Homeless vet, park goose form unlikely friendship
Waco Tribune-Herald
BY REGINA DENNIS
November 2, 2014
In this Friday, Oct 14, 2014 photo, Dominick Garner, 23, spends time with a goose that lives along the banks of the Brazos River in Waco, Texas. Garner said he saw the goose being abused and after a few weeks gained its trust, often spending several hours a week along the banks of the river. WACO TRIBUNE HERALD, ROD AYDELOTTE — AP Photo
WACO, TEXAS — A goose isn't the sort of animal one might expect to show affection, yet a local veteran has developed a special bond with one of the wild birds around Indian Spring Park.
Dominick Garner, 23, has been feeding ducks and geese in the park for the past few months each morning before heading to his job as a security guard.
Slowly, one of the large white geese in the gaggle of four began to follow Garner around, eagerly approaching him for food. Now, the goose will even jump on top of Garner as he lies in the grass, similar to a puppy greeting its owner.
"He came up and he let me feed him, and for a week I did that," Garner, an Army veteran, told the Waco Tribune-Herald (http://bit.ly/1077uVK). "Then he came up and started letting me pet it for longer and longer, and just started doing more with me."
Since then, Garner has taken a sort of protective role of the goose, which he said has suffered abuse from pedestrians. Garner said he's witnessed people taunt and kick at the goose as they walk by.
He doesn't know whether it's male or female, and he hasn't given it a nickname, he said. Although there's another white goose in the gaggle that looks identical to Garner's, only his pal responds to Garner's whistles and attempts to follow him when he leaves the park.
Garner noted his feathered friend is more aggressive and outgoing than the others in his group, something that has made it a bit of an outcast. Garner said he watched the geese getting into a spat in the water, nearly drowning his buddy.
Garner, a Pittsburgh native, moved to Waco after being discharged from Fort Hood in February 2012 but said he fell on hard times and became unemployed, racking up debt in the process.
He aims to save enough money through his new job at Securitas Security Services to eventually move into his own place. Garner also is receiving some assistance from the local Veterans Affairs homelessness representative to obtain treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder and to apply for disability benefits.
"It gives me another outlook on life," Garner said, adding that most people would normally just walk by the geese in the park. read more here
Great thing to do for OEF and OIF veterans but what about the rest? I wonder if they understand the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans are the smallest group of veterans in this country with about 2.5 million out of 23 million and there are a lot more veterans waiting a lot longer for help and support.
Edible Arrangments® Teams With Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America To Serve Our Nation's Military Veterans
Partnership to Focus on Veteran Employment and Includes Veterans Day Promotion and Events
WALLINGFORD, Conn., Nov. 3, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Edible Arrangements, the leading franchisor of stores offering fresh-cut fruit arrangements and other fruit products, has expanded its commitment to military veterans and their families with a new partnership with Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA), the first and largest organization for new veterans and their families. As unemployment continues to plague many of our veterans, the partnership aims to bring career opportunities to IAVA's membership through mentorship, franchise incentives and the funding of job training programs. To kick off the partnership, Edible Arrangements will conduct a promotion this Nov. 3 through Nov. 12 to raise money for IAVA and participate with the organization in "VetTogether" events at VA hospitals in cities across the country.
Of the partnership, Edible Arrangements' founder and CEO Tariq Farid said, "Edible Arrangements' partnership with the IAVA will allow us to be more effective in our work to recruit and employ veterans and bring attention to the fact that veterans have qualities that make them ideal small business owners and team members. We are lucky to have such an esteemed organization to assist us and I am honored for this opportunity."
From Nov. 3 to Nov. 12, Edible Arrangements will donate $1 to IAVA for every Edible Pop™ sold, with the goal of donating $50,000 through product sales. In addition, the company has committed a $15,000 corporate pledge. These funds will assist in employment support programs including the creation of a tool kit with creative approaches and best practices for Edible Arrangements® franchisees to locate and hire qualified veterans across the U.S.
Together, IAVA and Edible Arrangements will also host "VetTogether" events at VA hospitals and centers across the country on Nov. 6. At these events in California, Connecticut, New York, Minnesota and Texas, team members will distribute more than 1,000 Edible Pops to the VA's patients and staff members. IAVA VetTogethers are empowering local events that unite IAVA members and its supporters.
"IAVA is excited about partnering with Edible Arrangements in its campaign to bring career opportunities to the new greatest generation of veterans," said IAVA CEO and Founder Paul Rieckhoff. "Leaders like Edible Arrangements understand that veterans can translate their military skills into new job opportunities and lead with confidence in the civilian workforce. We are proud to work with them to add more veteran business owners and team members to their company family."
Edible Arrangements has a history of supporting our nation's service members. The franchise-based business has contributed more than $125,000 to veteran programs, such as VetFran, which provides support and incentives for veterans seeking small-business ownership. In addition, the Edible Arrangements® franchisee network, independently owned and operated, collectively employs more than 600 former military professionals.
Edible Arrangements is also establishing a presence on military bases across the U.S. with its first on-base store opening this November in Fort Bragg, N.C., home of the U.S. Airborne and Special Operations and one of the largest military complexes in the world.
For more information about Edible Arrangements, its commitment to veterans or to locate a store visit, www.EdibleArrangements.com.
Reeling from PTSD, Issac Sims tried unsuccessfully to get help from the VA
Stars and Stripes
By Martin Kuz
Published: November 3, 2014
3 minutes ago
The label of PTSD intensified Issac Sims' self-alienation after his discharge from the Army last year. "He wore that with shame," said Patricia Sims, who has been gathering her son's military and medical records. MARTIN KUZ/STARS AND STRIPES
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The neighborhoods on Kansas City’s east side exist in various stages of entropy. Crime is commonplace, and residents accept without comment the sporadic pop of gunfire. Along Lawndale Avenue, shaggy lawns border houses that slump from weather and neglect, almost too exhausted to stand.
Patricia and Shawn Sims settled in the working-class area in 2000, buying a brown clapboard bungalow after years of moving around the country with their son and daughter in tow. They were drawn by the low cost of living and the proximity of the Veterans Affairs Medical Center two miles away. Then as now, Shawn traveled to the hospital several times a year for an array of physical ailments resulting from his combat tours in Vietnam.
Patricia believed war had affected their son’s mental health. Issac Sims sustained a traumatic brain injury from an explosion during his second tour in Iraq with the Army in 2010. The blast had fractured his genial nature.
“I was worried about how he’d been acting since he got hurt,” she said, dressed in a gray T-shirt with “Army” imprinted in black lettering across the front. She sat in the living room on a sagging leather sofa beside tote bags bloated with her son’s medical and military records. “I wanted to figure out what kind of help he could get.” read more here
It really doesn't matter who, which party, wins the elections tomorrow because from what most of us have seen, it will be more of the same. The same distractions and pretending politicians care about any of us. Frankly, the way we act after they win, we deserve what they do once they get in. We never hold them accountable because we fall into the same trap year after year.
The best way to prove this is the way things turned out for our veterans and the uproar over what the VA was not doing. It made my head explode reading reports as if it never happened before. No one seemed interested in how it got so bad when they were screaming for heads to roll. No one was putting any blame on members of congress, who actually had the responsibility to watch what the VA was doing.
Veterans groups maintain that the backlog amounts to official negligence. Since the launch of the Iraq war more than four years ago, the number of people charged with reviewing and approving veterans' disability claims has actually dropped. According to the American Federation of Government Employees, the VA employed 1,392 Veterans Service Representatives in June 2007 compared to 1,516 in January 2003.
But hey, why talk about how long things have been rotten for our veterans when some get to play political games of whining now? Why should we be reminded of how long all of this has been going on? Because we are doomed to repeat all of it until the next election cycle comes around and politicians get to complain about the other side not doing anything.
It isn't just Republicans complaining about Democrats because back in 2007, it was the other way around.
This is one massive political coverup with the media leading the charges avoiding truth. First start with the simple fact that since 2010, nothing has come out of the congress. Why? Well Republicans control the House of Representatives trying to do what they want but they also control the Senate.
Sure you may think that since Democrats are the majority of the Senate they do, but they do not hold the supermajority limiting what they can bring up for votes when Republicans refuse to allow anything they don't want. Forget about up or down votes they used to whine about when it was a Republican president in the chair.
To think the majority of voters get what they want is a delusion. Mitch McConnell vowed in 2010 it was their number one job to make Obama a one term president, so that pretty much ensured that whatever voters thought they would get wouldn't happen.
Look up the worst congress ever and you'll find the last 4 years top the charts. None of them earned the votes they want us to give them again. Much like the years spent "addressing veterans issues" made headlines and reporters decided to give up doing investigations or even basic research to figure out what happened before to make it all this bad. The trouble is Congress controls the money spent on the whole shabang including what is done for veterans as well as what they allow to be done to veterans. Nice little game they play especially when you consider most of them were in the same chairs when shit stuck to the wall stinking up the claims coming out of their overused mouths.
Tracking all these reports all these years have left me with very little confidence and as for trust, it has turned into disdain.
I have a unique seat in all of this and remember what happened, when and why, so when you read Wounded Times, especially if you read it from the beginning, you understand the anger.
City Rallies for 300,000 Homeless Vets; VA Funds Only 12,000 Beds came out in 2008 and Obama made a promice to make things right for homeless veterans. But why talk about something that Obama pushed for making right when everyone gets to complain about what he got wrong? After all, when you read the news about two wars being started and less people working for the VA to care for them, it is easy to see a congressional coverup.
Obama made a lot of promises but the one that gets my skin crawling is the promise he made to reduce military suicides within the military and in the veterans community. Both went up but no one was held accountable and there is no indication anyone ever will be.
PTSD is tied to suicides as well as veterans living on the streets. Nothing new here despite the decades of addressing the needs of our veterans by members of congress going all the way back to 1946 when the first Veterans Affairs Committee was seated in the House. Pretty disgusting when you think about how bad it still is.
The American people are suffering from amnesia. Veterans are suffering because no one wants to remember that none of this is new to them. They came home from different wars with the same issues today's veterans have. When you consider we have military families of food stamps, what McConnell promised is equivalent to treason especially when there were two wars being fought with multiple deployments piling on hardship after hardship onto the shoulders of the military folks risking their lives while politicians got to claim they cared.
Years ago I was contacted by Dan Lohaus about his film When I Came Home. I was working for a church and figured it was the best place to let folks know about the crisis veterans were facing, much like Vietnam veterans faced when I visited the New England Shelter for Homeless Veterans years before. I was wrong.
The board had to approve showing the film, so I gave my reasons for wanting to show it then got shocked with all the rants about fake homeless veterans and the view that the real homeless veterans wanted to be that way. In other words, either they used it to get money or chose it to be that way. I wasn't ready for that reaction but the Pastor took control and supported what I was saying. Then, thank God, they were willing to listen especially when it was pointed out that Christ and his followers were also homeless wandering around to spread their message of taking care of those in need with love while depending on the kindness of strangers to take care of their own need for shelter and food.
How could anyone hold onto hope of getting help when they were beaten down too many time? How could any veteran face being sent away from the people they turned to and then find any shred of hope within them to ask one more time, believe they mattered one more time or find reason to believe they were worthy of a helping hand? They couldn't.
The homeless veterans population has been reduced but troubling numbers show a rise again at the same time all the bad stuff they have to deal with has also gone up. We have veterans courts now yet far too many end up incarcerated. We have more treatment facilities for substance abuse yet far too many are given medications for PTSD with terrible side effects so they choose not to take them seeking illegal drugs and alcohol to take the sting out of their minds.
More and more charities pop up all over the country and community after community come together to prove the claim this nation cares for those who risk their lives to retain our freedom, yet far too many never hold the people they elect accountable for anything they end up doing or not doing.
Tuesday the American people have a chance to change the way things are in this country but the trouble is, the change involves the same folks that got us into this mess already. None of them show any indication they plan on doing anything differently. Why don't we vote for patriots instead of politicians this time around? Why not look up the records of the folks wanting to be re-elected and actually know what they've done before before we give them a chance to do it again? How about we vote for facts instead of party?
The rating for members of congress remains at an all time low but how low do they have to go before they get voted out? When do they cross the line so far they end up on the unemployment line? When do we actually use the only power we have to make a difference?
When I was young I wanted to change the world. My Mom sat me down and told me I was fighting too many of them so I was doomed to lose all of fights I took on. Then I found a cause to fight for with everything I had within me. My cause is veterans. I don't care much for politicians but they make the rules and they are in control over the military as well as what happens to our veterans. To tell the truth few have lived up to the speeches they give veterans groups while seeking their support and even less actually earned it.
We can't stop doing our part just because the election is over. We let both parties fall flat on their faces as soon as they got our votes, holding none of them accountable for anything.
Most of us complain about the military reducing the number of military folks yet few remember that it was sequestration that caused it because the Republicans want the budget they wanted and the Democrats didn't, so they came up with something so reprehensible no one would let it happen. It did. They did nothing about it to increase the DOD budget to let these fine folks back to work and prevent deployed soldiers from getting layoff notices. They didn't do anything about military families on food stamps either.
We let members of congress pull a fast one on us. We can't let that happen again especially knowing that the same folks claiming they knew nothing were part of the problem. Do something more than just vote this time or we're going to let veterans suffer for what we fail to do for them.
Veterans museum inside Dormi and Sons Funeral Home
Bronx Times
By Robert Wirsing
Community News Group / Robert Wirsing
Joseph Garofalo, curator, shares his WWII knowledge and personal
experiences to eager P.S. 108 students.
History takes on a whole new life inside one local funeral home.
John Dormi and Sons Funeral Home, at 1121 Morris Park Avenue, has one feature setting it apart from all others.
Inside the lobby are display cases housing various military artifacts hailing from all the WWII combatants. Joe Garofalo, 94, is the curator of this room-sized museum. A WWII veteran, Garofalo was a petty officer second class for the Navy’s Seabees attached to the fourth Marine Division. He fought and participated in three invasions in the South Pacific theater.
“I had good times and bad times,” shared Garofalo. “But some of my best times were in the service.”
On Friday, October 24, students from P.S. 108 visited this museum. Eagerly, they viewed each exhibit, carefully handled various military artifacts, and listened intently to real-life accounts from veterans. Garofalo; Albert Maza, WWII army civil core; and Jeremy Warneke; district manager of Community Board 11, an Iraq War veteran, shared their stories to the fifth graders who clung to every word and asked many questions throughout. read more here
Veterans aim to help teen amputee
Tampa Bay Online
By Howard Altman
Tribune Staff
Published: November 2, 2014
Billy Costello has some advice for Lashawn Williams, the Northeast High School defensive lineman who needed his right leg amputated after a freak injury during a game last week
“The biggest thing for him is to surround himself with people who have been successful after an amputation,” says Costello, who has an intimate knowledge of the subject.
On Sept. 20, 2011, Army Staff Sgt. Billy Costello stepped on an improvised explosive device in Kandahar Province, Afghanistan.
Like Williams, Costello had his right leg amputated above the knee.
But unlike Williams, Costello has had a chance to adjust to his new reality.
And not only adjust, but thrive.
Since the IED exploded and his leg came off, Costello has climbed mountains, returned to scuba diving and is in the process of designing his own prosthetic leg that will allow him to do what he did as an Army Green Beret combat diver — operate on land and in the water.
Costello, who medically retired in March as a sergeant first class, has never met Williams. Taking a few minutes before his astronomy class at the University of North Carolina, where he is studying film and psychology, Costello says he wants to pass along the wisdom of someone who knows better than most about where the road ahead may lead.
“That’s a tough situation,” says Costello when I tell him about what happened to Williams, who just turned 18 last week. “It’s a whole new set of circumstances. Right now he is thinking about the permanence of his situation, how young he is, all the doors that have just shut for him. He is going to worry about the relationships that he is never going to form. The accomplishments not made.” read more here
Soldier accused of killing wife free on bond to remain on base
KIRO News
By Maria Guerrero
November 2, 2014
TACOMA, Wash. — A 20-year-old JBLM soldier accused of killing his young wife was allowed to walk out of jail, just hours after his bail was reduced.
JBLM is now involved in Skylar Nemetz’ release.
KIRO 7 also obtained 911 calls on Oct. 16.
“I think someone's just been shot in my neighborhood,” said one neighbor.
That someone was 19-year-old Danielle Nemetz.
KIRO 7 listened to the 911 calls neighbors made the evening Danielle was shot in the back of the head with an AR-15 rifle inside the Lakewood apartment she shared with her husband, Skylar.
The 20-year-old is charged with her murder. read more here
Missing Soldier’s Family Receives Flag After Three Years
KFSM News
BY AMY SLANCHIK
NOVEMBER 1, 2014
RUSSELLVILLE (KFSM) — A local soldier who went missing outside of Salt Lake City three years ago and was never found was given military honors Saturday (Nov. 1) after being declared dead.
Joe Bushling was an Army Specialist in Dugway, Utah.
“We have concentrated all our money and all our efforts on this for the last three and a half years,” said his father, Kevin, beside his mother, Lisa.
He went missing on Mother’s Day in 2011 after going for a drive early in the morning.
Bushling left a voicemail with a friend, saying he was out of gas and needed help. He also mentioned that he was cold, and had lost his flip flops. His parents said he used the t-shirt he was wearing to protect his feet in the desert.
His parents made several trips to Utah to search for him. read more here
Army Sgt. Issac Sims left the war in Iraq, but it didn’t leave him
Stars and Stripes
By Martin Kuz
Published: November 2, 2014
At graduation from basic training in 2007, Issac Sims said of the Army, "This is my tribe. I'm never leaving." Six years later, he was discharged after serving two tours in Iraq, where he sustained a traumatic brain injury in 2010. COURTESY OF THE SIMS FAMILY
Part one of a four-part series
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The tattered brown house on Lawndale Avenue bears the scars of a distant war that Issac Sims survived until he returned home. Slivers of glass from broken windows lie beneath walls pocked with bullet holes. In a corner of the garage, a faint stain on the concrete floor has turned the color of rust, time darkening the blood that emptied from his body.
Sims was killed here May 25, Memorial Day weekend, a year after his discharge from the Army and thousands of miles from Iraq. He endured two tours there only to die at age 26 in his parents’ home on Kansas City’s decaying east side. The fatal shots were fired not by insurgents but by police. The distinction may have eluded his damaged mind.
During his second tour in 2010, Sims sustained a mild traumatic brain injury while riding in an armored vehicle that struck a roadside bomb. The former sergeant moved back to Kansas City from his unit’s base in Alaska in April last year, and struggling with migraines, insomnia, anxiety and depression, he visited the city’s Veterans Affairs Medical Center. His symptoms suggested post-traumatic stress disorder.
His erratic behavior made clear to Patricia and Shawn Sims that their son had left the war without the war leaving him. He swerved through traffic when driving to avoid bombs that he imagined were buried in the road. Walking the tree line near their property, he searched for enemy fighting positions and threw punches at phantom militants. He sometimes rushed into the house and announced, “You know I just saved your lives, don’t you?” read more here
4 Utah Guardsmen disciplined for bikini film shoot
The Associated Press
By MARTIN GRIFFITH
Published: November 1, 2014
A screenshot image from a promotional video for the Hot Shots calendar.
(Hot Shots Calendar/YouTube)
Four Utah National Guard soldiers are being disciplined for their unauthorized involvement and use of military vehicles in a risque video featuring bikini-clad women firing high-powered weapons and riding in tanks.
Guard Lt. Col. Steven Fairbourn said Saturday that a 19th Special Forces non-commissioned officer who inappropriately allowed the video to be partially shot at Camp Williams in May has been relieved of his leadership position and faces a reprimand and mandatory early retirement.
The three other soldiers will receive lesser measures ranging from counseling to a reprimand, he said. The $200 cost for military fuel used during the shoot also will be recouped from the soldiers involved.
Fairbourn earlier said the three members took part in the video after getting permission from a senior official who shouldn't have given them the green light.
read more here
