Father of Marine killed in car crash wants stolen videos, pictures of his son returned
By Anthony Smigiel
November 24, 2012
ALLEGAN, MI – The father of a U.S. Marine who has already suffered the loss of his son has now lost most of the memories he had of his son as well.
Gregory Courtney, 22, died in a car crash in Allegan County on Sept. 16, 2011, just a little more than a month after returning home from Afghanistan.
His father, Joe Courtney, said someone on Nov. 15 stole a digital camera containing pictures of his son, a Sony camcorder, videos of his son and a Marine sign from his home on 102nd Avenue in Allegan County.
read more here
Sunday, November 25, 2012
Veterans Affairs office 'Pennsylvania's best-kept secret'
Franklin County Veterans Affairs office 'Pennsylvania's best-kept secret'
Public Opinion
By ANDREA RICH
Bob Harris, Franklin County director of veterans affairs, said one vet told him the county office is "Pennsylvania's best kept secret."
Why is it so hard to reach veterans?
"We try to do a campaign when units return from Reserves or National Guard," Harris explained, but the most recent group returns for Franklin County were in 2004 and 2009.
Since then troops typically separate from their units in Fort Dix, N.J. where representatives from the Disabled American Veterans and Veterans of Foreign Wars give presentations about post-active-duty life and services.
"At that point you are so overwhelmed (with the separation process) and you just want to go home," Harris said. It's a lot for soldiers to take in, he added.
As is the national trend, many young soldiers don't realize what the county office can do for them.
"We advocate - at no cost to you (the soldier)," Harris said. That includes getting veterans connected to the right people for veteran's health care, education benefits, housing allowance and employment.
The latest veteran count in Franklin County was done in Fiscal Year 2010 and at that time Franklin County had 12,984 veterans.
Harris said the county office is even more important to young veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan because they don't connect with groups that typically can get them connected to services through experience.
read more here
Public Opinion
By ANDREA RICH
Bob Harris, Franklin County director of veterans affairs, said one vet told him the county office is "Pennsylvania's best kept secret."
Why is it so hard to reach veterans?
"We try to do a campaign when units return from Reserves or National Guard," Harris explained, but the most recent group returns for Franklin County were in 2004 and 2009.
Since then troops typically separate from their units in Fort Dix, N.J. where representatives from the Disabled American Veterans and Veterans of Foreign Wars give presentations about post-active-duty life and services.
"At that point you are so overwhelmed (with the separation process) and you just want to go home," Harris said. It's a lot for soldiers to take in, he added.
As is the national trend, many young soldiers don't realize what the county office can do for them.
"We advocate - at no cost to you (the soldier)," Harris said. That includes getting veterans connected to the right people for veteran's health care, education benefits, housing allowance and employment.
The latest veteran count in Franklin County was done in Fiscal Year 2010 and at that time Franklin County had 12,984 veterans.
Harris said the county office is even more important to young veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan because they don't connect with groups that typically can get them connected to services through experience.
read more here
Veterans protest VA failures in Washington
There are things in this article that I am not sure about. There is reference to the number of homeless veterans that seems way out of whack, so please take that into consideration when you read the following. I thought it was important that there are veterans protesting what has been happening to them along with what happens with the Suicide Prevention Hotline. This part I do not doubt since I have heard many stories just like it when veterans call and are told to call back or someone will get back to them.
The Veterans Affairs Department Gets Occupied But Still Ignores
By William Boardman
11/24/2012
On October 4, a small group of American veterans went to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) in Washington, D.C., to talk to officials there about veteran suicides, veteran homelessness, veteran joblessness, and other veteran struggles. No one from the department would talk to them then.
Even the contingent of Homeland Security guards blocking the door on October 4 wouldn’t explain to the veterans why they couldn’t come in. So, they stayed on the sidewalk in front of 810 Vermont Avenue, a few hundred yards from the White House, where they established Occupy Dep’t of Veterans Affairs. They’ve been there ever since, even through Hurricane Sandy.
After more than a month, Veterans Affairs officials still have not talked to any of the diverse group. Instead, the VA has continued low level police harassment and frequent power washing of the sidewalk, threatening to arrest anyone who interfered with the activity. Trinity Church in New York City used similar tactics against Occupy Wall Street in 2011.
Medic in Vietnam, Still Trying to Heal People
In a USTREAM video by Occupy Eye on Common Dreams that was primarily about the Tar Sands Blockade in East Texas, the coverage gets to the Veterans Affairs about 40 minutes in. There, a man who calls himself “Frosty,” a Vietnam veteran and former medic, with a bushy white beard, describes what it’s been like spending a month on the sidewalk trying to talk to the administration charged with looking after his welfare and that of his fellow vets from half a dozen American wars.
Articulate and friendly in demeanor, Frosty has intense things to say – for example, that the VA has only 19 suicide hotlines in the whole country, and that a caller reaches only a recording and is promised a callback within 24 hours. “The VA doesn’t care,” he says, noting that the suicide rate among veterans is currently estimated at 18 a day, and likely under-reported. This is demonstrated by an October report by the Department of Defense which cites 20 active-duty and 13 non-active-duty suicides in that month.
Like the other vets sharing the sidewalk in front of the VA, the first thing Frosty wants is to establish a veterans’ council that will have direct access to the VA, and to which the VA will have to be responsive. Some of the veterans are trying to work with Congress to make this happen, to improve VA response to all veterans’ issues, but especially suicides, homelessness, and joblessness.
read more here
Saturday, November 24, 2012
Older vets to post-9/11 vets: 'We had it harder.'
The answer to the question is, hell yes they did, but not for the reasons you may think. Mike & The Mechanics The Living Years was the first thing I thought of when I was reading this.
WWII veterans came home when almost every family had someone serving. My husband's 3 uncles and Dad served. My uncles served in WWII. My Dad was younger and served in the Korean War. By the time he came home there were less returning from combat and less experiencing the same things. By the time my husband came home from Vietnam, even less served and they had even less support. They had it harder than past generations because they went alone and came home alone. They didn't send them all as a group. They deployed for one year and then caught a commercial flight home alone.
None of them had the press coverage unless someone did something wrong and the media just like today jumps all over the story making sure they mention the military connection. What they came home with was kept secret within the family. In other words, they buried it because they didn't really have a choice.
Right now it is important to point out that it was the Vietnam veterans pushing for everything that is available today for the OEF and OIF veterans. The newer generation of veterans also have the ability to communicate with veterans from all across the nation.
The redeployments do make it harder on them but the support for them is better. In some ways there is too much support. Yes, I said that. Too much support that is not based on research or facts. Everyone seems to want to do something but few spend the time to understand exactly what it is they are supporting.
For the older veterans they committed suicide and tried to but no one talked about it. They were arrested for crimes but again, no one was talking about veterans courts. They had serial marriages trying to hang on to someone in their lives but because they had unaddressed issues, too many marriages didn't stand a chance. Then there were the kids of Vietnam veterans trying to deal with their own issues with their parents' PTSD.
Veterans are and always will be a minority in this nation so getting them to stand together is vital and separating them by the title of their years is not the answer. Putting them together with the "content of their character is."
Every generation in this case should thank the one before because all of their frustrations open the doors for today's veterans.
WWII veterans came home when almost every family had someone serving. My husband's 3 uncles and Dad served. My uncles served in WWII. My Dad was younger and served in the Korean War. By the time he came home there were less returning from combat and less experiencing the same things. By the time my husband came home from Vietnam, even less served and they had even less support. They had it harder than past generations because they went alone and came home alone. They didn't send them all as a group. They deployed for one year and then caught a commercial flight home alone.
None of them had the press coverage unless someone did something wrong and the media just like today jumps all over the story making sure they mention the military connection. What they came home with was kept secret within the family. In other words, they buried it because they didn't really have a choice.
Right now it is important to point out that it was the Vietnam veterans pushing for everything that is available today for the OEF and OIF veterans. The newer generation of veterans also have the ability to communicate with veterans from all across the nation.
The redeployments do make it harder on them but the support for them is better. In some ways there is too much support. Yes, I said that. Too much support that is not based on research or facts. Everyone seems to want to do something but few spend the time to understand exactly what it is they are supporting.
Older vets to post-9/11 vets: 'We had it harder.' Did they?
By Bill Briggs
NBC News contributor
The war stories from his grandfather, though sparse in detail, blended one moment of explosive drama with a vague reference of death — all wrapped around a description of how old-school military men used to handle both experiences.
David Weidman, who spent two tours in Afghanistan with the Air Force, recalls his late grandfather, a veteran of World War II and Korea, telling him that he survived having his body and his Jeep blown through a wall. He did not reveal to Weidman where that attack happened. He also gave his grandson some advice: “You don’t want to be in a foxhole talking to a guy one minute and then you turn around and he’s dead. You just don’t want to experience that.”
“He said he just dealt with it all. It’s that same mentality: ‘I did what I had to do. I got myself better then I went back to work.’ Other than that, he never spoke about the wars at all. That tells me he never did deal with it,” added Weidman, 32.
Cultural fault lines clearly run between generations of veterans who saw action in different conflicts or who wore the uniform in different eras, including peacetime. The refrain echoed by some older veterans to some younger ex-service members: “We had it so much harder than today’s military.”
It is, quite likely, a tradition that hearkens back to the Civil War or possibly the Revolutionary War, according to some ex-service members. But many post-9/11 veterans who have chatted with older veterans revealed the sentiment they've often heard carry the same note: “We just came home, put our heads down and got to work — without any whining."
read more here
For the older veterans they committed suicide and tried to but no one talked about it. They were arrested for crimes but again, no one was talking about veterans courts. They had serial marriages trying to hang on to someone in their lives but because they had unaddressed issues, too many marriages didn't stand a chance. Then there were the kids of Vietnam veterans trying to deal with their own issues with their parents' PTSD.
Veterans are and always will be a minority in this nation so getting them to stand together is vital and separating them by the title of their years is not the answer. Putting them together with the "content of their character is."
Every generation in this case should thank the one before because all of their frustrations open the doors for today's veterans.
Baldwin County Deputy Killed Served In Afghanistan
Baldwin County Deputy Killed Served In Afghanistan
By: WKRG Staff
WKRG
Published: November 24, 2012
More information is coming out involving a Baldwin County Deputy who died in the line of duty. Deputy Scott Ward served with the department for 15 years and was also in the Coast Guard Reserves. According to al.com, Ward was deployed to Afghanistan a little more than a year ago. He also served at one time as a Prichard Police officer.
read more here
By: WKRG Staff
WKRG
Published: November 24, 2012
More information is coming out involving a Baldwin County Deputy who died in the line of duty. Deputy Scott Ward served with the department for 15 years and was also in the Coast Guard Reserves. According to al.com, Ward was deployed to Afghanistan a little more than a year ago. He also served at one time as a Prichard Police officer.
read more here
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