Mark Wahlberg says Lone Survivor is tribute to what troops sacrifice for us

Mark Wahlberg calls 'Lone Survivor' a 'magical experience'
Toronto Sun
BY BRUCE KIRKLAND
QMI AGENCY
JANUARY 03, 2014

NEW YORK — Historical fact or hyper-fiction? The filmmakers involved with Lone Survivor, including co-producer and co-star Mark Wahlberg, struggled mightily with that issue. But they had one goal: To tell this savage story as truthfully as possible.
“Obviously,” Wahlberg says in an interview, “the goal was to make it as realistic as possible and certainly in the spirit of something.” That something is the true saga of Operation Red Wings, a failed special operations mission conducted by the U.S. Navy SEALs in June of 2005 in the rugged Hindu Kush Mountains of Afghanistan’s Kunar province.

The mission goal was to capture or kill a senior Taliban terrorist. The mission went terribly wrong, leading to 19 American deaths during a firefight.

Operation Red Wings serves as a searing insight into how some modern wars are fought, on the ground with ferocious hand-to-hand combat and high casualty rates.

The ‘lone survivor’ of the Red Wings mission is now-retired SEAL team member Marcus Luttrell, who co-wrote the biographical book that inspired writer-director Peter Berg’s film. Part of Luttrell’s ordeal took place in an Afghan Pashtun village where residents argued over the Texan’s fate.

Wahlberg plays Luttrell, and Luttrell served as one of the film’s SEAL team consultants. Wahlberg says the goal in Lone Survivor was “capturing the essence of it as close to the real thing as possible.”

Lone Survivor is a rarity. Most current American war movies are set in Iraq. An Afghan setting is unusual. The politics are complicated. The war is messy and grim and complicated and unrewarding.

But this story should still be told, Wahlberg says. “Because it’s so important. I think people take for granted what these people do for us. And it’s such an amazing story, not just in paying tribute to Marcus but also paying tribute to the Afghan villagers who risked their lives to save, basically, a stranger.”

Lone Survivor, Wahlberg adds, tries “to put a face on the Afghan people as opposed to the assumption that because we’re at war in Afghanistan that we are at war with Afghanistan. We’re not.”

Researching the Lone Survivor story, and getting to befriend Luttrell also increased Wahlberg’s respect for American soldiers, he says. “Absolutely! At the highest level. This was never about politics. It was never really about war.” Instead, he says, the film is “a tribute to the soldiers and what they sacrifice for us.”
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Military Veteran Families Called To Action

Military Veteran Families Called To Action
Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
January 4, 2014

They call the military a brotherhood but few talk about how military families are family to all as well.

Yesterday a couple of people thanked me for my ministry to veterans. I had to explain that this is not by choice but something I am compelled to do.

Chaplains operate in the Ministry of Presence. "Chaplaincy is a service or ministry offered in secular settings or settings that are outside normal places of worship such as a university, hospital, prison, school or workplace. Although broad in scope, chaplaincy services centre on the intellectual, emotional, social, interpersonal and spiritual dimensions of life and seek to assist personal awareness, understanding, growth and integration."

The circumstances of my life, faith in God and witnessing miracles everyday, as well as the suffering of far too many, left me no other choice. I could not sit back and let lives fall apart without trying to do something. Over 30 years later, I am still doing it.

No one knows better than the families what servicemen and women are going thru after they put their civvies back on.

More and more families are stepping up, compelled by their own pain to prevent other families from suffering the same fate. Reading about the parents of Sgt. James Bearup set this post in motion.
Alaska National Guards Suicide

Son's suicide sets Soldotna couple on new path
Peninsula Clarion
By RASHAH McCHESNEY
Saturday, January 4, 2014

SOLDOTNA, Alaska (AP) — Just over nine months ago, Army National Guard Sgt. James Bearup put a shotgun into his mouth and blew away memories of his military service in Afghanistan, an inability to find consistent work to support his wife, growing family and the pressure of coping with day-to-day life with post-traumatic stress disorder.

The 29-year-old left eight siblings, a wife and two children, 30 nieces and nephews and two parents shocked with the loss, suddenness and permanence of his departure.

Tom and Adele Bearup, of Soldotna, also learned how terrible life with PTSD can be and have spent the last several months reaching out to area veterans through meals, gifts and word-of-mouth in an effort to prevent a similar tragedy from happening to another family.

James called his parents and each of his siblings before killing himself.

"We tried to talk him down," Adele said, her voice thickening and finally breaking as she searched for a voicemail message James had left on a sibling's phone the day he died.

What are they trying to do? They are reaching out to veterans to let them know they matter and share their property on a lake.

C.J. Twomey's Mom knows what it is like. Her son shot himself. She took to Facebook and is sending C.J.'s ashes from Maine to Japan.

You see a lot of what I do everyday but you don't hear about the phone calls, emails and visits. Whenever I help out a group I ask for secrecy just as the veterans expect it from me. What you see even less are families like the Bearups. These folks are moving mountains to make sure they save whomever they can. As suffering reaches out, touching the lives of others, so does healing. Heal one veteran, you will heal ten. Heal ten, you heal thousands.

They are not greedy with their better lives. They want to share what helped them so others can live better lives. In a sense, these families and veterans are in the ministry of presence as well.

Iraq veteran Matthew Jarrett is biking across 14 states. As of New Year's Eve he has gone more than 8,000 miles.

U.S. Navy Capt. Todd Kruder and his wife, Sharon, are talking openly about how he wanted to die and how he healed to live. They are doing whatever they can to save others from knowing what that kind of pain feels like.

The men and women joining the military do it by choice. Families do it for love. When the veterans' choices cause suffering for being unselfish, families fight the battles for them. None of us want to be in the positions we're in. It rips our hearts out because the more we try to help, the more we learn of how widespread all of this is. The more we try to spare someone pain, the more we are reminded of our own.

It is hard to tell our stories but it is harder to live them. If we don't talk about any of this others will feel just as lonely as we did.

My husband is living a better life and we've been married 29 years. His nephew committed suicide after I had been helping other veterans for many years but I couldn't save him. Every time I do a report on suicides, I think of him and how I wish I could have saved him. The pain comes back but I know over the years I have saved others, talked them off the ledge, because of him. I wish I could have prevented the worst that PTSD did to my husband. When I read about other veterans suffering, I remember the darkest days for us. It hurts but I know there are many healing veterans across the country because of him.

Remembering Nancy Malloy

There are average people all over the world, doing whatever they can to make lives better. As the saying goes, "and the world is better for them having lived." They don't have a PR campaign and don't do photo shoots very well. They don't mind getting dirty, enduring hardships the rest of us would complain about too easily. They don't mind suffering because at the end of the day, they know they made a difference. No matter how small it may seem to some, they changed someone's life and it was all worth it.

I was just sent a link to the story of a nurse killed while serving with the Red Cross out of Canada. Nancy Malloy was just such a person.

Remembering Nancy Malloy
Canada Museum of Health Care
by Museum of Health Care
Posted on December 16, 2011

Nancy worked with the Canadian Red Cross for nine years, completing missions in Ethiopia (1990), Kuwait (1991), Belgrade (1993), and Zaire (1995) before arriving in Chechnya in 1996. Acting as medical and hospital administrator on these missions, among other titles, Malloy played a key role in facilitating the provision of medical care in areas rife with warfare and violence.

With a freshly signed peace treaty between Russia and Chechnya, Chechnya remained fraught with tension after two years of warfare when Nancy Malloy arrived at the hospital at Novye Atagi, approximately twenty-five kilometers south of the capital of Grozny. Aid workers lived in an almost constant state of stress, as the political situation remained uncertain.

Early in the morning of 17 December 1996 a group of armed men entered the hospital compound at Novye Atagi and made their way into the sleeping quarters of the international workers, where they shot and killed six Red Cross workers and wounded a seventh before fleeing. Nancy Malloy of Canada, Ingeborg Foss and Gunnhild Myklebust of Norway, Sheryl Thayer of New Zealand, Fernanda Calado of Spain, and Hans Elkerbout of the Netherlands died. Christophe Hensch, of Switzerland, recovered from his wounds. The Red Cross withdrew its remaining international workers from the hospital shortly thereafter.
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National Guardsman wrongly fired for serving wins against Post Office

Postal Service ordered to reinstate GI, potentially pay millions in back pay, fees
Stars and Stripes
By Chris Carroll
Published: January 3, 2014

WASHINGTON — A federal board has again ordered the U.S. Postal Service to reinstate a National Guardsman wrongly fired from his job as a postal worker because he took military leave, telling the agency to pay him what could add up to millions in back pay, benefits and legal fees.

On Monday, the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board, which rules on disputed federal personnel actions, reiterated that the decision in 2000 to fire Sgt. Maj. Richard Erickson, now 50, violated federal laws designed to protect troops’ civilian jobs.

The board made a similar ruling in 2012 and ordered the Postal Service to immediately reinstate Erickson, a decorated long-time Special Forces member, even if it planned to appeal. But the Postal Service appealed the ruling without reinstating Erickson.

On Monday, the board also declared that a Postal Service argument that Erickson was not entitled to back pay and benefits because he did not meet a deadline to request reemployment was invalid because he had already been wrongly fired.
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OEF OIF Veterans saved lives New Year's Eve

Soldier’s quick reaction saves hundreds in nightclub fire
KIROTV.com

SEATTLE — In the first few seconds after the fire roared up the back stairway of Capitol Hill’s Neighbours nightclub, US Army Staff Sgt. Christopher Bostick was one of a few New Year’s Eve revelers who reacted immediately.

“I’m embarrassed to say, my first move was to go after it with cups of water. Then I quickly realized, this fire is way bigger than that, he said.

In the next breath, the Army Intelligence veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan tours sharpens his tone, as if news of impending violence is to follow.

“You know, in 30 seconds, if that fire did what the arsonist intended, there’s no telling how many people could have died."

While 750 people counted down to the new year, Bostick rushed to grab a fire extinguisher from behind the bar. He and Air Force member Mike Casey went to work putting out the gasoline-fueled fire.
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Danger pay zones for troops cut to save $7.50 a day?

Pentagon cuts list of places where U.S. troops get danger pay
WTAQ
Friday, January 03, 2014

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Pentagon said on Friday it had cut by about a third the list of places where U.S. troops would receive imminent danger pay, dropping locations like Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf in a move expected to reduce costs by about $100 million a year.

Still on the list are countries like Afghanistan and Iraq, where the United States fought wars over the last decade, as well as Jordan and Turkey, which border Syria, where a civil war is raging.

The sea near Somalia, where pirates have been active, is on the list. So is Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the home of the U.S. prison for captured enemy combatants, as well as Israel, Azerbaijan and the city of Athens, Greece.

But gone from the list are Bahrain, which is headquarters to the U.S. Fifth Fleet, plus the waterways of the neighboring Gulf, Arabian Sea and Red Sea, where the Navy regularly deploys its ships.

Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Oman, the United Arab Emirates, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan also were removed from the countries where U.S. forces receive imminent danger pay. The U.S. military has forces in several of those countries as well. In many cases, the airspace above the country or waterway also was removed from the list.

Army Colonel Steve Warren, a Pentagon spokesman, said the Defense Department spent about $500 million on imminent danger pay in 2012. Military personnel receive $7.50 per day when working in areas where they are eligible for the special pay, up to a maximum of $225 per month, he said.
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Air Force Wife Escorted Body of Husband Back Home

Fallen captain remembered as protector, athlete, loving husband
Marine Corps Times
Jeff Schogol
January 2, 2014

Capt. David Lyon, who died Dec. 27 in Afghanistan, had been with his wife, Capt. Dana Lyon, just days earlier.
(Courtesy of Pounds family)

Rick Pounds remembers the moment his daughter Dana found the man to spend her life with.

In 2008, she tried out for the Olympics as part of the Air Force team, but her javelin throw was just inches short of making the cut. She was inconsolable afterward — until her fiancee, David Lyon, comforted her by holding her, walking with her and helping her move through the pain.

“If my daughter would have given me the task of ‘go find me a husband anywhere,’ that’s who I would have picked,” Rick Pounds said in a Jan. 2 interview.

The two, both Air Force Academy graduates, did get married and both became Air Force captains. They were deployed to Afghanistan and were able to see each other this Christmas. Two days later, Lyon, 28, of Sandpoint, Idaho, was killed by a suicide car bomb.

Rick Pounds had to pause to collect himself before talking about how his widowed daughter escorted Lyon’s flag-draped transfer case to the U.S.

“She got to fly back, right beside him, all the way home,” he said.
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Accident at VA Cemetery Causes Outrage?

I read this article several times and tried to put myself into the families shoes. Oh, wait. I am already in them. My Dad and uncles are buried in civilian cemeteries but friends are buried in VA graves. I would be upset if it happened to their graves but I would not blame the workers for getting stuck in saturated mud they had to get out of.

Graves at Cheltenham Veterans Cemetery damaged by heavy equipment
MyFOX DC
By Sherri Ly
Posted: Dec 31, 2013

CHELTENHAM, Md.

"It wasn't on purpose or intentional,” said Keith Lincoln. “It wasn't like somebody broke through the building and did all this on purpose. It was just an accident." He says his father's headstone has been damaged before and the cemetery quickly replaced it.

A bulldozer mistakenly damaged dozens of graves at a Maryland veterans cemetery. Now the state's Secretary of Veterans Affairs is apologizing.

Pictures of the damage to Cheltenham Veterans Cemetery went viral over social media. The damage was accidental, but angered many families who had loved ones buried there.

"It's just disgraceful," said Carol Milliken.

Her husband, a major in the U.S. Air Force, was buried there last year. She comes to visit almost every day. Looking at the rows of unearthed headstones and muddy tire tracks inches from her husband's grave almost brought her to tears. Like all those here, he served the nation honorably, only to be dishonored like this.

"It's very sad. I was very upset," she said showing the tire tracks left by the bulldozer backhoe.

"They've gone up the side here, you can see the tracks. His stone is right here."

During the last burial Monday, a tractor sunk into the saturated ground, leaving deep trenches across part of the cemetery, buckling the ground and dislodging headstones.
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DAV, VFW and American Legion not happy with VA claims rule change

VA Hit on Planned Disability Rules Changes
Military.com
by Bryant Jordan
Jan 02, 2014

Some of the country's leading veterans service organizations have rejected changes proposed by the Department of Veterans Affairs that might create disparities between veterans filing for a disability on paper and those filing electronically.

Additionally, some say the new changes are only to slow the VA's receipt of new claims while it tries to eliminate its backlog by 2015. The VA published the proposed changes to the Federal Register on Oct. 31. "VA wants to make it as fast and easy as possible for veterans and their survivors to file for and receive an accurate decision on their claim," the department told Military.com in a statement. "This proposed rule would require the use of standardized forms to help streamline the claims process and modernize the VA system to ensure veterans and their families receive the benefits they deserve more quickly."

But that's now how the Veterans of Foreign Wars, The American Legion, and other groups see it. In official comments to the VA, the groups said the changes would penalize veterans who do not have access to a computer or the internet by relegating paper-initiated claims to a second-class status.

"This proposed regulation separates claimants into two groups," the Legion said in its letter to the VA. "Claimants who can access the internet and claimants who are not able to access the internet. This bifurcated separation of claimants penalizes those claimants not able to access the internet and therefore is not fair."

DAV National Service Director Marszalek, in his comment to the VA, said the change "violates the law and intent of Congress," which directed the VA to provide assistance to veterans expressing an intent to file a claim or who file an incomplete claim, and give them one year from date of notification to submit the application.

"Setting aside special consideration for claimants capable of filing electronically, and excluding those who cannot, will cause a certain portion of the eligible claimant population to be treated differently," Marszalek said.
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Iraq veteran told he'd never run again, will run Boston Marathon

Moving forward
Disabled Iraq War veteran from North to run Boston Marathon for charity
BY RICK FOSTER SUN CHRONICLE STAFF
January 2, 2014

Disabled Iraq War veteran Nick Sousa, 27, says he's running the Boston Marathon to help people as they strive to recover from spinal cord injuries.
(Staff photo by Tom Maguire)

NORTH ATTLEBORO — A disabled Marine veteran says he’ll run in the Boston Marathon to help people attempting to recover from spinal cord injuries.

Nicholas Sousa, 27, an Iraq War veteran, has been accepted as one of three people who will run in April’s race to raise funds for The Journey Forward, a Canton charity that uses a specialized exercise program to help people recover from debilitating injury.

Sousa is attempting to raise at least $7,500 to support his effort on behalf of the charity.

The North Attleboro resident, who served with the Marines from 2005 to 2010, injured his ankle in a training accident, but kept quiet about it, fearing he would not be allowed to deploy with his fellow service members.

“There was a lot of damage,” Sousa said. “They told me I would never be able to run again.”
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