Heroic soldier says "It was only one day" in his career

A soldier's story: It was only one day in his military career
By TIM TRAINOR
The Montana Standard, Butte
Published: June 24, 2012

Fueled by anger, suffering from a serious back injury and with no feeling in his legs, Nick Keene fired 2,800 rounds into a group of Taliban fighters.

Then he picked up a machine gun and emptied that. He put seven or eight clips into his own personal weapon and did the same until the pain was too much and he lost consciousness.

He woke up in a hospital somewhere. Kandahar maybe, Germany. There were generals gathered around his bed. He wasn’t wearing a shirt so they pinned a Purple Heart to his blanket before he fell back into unconsciousness.

Keene, 24, a 2006 graduate of Butte High School, spent five dramatic and violent months in the Panjwayi District in Afghanistan, known as the “birthplace of the Taliban.” Located in the southeastern part of the country along the Pakistan border, it has been home to some of the most sustained fighting in the now decade-long war.

Yet, it is a place Keene was not looking to leave so soon.

“I wish I could have stayed longer,” he said. “It was hard to think that while my guys were sweating, bleeding in the mud, I’m sitting on a couch doing nothing.”

Commendations

It was only one day in his military career, but Keene’s actions resulted in a Purple Heart and an Army Commendation Medal with valor. He may have saved the lives of each of those soldiers lying prone on the roadside and his injured lieutenant, who was able to be transported from the fight with shrapnel wounds from which he recovered.

Nick will never be the same. Discs and vertebrae in his back were more than broken — they disintegrated and were ground into sand and chalk. It took months for doctors to confirm they did not need to amputate, but even then Keene thought he would be confined to a wheelchair. After months of painful physical therapy he learned to walk with the help of a cane that he will use for the rest of his life. He cannot climb steps and he has a lifetime of surgeries ahead of him, some of which carry the possibility of paralysis if one of the already-frayed nerves is severed.
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Norton blocking Blog pages

If you are having a hard time getting onto this site, Norton has it along with other blogs as "fraudulent" so there has to be a glitch somewhere.  I was just on my laptop and it uses Norton.  I couldn't get right on my page without having to go through the warning. Just wanted to let you know if you manage to get that message.

Orlando News Producers should be ashamed of themselves

As many suggested, they love it when I rant so they are in for a real treat right now. I am about to blast the media again!

Yesterday I went to another event for veterans. There were four reporters running their cameras and stayed for the whole event. As always, they were interested, showed they cared and were very professional. Considering we have over 400,000 veterans in Central Florida and well over a million in the state there is always something going on. I want to get to every event but I am only one person, so there are events I can't cover. When that happens, I turn to the media sites so that people know what is going on.

Just like yesterday when the news crews show up, veterans expect to see their story on the stations sending the reporters. It breaks their hearts when they discover they were just not important enough to watch it on the news.

It isn't the reporters fault. After all they show up and spend their time filming these events. It it up to the producers to put it on or not. Here's a piece of advice to producers. If you are not going to show it, don't show up at these events.

Veterans are giving up on Florida's news stations. It hurts them when you don't send anyone but it hurts them more when you do but it is never on the news.

They go home, call their families and friends telling them they were on the news and then watch for hours along with searching the Internet hoping to find the link. Every think about how that feels to these veterans?

Sure you manage to make sure that when one of them gets into trouble, you cover it and play it over and over again but when they are honored or do something wonderful, they are replaced by something else.

SHAME ON YOU! What the hell is wrong with you when you just can't fit them in? Ever hear of a thing called YouTube? Other stations can do it and so do small newspapers. Put the footage you don't have time for on YouTube so at least they can find it with the help of their kids and grandkids if they can't use a computer.

I am with them almost every weekend and often at events during the week. I keep seeing the station's vans that I will not mention here but I wanted you to know that you may get a few more viewers or hits on your site while they search but in the end, they don't want to bother with your station after you don't bother to show what you sent someone to film.

If you wonder why so many veterans don't want to talk to reporters when they do show up, you have your answer. They don't trust your motives when you have proven they are not "newsworthy" enough to put their stories on TV or even on your website.

UPDATE

Here's the video from the Orlando VFW Medals Ceremony. Notice how many news crews were there.

Military's suicide prevention plan too late for Sarasota family

Military's suicide prevention plan too late for Sarasota family
By HOWARD ALTMAN
The Tampa Tribune
Published: June 25, 2012

Friday afternoon, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta told the Department of Defense/ Department of Veterans Affairs suicide prevention conference that "we can do more. We must do more. And together we will do more to prevent suicide."

The next day, on a rainy afternoon in Sarasota, Luzdary Yepes cried and, over the phone, told me she wishes they did do more.

Two years ago. Before her son, Giovanni Andres Orozco, a 20-year-old veteran of the Iraq war, held his friends at gunpoint and then turned the weapon on himself June 10, 2010.

Yepes said that when her son came home from Iraq, he had a week to "detox" in New Jersey.

"A week is not enough when they see the kind of crap we don't even know about," she said. "They train them so well to fight, but they don't train them to come back. It's almost like when you train a dog to bite, and then you have to bring them to where little kids are and let them loose. It is not right."

Speaking at the conference in Washington, Panetta unveiled a four-track suicide prevention plan. It calls for increased responsibility by military leaders, especially junior officers and NCOs; improved quality and access to health care; elevated mental fitness and increased research into suicide prevention.
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Disabled Iraq veteran was attacked in a road rage incident

Disabled Iraq veteran punched by teenager
12:04 AM, Jun 25, 2012
Written by
Mike Lyons

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- A disabled veteran was attacked in a road rage incident on the Westside Saturday and a teenager was arrested on battery charges.

50-year old Robert Dodd lives in Baker County. The single father of two walks with a cane, injured by mortar attacks while in the Navy in Iraq in 2004. He was driving his pickup east on Normandy Blvd. near Yellow Water Road when a young driver pulled out in front of him and he had to slam on brakes.

Dodd says he almost ran into the small car that pulled out in front of his pickup while he was driving just under 60 miles per hour. He said if he would have hit the car with his pickup, the driver could have been seriously hurt. Dodd said he then tried to go around the car.
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