Guest View: Cycling to battle veteran homelessness
Juventino "J" Gomez
Posted: 07/24/2011
For many veterans in the San Gabriel Valley, the price of freedom is felt every night as these heroes pitch a tent, unfurl their sleeping mats and take up temporary residence under a freeway overpass or in a local park.
The number of men and women who return from war only to find themselves homeless, and without proper post-combat mental health care is intolerable.
Experts estimate that 11 percent of the 8,000 homeless veterans in Los Angeles County live in the San Gabriel Valley. According to a 2009 report on homelessness by the Veteran's Administration and the Department of Housing and Urban Development, veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan are at higher risk of homelessness induced by mental illness than those from earlier conflicts. Reasons include the length and number of deployments, as well as the nature of the conflict, exposure to roadside bombs and other explosions that cause traumatic brain injury. California alone has welcomed more than 30,000 veterans home - many of whom end up homeless after 18 months of being discharged.
Upon taking office, President Barack Obama committed billions of federal dollars to end the shame of veteran homelessness. The 2012 budget includes $939 million to prevent and reduce homelessness among veterans - a 17.5 percent increase from previous years. However, these funds in past years have sat unused due to bureaucracy and an infrastructure ill-equipped to handle the heavy load of veterans in need of workforce training, housing services and healthcare.
So, to rally support and encourage the distribution of long-overdue federal funding, a local group of strong-willed U.S. service members have taken matters into their own hands. Through aggressive "vet hunting," which includes scouring homeless camps, overpasses and parks for homeless veterans, this group has dedicated themselves to a 1,900-mile bicycle ride in the name of their veteran brothers and sisters. They call themselves Vet Hunters - they are homeless veterans themselves, former service members who have suffered combat disabilities, and active-duty Iraq and Afghanistan service members.
Read more: Cycling to battle veteran homelessness
Monday, July 25, 2011
Uncle Sam wants psychiatrists
Uncle Sam wants psychiatrists
Published: July 25, 2011 at 12:55 AM
FORT KNOX, Ky., July 25 (UPI) -- Uncle Sam wants psychiatrists, clinical psychologists and social workers as well as graduate students entering these fields to consider the U.S. Army.
Col. R. Scott Dingle, the U.S. Army's Medical Recruiting Brigade commander, says the military is one of the largest healthcare organizations in the world and offers behavioral health providers the chance to work in the areas of mental resilience, combat and operational stress control.
read more here
Uncle Sam wants psychiatrists
Published: July 25, 2011 at 12:55 AM
FORT KNOX, Ky., July 25 (UPI) -- Uncle Sam wants psychiatrists, clinical psychologists and social workers as well as graduate students entering these fields to consider the U.S. Army.
Col. R. Scott Dingle, the U.S. Army's Medical Recruiting Brigade commander, says the military is one of the largest healthcare organizations in the world and offers behavioral health providers the chance to work in the areas of mental resilience, combat and operational stress control.
read more here
Uncle Sam wants psychiatrists
Helping as fort blacksmith proves therapeutic
Vet finds he’s iron-willed
Helping as fort blacksmith proves therapeutic
By Sue Vorenberg
Columbian Staff Reporter
Sunday, July 24, 2011
A metallic, slightly smoky odor saturated the blacksmith shop at Fort Vancouver National Site, adding another layer to the historic accuracy of the place.
Re-enacting a profession from 1845 is about as far away as you can get from the battlefields of Operation Desert Storm, where Pisarek severely injured his right leg after getting caught between a mine field and artillery fire, which “didn’t go well,” he said with an odd smile.
But for the Army veteran, who suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder, learning to become a blacksmith has been a fulfilling way to use some of the same mechanical and technical skills he worked with in the service, he said.
“I was a lifer, I expected to stay in for 30 years, but in 1992 after my injury I opted for the early-out program,” said Pisarek, who joined the service in 1982.
His military job, as a field expedient weapons instructor, was something he really enjoyed, and it was hard to give it up, he said.
“(It) requires looking at an object for what it’s capable of, not necessarily for what it’s designed to do,” Pisarek said.
Volunteering to work as a blacksmith has given him a new creative outlet, and a way to fulfill the same mechanical and intellectual curiosity, he added.
read more here
Helping as fort blacksmith proves therapeutic
Helping as fort blacksmith proves therapeutic
By Sue Vorenberg
Columbian Staff Reporter
Sunday, July 24, 2011
Photo by Steven LanePeace and calm radiated from Lee Pisarek’s face as he rhythmically pounded the piece of red hot iron with a mallet wrapped in his large, skilled hand.
Stoking the fire at the blacksmith shop at the Fort Vancouver National Historic Site, Lee Pisarek prepares to work with some hot iron. The disabled Army veteran, who suffers from PTSD, said his time volunteering at the fort has been therapeutic.
A metallic, slightly smoky odor saturated the blacksmith shop at Fort Vancouver National Site, adding another layer to the historic accuracy of the place.
Re-enacting a profession from 1845 is about as far away as you can get from the battlefields of Operation Desert Storm, where Pisarek severely injured his right leg after getting caught between a mine field and artillery fire, which “didn’t go well,” he said with an odd smile.
But for the Army veteran, who suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder, learning to become a blacksmith has been a fulfilling way to use some of the same mechanical and technical skills he worked with in the service, he said.
“I was a lifer, I expected to stay in for 30 years, but in 1992 after my injury I opted for the early-out program,” said Pisarek, who joined the service in 1982.
His military job, as a field expedient weapons instructor, was something he really enjoyed, and it was hard to give it up, he said.
“(It) requires looking at an object for what it’s capable of, not necessarily for what it’s designed to do,” Pisarek said.
Volunteering to work as a blacksmith has given him a new creative outlet, and a way to fulfill the same mechanical and intellectual curiosity, he added.
read more here
Helping as fort blacksmith proves therapeutic
Waiting too long for help from VA
Waiting too long for help from VA
The Virginian-Pilot
© July 25, 2011
Veterans diagnosed with mental health problems also have to cope with dangerously long delays in getting the care they deserve from Veterans Affairs facilities.
That problem is not new. More than 202,000 veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan have been seen at VA facilities for potential cases of post-traumatic stress disorder.
Nevertheless, stories of long waits for treatment remain legion, as was clear at a Senate committee hearing earlier this month.
It's perhaps no coincidence that the VA monitors how long it takes for a vet to receive his first appointment but doesn't keep track of how long a vet has to wait for treatment.
As past wars have taught the nation, the number of returning soldiers suffering from mental illness will never be truly known. Some psychiatric problems take years to manifest. Others are buried beneath drugs or drink. Still other mental health problems lead veterans onto the streets and society's margins.
The best opportunity to reach mentally injured veterans comes in the military's own system and in the days, weeks and months following a soldier's rotation back home.
That's not happening enough in the VA system, several veterans told the senators.
read more here
Waiting too long for help from VA
The Virginian-Pilot
© July 25, 2011
Veterans diagnosed with mental health problems also have to cope with dangerously long delays in getting the care they deserve from Veterans Affairs facilities.
That problem is not new. More than 202,000 veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan have been seen at VA facilities for potential cases of post-traumatic stress disorder.
Nevertheless, stories of long waits for treatment remain legion, as was clear at a Senate committee hearing earlier this month.
It's perhaps no coincidence that the VA monitors how long it takes for a vet to receive his first appointment but doesn't keep track of how long a vet has to wait for treatment.
As past wars have taught the nation, the number of returning soldiers suffering from mental illness will never be truly known. Some psychiatric problems take years to manifest. Others are buried beneath drugs or drink. Still other mental health problems lead veterans onto the streets and society's margins.
The best opportunity to reach mentally injured veterans comes in the military's own system and in the days, weeks and months following a soldier's rotation back home.
That's not happening enough in the VA system, several veterans told the senators.
read more here
Waiting too long for help from VA
Female soldier raped, then tossed out for admitting she was gay?
We read a lot of stories about gay soldiers being kicked out of the military. We read a lot of stories about female soldiers being raped. This one combines both and it is pretty shocking to discover what happened to this woman after being raped and betrayed over "don't ask, don't tell." In her case, did the military try to tell her she shouldn't have talked about being raped too?
A nightmare that lasted nine years
02:49 PM EDT on Sunday, July 24, 2011
By Lynn Arditi
Journal Staff Writer
Pvt. Valerie J. Desautel swore under oath to an Army investigator that she would tell the truth about the night she was raped.
She was 20, a fresh-faced soldier from Rhode Island who was in training at Fort Lee, Va.
Desautel admitted to the investigator taking her statement that she’d been socializing the previous night at an officer’s club, got drunk, and accepted a ride from a man whom she’d only just met.
The officer sounded skeptical. You went with this man to a hotel, she remembers the officer saying, and you want me to believe that it wasn’t consensual?
Then, before the young private had time to think it through, she blurted out the words she’d been warned never to say in the military: “I’m gay…”
Eight weeks later, plagued by anxiety and flashbacks, she was ordered to pack her bags and was handed a plane ticket home. Her discharge sheet read: “homosexual admission.”
“Instead of rehabilitating me,” she said, “they threw me out like a piece of trash.”
read more here
A nightmare that lasted nine years
From health care to finances, protect those who protected us
A soldier’s money
From health care to finances, we should protect those who protected us
Sergeant Jared Doohen, left, and Staff Sergeant Thomas Stanley return home to Vermont last year after nine months in Afghanistan. (Associated Press)
By Juliette Kayyem
July 25, 2011
LAST WEEK, 650 troops quietly left Afghanistan, beginning the long slog home as part of President Obama’s drawdown. At the same time, General David Petraeus, the architect of the surges in both Iraq and Afghanistan, formally resigned from the military to take over as director of the CIA. The timing was coincidental, but not without meaning: The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are now simultaneously moving to a close.
Petraeus handed his Afghanistan command to Marine Lieutenant General John Allen, who will oversee further troop departures. He also symbolically handed over some measure of responsibility for those troops’ future well-being to his wife, Holly Petraeus, who represents a rare growth industry in government: protecting and providing to our returning service members and veterans.
As a nation, we are simply unprepared for the numbers of returning troops we now face. The wars of the last ten years have created over 1.1 million veterans; another 2.4 million men and women are on active, National Guard, or reserve duty. This class includes soldiers who have served in combat longer than any in US history. Of the nearly 400,000 who have seen combat duty, more than 13,000 have spent at least 45 months - nearly four cumulative years - in combat.
We know so little about the magnitude and the depth of the issues they will be facing in health care, employment, and education. All they want is to go back to normal lives. And that too is a challenge.
read more here
From health care to finances
From health care to finances, we should protect those who protected us
Sergeant Jared Doohen, left, and Staff Sergeant Thomas Stanley return home to Vermont last year after nine months in Afghanistan. (Associated Press)
By Juliette Kayyem
July 25, 2011
LAST WEEK, 650 troops quietly left Afghanistan, beginning the long slog home as part of President Obama’s drawdown. At the same time, General David Petraeus, the architect of the surges in both Iraq and Afghanistan, formally resigned from the military to take over as director of the CIA. The timing was coincidental, but not without meaning: The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are now simultaneously moving to a close.
Petraeus handed his Afghanistan command to Marine Lieutenant General John Allen, who will oversee further troop departures. He also symbolically handed over some measure of responsibility for those troops’ future well-being to his wife, Holly Petraeus, who represents a rare growth industry in government: protecting and providing to our returning service members and veterans.
As a nation, we are simply unprepared for the numbers of returning troops we now face. The wars of the last ten years have created over 1.1 million veterans; another 2.4 million men and women are on active, National Guard, or reserve duty. This class includes soldiers who have served in combat longer than any in US history. Of the nearly 400,000 who have seen combat duty, more than 13,000 have spent at least 45 months - nearly four cumulative years - in combat.
We know so little about the magnitude and the depth of the issues they will be facing in health care, employment, and education. All they want is to go back to normal lives. And that too is a challenge.
read more here
From health care to finances
Vietnam MIA's body laid to rest after 40 years
Local soldier's body laid to rest 40 years after he disappeared
BY MIKE FITZGERALD - News-Democrat
GLEN CARBON -- Randy Dalton's family, after waiting 40 years to the day, finally laid him to rest Sunday.
An Army honor guard, in white gloves and dress uniforms, carried Dalton's flag-draped coffin the last few yards to his resting place on the gentle slope of a hill at Sunset Hill Cemetery.
A man dressed as a Union soldier from the Civil War played "Taps." More than 400 people stood silently as seven volunteers aimed their rifles skyward and fired three volleys.
An then the honor guard commander, an Army sergeant, presented each of Dalton's three sisters a tightly folded American flag -- a final gesture to honor the 20-year-old Collinsville man whose body disappeared on July 24, 1971.
That's when the helicopter on which Dalton served as a door gunner was shot down during a reconnaissance mission over Cambodia. Although Dalton was due to return home in a few weeks, he volunteered for the mission to take the place of a friend who'd fallen sick.
Read more: Local soldier body laid to rest
BY MIKE FITZGERALD - News-Democrat
GLEN CARBON -- Randy Dalton's family, after waiting 40 years to the day, finally laid him to rest Sunday.
An Army honor guard, in white gloves and dress uniforms, carried Dalton's flag-draped coffin the last few yards to his resting place on the gentle slope of a hill at Sunset Hill Cemetery.
A man dressed as a Union soldier from the Civil War played "Taps." More than 400 people stood silently as seven volunteers aimed their rifles skyward and fired three volleys.
An then the honor guard commander, an Army sergeant, presented each of Dalton's three sisters a tightly folded American flag -- a final gesture to honor the 20-year-old Collinsville man whose body disappeared on July 24, 1971.
That's when the helicopter on which Dalton served as a door gunner was shot down during a reconnaissance mission over Cambodia. Although Dalton was due to return home in a few weeks, he volunteered for the mission to take the place of a friend who'd fallen sick.
Read more: Local soldier body laid to rest
Iraq Vet, Lowell police officer's body found in Merrimack River
Body found in Merrimack River identified as Lowell police officer
July 24, 2011 8:12 PM
By Stewart Bishop, Globe Correspondent
Two men were killed -- one of them a decorated Lowell police officer and former Marine -- in separate incidents in two Massachusetts rivers during the weekend, authorities said.
While riding in a motor boat with his brother and another friend on the Merrimack River Saturday evening, Lowell patrol officer Charles Panek told his companions he was going to jump into the water and asked them to turn around and pick him up, according to Tyngsborough police.
He jumped off while the 18-foot vessel was traveling about 20 miles per hour, police said. When the boat circled back seconds later, he did not surface.
Body found in Merrimack River
July 24, 2011 8:12 PM
“He was there to take care of people,” his mother said. “Whether it was on the police force or in Iraq or where he was going in Afghanistan, he believed what he was doing was helping people.”
By Stewart Bishop, Globe Correspondent
Two men were killed -- one of them a decorated Lowell police officer and former Marine -- in separate incidents in two Massachusetts rivers during the weekend, authorities said.
While riding in a motor boat with his brother and another friend on the Merrimack River Saturday evening, Lowell patrol officer Charles Panek told his companions he was going to jump into the water and asked them to turn around and pick him up, according to Tyngsborough police.
He jumped off while the 18-foot vessel was traveling about 20 miles per hour, police said. When the boat circled back seconds later, he did not surface.
According to the Lowell police department and family members, Panek was a decorated police officer and former Marine, who had served in the Iraq War. He also served in the Rhode Island Army National Guard, and was scheduled to be deployed soon to Afghanistan, police said.read more here
Body found in Merrimack River
Sunday, July 24, 2011
Marine killed in motorcycle crash
Man dead after motorcycle crash
July 23, 2011 12:19 PM
HOPE HODGE
Updated at 6:07 p.m. to provide additional details, correct time of crash.
An early morning single-motorcycle crash left a young Marine dead, highway patrol officials said Saturday.
Officials with the N.C. Highway Patrol in Jacksonville said the wreck took place not far from Piney Green Road, on Lake Cole Road near Woodbrook Drive, just after 3:30 a.m.
A 25-year-old man driving a blue Yamaha motorcycle came out of a slight curve and ran off the roadway to the right, striking a drain culvert in a driveway, officials said. The motorcyclist was thrown off the bike about 100 feet into a nearby yard and died at the scene. Troopers said Saturday the man was taken to Onslow Memorial Hospital and the cause of death was blunt trauma from the crash.
read more here
Man dead after motorcycle crash
July 23, 2011 12:19 PM
HOPE HODGE
Updated at 6:07 p.m. to provide additional details, correct time of crash.
An early morning single-motorcycle crash left a young Marine dead, highway patrol officials said Saturday.
Officials with the N.C. Highway Patrol in Jacksonville said the wreck took place not far from Piney Green Road, on Lake Cole Road near Woodbrook Drive, just after 3:30 a.m.
A 25-year-old man driving a blue Yamaha motorcycle came out of a slight curve and ran off the roadway to the right, striking a drain culvert in a driveway, officials said. The motorcyclist was thrown off the bike about 100 feet into a nearby yard and died at the scene. Troopers said Saturday the man was taken to Onslow Memorial Hospital and the cause of death was blunt trauma from the crash.
read more here
Man dead after motorcycle crash
Veterans fought for us then ended up home-less
by
Chaplain Kathie
It is bad enough when an active duty soldier has to worry about losing their home while they are deployed but when it comes to the National Guards and Reservists, it is even worse.
Think about how they live. They have jobs, most of the time working for police and fire departments. They are the people we count on everyday in our own communities. They base their budgets on the pay from their jobs, even when they are the boss of their own business. When they deploy, while the law is supposed to protect their jobs while they're gone, the pay stops. They get paid by the government leaving them to live off of a financial loss.
Military veterans have a hard time finding work when they are discharged but citizen soldiers have a harder time finding work. The risk of them being redeployed hangs over their heads. Human Resources directors think of the possibility of having to have the job done by a temp or making others fill in the gaps if they are redeployed. Even if they are more qualified, someone else gets the job.
Then there is the worry about PTSD along with the false impression it makes them unstable. With PTSD there are different levels. Higher levels of PTSD make it impossible for them to work in the first place, so they are very unlikely to even look for work. Low levels of PTSD are not a problem for employers. According to the latest numbers, half of National Guards/Reservists have PTSD, but the data does not separate them by levels.
They are losing their homes and their families end up wondering what all the suffering was worth. The constant worry about making ends meet while one of them is gone along with having to worry about them overseas drains them. Just when they should be able to relax with the homecoming, they are faced with bills that cannot be paid.
Veterans' homes slip away
Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele
"Just how many veterans fall into this category isn't clear. The Department of Veterans Affairs assisted 66,000 who defaulted last year alone on VA loans. But that number did not include the tens of thousands of other veterans who faced foreclosure on FHA or conventional mortgages that many took out to survive. And of course the number does not include reservists or National Guard personnel who fell behind on payments when they were called up for multiple tours in Iraq, Afghanistan, or both."
After the Second World War, returning veterans were welcomed home to two of the most successful government initiatives ever - the FHA and VA housing programs - which put millions of them into their own homes for the first time.
Today, later generations of veterans are being confronted by much different housing policies - ones that can toss them out of homes they've bought with their life savings.
John Aguiar is a veteran of the Gulf War, a former intelligence analyst for the Army who took part in Operation Desert Storm in 1990 when U.S. forces brought Saddam Hussein to heel after he invaded Kuwait.
Aguiar and his wife, Syrena, built a house in Cape Coral, Fla., after relocating from Chicago to be nearer her parents. Using proceeds from the sale of their Chicago house, they bought a lot in a new subdivision in the Cape, a middle-class suburb across from Fort Myers in southwest Florida.
The house they built reflected their values and way of life. It was nothing fancy: a one-story Cape rancher with three bedrooms, two baths, and a two-car garage. There were no granite countertops, no Jacuzzi - just the basics, in keeping with what they could afford. "We always lived within our means," said Syrena. Nor did they see it as a stepping-stone to something larger.
"It was all we wanted, a place to raise our kids," said John. "We wanted to retire there."
read more here
Veterans homes slip away
This country doesn't notice them.
Saturday, July 23, 2011
Study Finds Mental Resilience In Deployed Combat Troops
This is why the crap of telling them to train their brains to be "tough" does not work. They already are tough!
Texas A M Study Finds Mental Resilience In Deployed Combat TroopsThe last part could explain why National Guards and Reservists are coming in with higher rates of PTSD as well.
July 20, 2011 Featured Topics No Comments
COLLEGE STATION, July 20, 2011 — Deployed soldiers in units that are facing high-risk combat situations show extraordinary tolerance for their stressful environment, found a Texas A&M University study published in the scholarly journal Psychological Assessment.
Even more remarkable, adds psychology professor Leslie Morey, is the study reveals that deployed troops have nearly identical reports of potential emotional or psychological problems when compared to their civilian counterparts back in the U.S., a finding that may point to potential adaptive mechanisms in place to sustain deployed troops that are not present once they return stateside.
Morey, who specializes in diagnosis and assessment of mental disorders, began collaborating with the U.S. Army after the Army began studying the potential development of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and cognitive problems in deployed troops who had suffered from combat-related concussions. Army researchers were using the Personality Assessment Inventory (PAI), a widely used measurement created by Morey in 1991, to compare troops within the same unit who had received concussions and those who had not. In first analyzing the data, Morey was surprised to see that the responses of the control group — soldiers who had not received concussions but were selected to represent the typical effects of combat stresses — were remarkably normal. This realization led to an important additional focus for the study.
“Nobody had ever done a comprehensive study of the psychological effects of being in a combat unit, attempting to distinguish what might be PTSD versus what is the normative response in these situations,” Morey says.
“British troops appear to have much less lower PTSD rates than U.S. troops,” he says. “The British keep each returning unit intact and have them go through a sort of decompression out of the combat zone before they return to the UK. When you’re in the field and something happens to the unit, everyone experiences it. There is a sense of collective experience that becomes normalized, but then you return stateside to a group that doesn’t have those same experiences. The answer may lie in better handling that transition.”read more here
Texas AM Study Finds Mental Resilience In Deployed Combat Troops
Canadian family still seeking answers after soldier's suicide
Family still seeking answers after soldier's suicide
CTV News.ca Staff
Date: Wed. Jul. 20 2011 6:24 PM ET
More than three years after a soldier committed suicide following a struggle with post-traumatic stress disorder, his family is still fighting for answers about what went wrong.
Corp. Stuart Langridge, 29, was a promising young soldier who dedicated his life to the military. But on March 15, 2008, he took his own life by hanging himself in his barracks at CFB Edmonton.
Langridge, who served in Bosnia and Afghanistan, had been suffering from post-traumatic stress, alcohol and substance abuse upon his return from a six-month tour in Afghanistan in 2005.
Though his family didn't know it at the time, he had attempted suicide on six occasions.
"We had no idea how seriously ill Stuart was. We only knew parts of what was going on; we didn't understand the full extent of it," his father Shaun Fynes told CTV's Canada AM Wednesday from Victoria.
read more here
Family still seeking answers after soldier's suicide
CTV News.ca Staff
Date: Wed. Jul. 20 2011 6:24 PM ET
More than three years after a soldier committed suicide following a struggle with post-traumatic stress disorder, his family is still fighting for answers about what went wrong.
Corp. Stuart Langridge, 29, was a promising young soldier who dedicated his life to the military. But on March 15, 2008, he took his own life by hanging himself in his barracks at CFB Edmonton.
Langridge, who served in Bosnia and Afghanistan, had been suffering from post-traumatic stress, alcohol and substance abuse upon his return from a six-month tour in Afghanistan in 2005.
Though his family didn't know it at the time, he had attempted suicide on six occasions.
"We had no idea how seriously ill Stuart was. We only knew parts of what was going on; we didn't understand the full extent of it," his father Shaun Fynes told CTV's Canada AM Wednesday from Victoria.
read more here
Family still seeking answers after soldier's suicide
Vietnam veteran found dead after fire
Vietnam veteran found dead after fire
Updated: Wednesday, 20 Jul 2011, 6:10 PM EDT
Published : Wednesday, 20 Jul 2011, 10:06 AM EDT
Nalina Shapiro
Posted by: Eli George
KENMORE, N.Y. (WIVB) - A Vietnam veteran was found dead inside a burning apartment in Kenmore. It's still unclear what killed 62-year-old Donald Dake.
Kenmore Police and fire officials responded to a fire inside Dake's Ken-Dev studio apartment around 12:30 a.m. Wednesday morning and found heavy smoke inside the unit. At the time, many residents were sleeping and thought it was a false alarm.
Tammy Fisher said, "We've had false alarms, several of them in the recent past. This one was real, and I'm glad I got out because I was contemplating whether to just stay in bed or not."
Neighbors say it was tough for many people to get out quickly.
read more here
Vietnam veteran found dead after fire
Updated: Wednesday, 20 Jul 2011, 6:10 PM EDT
Published : Wednesday, 20 Jul 2011, 10:06 AM EDT
Nalina Shapiro
Posted by: Eli George
KENMORE, N.Y. (WIVB) - A Vietnam veteran was found dead inside a burning apartment in Kenmore. It's still unclear what killed 62-year-old Donald Dake.
Kenmore Police and fire officials responded to a fire inside Dake's Ken-Dev studio apartment around 12:30 a.m. Wednesday morning and found heavy smoke inside the unit. At the time, many residents were sleeping and thought it was a false alarm.
Tammy Fisher said, "We've had false alarms, several of them in the recent past. This one was real, and I'm glad I got out because I was contemplating whether to just stay in bed or not."
Neighbors say it was tough for many people to get out quickly.
read more here
Vietnam veteran found dead after fire
Silver Star, Purple Heart Vietnam Homeless Vet buried with honor
Funeral home gives homeless veteran proper burial service
By GEORGE H. NEWMAN | The Tampa Tribune
Published: July 20, 2011
PLANT CITY --
For the third time in two years, a Plant City funeral home held services for a homeless military veteran.
John F. Booth of Tampa, who served as an Army sergeant during the Vietnam War, was honored on July 5 at Wells Memorial Funeral Home. The service was followed by his burial at the Florida National Cemetery in Bushnell.
"Booth, 69, is a veteran with no home, no money and no legal next of kin to make his funeral arrangements," said Jessica S. McDunn, a spokeswoman for the Dignity Memorial Homeless Veterans Burial Program, a cooperative effort among 1,800 funeral, cremation and cemetery service providers across the country.
Wells Memorial and the Gonzalez funeral homes stepped in to make sure Booth received a burial befitting all honorable veterans, McDunn said. Gonzalez provided Booth's casket.
"Booth was a recipient of the Purple Heart for wounds he received in action on Jan. 20, 1969," McDunn said. "He also earned a Silver Star for gallantry in action on Jan. 20, 1969. Booth also earned a Bronze Star for meritorious achievement in ground operations against hostile forces in Vietnam during the period of April 1968 to April 1969."
read more here
Funeral home gives homeless veteran proper burial service
By GEORGE H. NEWMAN | The Tampa Tribune
Published: July 20, 2011
PLANT CITY --
For the third time in two years, a Plant City funeral home held services for a homeless military veteran.
John F. Booth of Tampa, who served as an Army sergeant during the Vietnam War, was honored on July 5 at Wells Memorial Funeral Home. The service was followed by his burial at the Florida National Cemetery in Bushnell.
"Booth, 69, is a veteran with no home, no money and no legal next of kin to make his funeral arrangements," said Jessica S. McDunn, a spokeswoman for the Dignity Memorial Homeless Veterans Burial Program, a cooperative effort among 1,800 funeral, cremation and cemetery service providers across the country.
Wells Memorial and the Gonzalez funeral homes stepped in to make sure Booth received a burial befitting all honorable veterans, McDunn said. Gonzalez provided Booth's casket.
"Booth was a recipient of the Purple Heart for wounds he received in action on Jan. 20, 1969," McDunn said. "He also earned a Silver Star for gallantry in action on Jan. 20, 1969. Booth also earned a Bronze Star for meritorious achievement in ground operations against hostile forces in Vietnam during the period of April 1968 to April 1969."
read more here
Funeral home gives homeless veteran proper burial service
Adaptive wheelchair gives wounded warriors chance to play golf
Adaptive wheelchair gives wounded warriors chance to play golf
Green2Green is a nonprofit working to bring the game of golf to wounded warriors, and now they're not letting a handicap or injury get in the way.
Posted: 6:27 PM Jul 22, 2011
Reporter: Katie Beasley
News 12 at 6 o'clock / Friday July 22, 2011
EVANS, Ga. -- Most people take the simple use of healthy, working legs for granted, but many wounded warriors come home with injuries that take away the use of one or both legs.
ADVERTISEMENT
Now, one local group is trying to give those men and women a little hope in the form of a unique wheelchair.
Green2Green is a nonprofit working to bring the game of golf to wounded warriors, and now they're not letting a handicap or injury get in the way.
Specialist Danny McGowan was injured last year in Afghanistan. He's confined to a wheelchair and says playing golf hasn't been much of a priority.
"We were hit by an IED and it damaged my truck. I sustained multiple injuries to my back and to my legs," McGowan said.
But thanks to a special wheelchair, McGowan can hit the greens again.
"It's been a long time for me, and doing it today, it felt great, it really felt great," he said.
read more here
Adaptive wheelchair gives wounded warriors chance to play golf
Green2Green is a nonprofit working to bring the game of golf to wounded warriors, and now they're not letting a handicap or injury get in the way.
Posted: 6:27 PM Jul 22, 2011
Reporter: Katie Beasley
News 12 at 6 o'clock / Friday July 22, 2011
EVANS, Ga. -- Most people take the simple use of healthy, working legs for granted, but many wounded warriors come home with injuries that take away the use of one or both legs.
ADVERTISEMENT
Now, one local group is trying to give those men and women a little hope in the form of a unique wheelchair.
Green2Green is a nonprofit working to bring the game of golf to wounded warriors, and now they're not letting a handicap or injury get in the way.
Specialist Danny McGowan was injured last year in Afghanistan. He's confined to a wheelchair and says playing golf hasn't been much of a priority.
"We were hit by an IED and it damaged my truck. I sustained multiple injuries to my back and to my legs," McGowan said.
But thanks to a special wheelchair, McGowan can hit the greens again.
"It's been a long time for me, and doing it today, it felt great, it really felt great," he said.
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Adaptive wheelchair gives wounded warriors chance to play golf
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