Midland Veterans Memorial refurbished to honor veterans of all conflicts

Midland Veterans Memorial refurbished to honor veterans of all conflicts
Michigan Live
By Annie Harrison
November 01, 2013

Lindsey Burgess of Midland hugs Debi Ullom during the Midland Veterans Memorial Dedication Ceremony on Nov. 1, 2013. Ullom lost her son during Aaron who served in Afghanistan. The Midland Veterans Memorial had been put in storage while the fail was being demolished and has now been renovated.
Sammy Jo Hester MLive.com

MIDLAND, MI — Veterans and their friends and family huddled together against the wind and rain Friday, Nov. 1, to honor fallen service members at a dedication ceremony for the Midland Veterans Memorial.

A crowd gathered at 12:30 p.m. in front of the Midland County Courthouse to see the memorial that had been placed in storage for two years while the old Midland County Jail was demolished.

Lindsey Burgess, a Midland County Veterans Memorial Committee member, said the committee set out six years ago to update the original World War II Veterans Memorial, dedicated in 1949, to represent all conflicts. The expanded memorial honors all fallen veterans past, present and future from Midland County.

“What sparked my interest was that there was no recognition of the currently serving fallen,” she said.

Burgess became involved in the formation of the committee in 2007 after her brother, Lance Corporal Ryan J. Burgess of the U.S. Marine Corps, was killed in action December 21, 2006, in Iraq. While she has spent years working to renovate the memorial, she insists this day is not about her.

“This is not about me at all, this is about the big picture,” she said.
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Soldier watched pregnant wife stabbed on video from Afghanistan

Soldier's wife, days after stabbing, holds newborn for first time

UPDATE
Soldier arrested in attack on pregnant Army wife as she chatted via app with husband overseas
FoxNews.com
Published November 03, 2013

In the aftermath, Justin Poole quickly took to Facebook and posted a message about the attacker, as well as phoned Corey Bernard Moss’ colleagues at Fort Bliss, where he apparently knew Moss was training to be a soldier.

"If u are seeing this message find out what f---g hospital my wife is in and tell me the f---g whereabouts of Corey Moss,” Justin Poole reportedly wrote on his Facebook account. “He f---g went to my house while I'm deployed and stabbed her...today.”

Moss, 19, was soon apprehended upon his return to the base, and is now being held in lieu of $150,000 bond on attempted murder charges, according to ABCNews.com.

Following the attack, a battered Rachel Poole reportedly phoned 911. She was taken to an area hospital and remains in critical condition for stab wounds, fractures to her face and body and a collapsed lung.

ABCNews.com also reports doctors performed a cesarean section on Rachel Poole to deliver a baby girl. Poole’s mother, Rebecca Jones, has declined to elaborate on her daughter’s condition, but told the website the baby girl, “is in good health.”

Justin Poole has reportedly returned to El Paso from overseas, and recently posted pictures of himself and the newborn on his Facebook page, writing, "Rachel Poole is fighting to beat this." read more of this here

U.S. soldier serving abroad watches in horror on FaceTime as his pregnant wife is stabbed by an intruder
Soldier Corey Moss, 19, was arrested in Fort Bliss, Texas, in the knife attack on 31-year-old Rachel Poole
Mrs Poole suffered critical injuries just a week before delivering her baby, who is said to be in good condition
Woman recognized her assailant during attack as a man who owed her husband money for car repairs Army Pvt Justin Pele Poole watched the attack on video chat from his posting in southwest Asia Mr Poole wrote on Facebook that his wife had lost an eye in the attack
Daily Mail
By SNEJANA FARBEROV
PUBLISHED: 12:56 EST, 1 November 2013

A pregnant Texas woman has been stabbed multiple times by an intruder as her horrified soldier husband serving overseas helplessly watched the attack play out in real time on video chat.

Rachel Poole, 31, was talking to her husband, Justin Pele Poole, on FaceTime Wednesday night when a man identified as 19-year-old Corey Moss broke into their El Paso home and lunged at her with a knife.

According to an arrest affidavit obtained by KFOX14, Mrs Poole recognized her assailant as a man who owed her husband money and screamed out his name.

The 31-year-old mother-to-be, who is nine months pregnant, was rushed to University Medical Center in critical condition suffering from multiple stab wounds and fractures to her body and face. Doctors said her unborn baby girl, who is due in a week, was in good condition. The couple plan to name her Isabella.
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Flight carrying fallen soldier home video hits over a million in 3 days

Fallen Soldier Delta Flight: Passengers Honored to Accompany Fallen Soldier
By Zachary Stieber
Epoch Times
November 1, 2013

A fallen soldier was on a Delta flight on Thursday, and passengers were honored to hear that they were on the same plane as the soldier.

The pilot told passengers over the PA system about 45 minutes prior to landing that the plane was transporting the soldier.

Everyone was told to wait several minutes after landing so that the military escort could get off first, a passenger wrote on the travel blog Johnny Jet. Los Angeles fire trucks greeted the plane with a water canon salute.

A military officer came onto the plane before the passengers disembarked and thanked them.

“I just addressed the escort. It is a sworn oath to bring home, to the family, the fallen,” he said. “Today you all did that, you are all escorts, escorts of the heart.”

The passenger wrote: “As you can imagine, everyone was silent, no one got up, not even that person from the back row who pretends they don’t speak English so they can be first off the plane. I’m sure most had meteor-sized lumps in their throats and tears in their eyes like I did.”
read more here after you dry your eyes


As of November 2 at 7:00 pm the count is 1,682,367. What do you think it will be by the 11th for Veterans Day?

War Wed Call To Action for Every Veterans' Day

War Wed Call To Action for Every Veterans' Day
Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
November 2, 2013

They decided to serve. We decided to love. They suffered because of where they went. We decided to stay. They fell apart. We decided to put them back together again.

I am not talking about the Afghanistan or Iraq veterans. I am talking about Vietnam veterans. Most of my friends have been married longer than the younger generation has been alive. We're older and wiser, but above all of that, we have proven that we are a hell of a lot stronger than PTSD is.

There was a time when I thought all I had to do was love my husband good enough and he'd get better. That was over 30 years ago. It was before the Internet allowed people to find others in the same position that had become part of their lives. We didn't have self help groups or anything else to teach us. Even our own parents couldn't help.

Their generation dealt with what combat did to WWII and Korean veterans without talking about it. Feeling as if they had something to be ashamed of, they covered up when their husband's drank too much, vanished for days and acted out. They pretended sleeping on the couch was normal. No big deal. Nothing was a big deal on the surface but they buried their burdens as well as their husbands way too soon.

My generation was curious. We always had to find answers for everything. We found what we needed to know to help our veterans. Determined to do better than our parents did we learned. That's the point. Each generation learns from the past if they are willing to listen. So why the hell aren't you?

It doesn't matter if your veteran is male or female, if you were together when they served or came along afterwards like I did. The only thing that matters is if you love them or not. Do you? Then are you willing to do whatever it takes to help them heal? Then learn what it is.


Hero After War from Kathleen "Costos" DiCesare on Vimeo.


This is an older video but you'll get the point.
Learn what it is and then remember the thing you love most about them is the thing that made them hurt do deeply.

That ability to care so much let what they had to go through attach to their soul. The ability to have such strong emotions also allowed stronger pain to come.

Then they get angry because they feel terrible about the stranger taking over inside of them and they forget that loving part of them is still there. They forget why they joined. They forget what they did to stay alive in combat and how they risked their lives to save others. They forget how they hug onto that compassion and courage until all of them were back home one way or another. They forgot how they were able to still hang onto that goodness within them while people were trying to kill them and cowards were planting bombs to blow them up.

Along the way they forgot that part of them that made you say the words "I love you" or why they were sure you did.

When was the last time you looked at them and saw their soul thru their eyes? When did you just hold them because you knew they needed it without them saying a word? When was the last time you told them "you're a good man" or "you are beautiful" because you are so fixated on what they are doing wrong? Did you ever once consider why they are doing something wrong?

You have millions of places to do basic research in your pajamas. How much time do you spend on Facebook or playing games? Ever think of putting in the same kind of effort to save someone you are supposed to love?

I did go into combat. I didn't get to pick what my husband did before we met. I just got to decide to fight for him or leave. I made the choice to fight for his life because that is what love does. Vietnam was his war but when he came home it was my turn to fight the battle for his life.

Read our story and know that for every life I saved afterwards, it started with the love of Jack.

Army Rangers honor bravery of Capt. Jennifer Moreno at memorial

Memorial for feisty Madigan nurse Moreno salutes her bravery in Afghanistan
The Olympian
Adam Ashton
Staff Writer
Published: November 2, 2013

Col. Stephen Yoest, foreground, deputy commander for clinical services at Madigan Army Medical Center; Lt. Col. Timothy O’Haver, Madigan chief of staff; Col. Lena Gaudreau, deputy commander for nursing; and Chaplain Lt. Col. Jimmy Davis leave flowers at a newly dedicated memorial Friday at Madigan in memory of Capt. Jennifer Moreno, a medic killed while on a mission in Afghanistan.
DEAN J. KOEPFLER/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

The death of Army nurse Capt. Jennifer Moreno in Afghanistan last month devastated her teammates.

They told themselves they should have been the ones to take that dangerous mission with a team of Army Rangers instead of the feisty medic from San Diego with the broad smile.

But as the days wore on after the Oct. 6 bombings that killed four soldiers and wounded 30 more, Moreno’s friend and commander Capt. Amanda King realized it “couldn’t have happened any other way.”

Only Moreno, 25, had the bravery to race through a heavily mined village to try to save wounded Rangers.

“None of us would have done what you did, running into hell to save your wounded brothers, knowing full well you probably wouldn’t make it back,” King wrote in eulogy to her friend.
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Wounded Marine cared more about others than himself

Marine Shares Struggle with Combat Injuries
Marine Corps News
by Lance Cpl. Suzanna Knotts
Nov 01, 2013

MARINE CORPS BASE HAWAII -- Some may dread recalling the day of their brush with death, but Sgt. Rafael Cervantes Jr. embraces it as his second birthday.

After conducting a house search in Bakwa District, Farah province, Afghanistan, then Cpl. Rafael Cervantes Jr., a motor transport mechanic with Headquarters and Service Company, 2nd Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment, took the wheel of a mine-resistant, ambush-protected all-terrain vehicle and hit an improvised explosive device.

On April 4, 2011, Cervantes was reborn.

Cervantes is currently with Wounded Warrior Battalion West-Detachment Hawaii recovering from injuries sustained from the IED blast.

On the day of the incident, his officer in charge, Capt. Daniel Donnerstag, told Cervantes they received intelligence of possible Taliban making IEDs in a nearby compound.

“Everything felt like it was happening slowly,” Cervantes said. “I passed out and when I woke up, everyone else was still out. It was dark and smoky. My first reaction was to make sure I had everything below my waist. I started touching my legs and I couldn’t feel anything at first.”

He recalled pulling on his leg because it was stuck, and then felt his ankle dangling from his leg.

The explosion hit to the right of the vehicle, so he felt most of his pain on the right side of his body.

“I started wiggling my leg and it felt like everything was wiggling on its own,” Cervantes said.

“I was able to get out and that’s when the pain got worse. But I didn’t care about myself. I just wanted to get everyone out of the truck.”

After waking up another Marine in the vehicle, Cervantes pulled him out and fell to the ground. At that point, he couldn’t move. The intense pain he felt spread to his back.

However, his major concern was still the safety of his fellow Marines, so he scanned the area for threats as he lay on the ground.

“I knew I needed my weapon to provide cover, but I needed to get back inside the truck,” Cervantes said. “Kyle (the Marine he pulled out) went to get the others, so I crawled back to get my weapon.”

Cervantes grabbed his weapon by the optic, and it fell apart.

“I thought, ‘what the hell?’ My weapon was broken in pieces. But I noticed the gunner’s M16 on the ground, so I grabbed it and laid down to provide cover,” Cervantes said.

The other Marines sustained serious injuries as well, but everyone inside the vehicle survived the explosion. The corpsman who was on patrol with them applied a splint to Cervantes’ leg. They waited for two and a half hours for help to arrive.
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Fort Hood Massacre Hero Suffering

The trial seems to have settled the question about what the massacre at Fort Hood was all about. It was a terrorist act by one of their own. The murder admitted it. Leaving these soldiers and their families suffering is beyond wrong. What are the excuses now? When will the families finally see justice?

Red Lion soldier who helped during Fort Hood shooting faces health challenges
Ryan Walton, 27, received a medal for his actions during the 2009 Fort Hood shooting.
By TED CZECH
Daily Record/Sunday News
UPDATED: 11/01/2013

Ryan Walton is pictured with his Meritorious Service Medal in October at his home in York Township. He had an image of the medal tattooed on his arm so he would always carry it with him. He says he doesn't want to forget the painful moments he witnessed because they are part of who he is now.
(Paul Kuehnel - Daily Record/Sunday News)

Ryan Walton lies on the bed most of the day -- it's a single, hospital-issue, and barely big enough for his 6 foot, 5 inch frame. It's sandwiched between the couch and the stairs in his Red Lion townhouse.

Three years ago, he stood on the dais at Fort Hood, Texas, receiving the Meritorious Service Medal for running in when others ran out during the 2009 massacre, in which 13 people died and more than 30 were injured.

"It was very sad," he said. "But we all knew what we did and it was an honor to be there and receive it."

That day, he just happened to be driving through the fort when he came upon bloody victims who had fled as Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan opened fire.

Walton, now 27, carried bodies out of the building, slinging them over his broad shoulders.

He started IVs in victims and advocated for the more seriously injured victims who were passed over by paramedics.

But before that day, he had already suffered injuries in Iraq and had been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder.

"I think, all in all, Nov. 5 is what ruined me," he said.
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Fort Hood Solider and Wife Missing

Fort Hood Soldier, Wife Reported Missing
KWTX News

FORT HOOD (November 1, 2013) Fort Hood soldier E.J. Grey, 23, and his wife Courtney, 19, both of Pueblo, Colo., have been reported missing and E.J. Grey has been listed as AWOL since Tuesday, authorities confirmed Friday.

The two were last seen on Sunday.

A family member reported them missing to Killeen police on Wednesday.

They could be driving a dark blue Volkswagen Bug with Texas license plates.

Texas VA Hospitals had 24 attempted suicides since 2003

Veterans committing suicide did not send a loud enough message that they are not getting what they need. Suicide at a VA is a public condemnation for their refusal to hear the others.

Veteran’s Suicide Prompts Review Of Prevention Efforts
KWTX News
By: Matt Howerton
October 31, 2013

TEMPLE (October 31, 2013) -- VA Officials are currently conducting an internal review after a veteran walked into a public restroom at the Temple VA Hospital last September and shot himself.

The veteran died days later at Scott and White Hospital in Temple.

The suicide brings light to a growing trend amongst veterans. A trend, both VA and Military officials are very aware about.

“Any loss of life is a tragic event, especially when it's a suicide," Central Texas’ Veterans Health Care System Lead Suicide Prevention Coordinator Natalie Qualls said.

"We hope veterans see that there are other options and resources available to them before contemplating suicide."

According to documents obtained by News 10, there have been 24 suicide attempts at VA Hospitals in Temple and Waco since 2003.

Seventeen attempts were reported at the Temple VA Hospital, and seven at the VA Hospital in Waco.

Out of the 24, 13 dealt with overdoses, 7 involved self-inflicting lacerations and stab wounds, 2 stemmed from strangulation attempts, one involved ingesting a poisonous substance, and one dealt with an attempted suicidal jump.

September’s suicide will be the second in ten years after a man shot himself in the Temple VA Hospital’s parking lot in 2005.
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Army Reports 227 Suicides January thru September

Army Releases September 2013 Suicide Information
IMMEDIATE RELEASE
No. 762-13
October 31, 2013

The Army released suicide data today for the month of September 2013. During September, among active-duty soldiers, there were 9 potential suicides: 1 has been confirmed as a suicide and 8 remain under investigation.

For August 2013, the Army reported 12 potential suicides among active-duty soldiers: 5 have been confirmed as suicides and 7 are under investigation.

For CY 2013, there have been 115 potential active-duty suicides: 58 have been confirmed as suicides and 57 remain under investigation.

Updated active-duty suicide numbers for CY 2012: 185 (171 have been confirmed as suicides and 14 remain under investigation).

During September 2013, among reserve component soldiers who were not on active duty, there were 8 potential suicides (4 Army National Guard and 4 Army Reserve): None have been confirmed as suicide and eight remain under investigation.

For August 2013, among that same group, the Army reported 8 potential suicides; however, subsequent to the report, 1 more case was added bringing August’s total to 9 (5 Army National Guard and 4 Army Reserve): Four have been confirmed as suicides and five cases remain under investigation.

For CY 2013, there have been 112 potential not on active duty suicides (70 Army National Guard and 42 Army Reserve): 81 have been confirmed as suicides and 31 remain under investigation.

Updated not on active duty suicide numbers for CY 2012: 140 (93 Army National Guard and 47 Army Reserve): 138 have been confirmed as suicides and two remain under investigation.

REMINDER
The Department of Defense does not include other branches in the monthly report. The Department of Defense has not released the Suicide Event Report for 2012 that includes all branches as well as attempted suicide data.

This is where the numbers were last year thru September. It was the highest on record. The numbers were higher for the Army in 2012 but lower for the National Guards and Reserves.

Army Releases September Suicide Data
IMMEDIATE RELEASE
No. 838-12
October 19, 2012

The Army released suicide data today for the month of September. During September, among active-duty soldiers, there were 15 potential suicides: 1 has been confirmed as suicide and 14 remain under investigation.

For August, the Army reported 16 potential suicides among active-duty soldiers. Since the release of that report, 1 case was removed for a total of 15 cases: five have been confirmed as suicides and 10 remain under investigation.

For 2012, there have been 146 potential active-duty suicides: 91 have been confirmed as suicides and 55 remain under investigation.

Active-duty suicide number for 2011: 165 confirmed as suicides and no cases under investigation.

During September, among reserve component soldiers who were not on active duty, there were 16 potential suicides (13 Army National Guard and 3 Army Reserve): 1 has been confirmed as suicide and 15 remain under investigation.

For August, among that same group, the Army reported 9 potential suicides. Since the release of that report 2 cases were added for a total of 11 cases (7 Army National Guard and 4 Army Reserve): 5 have been confirmed as suicides and 6 remain under investigation.

For 2012, there have been 101 potential not on active-duty suicides (67 Army National Guard and 34 Army Reserve): 67 have been confirmed as suicides and 34 remain under investigation.

Not on active-duty suicide numbers for 2011: 118 (82 Army National Guard and 36 Army Reserve) confirmed as suicides and no cases under investigation.