Soldiers and suicide: Widow says despite pleas, help never came from Fort Bragg

You'd think there wasn't much that would leave me stunned after all these years but here I sit, shaking my head in disbelief.

A soldier came home showing signs he needed help. A wife responded, asked for help for him, the way we always say families need to act. The military keeps saying they are there to help, have programs ready to help, chaplains ready to offer spiritual support and they take military suicides seriously. Everyone seems to have done all they could to help Sgt. Adrian Simmons heal, except the Army itself. He's dead. She's a widow. Will anyone be held accountable for letting all of this happen? No. No one has been held accountable for any of their suicides. Numbers go up, claims of taking all this seriously go up but no one gets justice for any of this.

Soldiers and suicide: Widow says despite pleas, help never came
By John Ramsey
Staff writer

Staff photo by James Robinson
Nicole Simmons' husband, Sgt. Adrian Simmons, died July 5 after he went into the garage of their Hoke County home and shot himself. She says he had suffered symptoms of PTSD.

"Simmons said that after her husband died July 5, soldiers told her the Army was opening an investigation into what happened. But she wasn't contacted for an interview until Wednesday, hours after the Observer sent an email to the 82nd Airborne Division asking why no one had talked with her."

Three months before her husband shot himself in the family's garage, Nicole Simmons said, she met with a chaplain and her husband's commanders at Fort Bragg.

Help me, and help my husband, Simmons said she told Lt. Col. Marcus Evans and Command Sgt. Maj. Herbert Kirkover.

Her husband, Sgt. Adrian Simmons, had changed, she said she told them.

Simmons, who is pregnant with their second child, thought he was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. He couldn't control his temper, and his memory was terrible, she said.

"I said, 'Something is wrong with my husband. He is saying he wants to blow his brains out. He is getting so short-tempered, so short-fused, anything will make him blow,' " Simmons said she told the commanders. "I said, 'I think he needs a psychological evaluation.' "

Soon after that meeting, the 24-year-old Simmons said, a soldier came to the family's Hoke County home to confiscate her husband's personal guns. Hoke County Child Protective Services visited and determined that the couple's 2-year-old son was safe as long as the guns remained out of the house.

But the Army never sent her husband to a counselor, Simmons said.

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Widow says despite pleas help never came

San Jose has problems when Reservists deploy

This report shows that while most reservists working for San Jose are cops, which has been known for a long time by some, it also shows how they lose income when they deploy. San Jose tried to make up the difference in pay but as you'll read, they didn't do it right. Some reservists have had to pay back money, putting hardship on top of hardship.

San Jose audit suggests limits on military reservists' pay

By John Woolfolk
jwoolfolk@mercurynews.com
Posted: 07/30/2011

"Reservists have the support of the City Council and don't have the support of the city administration; that's been the case from the very beginning," said Christian, who is still paying off nearly $10,000 in overpayments from his tour in Afghanistan.

When America went to war in Afghanistan and Iraq, San Jose did its patriotic part by renewing a policy of subsidizing employee military reservists -- most of them cops -- who were summoned to the battlefield.

But with those conflicts dragging on nearly a decade, a new city audit suggests limits on a program it says is so generous that it creates an incentive for repeated and extended military tours at a time when San Jose is suffering crippling budget shortfalls and staffing cuts. Last month, the city was forced to lay off 66 cops.

The recommendations follow years of criticism of administrative errors in the program, which socked some returning veterans with demands to give back thousands of dollars in overpayments.

Some part-time soldiers question some of the audit's conclusions and say that they bolster a sense among reservists that city administrators want to discourage their military service.

"It's an effort to one way or another force reservists not to serve their country and make it as difficult as they can," said San Jose police Sgt. Brian Christian, a former Marine Corps reservist who served in Afghanistan in 2002 and 2003.

The program pays the difference between reservists' city wages and lower military salaries while continuing health and retirement benefits. Recent changes have reduced the overpayment problems that the Mercury News reported in 2006 and a civil grand jury criticized in a 2007 report. But the audit of the program, extended indefinitely in 2007, recommends slapping a time limit on tours and dropping provisions that render reservists more than "whole" while they're on leave. The city pays reservists' pension contributions while deployed rather than deducting them from their pay, even though they also are earning military retirement, the audit pointed out.
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San Jose audit suggests limits on military reservists pay

San Jose had to lay off cops but this happened all over this country with budget cuts. This left the rest of us wondering if our protection matters as little as taking care of our protectors. After 9-11, almost 10 years ago, all the talk was about how valuable the first responders were to all of us. Firefighters rushing into burning buildings, risking their lives to save others. Cops putting themselves in danger everyday and families wondering if they would get the phone call to change their lives forever. We all talked about the men and women being sent to Afghanistan in response to what Osama ordered. These men and women were all heroes, worthy of our attention, prayers and worth every dime that had to be spent on sending them.

The problems came when our talk was not of equal measure to our actions. They did everything that was expected of them. We just didn't do what was expected of us.

The 686th Engineer Company, Orlando leaves for Fort Bliss

Troops concerned about national debt debate

By Mark Jenkins, Reporter
Last Updated: Saturday, July 30, 2011 5:47 PM

The 686th Engineer Company prepares for deployment to Afghanistan.

ORLANDO --
More than 180 troops received their marching orders, and left Orlando Saturday with a ceremony. They said goodbye to their families, and prepared to deploy to Afghanistan.

"We're all pretty pumped and excited to go," says Army Cpl. Shannon Sabsook.

Sabsook is part of the 689th Engineer Company. They search for road-side bombs, which is the number one killer of US troops in combat operations.

"It's a very dangerous job," Sabsook said. "I'm thankful we have very good equipment."

These troops are deploying during a time of economic uncertainty. While the war wages on in Afghanistan, the money battle continues in Washington.
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Troops concerned about national debt debate

Army enlisting families on soldier healing

As Gomer Pyle said, "Surprise, surprise, surprise!" It looks like the Army is finally getting this right. Ignoring how important the families are when it comes to mending the bodies and minds of combat troops has contributed to what we've been reading all of these years. Now, maybe, God willing, they finally have their ammo loaded in the right weapons. It did little good telling them they could train their brains to be "tough" when they already were and ended up blaming themselves for PTSD. It didn't do much good to show them a Power Point that put them to sleep. It has done little good to medicate them into numbness. Even for the veterans they managed to get past the stigma of PTSD so they understood it, they were not served because the families they needed to help them heal were left out. A soldier could go and deny things they were doing either because they didn't want to admit it, forgot about it or didn't think it was important to mention. A spouse can correct what the veteran got wrong. They can also end up discovering how they react matters. Respond the right way and they help the healing but if they respond the wrong way because they didn't understand or know what to do, they made things worse. This gives everyone a better chance to heal.

Army unveils new website for wounded, injured, ill soldiers' families and caregivers

Written by
Philip Grey
The Leaf-Chronicle

The Army Warrior Transition Command has added another tool in its holistic approach to caring for wounded, ill and injured soldiers.

Available online at Army Warrior Transition, the Comprehensive Transition Plan Learning Module is a resource developed to help families and caregivers of a Warrior in Transition, defined as "a soldier with complex medical needs requiring six months or more of treatment or rehabilitation."

The definition can include soldiers severely wounded in combat, injured on the job in peacetime or wartime, or suffering from a long-term illness.

At the Army's 29 Warrior Transition Units in the United States and Europe, supporting some 8,500 soldiers requiring long-term treatment and rehabilitation, the soldiers are given one mission — to heal and transition successfully, either back to active duty or into the civilian world.

In the past decade the Army has worked on treatment methods that go beyond medical care and make soldiers active participants in their own treatment.

The online program focuses on educating family members and caregivers on the role they can play in assisting the soldier through the process, which consists of seven parts — intake, assessment, goal setting, rehabilitation, review, pre-transition and post-transition.
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Army unveils new website for wounded

Senator Coburn wanted to cut Vietnam Veterans off of Agent Orange Claims

Linked from Veterans for Common Sense

Press Release

July 20, 2011

No. 11-16

Contact:
Mokie Porter
301-585-4000, Ext. 146

Sen. Coburn to Vietnam Veterans:

No More Agent Orange Claims


(Washington, D.C.) – "Sooner or later, some senator or congressman was going to target benefits earned by veterans," said John Rowan, National President of Vietnam Veterans of America (VVA). "It seems that Senator Tom Coburn (R-Oklahoma) is the one who has taken aim and fired."

Senator Coburn, a medical doctor with a well-earned reputation as a fiscal conservative, has offered an amendment to H.R. 2055, the Military Construction and Veterans' Affairs and related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2012. His amendment would require proof of a "causal relationship" rather than a "positive association" of certain illnesses to Agent Orange exposure. "If enacted, this measure will significantly restrict Agent Orange benefits and care. VVA vigorously opposes this amendment," Rowan said

"This measure is wrong-headed. It is out of touch with science – and with the intent of the Agent Orange Act of 1991. It attempts to undo two decades of policy. Currently, veterans are presumed to have been exposed to Agent Orange if they served 'boots-on-the-ground' in Vietnam and, in some instances, along the demilitarized zone in Korea," Rowan said. "If they develop certain maladies that the VA Secretary has determined, on the basis of sound scientific and epidemiological research, that a positive association exists between the exposure and the occurrence of the disease, they are entitled to health-care and disability compensation.

"Congress, in part, settled on this mechanism because it was nearly impossible for Vietnam veterans to prove that their exposure to Agent Orange caused their health conditions, many of which are ultimately fatal," Rowan said. "Requiring a causal relationship, which is well nigh impossible to demonstrate, would essentially mean that benefits due to Agent Orange exposure would be out of reach for Vietnam veterans."

"If the senator feels that Agent Orange benefits and needed medical care ought to be stripped from Vietnam veterans and their families, then he should introduce a bill and arrange to hold a hearing," Rowan said. "But there has been no bill, and no hearing. And if his colleagues really do care about the health of Vietnam veterans, they ought to stand with Vietnam Veterans of America, with all Vietnam veterans and our families, and with most of our colleagues in other Veterans Service Organizations. We call on a bipartisan majority of Senators to reject the ill-advised Coburn amendment out of hand."

Vietnam Veterans of America (VVA) is the nation's only congressionally chartered veterans service organization dedicated to the needs of Vietnam-era veterans and their families. VVA's founding principle is “Never again will one generation of veterans abandon another.”

Former homicide prosecutor now yoga guru for combat vets

Former homicide prosecutor now yoga guru for combat vets

By Mike Clary, Sun Sentinel
1:02 p.m. EDT, July 30, 2011

FORT LAUDERDALE—
During his 22 years as a Broward County prosecutor, David Frankel tried cases so saturated in mayhem and madness they sounded like horror fiction. The case of the severed head. Death by acid bath. The mutilation of the gurgling prostitute.

But the cases were real.

Outside the courtroom, Frankel struggled to balance the stress of trial work and the suffering of the crime victims he represented by studying Hindu philosophy and practicing theyoga he learned years ago from his grandmother.

Eventually, however, that balance was lost. "I felt I had reached the peak of what I was doing in law, but I didn't sleep well," Frankel said. " It was swallowing me whole. I had to make a change."
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Former homicide prosecutor now yoga guru for combat vets

Family of amputee tossed from roller coaster files wrongful death suit

Hackemer family files wrongful death suit
Probe results prompt change in position
By Matt Gryta and Dan Herbeck
NEWS STAFF REPORTERS

Updated: July 30, 2011, 9:28 AM

The family of a decorated Iraq War veteran who died after flying out of a roller coaster at the Darien Lake amusement park has decided to file a wrongful death lawsuit.

The family of James T. Hackemer, who was allowed to board the Ride of Steel coaster on July 8 despite having no legs, launched the State Supreme Court lawsuit on Friday against two companies associated with the park.

Hackemer, 29, of Gowanda, lost both legs and a hip in 2008 after a roadside bombing in Iraq, where he served as a sergeant in the Army.

He died after he was ejected from the 208-foot-high roller coaster during a family outing at Darien Lake.

According to family attorney Denis J. Bastible, park employees violated Darien Lake’s own safety rules when they allowed the double amputee to ride the coaster.

“They didn’t train their employees to follow the rules and the result was tragic,” Bastible told The Buffalo News. “[Hackemer] leaves two very young children behind, and his family is doing terribly.”
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Hackemer family files wrongful death suit

Navy vets seek benefits for Agent Orange illnesses

Navy vets seek benefits for Agent Orange illnesses
WASHINGTON – Doug DeWitt served his country in the U.S. Navy during the Vietnam War, but now he feels abandoned by the nation for which he fought.

DANIEL LIPPMAN; MCCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS

WASHINGTON – Doug DeWitt served his country in the U.S. Navy during the Vietnam War, but now he feels abandoned by the nation for which he fought.

Forty years after his service, the 67-year-old Anaheim, Calif., resident suffers from diabetes, high blood pressure and other ailments that he blames on exposure to Agent Orange, the main chemical the United States sprayed during the war. He has tried for years without success to get disability compensation from the Department of Veterans Affairs.

“I don’t have the strength that I used to have. I can’t do the walking I used to because of the pain in my legs,” he said. He added that the VA has not been helpful in resolving his claim.
“They won’t listen to you. You can talk till you’re blue in the face,” he said.


Read more: Navy vets seek benefits for Agent Orange illnesses

Troops should not have to worry about pay on top of everything else

If I hear one more elected official whine about the need to not raise taxes on anyone, including ending the funding of the wealthy with their tax cuts, while the troops are worried about being paid while in combat, I'll never vote again. I haven't missed one single election since the age of 18 and thought it was my duty to vote but it is sickening when members of congress causing this mess don't have to worry about their own pay but the troops do. Veterans do. The elderly do. These debts have been paid forward already so why are a bunch of men and women elected to office able to get paid for shooting off their mouths but those shot at have to worry yet again about their pay checks?

Mullen hears litany of budget, debt worries from troops as he travels Afghanistan

By Associated Press

CAMP LEATHERNECK, Afghanistan — A half a world away from the Capitol Hill deadlock, the economy and debt crisis are weighing heavily on U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

And the top question on their minds Saturday even as bombings rocked the city around them, was one the top U.S. military officer couldn’t answer.

Will we get paid?

“I actually don’t know how the answer to that question,” Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff told a group of troops, while at the same time telling them they will continue to go to work each day.

But he offered a bit more optimism than defense officials have acknowledged when those questions have come up in recent weeks.
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Mullen hears litany of budget, debt worries

Tough talk about putting their foot down for yet another round of them wanting to take away from others to help out the rich is evil. How many times will they be allowed to get away with this? When will they make sure the people defending this nation have at least their pay protected? They have enough to worry about already like if they will have jobs when they are discharged but this congress has not been interested in creating any jobs. They've been too busy taking them away. State after state has lost jobs but this congress doesn't give a damn. They point to the fact the "stimulus" money didn't work without ever saying that all the money was not used and too much of it is still sitting in the bank.

Congress gets paid if they work or not so they just don't care at all.

Editorial: Will Speaker Boehner and Tea Party Stop Veterans' Disability Checks?
Written by VCS
Friday, 29 July 2011 14:19

Veterans' Social Programs Remain Vital Success for Veterans and America
July 29, 2011 (VCS) - Is history repeating itself? On July 28, 1932, veterans died in Washington, DC for our freedom to assemble and demand action from our government.

On that date, World War I veterans had gathered on the National Mall to collect deferred pay, only to be met with indifference by Congress and Republican President Herbert Hoover, claiming there was no money. Hoover fought for business deregulation, fought against social programs, and he fought for low taxes for the rich and corporations, some of the causes of our Great Depression. Sound familiar?
Let us take a moment today and thank the Bonus Army marchers. In the end, Hoover's maltreatment of veterans is credited, in part, with the landslide victory of Democratic President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who later saved our country from the Great Depression with his extensive and successful New Deal social programs. Congress eventually paid the veterans in 1936. The U.S. military, led by FDR, would later defeat Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, and Fascist Italy in World War II.
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Will Speaker Boehner and Tea Party Stop Veterans Disability Checks

Vietnam vets gather to reflect

Viet vets gather to reflect

12th annual reunion expected to draw hundreds
By Jeff Alexander
Hudson-Catskill Newspapers
Published: Saturday, July 30, 2011 2:11 AM EDT

GREENVILLE — Greene County will be hosting the 12th Annual Northeast USA Vietnam Veterans Reunion this weekend in Greenville. The event is designed to help veterans facilitate solidarity and healing for those who have served and their families who struggled with the challenges they faced while a loved one was overseas.

“We were first bought together by word of mouth and then the online community. It started with about 50 guys in 1999 and peaked in 2007-2008 with 1,000 people,” said organizer Bill Fay.

As the U.S. remains engaged in armed conflicts, Fay somberly said, “War is very serious business. I do have post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and it can linger. I cope one day at a time and I try not to put any strains on myself. Sometimes even watching the news can trigger it.”
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Viet vets gather to reflect