For Soldier Disfigured in War, a Way to Return to the World

This is truly an amazing story of one of the many wounded in our name. Watch the video, hear his voice and then think of all he went through. It will bring a tear to your eyes so grab some tissues first. WOW.

THE HARD ROAD BACK | SCARS OF BATTLE
For Soldier Disfigured in War, a Way to Return to the World

By Sarah Kramer and Meaghan Looram
The Shock of Recognition: After nearly 30 operations, Joey Paulk began to resign himself to his appearance. But with help from a program that aids badly burned veterans, he received surgery that revived his self-confidence.

By JAMES DAO
Published: January 30, 2012

Specialist Joey Paulk awoke from a coma in a Texas hospital three weeks after he was burned nearly to death in Afghanistan. Wrapped in bandages from head almost to toe, he immediately saw his girlfriend and mother, and felt comforted. Then he glanced at his hands, two balls of white gauze, and realized that he had no fingers.


So it began: the shock of recognition. Next came what burn doctors call “the mirror test.” As he was shuffling through a hallway at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, he passed a large mirror that he had turned away from before. This time he steeled himself and looked.

His swollen lower lip hung below his gums. His left lower eyelid drooped hound dog-like, revealing a scarlet crescent of raw tissue. His nostrils were squeezed shut, his chin had virtually disappeared and the top half of one ear was gone. Skin grafts crisscrossed his face like lines on a map, and silver medicine coated his scars, making him look like something out of a Terminator film.

“This is who I am now,” he told himself.
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New treatment facility helps soldier make rapid progress against TBI

New treatment facility helps soldier make rapid progress against TBI
By JOAQUIN SAPIEN AND DANIEL ZWERDLING
ProPublica and NPR
Published: January 30, 2012
When Army Sgt. Victor Medina returned home from Iraq in the summer of 2009, his life was a shambles. His tour had been cut short after he suffered a concussion during a roadside blast. Though his injury wasn't visible, he struggled with balance and noticed that his ability to read, think and even talk had changed for the worse.

But in the spring of 2011, Medina became one of the first patients at the National Intrepid Center of Excellence, the military's $65 million, state-of-the-art treatment center for brain-injured soldiers.

During his three weeks at the Bethesda, Md., center, the staff developed a rehabilitation program designed specifically for Medina. His recovery has progressed rapidly ever since, he and his wife, Roxana Delgado, told ProPublica and NPR.

Medina has continued to work from El Paso, Texas, by videoconference with a speech therapist based at the center, and he said his stutter is improving. After his injury, he had struggled to read more than a paragraph; now he says he can read and absorb two pages in one sitting. Medina also was ordered to stop driving after his injury, but he told ProPublica and NPR that he has regained his ability to do that, too.

"It's like night and day," Delgado said of his improvement.
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July 2011

Report: Pentagon Center For Brain Injuries, PTSD Is Dysfunctional

Man tries to sell Pat Tillman’s game-worn cleats on eBay

Man tries to sell Pat Tillman’s game-worn cleats on eBay … for $3.2 million
By Doug Farrar
Shutdown Corner – Sun, Jan 29, 2012

The Internet is a haven for weirdness at the best of times, but once in a while, you come across something that makes you wonder just what people are thinking when they get up in the morning. So it was when we discovered that a guy with the handle "az-jt" (actually 51-year-old Jerry Martin) put up an eBay listing for a pair of cleats supposedly worn by the late Pat Tillman, the former Arizona Cardinals defensive back who died in a friendly fire incident in Afghanistan in 2004.
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St. Louis service records center, recovery from 1973 fire continues

At military records center, recovery from 1973 fire continues
By STEVE GIEGERICH
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Published: January 30, 2012

NORTH ST. LOUIS COUNTY — Debra Griffith didn't know where to turn when her father, a Korean War veteran with a failing heart, asked to be buried at a military cemetery near his boyhood home in Indiana.

With her parents long divorced and the family scattered across the country, Griffith had no clue where to find the records attesting to Lewis Lower's military service — or whether they even existed.

She turned the problem over to her husband, who learned of another hitch in granting Lower's final request upon contacting the National Personnel Records Center in north St. Louis County.

The file may have been among the millions destroyed 39 years ago in a fire that burned for two days through the sixth floor of the building in Overland the center once occupied.

The near-impossible task of restoring the charred documents that survived continues to this day — a labor of love and duty for archivists either too young to remember or, in some cases, not even born when a significant chunk of America's past went up in smoke.
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Lawmakers to question VA pharmaceuticals purchasing practices

Lawmakers to question VA purchasing practices
By Patricia Kime - Staff writer
Posted : Monday Jan 30, 2012 10:01:06 EST
The House Veterans’ Affairs Committee is looking into whether the Veterans Affairs Department spent $333 million on pharmaceuticals, medical equipment and other purchases without having contracts for the transactions.

The committee will meet at 10 a.m. Wednesday to question VA officials on whether the department made purchases last year without contracting for them and whether the unauthorized buys have been going on for years — an issue reported in December by Bloomberg News.
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Fake "casket" airmen "conduct brought discredit both to the military and themselves"

No criminal wrongdoing in casket photo case
By Jeff Schogol - Staff writer
Posted : Monday Jan 30, 2012

FACEBOOK Airmen attending Air Transportation technical school at Lackland Air Force Base, Texas, posed for this photo dated Aug. 23. Air Force investigators have concluded there was no criminal wrongdoing by the airmen who posed for the photo.

Investigators have concluded there was no criminal wrongdoing by the airmen who posed for a picture around an open casket case with another airman inside wearing a noose around his neck and chains across his body.

However, the instructors in charge of the airmen in the picture have received administrative punishment because “their conduct brought discredit both to the military and themselves,” according to a news release from the 37th Training Wing at Lackland Air Force Base, Texas.Dated Aug. 23, the photo was taken by airmen with the 345th Training Squadron at Fort Lee, Va., where airmen learn to load and unload aircraft.
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Medal of Honor Hero Sal Giunta helping veterans heal from PTSD

Iowa hero helps fellow servicemen
By Matthew Hansen
WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER


Medal of Honor recipient Sal Giunta spoke in Omaha Monday, helping to raise money for a local non-profit that aids service members with post-traumatic stress disorder.

Giunta spoke to reporters and then delivered the keynote address during a fundraising luncheon for "At Ease," a Lutheran Family Services-affiliated group that offers anonymous counseling and other help to troops, veterans and their families struggling with PTSD.

At Ease "Is seeking out those who slip through the cracks," Giunta said. "That is awesome. That is important."
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Stolen 18-Wheeler Slams into ROTC Bus after Fort Hood visit

Stolen Vehicle Slams into ROTC Bus, 18-Wheeler


Posted: Jan 29, 2012

KILLEEN (KCEN) -- 44 ROTC students are shaken up after a man driving a stolen vehicle slammed into their charter bus and an 18-wheeler traveling through Killeen on West Highway 190 Saturday evening.

The accident occurred on the 1600 block of West Highway 190 around 7:00 p.m. Saturday when a white male driving a 2007 Chrysler Sebring rear-ended the bus, causing the Chrysler to hit the guardrail and finally making contact with an oncoming 18-wheeler.
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Major Jamie P. Murphy awarded Bronze Star V

WWR Marine Receives Bronze Star

January 30, 2012
Marine Corps News
MARINE CORPS BASE QUANTICO, Va. -- Marines, sailors and family members gathered here to honor a Wounded Warrior Regiment staff member during an award ceremony at the regimental headquarters Jan. 27.

Major Jamie P. Murphy, the Wounded Warrior Regiment's future operations officer, was presented the Bronze Star Medal with Combat "V" device by his former commanding officer, Lieutenant Col. J.D. Harrill.

Murphy earned the Bronze Star for his heroic service in connection with combat operations against the enemy while serving in Marjah, Afghanistan during Operation Enduring Freedom.

Harrill, the former commanding officer of 2nd Battalion, 8th Marines, Regimental Combat Team 1, 2nd Marine Division (Forward), traveled from Camp Lejeune, N.C. to present Murphy with his medal. With him, was Sgt. Maj. Richard Mathern, the former sergeant major of the unit.
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Camp Lejeune Marine Arrested After High-Speed Chase

Police: Camp Lejeune Marine Arrested After High-Speed Chase
By Jon Erickson / Reporter
January 29, 2012

HOLLY RIDGE -- Authorities seized a Camp Lejeune Marine’s motorcycle after the Marine allegedly led police on a 20-mile, high-speed chase.
Steven Cruz, 21, was speeding on Highway 17 in Holly Ridge shortly after 3 p.m. Sunday, Holly Ridge Police Chief John Maiorano said.

Cruz throttled his Honda motorcycle to more than 100 m.p.h. in the chase that wound to North Topsail Beach, police said.
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