Laughlin Air Force Base Pilot Stops Tragedy at Walmart

Air Force Pilot Saves Life during Stand-off
Air Force News
by Joel Langton
October 28, 2014

LAUGHLIN AIR FORCE BASE, Texas -- It was just another trip to Wal-Mart for 2nd Lt. Joshua Nelson when he popped in to grab some fish hooks for a family trip to the lake this past Spring. Little did he know that a quick shopping trip would turn into so much more.

The West Virginia Air National Guardsman was walking to the Hunting and Fishing section when he heard a woman say, "Stop, put it down!"

"I could tell she was stressed and she sounded frightened," said Nelson. "I looked into the aisle, and this young man had a knife to a woman's stomach."

According to police reports, the young man was mad at his mother, who he had a knife to, because she wouldn't buy him a gun. Nelson told his wife Brittany to go alert the store manager and call the police. Nelson, who has a concealed weapons permit stepped up beside the woman.

"I put my hand on my pistol where he'd notice, and then I stepped in between them," said Nelson. "I kept demanding he hand me the knife. I wanted him to see only one option. As I was standing beside that lady, I felt like I was responsible for her life. I was going to do whatever I had to do to protect her." Then, according to the police report, Nelson went from trying to stop a murder to trying to stop a suicide when the assailant turned the knife on himself.
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Actor Ron Perlman Talks About Attempted Suicide and Healing

Ron Perlman's Secret Suicide Attempt
The Daily Beast
William O'Connor
October 28, 2014

In his memoir, actor Ron Perlman opens up about his attempted suicide, life as a fat kid, and coming to dislike his Sons of Anarchy character.

The cigar-chomping, one-of-a-kind visage of Ron Perlman has enthralled audiences since his film debut in Jean-Jacques Annaud’s Quest for Fire in 1981. Perlman would go on to win a Golden Globe for his performance opposite Linda Hamilton in Beauty and the Beast in the late ’80s, where George R.R. Martin was one of the writers. He is most recognized today, perhaps, for his role in the comic book adaptation of Hellboy and for his terrifying performance as Clay Morrow on Sons of Anarchy.

Now, Perlman is out with a no-holds-barred memoir Easy Street, detailing his childhood years, as well as his struggles in the film industry over the decades. In an interview with The Daily Beast, he opens up on topics ranging from his attempted suicide to his “fat kid” adolescence, and why he came to dislike his Sons of Anarchy character.

You write about your own attempted suicide. What was it like to dive back into that time of your life?

It was very cathartic. The story I tell about my own experience [of trying to commit suicide] has never been told before. Even my wife didn’t know about it until she read the galleys for the book. My mom hasn’t read the book yet, so I hope it doesn’t kill her when she reads it. It’s going to be a shock. That was the first time I shared that with anybody.

My contract with myself once the book got green lit is, I’m just going to write everything out, and then depend on a small circle of friends to make sure I don’t destroy myself, on what to leave in and what to take out. The bout I had with clinical depression was a singular incident—I don’t consider myself someone who has spent a lifetime battling this—it had a beginning, a middle, and end, and because I’ve remained vigilant about it not revisiting me, it never has.

I put it in there and I started getting calls from my dear friends, who said, “Jesus Christ, man, I’ve never told anybody this, but …” Everybody started telling me their own nightmare story that they’ve kept to themselves, and saying that if you went through it, and you’re willing to talk about it, it’s essential it stays in the book. It wasn’t my intention, but I realized I was going to help some people knowing that it’s not just them, they’re not alone. It can happen to anybody. It can happen to the guy playing a badass on Sons of Anarchy.

There’s a lot revealed that’s never been revealed. Have I gone too far, or revealed too much? That’s for the world to decide. There was something profoundly purging about finally grappling with it by putting it into words.
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'Stolen Valor' Precedent Won't Help Lying Marine

'Stolen Valor' Precedent Won't Help Lying Marine
Courthouse News
By TIM HULL
October 29, 2014

(CN) - The Supreme Court's rejection of a law that made it a crime to lie about military service and accolades does not help a Marine Corps veteran who was photographed wearing unearned medals, the 9th Circuit ruled Wednesday.

A federal jury in Idaho found Elven Swisher guilty in 2007 for making false statements to the Veterans Administration, forging discharge documents to obtain benefits and theft of government funds. The jurors also convicted Swisher, who had served three years in the Marines beginning in 1954, for "wearing unauthorized military medals."

During the one-week trial, prosecutors said that Swisher had in 2001 secured $2,366 a month in federal benefits for post-traumatic stress disorder he claimed to have developed after an off-the-books mission in 1957 that never actually happened.

An "unpublished narrative" included with Swisher's application for benefits told of his supposed participation in a secret combat operation during which "Swisher and approximately 130 other Marines were flown by helicopter to an unknown location in China or North Korea," the 9th Circuit explained.

Swisher allegedly claimed that he'd been seriously injured in a firefight while on the mission, and that he'd been awarded the Purple Heart and other medals but told to keep this a secret.

Marine Corps officials testified at the trial that there was no record of Swisher having received any injuries or medals during his service. Prosecutors also presented a photograph that showed "Swisher wearing the Silver Star, the Navy and Marine Corps Ribbon, Purple Heart, Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medal with a Bronze V, and the UMC Expeditionary Medal."

After the jury convicted on all counts, Swisher was sentenced to one year behind bars and three years of supervised released.
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For More on Stolen Valor, ABC has Operation Stolen Valor

Marines Leave Afghanistan

Afghanistan War Fatalities from Icasualties.org

92% of Marine Casualties in Afghan War Occurred Under Obama
CNS News
By Ali Meyer
October 29, 2014

This handout photo provided Defense Department shows Marines and sailors with Marine Expeditionary Brigade – Afghanistan load onto a KC-130 aircraft on the Camp Bastion, Afghanistan flightline, Monday, Oct. 27, 2014. The handover of the U.S. Marines' main base to Afghan control in the hardscrabble Helmand province is more than a signal that America’s longest war is ending. It is a reminder of the enormous loss and sacrifice by Marines who swept in as part of President Barack Obama’s surge of forces against a resurgent Taliban in 2009.
(AP Photo/Staff Sgt. John Jackson, Defense Department, US Marines)

There were 1,631 casualties of the Afghan war who were in the U.S. Army, which means that they comprised 73.3 of the casualties. After the Army, the Marines were the next branch of the military that had the highest number of casualties totaling 418.

(CNSNews.com) -- As U.S. Marines withdraw from Operation Enduring Freedom (the Afghanistan war), CNSNews.com's database on casualties shows that 418 Marines gave their lives in the conflict and that 92% of those casualties, 385 deaths, occurred since President Barack Obama took office in 2009.

“U.S. Marines and service members from the United Kingdom left Regional Command Southwest in Afghanistan’s Helmand province today, turning their facilities over to the Afghan security forces,” reported the Department of Defense on Oct. 27.

“We lift off confident in the Afghans’ ability to secure the region,” said Army Lieutenant General Joseph Anderson, commander of the ISAF Joint Command. “The mission has been complex, difficult and dangerous. Everyone has made tremendous sacrifices, but those sacrifices have not been in vain.”

Sergeants and Specialists in the Army represent nearly half – 49.6 percent – of the total casualties of the Afghanistan War, according to CNSNews.com’s database of U.S. casualties in the war.
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Paraplegic Iraq Veteran Sues VA Over Sponge Left Behind

Paraplegic veteran sues government for sponge left inside him after operation
Augusta Chronicle
By Sandy Hodson
Staff Writer
Wednesday, Oct. 29, 2014

On Dec. 31, 2012, Dixon had surgery on his left hip at a private hospital. The surgery, according to his lawsuit, found a “purulent segment of old gauze sponge inside.”

A wounded Iraq War veteran has filed suit against the government after discovering the seeping wound he endured for years resulted from a sponge left inside him after an operation at the Augusta VA hospital.

Kenneth Dixon filed suit Tuesday in U.S. District Court against the United States of America.

Dixon served during the Iraq War until a 2004 vehicle wreck left him with a permanent spinal injury.

Dixon, a paraplegic since the crash, was treated for several years at the Charlie Norwood VA Medical Center, which has one of the largest spinal cord units in the VA system. read more here

Man convicted of shooting Iraq Veteran 5 times

Harrisburg man convicted of attempted murder for shooting soldier 5 times during robbery
PennLive
By Matt Miller
October 29, 2014

Durbin, an Iraq War veteran, testified Tuesday that he was accosted and shot while sleeping in his car on Allison Hill after giving a fellow soldier a ride home. He said he could not positively identify Betts as the gunman.

A Dauphin County jury took about an hour Wednesday afternoon to convict a Harrisburg man of attempted murder for shooting a National Guard sergeant five times during a June 2013 robbery in the city.

For Tasai Betts, 18, the verdict equated to a loss on a very big gamble.

Senior Deputy District Attorney Jack Canavan said he will seek a 25- to 50-year state prison term for Betts when Judge Deborah Essis Curcillo sentences him in January.
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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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