was charged with misrepresenting his military status, disorderly conduct, standing on a limited-access highway and criminal trespassing.
Beggar posed as veteran

Richard Blumenthal wants answers for 26,000 wrongfully discharged veterans

Blumenthal backs veterans' personality disorder discharge lawsuit

By MARK SPENCER, mspencer@courant.com
The Hartford Courant
7:05 p.m. EST, December 28, 2010



HARTFORD — —
Attorney General Richard Blumenthal on Tuesday endorsed the efforts of veterans groups to get information from the Department of Defense about troops wrongfully discharged on the basis of personality disorder.

Vietnam Veterans of America and its local chapter in Hartford filed a federal Freedom of Information Act lawsuit in federal court in New Haven Dec. 16. The suit seeks information from the defense department about why some 26,000 service members since 2001 have been classified as having personality disorders and discharged, making them ineligible for many benefits.

The veterans groups, represented by the veterans' clinic of the Jerome N. Frank Legal Services Organization at Yale Law School, are concerned that many of those discharged may have post-traumatic stress disorder and are therefore eligible for benefits.
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Blumenthal backs veterans' personality disorder discharge lawsuit

Indiana joining list of states with Veterans' Court

Porter County court system to offer aid to combat vets


By JEFF SCHULTZ
Porter County Superior Court Judge Julia Jent says plans are in motion to make a veterans treatment court available in the county to provide troubled veterans with assistance instead of jail time.
Legislation was passed by the state last year that would allow the Indiana Judicial Center to certify veterans treatments court in any eligible county. The program falls under the umbrella of the Problem Solving Courts which includes drug court programs.
Jent, who is also a member of the state’s Problem Solving Courts committee, said the veterans treatment court will apply to combat veterans who have pleaded guilty to non-violent crimes or misdemeanors. The program also includes family members of the veterans.
Case managers will counsel defendants or participants in the program for alcohol and drug abuse, anger management and depression, similar to that of drug court. Many of the issues can be attributed to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder commonly experienced in some form by combat.
Those who work with the program until completion will be able to keep out of jail and some may even see their original criminal charges dropped from their record.
Jent said the program will also allow the judicial system to consult with the Army National Guard and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs on the personal history of an individual vet to help determine what their needs are.
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Porter County court system to offer aid to combat vets