Enterprise sailor from Fort Walton Beach FL killed in non-combat incident

Enterprise sailor killed in non-combat incident
By Joshua Stewart - Staff writer
Posted : Wednesday Mar 23, 2011 18:18:59 EDT
A senior petty officer died Tuesday aboard the aircraft carrier Enterprise stemming from a “non-combat related incident,” according to a Defense Department news release Wednesday.

The circumstances surrounding the death of Aviation Ordnanceman 1st Class (AW) Vincent Filpi of Fort Walton Beach, Fla., have not been disclosed. A Navy spokesman said that there is an investigation into the incident.
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Enterprise sailor killed in non-combat incident

Experts weigh in on physician’s claim of PTSD "cure"

Mixed-opinions on ex-Army doc’s PTSD ‘cure’
Experts weigh in on physician’s claim that his supplement can cure PTSD
By Jon R. Anderson - Staff writer
Posted : Monday Mar 21, 2011 13:39:30 EDT
Former Army physician Dr. John J. Prendergast is either a therapeutic prophet who has invented a miraculous cure-all for everything from clogged arteries to post-traumatic stress disorder or a modern-day snake-oil salesman making irresponsible, possibly dangerous claims about his vitamin supplement.

It all depends on who you believe.

Prendergast was a Vietnam-era Army doctor — military records he provided to Military Times confirm that. After that, much of his story doesn’t add up.

Prendergast says he helped invent ProArgi-9 Plus, a powdered multivitamin drink mix with a “proprietary blend” of the amino acid L-arginine, red wine extract and other ingredients. The mix is sold by Synergy WorldWide.

Described by the company’s president as a Synergy spokesman and member of its medical advisory board, Prendergast, or “Dr. Joe,” as he is known on the product’s numerous websites, claims he was influenced by world-renowned scientists and endorsed by the American Diabetes Association for “rolling back the ravages of diabetes.” He says his elixir has cleared the clogged arteries of thousands of diabetics.

But the scientists to whom Prendergast links himself say he is using their names and work against their wishes. And the American Diabetes Association says the only thing it has ever given him is a regional father-of-the-year award that had nothing to do with his medical practice.
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Experts weigh in on physician’s claim

Yuma Missing Marine's body found

Missing Marine from Maine found dead in Ariz. irrigation canal
Associated Press / March 23, 2011
YUMA, Ariz. — Authorities confirmed yesterday that a US Marine from Maine, reported missing last week, was found dead in an irrigation canal in Yuma, in southwest Arizona.

The body of Corporal Joshua Barron, 22, was discovered by a farmer Monday, said Captain Eben Bratcher, Yuma County Sheriff spokesman. He was reporting missing March 16.

There was no sign of trauma, and foul play is not suspected, Bratcher said. Barron was initially identified because his name was tattooed on his shoulder. The Marine Corps helped confirm his identity, and his wife, Natasha Barron, of Standish, Maine, was notified. An autopsy is scheduled for today.

Barron was wearing civilian clothing, and it appeared that his body had been in the canal for at least several days, Bratcher said.

Barron was stationed at Marine Corps Air Station Yuma, where he was a Harrier jet mechanic. He lived off base.

His roommate last saw Barron the evening of March 15, said Marine Captain Staci Reidinger. When Barron failed to show up for work on March 16, his commanding officer checked on him and found he was missing, and military investigators were called. Yuma police were notified two days later by his mother, said police spokesman Sergeant Clint Norred.
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Missing Marine from Maine found dead

Missing Marine's family speaks

Fort Bragg Master Sgt. dies in Djibouti

Fort Bragg soldier dies in Djibouti



A staff report

A Fort Bragg-based solider has died in Djibouti in a noncombat related incident, according to the Army.

Master Sgt. Jamal H. Bowers, 41, of Raleigh, was found dead Friday at Camp Lemonier, said spokesman Mark Schulz.

Schulz said Bowers had been feeling ill the day before and had been sent home and the death appeared to be medical in nature.

Bowers was a U.S. Marine who joined the Army in 1999 as a combat engineer. In 2001, he was qualified in psychological operations, and he had worked as an instructor at the psychological operations qualification course at the John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center, Schulz said.
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Fort Bragg soldier dies in Djibouti

Soldier found dead at Fort Hood

Fort Hood soldier, 19, found dead
Circumstances are under investigation

Updated: Tuesday, 22 Mar 2011, 11:36 AM CDT
Published : Tuesday, 22 Mar 2011, 11:36 AM CDT

FORT HOOD, Texas (KXAN) - Fort Hood officials found a 19-year-old soldier unresponsive in his barracks on Sunday. The cause of his death is unknown for now.

Pfc. Tommy Lee Curd, from Ellington, Mo., joined the military February 2010 and worked as a vehicle mechanic. He was assigned to 509th Forward Support Company, 504th Special Troops Battalion, 504th Battlefield Surveillance Brigade, Fort Hood , since December 2010.

Curd's awards and decorations include:

National Defense Service Medal
Global War on Terrorism Service Medal
Army Service Ribbon
Officials are investigating the death.
Fort Hood soldier, 19, found dead

Soldier Escapes William Beaumont Army Medical Center?

UPDATE 3/24/11
Soldier found


Police called off the search for a soldier? The same soldier Army officials thought it was so important to get him to the medical center, they escorted him there? How much of this story makes sense?

Police Call Off Search For Soldier Who Fled From William Beaumont Medical Center

Soldier Escapes William Beaumont Army Medical Center
Monica Balderrama-KFOX News Reporter
Posted: 5:15 pm MDT March 22, 2011
Updated: 10:45 pm MDT March 22, 2011

EL PASO, Texas -- A Fort Bliss soldier who was about to get treated for a medical condition at William Beaumont Army Medical Center runs away from his chain of command. El Paso police have called off their search, but the soldier is still missing.

Police were called to the area near McKelligan Canyon and Alabama Street around 2:30 p.m. Tuesday to help search for a soldier who is accused of running from his chain of command.

"It's kinda scary. There was a brown car that was parked all crazy here," said northeast El Paso resident Erika Porras.

Porras saw the commotion in her neighborhood and she became worried.

Fort Bliss officials said Army officials were escorting the soldier to a doctor's appointment at William Beaumont Army Medical Center.

"He was escorted by a unit leader because we care and want to ensure our soldiers make their medical appointments," said Mayor Myles Caggins, the spokesperson for Fort Bliss.
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Soldier Escapes William Beaumont Army Medical Centerl

Now they need to teach us how to get back

"They teach us how to get over there," he said. "Now they need to teach us how to get back."
MINOT, ND -- At 8:20 p.m. on Sept. 21, 2010, Iraq veteran Brock Savelkoul decided it was time to die.

Aftershock: The Blast That Shook Psycho Platoon
by T. Christian Miller, ProPublica, and Daniel Zwerdling, NPR March 22, 2011, 1:05 p.m.


MINOT, ND -- At 8:20 p.m. on Sept. 21, 2010, Iraq veteran Brock Savelkoul decided it was time to die. He lurched from his black Tacoma pickup truck, gripping a 9-mm pistol. In front of him, a half dozen law enforcement officers crouched behind patrol cars with their weapons drawn. They had surrounded him on a muddy red road after an hour-long chase that reached speeds of 105 miles per hour. Savelkoul stared at the ring of men and women before ducking into the cab of his truck. He cranked up the radio. A country song about whiskey and cigarettes wafted out across an endless sprawl of North Dakota farmland, stubbled from the recent harvest. Sleet was falling, chilling the air. Savelkoul, 29, walked slowly toward the officers. He gestured wildly with his gun. "Go ahead, shoot me! ... Please, shoot me," he yelled, his face illuminated in a chiaroscuro of blazing spotlights and the deepening darkness. "Do it. Pull it. Do I have to point my gun at you to ... do it?"

Twenty feet away, the officers shifted nervously. Some placed their fingers on the triggers of their shotguns and took aim at Savelkoul's chest. They were exhausted, on edge after the chase and long standoff. They knew only the sketchiest of details about the man in front of them, his blond hair short, his face twisted in grief and anger. Dispatchers had told them that Savelkoul had been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. They warned that he might have been drinking. Family members told police that Savelkoul had fled his home with six weapons, including a semiautomatic assault rifle and several hundred rounds of hollow point ammunition. To Megan Christopher, a trooper with the North Dakota Highway Patrol, Savelkoul's intentions seemed obvious. "Suicide by cop," she thought. "He wants to go out in a blaze of glory."

As it happened, Savelkoul's state of mind was of interest not only to the cops, but to some of the nation's top military officers and medical researchers.

More than 2 million troops have deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan since 2001. Tens of thousands have returned with a bedeviling mix of psychological and cognitive problems. For decades, doctors have recognized that soldiers can suffer lasting wounds from the sheer terror of combat, a condition referred to today as post-traumatic stress disorder. They also have come to know that blows to the head from roadside bombs -- the signature weapon in Iraq and Afghanistan -- can result in mild traumatic injuries to the brain, or concussions, that can leave soldiers unable to remember, to follow orders, to think normally.

Now it is becoming clear that soldiers like Savelkoul are coming home afflicted with both conditions, in numbers never seen before. Studies have estimated that about 20 percent of soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan have suffered a mild traumatic brain injury while deployed. Of those, anywhere between 5 percent to nearly 50 percent may suffer both PTSD and lingering problems from traumatic brain injuries. It is an epidemic so new that doctors aren't even sure what to call it, let alone how best to diagnose and treat it.

Savelkoul and four of his comrades landed on the front lines of this confounding new conflict over the minds of America's soldiers when an Iraqi rocket exploded near their trailer in January 2009. By chance, a senior Army neuropsychologist was in Iraq at the time to conduct a study on the military's tools for diagnosing concussions. After learning of the attack, he persuaded Savelkoul and the others to enroll. The men became the first fully documented victims of "pure blast" concussions -- that is, mild traumatic brain injuries caused by the force of an explosion, rather than a secondary effect, such as slamming into a Humvee wall after a roadside bomb.
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The Blast That Shook Psycho Platoon

Patriot Guard documentary premiere sells out

Patriot Guard 'Riders' takes to the screen
Patriot Guard documentary premiere sells out

By Jared Council


EVANSVILLE — Those engine-revving, leather-clad bikers, who began aiding military families in 2006, for the first time are profiled in a film.

More than 400 people came to see its sold-out premiere on Evansville's East Side on Sunday afternoon.

"These guys are true patriots," said former Congressman Brad Ellsworth, who attended the premiere of the documentary "Patriot Guard Riders" at Showplace Cinemas. "Some are vets and some aren't, and no matter the weather, they show their patriotism and respect for our troops."

The group Patriot Guard Riders began in 2006 when a few American Legion riders in Kansas coalesced in response to protests by the Westboro Baptist Church, whose members believe that soldiers' deaths are God's way of punishing America for tolerating homosexuality.

Since then, the Patriot Guard Riders group has grown to nearly 250,000 members nationally, with about 250 in the Tri-State.

Families that have had the Patriot Guard Riders as part of their cortege during their military funerals have often thanked and commended them. In the film, a top Westboro member shared her thoughts.

"The first time I saw them ... was in Chelsea, Oklahoma," said Shirley Phelps, a member of the controversial Kansas group that often protests at military funerals, in the documentary.

"And no joke: They started revving those engines, and the earth shook."
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Patriot Guard documentary premiere sells out

Take Care of Veterans, Whatever It Takes

If this means nothing to you then please make sure you work through Memorial Day Weekend. No cookouts, parties or parades and whatever you do, do not go to a cemetery where the dead are honored.

When July 4th comes, don't hang out a flag since you must not care how we ended up the "land of the free and the home of the brave." The Bill of Rights and the Constitution would have been nothing more than words on paper had it not been for the Patriots risking their lives to deliver on what the Founding Fathers wrote down. You should avoid any celebration of this day as well since you must not care about the price paid for it.

When Veterans Day comes just keep going about your regular business looking for sales so you can save some money, giving no pause to the men and women who risked their lives for your sake.

If you are a politician and this means nothing to do then don't show up to say how much you care when clearly, you haven't cared enough. While you may worry about votes against you and the death of your political career, they worry about their lives and the death of friends. They put their trust in you when you voted to send them into combat and you abandoned them. It is as simple as that.

Take Care of Veterans, Whatever It Takes

Matthew Boulay
Leads the National Summer Learning Association
Posted: March 21, 2011

Eight years ago this week the first Marine died in the war in Iraq.

James, a private, grew up in a small town in western Pennsylvania and enlisted in the Marine Corps straight out of high school. He was assigned to an infantry unit and sent to northern Kuwait to take part in the invasion of Iraq. Feeling depressed and overwhelmed, he walked into a plastic porta-john at the edge of base camp, chambered a single round in his M16, and shot himself in the head. He was 19 years old.

I never met James and I didn't know him. But we served in the same battalion of light armored vehicles and I was thirty yards away from that porta-john. I remember hearing the shrill crack of a single rifle shot and I remember seeing his blood gush from beneath the door of the porta-john, forming a dark crimson pool in the Kuwaiti sand.

War is ugly and harsh and painful. War stories, especially the true ones, should remind us of the terrible toll that war inflicts on young men and women.

Today there are no monuments to James, no scholarships in his honor, no schools named after him. He died in Iraq but he didn't die in combat. We, as a nation, don't really know how to deal with the increasing numbers of veterans who struggle with the invisible wounds of war - post traumatic stress disorder, major depression, and traumatic brain injury.

The terrible reality, of course, is that war rages on for the veteran long after he or she has come home. The statistics are sobering. The military lost more troops to suicide in 2009 and 2010 than it has lost to combat in Iraq and Afghanistan. At the country's largest Army base, Fort Hood in Texas, 22 soldiers committed suicide in 2010. And a recent study found that female veterans commit suicide at three times the rate of young women who have not served in the military.

These young men and women are not cowards. They served their country with honor and distinction. They and their families made enormous sacrifices. And the struggles faced by today's generation of young veterans are no different than the challenges faced by veterans of previous wars. Readers of the bestselling new book Unbroken, for example, will recognize the terrible symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder that Louis Zamperini struggled with after coming home from World War II. The Department of Veterans Affairs reports that more than 6,000 veterans commit suicide every year. That is an average of 18 veterans every day. The vast majority of these suicides are committed by older veterans who served in World War II, Korea, Vietnam, and the Gulf War.
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Take Care of Veterans, Whatever It Takes

There is a sickening disconnect in this country. No one seems to care about the two million veterans Afghanistan and Iraq have created any more than they care about the other 22 million or so more already neglected. All the talk right now in about Libya but news reports from Iraq and Afghanistan ended when the American people didn't want to watch them. The interest in Libya will die off soon enough and they can all go back to paying attention to Charley Sheen while few pay attention to who is a lot more important to the future of this nation just as they were to her past. The eye opening fact is that no matter how much we ignore them, no matter what their service has put them through, they would do it all over again for thankless people celebrating a weekend off.

Soldier finally gets justice in law suit against Coldwell Banker Mortgage

David Brash had enough to worry about while deployed overseas. The last thing he should have had to worry about was his mortgage considering he set up automatic payments. The problem is no matter what he did right, someone did something wrong, leaving him to have to worry about his credit being destroyed.

You'd think Coldwell Banker would have wanted to do the right thing, especially for a deployed soldier, but they were not interested according to this report, even when he called from overseas to get things cleared up.

The cool thing on this is the jury was aggravated over how he was treated and acted on it.

Jury Awards GI $20M in Mortgage Case
March 22, 2011
Columbus Ledger-Enquirer
A federal jury awarded a Fort Benning Soldier more than $20 million on Monday in a case against Coldwell Banker Mortgage -- an amount the plaintiff's attorney called necessary to get the company's attention.

Jurors in the case of David Brash v. PHH Mortgage Corp., doing business as Coldwell Banker, deliberated for about six hours before ruling in Brash's favor. During the six-day trial, jurors heard that Coldwell Banker improperly reported Brash, 29, to credit bureaus which led to a "serious delinquency" on his credit report, that it refused to answer his questions or correct his account and damaged him emotionally, physically and financially, his attorneys and court documents say.

"The jury was aggravated as to how he was treated," said Charlie Gower, an attorney who represents Brash. "I think the jury was just very mad because they were attacking David Brash the Soldier and basically calling him a liar."

Jurors heard recordings of calls Brash made, recorded by PHH Mortgage, in which Brash would be on hold for 30 or 40 minutes at a time with overseas customer service representatives, said Gower and Teresa Thomas Abell, another attorney representing Brash.

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Jury Awards GI $20M in Mortgage Case