Iraq Army Ranger Veteran Beheaded by ISIS

American veteran executed by ISIS?
MYFOX Tampa Bay
Associated Press
Posted: Nov 16, 2014

The Islamic State group released a graphic video on Sunday in which a black-clad militant claimed to have beheaded U.S. aid worker Peter Kassig, who was captured last year.

The militant was standing over a severed head, but it was not immediately possible to confirm that it was Kassig, 26, who was pictured in the video. U.S. officials said they were working to determine the video's authenticity and the Kassig family said it was awaiting the outcome of the investigation.

The video, which was posted on websites used by the group in the past, appeared to be the latest in a series of blood-soaked messages to the U.S. warning of further brutality if it does not abandon its air campaign in Iraq and Syria.

Kassig, a former U.S. Army Ranger, was providing medical aid to Syrians fleeing the civil war when he was captured inside Syria on Oct. 1, 2013. His friends say he converted to Islam in captivity and took the first name Abdul-Rahman.
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Vietnam: "My Walk in the Sun"

Veteran tells stories of his Vietnam-era poetry
Kilgore News Herald
By CHELSEA KATZ
November 15, 2014

David Stroud walked up to the podium with his red Marine Corps League hat, but he has two hats he wears.

The other is a Vietnam Veteran, 3rd Marine Division baseball cap.

“Every now and then I’d wear that (baseball) hat because I’m a cripple,” he said, with his walker nearby.

“It’s my way of telling people one day I wasn’t. One day I was a Marine.”

But, says Stroud, it took him a few years to get the hat, because of the way Vietnam veterans were treated upon returning home from combat.

During the Vietnam-era, Sgt. David Applewhite said, anyone in uniform – no matter what branch or where they served – was treated poorly by the American public. Veterans were spit on, had things thrown at them and were constantly called names, he said. “In fact, a lot of us refused to wear our uniforms for when we’d come home on leave or anything because of that.”

Along with fellow veterans, Korean War veteran Sgt. David Applewhite stands and salutes during a moment of silence as part of Kilgore College’s Veterans Day program Tuesday afternoon. Although he served in Korea during the USS Pueblo crisis, Applewhite said, all Vietnam-era veterans vowed no future generations of veterans would ever be treated like they were when they finished their missions.

Twenty-five years after landing in Vietnam, Stroud met up with his fellow Marine veterans and only then did he feel he could get the hat.

Stroud’s experience with other veterans inspired him to write what he found to be poems that didn’t rhyme. The writing began when a WWII veteran loudly confronted Stroud in the Kilgore College teacher’s lounge, after learning of his service in Vietnam, and yelled at him, “We won our war!”

After compiling his poems, he titled one of his books “My Walk in the Sun” as a take on the “walk in the sun” phrase used during wartime to represent patrols when no one got injured or killed.
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PTSD: Marine's Story of Seeking Peace After War

A retired Marine's struggle to find some peace on homefront
Chicago Tribune
By Bonnie Miller Rubin
November 11, 2014

Pause Stacey Wescott, Chicago Tribune

Don Larson pauses for a long moment during a meeting of Tribute to the Troops at the Brunch Cafe in Fox River Grove. He and his wife, Terri, are active members and are working on an event to bring awareness to mental health issues.

Don Larson's bucolic Crystal Lake subdivision is a long way from Somalia, Iraq or any of the other war-torn locales where he served during his 23 years as a Marine.

But in his mind, Larson must remain hypervigilant. He can't enter his home without first sweeping the property to make sure it has not been compromised. He has devised strategies — such as leaving a coin on a dresser — to make sure nothing has been moved by an intruder.

Still, home feels safer to him than any public place — a shopping mall, a movie theater, even a church pew — where he's constantly scanning the crowd for suspicious characters and searching for exits, just in case he needs a quick getaway.

"Time and distance is always your friend," said the 55-year-old. "That's why when we enter the house, I like (my wife) Terri to always be behind me — so if we run into anything, she has time and distance to get away."

Larson's wife of 35 years, Terri, patiently waited outside on a recent weekday afternoon while her husband performed his security check. She is the one who nearly three years ago persuaded this reluctant, stoic Marine to get help.

Don Larson is being treated for post-traumatic stress disorder at Alexian Brothers Behavioral Health Hospital in Hoffman Estates. He credits the combination of medication and counseling, including a tool called virtual reality exposure therapy, with saving his marriage and his life. Despite his mood swings, crippling anxiety and fear of crowds that fuel obsessive surveillance rituals, clinicians say he is making progress.

As the nation observes Veterans Day, Larson allowed the Tribune to sit in on his sessions, sharing intimate details in the hope that it might erase stigma and encourage others grappling with mental illness.

"I knew that I was destroying myself, my wife, our relationship," Larson said. "I came close to losing the very thing that was most important to me."
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Iraq Veteran Died After Being Set on Fire

Army veteran dies of injuries after hotel assault in N. Carolina
Reuters
Nov 16, 2014

Friends said White was an Army veteran who was wounded while serving in Iraq, local media reported

(Reuters) - An Army veteran injured and burned during an assault in a North Carolina hotel room a week ago died of his injuries on Saturday, authorities said.

Stephen Patrick White, 46, of Greensboro, was assaulted on Nov. 9, Greensboro police said. He died in hospital on Saturday.

Police and firefighters found White unconscious and burned in a hotel room after responding to a fire alarm and reports of a man screaming at the city's Battleground Inn.
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Military Suicide: Son and Mom Used Same Gun 4 Years Apart

A mother struggles to move on from veteran's suicide
St. Cloud Times
Kirsti Marohn
November 16, 2014

Gavic was a decorated canine handler in the Air Force.
He killed himself in 2009.

Rory Gavic and Allan. (Photo: Connecticut Police Work Dog Association)

Debbie Larsen walks past the graves of her sister Linda Sawatzke and nephew Rory Gavic at the St. Francis Catholic Cemetery near Buffalo on Nov. 7.

His mother, Linda Sawatzke, killed herself almost exactly four years later with the same handgun.

(Photo: Dave Schwarz St. Cloud Times)

Rory Gavic was a young, decorated military member who served his country overseas twice, who had earned praise and the respect of his peers, who had volunteered as a Big Brother.

His suicide in 2009 devastated his family, especially his mother. His death was the beginning of hers.

Rory had joined the U.S. Air Force Reserve after graduating from Eagan High School in 2002. A few years later, he enlisted as active duty in the Air Force and rose to the rank of staff sergeant.

As a military canine handler, Rory served in Iraq in 2007 and Pakistan in 2009. He earned more than a dozen commendations, including Airman of the Year in 2008.

Rory earned a reputation as a skilled dog handler and a committed soldier who was well liked by his fellow troops. He loved animals, especially his military working dog, Allan. In photos, he's seen crouched down next to the burly tan and black German shepherd. Rory is lean and muscular, dark eyes gazing straight ahead.

But the deployments changed Rory. He struggled with post-traumatic stress disorder.

Left behind were two brothers and a stepsister, his stepfather and his heartbroken mother. The program for the memorial service included a quote from Linda.

"Rory, I love you more with every beat of my heart. I miss you so much my son and you have only been gone for a short while. My life and my heart have a missing piece that will not fill until I see you again."
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True heroes - tested in war - gather at a diner

I hate to do this to this great article but there is something that just does not seem right about it. All my life I've been around veterans and heard hundreds of stories. Whenever they guess at how many lives were lost or how many were wounded, it was never about their own unit. In this case a veteran guessed at how many lives his unit lost as well as how many were wounded while he was with them.

Every other story I've heard showed they remembered. They remembered how many died as well as how many were wounded. They remembered their names as much as they remembered their faces and what happened to them. Is this a case of "fog of war" or something else?

True heroes - tested in war - gather at a diner
Philly.com
Natalie Pompilio
November 16, 2014

"I think hero is a word used too loosely today. To me, heroes are those who act even though they know the risks. They're hard to find. Yet on Tuesday, I was lucky enough to be in a room filled with them."

We were talking about Vietnam. He was a squad leader, Second Battalion, First Marines. The company became separated on patrol.

"The overgrowth of trees in the mountain area there, you would be going down into a riverbed, trying to go from point A to point B, and at 12 o'clock in the afternoon, it would be like 7 o'clock at night," Alex DiGiacomo told me, looking away at something I could not see. "We got ambushed there one night."

Then he paused. He was silent for 13 seconds. I know because I recorded the conversation, and I later watched the timer count down. Thirteen seconds is a long time when you're watching someone in pain. DiGiacomo sat across from me, his lips twisting and his eyes filling with water.

"We lost . . . ," he started, then stopped, then started again. "We lost about five or six guys killed, four or five wounded. We lost the L.T. and the radio man and the other guys, killed and wounded. It took us all night to go 200 yards to hook up with the rest of our company."

He remembered how the weight of his friends' bodies felt as he and the other survivors carried and dragged them away. He remembered the smells. "Certain aftershave lotions, certain times of year, I go right back," said DiGiacomo, 68. "The images you live with when you're in combat . . . you never get over it."
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Wounded Afghanistan Veteran Gets New Home

Military family gets place to call home
Center Daily
By Clayton Over
November 15, 2014

UNIVERSITY PARK — Any serviceman or woman, past or present, will talk of how good it feels to come home after a tour of duty.

Nicholas Snook, an Army sergeant recently discharged from active duty, and his family now have a home of their own to go to. The Snooks were presented with a house Saturday during a ceremony at Pegula Ice Arena. After moving every couple of years in the service, Snook said a permanent home is welcomed.

“The main thing is stability,” he said. “It’s a place to call home.”

Snook, of Dover, served as a military policeman and deployed to the Kandahar province of Afghanistan in 2010. He was awarded the Purple Heart during that tour. The home was presented to the family by Operation Homefront, a nonprofit organization that provides services to veterans, including awarding homes to selected veterans, said Pete Stinson, Operation Homefront’s executive director for Pennsylvania. The group has provided around 10 homes to veterans in Pennsylvania in the last two years, he said.
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98-year-old World War II veteran died day after Veterans Day

Veteran, 98, dons uniform in bed for salute hours before death
CBS News
November 14, 2014

GLENVILLE, N.Y. -- On Veterans Day, Justus Belfield donned his Army uniform one more time, even though he was too weak to leave his bed at an upstate New York nursing home.

The 98-year-old World War II veteran died the next day.

The Daily Gazette of Schenectady reports that Belfield had worn his uniform every Veterans Day since he and his wife moved into Baptist Health Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Glenville, outside Albany, several years ago.

On Tuesday, the former master sergeant wasn't able to get out of bed to participate in the facility's Veterans Day festivities, so he had the staff dress him in his uniform.

A photograph accompanying the newspaper's story published Friday shows Belfield saluting while lying in bed. The nursing home staff said he died early Wednesday morning.

CBS affiliate WRGB-TV reports that the staff at Baptist Health say Belfield was a charmer who loved life, right down to the horn on his walker that he would toot at everyone he passed.
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Phoenix needs to get it right for Cops with PTSD

Phoenix councilman calls for chief's firing
AZ Central
Mark Carlson
12 News
November 15, 2014

Phoenix City Councilman Sal DiCiccio on Saturday called for the ouster of Police Chief Daniel V. Garcia.

DiCiccio said on his Facebook page that comments by Garcia about Craig Tiger, an officer with post-traumatic stress disorder, who killed himself a year after being fired over a DUI, were "disgusting".

Tiger, according to his family and the department's officer union, Tiger suffered PTSD following an on-duty shooting.
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Navy SEAL Veteran Robert O'Neill Not Apologizing

Ex-Navy SEAL makes no apologies for going public
The Associated Press
KEN DILANIAN
Nov 15th 2014

Robert O'Neill, a former U.S. Navy SEAL, speaks at the 'Best of Blount' Chamber of Commerce awards ceremony at the Clayton Center for the Arts in Maryville, Tennessee, U.S., on Thursday, Nov. 6, 2014. O'Neill, in an interview with the Washington Post, identified himself as the person who killed Osama bin Laden in a 2011 raid.
Photographer: Luke Sharrett/Bloomberg via Getty Images

WASHINGTON (AP) - Former Navy SEAL Robert O'Neill, who says he fired the shots that killed Osama bin Laden, played a role in some of the most consequential combat missions of the post-9/11 era, including three depicted in Hollywood movies. And now he's telling the world about them.

By doing so, O'Neill has almost certainly increased his earning power on the speaking circuit. He also may have put himself and his family at greater risk. And he has earned the enmity of some current and former SEALs by violating their code of silence.

But O'Neill, winner of two Silver and five Bronze Stars, makes no apologies for any of that. In a wide-ranging interview Friday with The Associated Press, he said he believes the American public has a right to more details about the operation that killed the al-Qaida leader and other important military adventures. And he insisted he is taking pains not to divulge classified information or compromise the tactics SEALs use to get the drop on their enemies.

"The last thing I want to do is endanger anybody," he said. "I think the good (of going public) outweighs the bad."

"We work in secret and we pride ourselves on that, so if somebody comes out and spills this much, it angers the rest of us," Jonathan Gilliam, a former SEAL, said in an interview.
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Who Decided To Leave Vietnam Veterans Behind Again?

Who decides which veterans matter?
Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
November 15, 2014

A few days ago there was a day when all veterans were supposed to matter equally. Every year Veterans Day is November 11 and that doesn't change no matter what day of the week it falls on. Celebrations, events, parades and publicity happen during different days but their day is always the same.

When you actually think about it though, you'll notice that their "day" is everyday of the year. They will never stop being a veteran of the wars we send them to fight and of the nation they took a vow to defend.

No war has ever been "clean" without controversy but these men and women were not willing to die for anyone but those they were with and that, that is something no one can ever dispute. It is also the reason why the rest of the us are supposed to treat them differently. They are not like the rest of us but we benefit far more from them than they do from us.

Everything developed by the military for servicemen and women directly changed our lives. From battlefield medical practices giving us trauma surgeons, to prosthetic limbs allowing amputees to live more independent lives and psychiatrist treating survivors of war spawning teams of crisis intervention professionals rushing to treat survivors of traumatic events in our communities, it all came from them.

They were young. Most were not even 25 by the time their service came to an end. Gone for a year at a time, they had no clue how much would change in just 365 days. When they came home, everything looked the same in their neighborhoods. Their friends didn't change but they did. They could see the difference when they looked in the mirror.

As they waited for the day to come when they'd wake up the way they used to be, the day when they would enjoy the company of their old friends, doing what they always used to do, sadness set in. They began to understand they would never be the same kid they were out of high school before they put on their first pair of combat boots.

They fought for everything being done to treat Post Traumatic Stress Disorder yet they are the last to receive help to heal it. They are the last to receive acknowledgment from the press that their wounds have been carried longer while they have been left behind yet again.

"Never again will one generation
of veterans abandon another."

Vietnam Veterans of America motto

They came up with that motto because the older veterans didn't want anything to do with any of them. They knew what it felt like to be excluded from the one community they should have fit in with back home.
We were all young. We were all struggling and suffering in the bitter silence of what was happening from coast to coast as our veterans desperately tried to re-adjust to life back home. What other choice did we have? The media was only interested when one of our veterans were caught doing something wrong, usually because of PTSD and substance abuse to self-medicate what war did to them. Now there are Veterans Courts to address the OEF and OIF veterans issues instead of just locking them up. Now there are still millions of Vietnam veterans in jail for the same thing today's veterans are getting treatment for.

They fought for benefits to compensate their ability to care for themselves and their families yet today they wait the longest for claims to be approved and appeals to be decided as the largest percentage of veterans in the VA system.

They are the largest group of veterans in the homeless veterans population, highest group committing suicide and the majority of the patients in VA waiting rooms.

Who decided they do not deserved adapted homes donated to care for them and their families? Who decided they do not deserve the attention from charities popping up all over the country tugging at the public hearts? Who decided our families do not deserve the caregiver benefits to make life a little easier on us after decades of doing exactly what the younger families do?

We read a lot of great things happening to the younger families and think it is all absolutely wonderful but then we wonder who decides which young family matters and which young family are forgotten about, left to go day to day as best as they can without any help. One family given keys to a new home just for them while another family shows up at a Stand Down because they are facing being homeless and must wait for an adapted apartment because the veteran is also disabled.

Who decides all of this? How do reporters decide who gets attention and who does not?

It seems as if they are all reporting on combat and PTSD but few are talking about Vietnam veterans making everything possible while prolonging their own suffering probable simply because someone decided to leave them behind again.
This just keeps getting better. Reading an article on Secondary PTSD and flabbergasted.
Veterans Spouses Diagnosed With Secondary PTSD

"And now, spouses are showing up with those symptoms too"

Guess none of us suffered before PTSD made the news. Guess all this is band new to military/veteran families. Guess I never wrote the book on living with if for 18 years before 9-11.

"The depression came from me feeling alone," Molly said. "I am alone. No one is coming to help us."

No one is coming for them because no one came for us. We just did it ourselves for ourselves and now we're trying to help the new generation but they don't want to listen.

UPDATE
I've been thinking a lot about the newer groups like the IAVA and Wounded Warrior Project getting all the press coverage. Why? Do reporters understand that Vietnam Veterans had no other choice but to start their own group simply because they were not welcomed into the VFW, DAV or the American Legion? Older veterans wanted nothing to do with them when they came home. They were left alone.

They decided to fight for all veterans and not just themselves. For the generations who came before them and for whatever generations came behind them. Now they run the same groups that made them outcasts. If you think for a second they would abandon the OEF or OIF veterans, ask the Gulf War veterans they fought for.

We are all happy OEF and OIF veterans are getting more than our families did but it is a bitter victory. The price was paid for them ahead of time and now we get to wonder why we have been left behind all over again.

PTSD service dogs for new veterans. Caregivers compensation for new veterans. The list goes on yet it is the generation of Vietnam veterans suffering more and waiting longer.

Service Dogs Serving Veterans With PTSD

Service Dogs Helping Veterans With PTSD
WLTX News
Clark Fouraker
November 14, 2014

Sgt. Willie Roberts (ret.) and RC

(Photo: WLTX)

Columbia, SC (WLTX) - After 7 combat deployments, mostly to Iraq and Afghanistan, retired Army Sergeant Willie Roberts has some hard memories.

"I'm trying to keep it together here because it just makes me think about stuff," Roberts said during our interview.

When symptoms from his Post Traumatic Stress Disorder begin to show, his therapy dog "RC" goes to work.

"These dogs don't cure PTSD, but they give them the necessary tools to start being a real active, valuable member of our community," said Jen Rogers of the Palmetto Animal Assisted Life Services or PAALS.

"Right now the VA is trying conduct studies to determine wether or not, statistically, if these veterans are benefitting from this tool of a PTSD service dog," Rogers said.

The study is important because right now the VA doesn't reimburse therapy dogs according to Rogers.

"80% of the people on our wait list are local veterans that need this help and we haven't even brought everyone home yet," she said.
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This is the reason the VA should approve of PTSD Service Dogs.

History of Therapy Dogs • 1976: Elaine Smith RN started a systematic approach to use and training • Smiths dogs visited institutions with a noted physiological effect on the patients: – Lower Blood Pressure – Stress Relief – Raising Spirits – Overcoming psychological disorders

Think about how long they have been used.

Disabled Veteran and Family Face Homelessness

Veterans receive needed help during stand down event
Herald Review.com
Theresa Churchill
November 15, 2014

DECATUR – Confusion about how Jay Carlson was wounded in Iraq and whether as a National Guardsman he qualified for veterans benefits precipitated a downward spiral.

Now, he and his wife and her daughter face eviction from their two-bedroom house over what they describe as a dispute with their landlord over a broken water heater.

But dark clouds began to lift Friday as the Decatur couple found help they needed at the Salvation Army during an annual Veterans' Stand Down, co-sponsored by the Decatur Coalition for Veterans' Concerns and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

The Carlsons began the process of obtaining emergency housing until they can move into a handicapped-accessible apartment at North Street Commons for homeless military veterans.

“Thankfully, we got connected through our mental health counselor,” Ginger Carlson said. “With his (post-traumatic stress disorder), my husband definitely gets a little overwhelmed trying to sort through everything.”

Jay Carlson has been unable to walk since suffering a MRSA (methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus) infection after a bullet grazed his left leg.

Carlson, 43, was one of about 90 veterans who stopped by Friday's stand down, an event begun in 2009 in a church parking lot in conjunction with the community's Box City observance of National Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Week.
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These "Current Wars" Show Nothing Has Changed For PTSD Veterans

"I definitely think that PTSD from these current wars, because so many people were deployed, millions of people were deployed, is a public health crisis," said Dr. Peter Tuerk.

Is he new to PTSD and treating veterans? "These current wars" means he doesn't understand how every generation of veterans came home with it.

What about Gulf War veterans? Vietnam veterans pushing for all the research to study it and help them heal? What about Korean War veterans treated while deployed by clinicians so they could be sent back to duty? WWII veterans after there was a 300% increase of psychological medical evacuations from what they were during WWI?

The difference is the way we communicate now. Up until these "current wars" we didn't have the internet and ways to communicate with people from around the world. Nothing else has changed just because it is new "news" to some.

It is heartbreaking to know how long all of this has been happening. We are well aware of the simple, deplorable fact, that they have had decades to get this all right but they failed. They show absolutely no sign of changing therefor they will not change the outcome for millions of veterans.

VA doctor calls PTSD a public health crisis
WLTX 1
Clark Fouraker
November 11, 2014

As troops return home from America's longest war, a study by the VA estimates 22 veterans will take their own lives everyday. Many of those veterans have PTSD after serving multiple combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. 11-11-14 WBIR

"I did around 4 years of continuous deployment. Just the anxiety of everyday and doing missions," Carrico said. "I'm trying to be as general as I can but it was really bad."

VA studies suggest 1 in 5 veterans who served in Iraq and Afghanistan will have PTSD which could equal hundreds of thousands who fought in America's longest war needing mental healthcare at home.

Research from the Rand Corporation says paying for mental health services for these veterans could cost as much as $6.2 billion a year.

"I definitely think that PTSD from these current wars, because so many people were deployed, millions of people were deployed, is a public health crisis," said Dr. Peter Tuerk.

Tuerk treats PTSD patients at the Ralph H. Johnson VA in Charleston and remotely at 10 other VA centers throughout the southeast.

"When somebody is in treatment, we might work to de-militarize their life a little bit so they're not always thinking about war, thinking about the injuries, and death and loss," Tuerk said.

The VA treatment didn't have the desired effect for Air Force medic Gary Horn.

"Set up an ambush on us one evening and at initial contact they set off a couple RPG's and one of them, as I was driving, hit my driver door," Horn said. "That's how the blast led me to being where I am now."

Horn is among the more than 50% of veterans diagnosed with PTSD who will not seek treatment after returning from war.
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Here is one more reminder of what we knew back in 1978

That is from Readjustment Problems Among Vietnam Veterans

Gulf War Deployed Jan 30, 1991 US forces in the Gulf exceed 500,000.

Vietnam War Deployed
Year American
1959, 760
1960, 900
1961, 3,205
1962, 11,300
1963, 16,300
1964, 2,3300
1965, 184,300
1966, 385,300
1967, 485,600
1968, 536,100
1969, 475,200
1970, 334,600
1971, 156,800
1972, 24,200
1973, 50

Another Veteran Has To Explain to VA Why He Isn't Dead Yet

I'm not dead, Wisconsin veteran tells VA
Wisconsin State Journal
By Steven Verburg
POSTED: 11/13/2014

Kenneth C. Brunner wants the government to know it is dead wrong, because he is alive and well in Madison, Wis.

The 81-year-old Army veteran said he was surprised to read a letter from the U.S. Veterans Benefits Administration stating that he was dead.

The letter, dated Nov. 4 and addressed to Brunner's wife, Julie, arrived at his East Side home Monday afternoon, Brunner said.

"It said I was dead and not to cash any more checks," Brunner said, his voice strong, clear and a little indignant. "I read that and I said holy ..."

By Tuesday, Brunner had built up a head of steam and tried to call the agency to deliver a few choice words, but it was closed for Veterans Day.

The letter said Brunner's wife was entitled to cash the check issued for the month in which he died, but no others that might have been issued. It promised $300 to help cover the cost of the funeral.

"We are sorry to learn about the death of KENNETH BRUNNER and extend to you our deepest sympathy," the letter says. "We understand that the transition period following the death of a loved one is difficult and we wish to offer our assistance and our appreciation for the honorable service of KENNETH BRUNNER."
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