Two tour Iraq veteran files suit over lost job

Army veteran sues Franklin Twp. over dismissal from job
Courier-Post
Written by
Carly Q. Romalino
March 25, 2014

Yusko completed two tours in Iraq and received various service medals for two decades of service.

An Army veteran fired from his public works post in Franklin Township has sued the municipality, claiming he’s entitled to a hearing.

Richard Yusko filed the suit in state Superior Court, Woodbury, on Friday, seeking reinstatement of his employment with the township.

He was hired as assistant superintendent of public works in October 2012, six months after an honorable Army discharge, according to court papers.

In January, he was reappointed to the post but was informed in February he would be fired as of March 14.

The reason for Yusko’s firing is unclear. Franklin Mayor Ed Leopardi would not comment Saturday.

“They unceremoniously fired him for no apparent reason despite being a veteran,” said Mark Cimino, Yusko’s attorney.
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Memorial held for Canadian Soldier after Suicide

Memorial held for latest soldier to take his own life
Pressure grows to provide more support to veterans in crisis following latest military suicide
CBC News Canada
Posted: Mar 24, 2014

Master Cpl. Tyson Washburn, 37, died in Pembroke, Ont., in mid-March as the latest in a long list of Canadian soldiers to commit suicide in recent months.
(CBC)

There was a solemn farewell in Central Blissville, N.B., on Monday as the latest Canadian soldier to take his own life was remembered.

Master Cpl. Tyson Washburn, 37, died in Pembroke, Ont., in mid-March as the most recent in a long list of soldiers to commit suicide in recent months, many after struggling with post-traumatic stress disorder.

Washburn joined the Canadian Armed Forces as a cook in 2006 and was deployed to Afghanistan from July to October 2010.

While his family and friends said goodbye in New Brunswick, pressure grew elsewhere in the country to provide more support to veterans in crisis.

Washburn's death came just three days before the last plane load of Canadian soldiers returned home from Afghanistan to promises from government and military leaders that soldiers who fought would be taken care of back home.

But for many who fought, including former soldier Bruce Moncur, those words rung hollow.

"The biggest issue here is the triple-D policy: delay-deny-die policies," said Moncur. "Soldiers are given denials and delays until they get frustrated, throw up hands their hands and don't pursue the services they need."
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Asking for help in the Army is asking for punishment

Asking for help in the Army is asking for punishment
Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
March 25, 2014

The military wants us to believe that suicides have nothing to do with them. The latest study found that one out of five had mental illness before they enlisted. They want us to believe that soldiers were already psychologically damaged. If we take it at face value then we do not ask the most important questions of all. What is wrong with their mental health evaluations? If the testing has allowed in so many with suicidal thoughts, didn't they think they would be endangering the rest of the soldiers?

These soldiers the military claims were not deployed were also trained on the failure called Comprehensive Soldier Fitness program that was supposed to make them mentally tough. How good of a program can it be when it couldn't even take care of soldiers that never faced combat?

Then there is the Pre-deployment Health Assessment.

The Pre-DHA must be completed within 60 days prior to deployment. Part 1 of the Pre-DHA consists of a self-assessment questionnaire and can be accessed online through the My Medical portion of AKO under the Self Service tab. Part 2 is completed through a one-on-one confidential interview with a qualified health care provider. The Pre-DHA is not complete until it is signed by a health care provider.

The truth is, they were tested and retested and retested. The truth is billions have been spent on "prevention" "mental health" and the list goes on but in the end, suicides increased and they can't explain any of this because they will hold no one accountable for any of this. Blaming the troops is just easier than investigating what the truth is.
Blaming the troops is easy way out

After three combat tours, Sgt. Dennis Tackett was kicked out of the Army for punching a man in the face while drunk. It didn’t matter that he had been diagnosed with PTSD (by the Army) and had tried to get help (from the Army) for the drinking it led to. It didn’t matter that he was in the late stages of a medical discharge that would get him out soon anyway — with benefits. What mattered to the commanding general at Fort Carson, Colo., who spoke to him that day in November 2012 was that he had tried to fight the discharge with the help of a pair of civilian watchdogs, Georg-Andreas Pogany and Robert Alvarez.

“If you had not gotten involved with those advocates, it would have gone differently,” Tackett remembers the commander, Lt. Gen. Joseph Anderson, telling him. Anderson is now commander of Fort Bragg, N.C.

A recording obtained by Al Jazeera America suggests Tackett and soldiers like him were retaliated against because of an increasingly rancorous relationship between commanders at Fort Carson and the civilian advocates.

In 2012 Fort Bliss Major General Dana Pittard wrote this, “I have now come to the conclusion that suicide is an absolutely selfish act. I am personally fed up with soldiers who are choosing to take their own lives so that others can clean up their mess. Be an adult, act like an adult, and deal with your real-life problems like the rest of us.”

A year later it was Army Chief of Staff General Ray Odierno saying, "Some of it is just personal make-up. Intestinal fortitude. Mental toughness that ensures that people are able to deal with stressful situations."

After blaming the soldiers, he then blamed the families. "But it also has to do with where you come from. I came from a loving family, one who gave lots of positive reinforcement, who built up psychologically who I was, who I am, what I might want to do. It built confidence in myself, and I believe that enables you to better deal with stress. It enables you to cope more easily than maybe some other people."

When Kristofer Goldsmith tried to kill himself six years ago, the Army responded by kicking him out of the military for misconduct.

Goldsmith is on Capitol Hill this week trying to make sure other troops’ cries for help aren’t similarly ignored.

“People know the statistics about military and veterans suicide,” the 28-year-old Iraq War veteran said. “But if I can put a face and a name to what has been going on, maybe it’ll make a difference.”

The cries for help are ignored. The data is not just ignored, it is hidden. The Department of Defense stopped releasing the Suicide Event Report. The last one was released in 2012 for 2011 even though the highest number on record was 2012. The DOD has not released the suicide report for Army, Army National Guards and Army Reservists on a monthly basis the way they used to. The truth is, no one really knows.

We don't know for a fact how many enlisted personnel are committing suicide, attempting suicide in the military or how many veterans are going through the same crisis situations. The other fact that needs to be added into all of this is there has never been a time when so many "efforts" have been made to save their lives and prevent suicides.

But as the Department of Veterans Affairs study put the number of veterans committing suicide at 22 a day, we ignore the fact that this study is not complete. We ignore the fact that there are at least 1,000 a month within the VA system attempting suicide. We also ignore the fact that most of the bad conduct discharges leave these men and women with nothing including help from the VA. Think about what happened last year and know what they don't want you to think about.

The number of enlisted soldiers forced out for drugs, alcohol, crimes and other misconduct shot up from about 5,600 in 2007, as the Iraq war peaked, to more than 11,000 last year.

"The number of Marines who left after court-martial has dropped from more than 1,300 in 2007 to about 250 last year."

"The number of officers separated from service since 2000 due to a court-martial ranged from a low of 20 in 2001 to a high of 68 in 2007. For enlisted airmen, the number ranged from a high of nearly 4,500 in 2002 to a low of almost 2,900 in 2013

The Navy went through a similar process. When the decision was made to cut the size of the 370,000-strong naval force in 2004, the number of sailors who left due to misconduct and other behavior issues grew. In 2006, more than 8,400 sailors left due to conduct issues.

Here is just one example of what all of this ends with.
UPDATE
This is from Huffington Post

The last 11 years have proven to be tough on the men and women of the U.S. Armed Forces. The cost of war is being reflected off the battlefield as well with veterans taking their own lives at an alarming rate. Alyona Minkovski explains. Originally aired on March 24, 2014

Sailor shot and killed by civilian on USS Mahan

Navy: Sailor, Civilian Suspect Killed at Va. Base
Associated Press
By BROCK VERGAKIS
March 25, 2014

NORFOLK, Va.
A sailor was fatally shot at the world's largest naval base late Monday and security forces killed a male civilian suspect, a spokeswoman for Naval Station Norfolk said.

The shooting happened around 11:20 p.m. aboard the USS Mahan, a guided-missile destroyer, base spokeswoman Terri Davis said early Tuesday.

Davis would not describe the circumstances of the shooting but said the scene was secure. No other injuries were reported.

Davis said that the two killed were both males but that she did not have any other information on them. She said she could not say whether the civilian had permission to be aboard the ship.

The base was briefly put on lockdown after the shooting. Operations had returned to normal at the base, with counselors available, the Navy said in a news release, but enlisted sailors on the Mahan were not to report to duty Tuesday.

To get on the base, civilians must be escorted or have a pass. Each base entrance is guarded, and all 13 piers have additional security forces. As part of ongoing security efforts, handheld ID scanners were implemented this year at Navy bases in the region, including the Norfolk station.
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Corps probes Marine Suicides,,,,again

Ending it all by their own hand: Corps probes Marine suicides
Service hopes to halt a 'trajectory toward death'
The (Palm Springs, Calif.) Desert Sun
By Brett Kelman and Drew Schmenner
Mar. 24, 2014

As the sun rose over the sleepy desert town of Yucca Valley, Sgt. Martin Francis Scahill stood in his backyard, a black 12-gauge shotgun pressed against his chin, a single shell in the chamber.

After contemplating suicide for months, Scahill pulled the trigger. His body fell backwards onto the ground, the shotgun landing between his legs.

It was 6:30 a.m., April 5, 2010, the day after Easter Sunday. Blood seeped into the sand.

Forty-five minutes later, two deputies from the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department rang the doorbell at the Scahill home, waking his wife, who was asleep on the couch. Together, they found the body in the backyard. Scahill's belongings were scattered around his bedroom.

A laptop was left open, lingering on an image of his infant daughter, Emma. A gun box was open with a revolver inside, unloaded. A box of shotgun shells sat on a nightstand, one shell missing. A notepad rested on the bed, covered with messages his wife scribbled during an argument the night before.

Scahill is one of at least 16 service members — 15 Marines, and one sailor — who committed suicide from 2007 to 2012 while at the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center in Twentynine Palms. That tally does not include one Marine from the Combat Center who killed himself while deployed to Iraq in 2008.

The military has not yet released base-specific suicide data from 2013. A Combat Center spokesman said he could not confirm how many Marines had killed themselves at the base last year because he could not speak for the multiple battalions that operate at the base.
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World Vision to hire married gay Christians

What is this country coming to when people are treated equally as if the are not being judge? What does it mean when a Christian group spreads acceptance instead of judgment? Oh my! How would Christ feel about people taking care of others in need? Considering what I read in the Bible, He would approve of this even though He may not approve of their life style but the again, since He never said anything about them, pretty much leaves that part out of the debate.

Major Evangelical Charity to Hire Married Gay Christians
NBC News

The prominent Christian relief agency World Vision said Monday it will hire Christians who are in same-sex marriages, a dramatic policy change on one of the most divisive social issues facing religious groups.

Richard Stearns, president of the international humanitarian relief group, announced the hiring change for the United States in a letter to staff. Stearns said the World Vision board had prayed for years about how to handle the issue as Christian denominations took different stands on recognizing same-sex relationships.

"The board and I wanted to prevent this divisive issue from tearing World Vision apart and potentially crippling our ability to accomplish our vital kingdom mission of living and serving the poorest of the poor in the name of Christ," Stearns wrote in the letter.

The agency's new hiring policy was first reported by Christianity Today magazine.
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Budweiser Super Bowl solider ad nearly blocked by Army

Fort Drum soldier's Budweiser Super Bowl ad nearly blocked by Army: Report
Syracuse.com
By Geoff Herbert
March 24, 2014

"A Hero's Welcome" wasn't welcomed by everyone, according to a new report.

Emails obtained by Foreign Policy reveal Budweiser's popular Super Bowl commercial featuring a Fort Drum soldier was nearly blocked from airing. U.S. Army officers apparently considered a cease-and-desist order three days before the NFL championship game over concerns the 60-second ad violated military policies against active-duty members endorsing private companies or "glamorizing alcohol."

The spot showed Lt. Chuck Nadd, a helicopter pilot returning home from Afghanistan to a parade in his honor. He and his girlfriend ride a carriage pulled by Anheuser-Busch's famous Clydesdale horses, red-white-and-blue confetti fills the sky, and Nadd hugs his flag-waving mother in an emotional climax.

"Every soldier deserves a hero's welcome," the Super Bowl XLVIII spot's message said.
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Budweiser Parade for Soldier Slammed

Winter Park Welcomes Home Soldier in Style

I was there. Nadd didn't get handed a beer when he climbed onto the wagon. He didn't pop the tab when he went to the podium to say thank you to the huge crowd waiting over two hours for him to get there because weather delayed his flight from Fort Drum. No one in that crowd held Budweiser signs or cans of Bud.

If the Army squashed this day for the people of Winter Park to show their love and devotion to all the men and women serving that Nadd represented that day then it would have been pretty pathetic.

Documentary on Agent Orange Deliverer of Death and Deformities

Defoliated Island: Agent Orange, Okinawa And The Vietnam War
Published on Jan 23, 2014
This is the English-language version of Defoliated Island, a Japanese award-winning documentary about the usage of Agent Orange on Okinawa during the Vietnam War.

Produced by Okinawa TV station, QAB, the show won national acclaim in Japan when it was first aired in May 2012.

Massage therapist thinks tigers, bears can help PTSD sufferers

Massage therapist thinks tigers, bears can help PTSD sufferers
Orlando Sentinel
By Jim Stratton
March 23, 2014

In rural Orange County, a massage therapist with no formal training in mental-health counseling believes he can help veterans cope with post-traumatic stress disorder. And his approach relies on some of the fiercest predators on Earth.

Kevin Rose doesn't claim he can cure anyone, but he's convinced he can teach people to manage their stress.

"The animals," he says, "are fantastic assistants for that."

Those animals include a black bear, three tigers, a cougar and two Asian black leopards. Abandoned by owners, the menagerie now lives at the CARE Foundation, a wildlife center in Apopka that works with Rose and his fledgling business, Predatory Perceptions.

Rose escorts clients through the center, stopping at each pen. There, as Bal-shoy, a 600-pound Siberian tiger, paces inches away, or Lola the black bear scratches her back on the fence, he leads clients through a series of relaxation exercises. Rose hopes to one day find paying clients, but the experience, he said, will be free to combat veterans.

Some PTSD experts are cautious in assessing Rose's techniques. They may help people relax, said University of South Florida Professor David Diamond, but they shouldn't replace formal treatment.

"It appears benign, at best," said Diamond, a PTSD researcher. "It looks like someone without formal training in therapy who wants to help people with PTSD by using caged animals."
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Navy Football player in coma after injury

Navy slotback Will McKamey in coma after collapse at practice
McKamey, a rising sophomore from Knoxville, Tenn., sustained a brain injury Saturday
The Baltimore Sun
By Don Markus
March 23, 2014

Will McKamey (U.S. Naval Academy Photo / March 23, 2014)

Navy football player Will McKamey remained in critical condition late Sunday at Maryland Shock Trauma, one day after he sustained a brain injury during a spring practice in Annapolis, according to a hospital spokeswoman.

Kara McKamey posted on Facebook Saturday that her son was in a coma, and on Sunday, the family — through the Naval Academy — released a statement saying it has received "only small responses" from the 19-year-old.

McKamey, a 5-9, 170-pound rising sophomore slotback from Knoxville, Tenn. underwent surgery Saturday to reduce the bleeding and swelling on his brain. It is the third brain injury McKamey had sustained playing football in the past 18 months.

As a senior at Grace Christian Academy, where his father, Randy, is the head football coach, McKamey was injured during a playoff game in October of 2012 and was transported to a hospital in Chattanooga, where he remained in intensive care for several days.
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