After Suicide VA Sent New ID Card and a Bill

EXCLUSIVE: VA forgets veteran's suicide, sends grieving sister his new benefits card: 'like losing him again'
Fox News Latino
By Bryan Llenas
Published October 29, 2014

Margarita said the VA has known about her brother's death from the start. Just 27 days after her brother died, the federal government sent a bill to the family asking that they return his disability check.

Since April 12th, Margarita Reyes has had good days and bad days. Tuesday was a good day, until she went and got the mail.

It was an envelope from the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs and in it was a brand new Veterans Health Identification Card with a photo of her brother Marine Corporal Elias Reyes, Jr. renewing his health benefits until October 12th, 2024.

The problem is Elias committed suicide six months ago after suffering from a traumatic brain injury and post traumatic stress disorder. Margarita Reyes says the Veterans Administration failed to help her 27-year-old brother by not delivering the kind of quality healthcare he deserved.

"I got his ID in the mail and it just brought everything back," Reyes said crying. "It just was really upsetting."

The department recently started issuing new ID cards to all its service members, and Reyes isn’t the only glitch in that system. In another incident last week in Kansas, a veteran who died a year and a half ago received an identification card as if he were still alive.
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Film tells how horseback riding helped vet with PTSD

Medicine Horse Center plans 'Riding My Way Back'
Film tells how horseback riding helped vet with PTSD
Cortez Journal
For The Mancos Times Article
October 28, 2014

Medicine Horse Center plans to screen "Riding My Way Back," the new award-winning, short documentary about the powerful healing of therapeutic riding for a veteran with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and Traumatic Brain Injury.

The documentary will be screened at The Durango Elks Lodge, 901 E. Second Ave., Durango, on Friday, Nov. 7.

Tickets are available for $15, and free for veterans. Tickets will be available at the door or can be purchased in advance by contacting Lynne Howarth, of Medicine Horse Center at (970)-533-7403. Proceeds of ticket sales go toward veterans services with Medicine Horse Center.

"Riding My Way Back" chronicles a soldier's journey back from the brink of suicide.

In 2010, Staff Sgt. Aaron Heliker returned from multiple deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan with a traumatic brain injury (TBI) and Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).
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60 percent of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans diagnosed with PTSD?

Don't tell Michael Savage that the "celebration of weakness" has spread. The tree hugger's head will explode.

Support Our Veterans
Reedsburg Times Press
October 29, 2014

"A recent scientific national government study reports that more than 60 percent of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans have been diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder – PTSD – or other traumatic brain injuries since returning home. The same study reports that about 11 percent of surviving Vietnam combat veterans still suffer from PTSD and that, like alcoholism, PTSD may be treated and controlled but never fully cured."

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Retired Chaplain Admits Army Programs Didn't Work Out

Keep in mind the "program" they are using now is called Comprehensive Soldier Fitness but while it has been pushed throughout the military since 2009, no one seem to mind suicides went up afterwards.

Army chaplain to speak at Mullica Hill Baptist on PTSD
NJ.com
South Jersey Times
October 28, 2014

The drugs and psychology provided by the military have not worked out as planned, he says, noting that the 349 suicides last year is a record high.

Mullica Hill Baptist Church, 18 S. Main St. in Mullica Hill welcomes guest speaker Chaplain Wayne Keast (Retired) on Nov. 23. Keast, a retired chaplain with Regular Baptist Chaplaincy Ministries, is now ministering to wounded warriors.

In his 33 years of service, Wayne was trained in the Army's Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) prevention programs. He knows what those programs can and can't do.
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Joint Chiefs: Quarantine All Us Troops in Ebola Deployment

Joint Chiefs recommend quarantine for all US troops returning from West Africa
Stars and Stripes
By Jon Harper and Chris Carroll
Published: October 28, 2014

WASHINGTON — The military’s top brass has recommended that all American troops returning from the mission to combat Ebola in West Africa be quarantined, the Pentagon announced Tuesday.

Pentagon press secretary Rear Adm. John Kirby told reporters that Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel “shares the concerns by the chiefs about the safety and well-being not only of our troops but also of their families,” but has not yet made a decision about whether to approve the recommendation from the Joint Chiefs.

Hagel received the chiefs’ recommendation on Tuesday, shortly after Army leadership decided to isolate Maj. Gen. Darryl Williams and 10 other soldiers for three weeks to ensure they are not infected after spending time in Liberia, where they were participating in Operation United Assistance.

They and other soldiers arriving in Vicenza, Italy, will be allowed no physical contact with family members but will have access to telephones and the Internet, Army spokeswoman Lt. Col. Alayne Conway said.
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MLB: Are Veteran Tributes Too Much?

A veteran says enough is enough when it comes to tributes for the soldiers
NBC Sports
Hardball Talk
Craig Calcaterra
Oct 28, 2014

KANSAS CITY — We’ve touched on the idea of conspicuous patriotism and tributes to the soldiers before — ESPN’s Howard Bryant wrote an excellent article about it last year — but today we have a thought-provoking piece from a veteran, Rory Fanning, talking about tribute concerts and the public thanking of the troops at sporting events:

"We use the term hero in part because it makes us feel good and in part because it shuts soldiers up (which, believe me, makes the rest of us feel better). Labeled as a hero, it’s also hard to think twice about putting your weapons down. Thank yous to heroes discourage dissent, which is one reason military bureaucrats feed off the term . . . Then you have Bruce Springsteen and Metallica telling them “thank you” for wearing that uniform, that they are heroes, that whatever it is they’re doing in distant lands while we go about our lives here isn’t an issue. There is even the possibility that, one day, you, the veteran, might be ushered onto that stage during a concert or onto the field during a ballgame for a very public thank you. The conflicted soldier thinks twice."

Fanning makes the argument that by doing things like these, we necessarily give our approval to the country’s military policies of the past 13 years and stifle dissent. I think there is a lot of truth to that. But more broadly, I think the obligatory manner in which we have imported patriotism and honoring of the military into baseball has caused us to lose sight of the fact that — even if doing these things are good and admirable — when we make our patriotism mindless, we lose an essential part of it, which is thoughtfulness. And, yes, to Fanning’s point, when we make our acts of patriotism obligatory we take away another essential thing: the freedom of dissent.

I think we’ve reached that point in baseball. Major League Baseball’s charitable efforts, specifically for the Welcome Back Veterans and Wounded Warrior charities are admirable. And there is no question in my mind that they are well-intentioned. But, at times, one does feel the sense of formality and a sense of the obligatory with respect to all of this. And no small amount of corporate sponsorship is involved, in effect, allowing corporations to ride on the back of patriotic sentiment in an effort, intentionally or unintentionally, to bolster their own image.
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Are there ever too many things being done for them? My vote is HELL NO!

Sgt. Maj. Paul Archie talks about career and what happened besides viral video

Sgt. Major speaks out: 'My career was defaced'
Marine Corps Times
By Hope Hodge Seck
Staff writer
October 27, 2014


Sgt. Maj. Paul Archie was fuming.

All day Marines had been coming to him with questions about a man who stood protesting outside Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island, South Carolina, wearing the distinctive drill instructor’s campaign cover, known affectionately as a “Smokey Bear.” Like the Marines he spoke with, Archie felt that wearing the uniform item in a political protest was inappropriate and even against official regulations.

When he confronted Marine vet and former drill instructor Ethan Arguello, the heated exchange was caught on video by another protester. The 32-second clip that showed the two nose-to-nose in a shouting match was uploaded to YouTube and went viral, watched by more than 200,000 people.


The firestorm of news coverage the video created, coupled with third-degree assault charges pressed by Arguello that were later dropped, would ultimately result in Archie’s resignation from his post as sergeant major for Parris Island and the Eastern Recruiting District, along with his retirement from the Marine Corps soon after.
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Police Officers Win Lawsuit Against C.W. Bill Young VA Medical Center

VA settles suit by its police officers at Young VA for nearly $1 million
Tampa Bay Times
William R. Levesque
Times Staff Writer
Monday, October 27, 2014

The Department of Veterans Affairs has formally settled a federal lawsuit filed by eight agency police officers who worked at the C.W. Bill Young VA Medical Center for $960,000, according to court documents filed Monday.

With recent settlements to three other VA police officers at the Pinellas facility, the total payout by the VA is $1.3 million.

Such settlements are usually confidential, and the public rarely sees confirmation of cash paid out. But in a highly unusual move, the officers' attorney, Ward Meythaler, and the VA asked a federal judge in Tampa to enforce the terms of the settlement. The court file does not show why they made the request.

As a result, U.S. District Court Judge Mary Scriven ordered the settlement to be filed and made part of the public record.

Meythaler and a VA spokesman declined to comment. In the settlement, the VA acknowledged no wrongdoing.

A trial would have offered a potentially embarrassing glimpse into the Young VA's small police force and its operations. Police leadership and officers have long been at odds over allegations that include sexual harassment, racial discrimination, physical altercations among officers and even disputes concerning policing strategies.
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National Military Suicide Survivors Seminar Offered Support

Military suicide survivors help each other heal at seminar
Stars and Stripes
By Heath Druzin
Published: October 28, 2014

Two women hug at a remembrance ceremony at the National Military Suicide Survivor Seminar earlier this month in St. Petersburg, Fla. The program brings together survivors of service member loved ones who committed suicide.
Heath Druzin/Stars and Stripes

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — Sitting and sobbing outside the hotel room where her Marine husband had just hanged himself, Kim Ruocco said she was horrified to find that nearly everyone who responded to the scene somehow managed to make her feel worse.

First she asked the hotel manager where her husband was staying, and he wordlessly backed into another room, shutting the door to avoid her. A trauma specialist told her to lie to her children about what had happened.

And then there was the priest.

Addressing the newly widowed woman, just steps away from her Catholic husband’s body, he said, “You know what Catholics believe about suicide? It’s a sin.”

“I said, ‘Are you telling me that I should tell my kids that their dad is not only dead, but that he’s also in hell?’” she recalled. “And he just looked at me.”

That experience in 2005 started Ruocco on what has become a full-time mission to help fellow survivors cope, heal and thrive. That often starts with an annual seminar for and by those who have lost troops and veterans to suicide.

As a testament to the seriousness of the epidemic and the growing willingness of survivors to talk about their experience, the TAPS database for suicide survivors has swelled to more than 5,000.
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Crestview Florida On List for Successful Veterans

Where Do America’s Most Successful Veterans Live?
SpareFoot
Military Storage Station
Elizabeth Whalen
October 27, 2014

(Linked from AL.com)
From the first day of basic training to the last day of a long deployment, and all the time in between, members of the military develop high levels of discipline and focus. By the time they’re discharged, they know more than the average Joe or Jane about hard work.

Many also have developed specialized skills, such as flying helicopters or running sophisticated computer networks, that employers value highly.

In fact, in some parts of the U.S., veterans are substantially better off than their non-veteran counterparts in terms of income, employment and education. In honor of Veterans Day, MilitaryStorage.com assembled a list to salute the places where America’s most successful veterans live. These are the 12 metro areas where veterans are doing the best compared with non-veterans. Many of these areas, but not all of them, are home to military bases.

6. Crestview, FL

Crestview, about 50 miles northeast of Pensacola, is home to Eglin Air Force Base.

Metro population: 253,618

Veterans’ median income: $47,064
Non-veterans’ median income: $21,578

Veterans’ employment rate: 94 percent
Non-veterans’ employment rate: 94 percent

Veterans with a bachelor’s degree or higher: 35 percent
Non-veterans with a bachelor’s degree or higher: 22 percent