One shot dead at Fort Meade after trying to enter NSA gate
CNN
By Jim Sciutto, Evan Perez and Ashley Fantz
March 31, 2015
Story highlights
Two people tried to enter the main gate to enter the headquarters of the National Security Agency at Fort Meade.
One died at the scene, and another was wounded, the NSA says.
(CNN)The FBI publicly identified Tuesday the man who died Monday while trying to use an unauthorized vehicle tried to gain access to the National Security Agency campus in Fort Meade, Maryland, as Ricky Shawatza Hall.
His passenger who remained hospitalized Tuesday has not been publicly identified.
On Monday morning, Hall attempted to gain entry at the National Security Agency headquarters, Jonathan Freed, NSA director of strategic communications, said in a statement.
"The driver failed to obey an NSA Police officer's routine instructions for safely exiting the secure campus. The vehicle failed to stop and barriers were deployed."
NSA police on the scene fired on the vehicle when it accelerated toward a police car, blocking its way, according to the NSA.
An NSA police officer was also hospitalized but not identified.
The two men who officials say tried to ram the main gate at NSA headquarters were dressed as women, according to a federal law enforcement official.
Combat-wounded vets successfully climb one of world's highest mountains
FOX 13 News
By: Lloyd Sowers
Updated: Mar 31, 2015
TARPON SPRINGS (FOX 13)
A special team of wounded veterans has notched another achievement.
Members of the Combat Wounded Veterans Challenge reached the summit of Aconcagua, one of the highest mountains in the world.
"It was a desert-type climate and it was straight up," says wounded veteran Pete Quintanilla describing the mountain in Argentina.
The summit is nearly 23,000 feet, the highest spot in the Western Hemisphere.
Quintanilla was wearing a specially designed prosthetic leg made of carbon fiber as he climbed it. Based on its performance during the climb, he'll provide feedback to the designer to improve new prosthetics for others.
CHALLENGE AND INSPIRE
The nine-man team was organized at the group's headquarters in Tarpon Springs. They unloaded their backpacks after the month-long expedition to Argentina.
Billy Costello also lost part of a leg while in the army, but he's participated in several of these challenges, including a trip to the top of Mt. Kilimanjaro last year.
"Mission success to us is challenge, research and inspire," said Costello.
Team members always invite other combat wounded veterans to join them.
"This is what I'm doing. You can do it too," says Quintanilla.
read more here
Louisville's U.S. Marine Hospital remains empty, decade after exterior restored
WDRB News
By Sarah Phinney
Posted: Mar 29, 2015
LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- It has been 10 years since the exterior of Louisville's U.S. Marine Hospital in the Portland neighborhood was restored, but the inside remains unfinished.
Several rooms on the first floor are used for meetings and group exercise, but the rest of the old hospital is closed to the public due to safety concerns.
Because the outside is restored, Family Health Centers Executive Director Bill Wagner says many people believe the inside is in good shape, too.
"Little do they know, it's empty," said Wagner.
The hospital, designed by Washington Monument architect Robert Mills, opened on April 1, 1852.
Union soldiers were treated at the hospital during the first two years of the Civil War and later World War I veterans. But, most of the patients throughout the years were merchant sailors.
"They may have been injured during their jobs or they may have contracted contagious diseases," Wagner said.
The building later served as living quarters for nurses and doctors in the 1930s, before the City of Louisville purchased it for $25,000 in 1950. It was later turned into office space and is currently owned by the Board of Health, while Family Health Centers oversees it.
Though patients haven't been in the hospital for decades, some of the original features are still intact.
read more here
Veteran tells panhandler to "take off my uniform!" after discovering he's a fake
ABC Action News
Bill Logan
Mar 30, 2015
It's a story of stolen valor: A panhandler purporting to be a combat veteran asking for money from passing motorists.
All until a Tampa man started asking questions and not getting the kind of answers he liked.
"Show me your veterans ID card,” asked a worked-up Garrett Goodwin on a video he uploaded to his Facebook page Sunday.
"I don't have one, sir," replied the still-unidentified and nowhere-to-be-found man wearing an Army uniform and a high-visibility vest while panhandling at the corner of Dale Mabry and Gandy Boulevard in South Tampa.
"Then take off my uniform!" replied Garrett, who served as an Army combat medic from 1994 through 2003. read more here
Mar 29, 2015
Veteran Garrett Goodwin confronts a fake Veteran outside Macdill AFB. The fake claimed he was former Special Forces and his missions so secret that the VA doesn't even acknowledge he exists.
The fake was soliciting money from people using his fake Veteran status.
Veterans' PTSD cases up a quarter in a year charity warns
The Telegraph
Ben Farmer
Defence Correspondent
March 31, 2015
Britain is seeing a "very concerning" surge in veterans looking for help with PTSD and other mental health problems after the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, the charity Combat Stress warns, after it has seen its cases jump 26 percent in a year
The number of veterans seeking help for PTSD and other mental health problems has jumped more than a quarter in the past year alone with a surge of cases from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, a leading military charity has warned.
Combat Stress says it is now deals with six new veterans asking for help each day and is at its busiest in its 96-year-history.
The 26 per cent increase in the past year is more than double the rise seen the year before and is mainly due to a “marked rise” in Afghanistan and Iraq veterans coming forward.
The latest rise follows a string of annual increases and the toll of cases from the wars of the past decade will continue to increase, the charity believes. It is calling on the Government to spend more on NHS treatment for them.
Walter Busuttil, director of medical services, said: “We are very concerned at the significant rise in those coming forward with military PTSD. read more here
Vietnam veteran spotlights biggest struggle facing all vets
Connect Mid Missouri
by Dan Ebner
Posted: 03.30.2015
"There isn't a pill, there isn't a joke, there isn't you movie you can have them watch... nothing,” Delgado said.
JEFFERSON CITY, MO -- Three years ago, Governor Jay Nixon signed a bill that made March 30th Vietnam veterans recognition day in Missouri.
One Vietnam vet said the biggest struggle facing veterans of all wars is suicide.
Raul Delgado, a member of American Legion Post 5 in Jefferson City, served in Vietnam from 1967 until 1969.
As a Marine, he was a crew chief on a helicopter, flying missions all across Vietnam.
Delgado said the problem of veteran suicide doesn’t get the attention it needs and deserves.
One reason he said this is because he almost took his own life.
"I had the rifle in mouth and my thumb on the trigger... and I was going to pull the trigger," Delgado said.
57,000 soldiers were killed in action during the war, but over 150,000 veterans of Vietnam have committed suicide.
Delgado said he isn’t just concerned about vets from the war he fought it, but also vets in the current wars. read more here
Vietnam Veterans Day is Everyday
Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
March 30, 2015
Putting up the post on Vietnam Veterans Day got me thinking about all that you are responsible for and most of you don't even know.
My Dad was stationed in Japan when my brother was a toddler and my Mom took him over there. My other brother was born at Fort Dix. By the time I came along, he left the Army but the Army never left him, so technically, I am not an Army brat. (Ok, some would beg to differ with that considering I was and still am a brat.)
My uncles were WWII veterans and a cousin served in Vietnam. I admit that I didn't really pay much attention to them since I spent my whole life listening the same stories over and over again, going to the PX in Hanscom Field with my Mom, parades, the DAV and VFW Post.
I know how hard it was for my Dad to have his claim approved back then but he ended up with 100% disability. I guess you could say when it comes to the problems reported recently, I am an expert considering I've seen the flip side of what veterans go through my whole life as well as what happens when their claims are honored. You don't ask for much at all. You only ask for what you need because something happened when you served this country.
Anyway, fast forward to adulthood and my second husband. A Vietnam veteran. We are not so young anymore, but we still hold hands just like we did over half my life. It is because of him I do what I do everyday. He's managed to save more lives than he knows. More than even I know, or so I've been told. Had it not been for him, I would have just,,,,well, I don't even want to think about that.
I admit it. I am totally in love. Not just with my husband but because of him. See, I've had over 30 years of getting to spend time with some of the most remarkable people in this country. YOU!
Again, the DAV and VFW are part of my life along with the Nam Knights motorcycle club and Semper Fidelis America, just about any other group in the Orlando area since I attend most of the events. They are all run by Vietnam veterans.
Then there is Point Man International Ministries, also run by Vietnam veterans. They started way back in 1984 doing peer support, spiritual healing and supporting families dealing with PTSD. Yep, that's how long we know what was needed and they stepped up to do it! I'm part of them.
There are a lot of things no one seems to want to take the time to talk about these days. After all, reporters can't even really manage to remember how long all of this has been going on, so acknowledging what you guys managed to do probably won't happen in our lifetime.
According to the news reports, PTSD is new and Afghanistan is the longest war. They say it started in 1965 and ended in 1973. Ok, then so why was the first one killed on the Vietnam Memorial Wall goes all the way back to 1956?
THE FIRST KNOWN CASUALTY
Richard B. Fitzgibbon, of North Weymouth, Mass. is listed by the U.S. Department of Defense as having a casualty date of June 8, 1956.
His name is listed on the Wall with that of his son, Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Richard B. Fitzgibbon III, who has a casualty date of Sept. 7, 1965.
And the last in 1975?
East wall, which was added approximately a year after the Memorial was dedicated. 1975 was the year that the last 18 casualties (Daniel A. Benedett, Lynn Blessing, Walter Boyd, Gregory S. Copenhaver, Andres Garcia, Bernard Gause, Jr., Gary L. Hall, Joseph N. Hargrove, James J. Jacques, Ashton N. Loney, Ronald J. Manning, Danny G. Marshall, James R. Maxwell, Richard W. Rivenburgh, Elwood E. Rumbaugh, Antonio Ramos Sandovall, Kelton R. Turner, Richard Vande Geer) occurred on May 15th during the recapture of the freighter MAYAGUEZ and its crew.
Let them say what they will because when all the talking is done, when they managed to erase years, all of you remember what happened and when for real since you were there. So let them come off as really dumb and then we can make fun of the stupid things they say. As it is, they haven't managed to figure out a way of telling the truth on suicides tied to veterans or even manage to mention the simple fact that the majority of veterans committing suicide are over 50 years old or that they got their 22 a day numbers wrong since most states say the rate of veteran suicides is double the civilian rate. Oh hell, since I'm on a roll here, they don't talk about how after you guys caused all the research with the DOD and VA, all their crappy theories and "prevention efforts" managed to actually increase suicides of younger veterans which are now triple their peer rate.
Like to see them look you guys in the eye and tell you how they managed to mangle what over 40 years of research proved when they repeated the same old bullshit of take a pill and you'll feel better in the morning or how they ended up with reporter after report of young soldiers still being treated as if they are slackers and mentally weak. Yep, that's all still going on as well as less than honorable discharges instead of helping them heal. That happened to 250,000 of you. As of latest report over 80,000 may get their discharges changed.
You risked your lives for everyone around you. Yet, it is not what you did during war that made such a difference in the lives of others. It was what you did afterwards.
You were turned away from some people, ignored by others. You were told to just get over it and get on with your lives. After all, you were only gone a year so no big deal. Right?
The older veterans didn't want you around because you were not one of them.
You proved them right. You were part of all of them.
Every generation suffering the same wounds you did yet no matter how you were treated, you turned around and said you would not suffer in silence the way all the other generations did. You fought for your brothers and then fought for your Dads, Uncles, Grandfathers and in the process, knew you would be fighting for all other veterans coming after you.
They sure don't have time to talk about what else happened to society in general because Vietnam veterans fought for PTSD research to be done. Not just for themselves but for everyone.
Crisis Intervention Strategies
However, it was the debacle of the Vietnam War that brought PTSD enough ... professionals did little to ameliorate problems returning Vietnam veterans suffered. ... Those research and treatment approaches have spread out to civilian areas of ... considers psychological, biological, and social bases as equally important.
You turned the page and re-wrote the ending for all other veterans giving them a chance to heal and everyone benefited by your battles to address trauma. You also showed the rest of the country that you had a bond that could not be broken by anyone or anything. Hell, you even managed to pull all this off without the stuff the younger generation can't live without. The Internet and social media.
So while too many folks actually forget what all of you did, here's some reminders. As imperfect as things are for the newer veterans, nothing would have happened on PTSD had it not been for all of you!
If you are a veteran with PTSD, remember one thing, you are not stuck feeling the way you do right now. You can heal and live a better life. PTSD caused the change in you but you can change again and then help other veterans heal as well. Vietnam veterans have been doing it for decades.
Gary Sinise tribute Vietnam Veterans
For the 7th year I was able to go with a choir to Epcot for the Candlelight program. This was the first year I saw Gary Sinise perform. He was fantastic but at the end of the show, he gave a moving tribute to Vietnam veterans.
Gary Sinise played a Vietnam veteran amputee in Forrest Gump. In the movie, Tom Hanks played a Medal of Honor Recipient and in the ceremony it was actually footage of a real Vietnam veteran receiving the Medal, Sammy Davis.
Sammy told the story of what happened to him after his actions saved lives. When you hear his story, it should clear up what some Vietnam veterans came home to.
May you stay forever young and know how much you really do mean to the rest of us!
You also showed us how to,,,oh heck, the list would be too long to list.
Taunton Vietnam veterans group holds POW/MIA ceremony
Wicked Local
Marc Larocque
March 29, 2015
Members of the POW/MIA awareness movement, including a faithful group of Vietnam veterans in the Taunton area, have helped foster governmental and societal responsibility toward families of U.S. service members who go missing during war, said the president of the Massachusetts Vigil Society.
Dan Golden was the keynote speaker at the 33rd annual POW/MIA Remembrance Day Ceremony on Sunday at the Vietnam Memorial Fountain downtown on Church Green. The event has been organized each year by the Taunton Area Vietnam Veterans Association to remember the 39 Massachusetts servicemen and 1,637 others nationwide whose remains were never returned from the battlefields of Southeast Asia. read more here
Springfield ceremonies remember Vietnam veterans
The first salute at the Vietnam Veterans’ monument at Mason Square
WWLP 22 News
By Sy Becker
Published: March 29, 2015
SPRINGFIELD, Mass. (WWLP) – April will mark the 40th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam.
Two solemn ceremonies were held in Springfield Sunday as Vietnam veterans honored their fallen comrades.
The first salute at the Vietnam Veterans’ monument at Mason Square, where African American veterans of the Winchester Square Vietnam Era Veterans honored the soldiers who never came home, many they had known all their lives. read more here
Springfield commemorates Vietnam Veterans Day 2015
MassLive
Elizabeth Roman
March 29, 2015
Springfield- Local leaders including Springfield Mayor Domenic J. Sarno and U.S. Rep. Richard Neal commemorate the Vietnam Veterans Day in Springfield. (ELIZABETH ROMAN/ THE REPUBLICAN)
SPRINGFIELD — For more than 25 years local leaders and veterans have gathered at Court Square in honor of those who served and those who died during the Vietnam War.
A ceremony was held Sunday afternoon featuring the reading of the names of those killed or missing in action as well as laying a wreath at the Vietnam Memorial. The event included various speakers including newly appointed Massachusetts Secretary of Veterans Affairs Francisco Urena who is a Purple Heart Marine, Springfield Veteran of the Year Ronald Krupke, U.S. Rep Richard E. Neal, Dr. Samuel J. Mazza, who served as a trauma surgeon during the Vietnam War, and more.
read more here
Delaware
There are a lot of great videos on this page for Vietnam veterans.
Vietnam veterans honored at ceremony in Bristol Twp.
Bucks County Courier Times
Elizabeth Fisher
March 30, 2015
Chloe Elmer/Staff Photographer Vietnam vets America, Hose, Hook, and Ladder Company No. 2 Fire n Bristol Borough Chief and Desert Storm veteran David Pearl shares a moment with Jesse Hill, treasurer of the Delaware Valley Vietnam Veterans, after he thanked him in a speech during The Delaware Valley Vietnam Veterans event from 2 to 5 p.m. on Sunday, March 29, 2015 at their Bristol Township Headquarters to honor veterans on the March 29, 1973 anniversary of the last U.S. troops to leave Vietnam. The group will also celebrate their 8th anniversary at the headquarters. Attendees were also given a K-9 demonstration from Falls and Bristol Township police officers, in honor of the K-9 Working Dogs Veterans Day, which was March 13.
Veterans from all service branches saluted as the American flag and the black-and-white POW-MIA flag were hoisted.
A three-gun salute followed at a ceremony Sunday at the headquarters of the Delaware Valley Vietnam Veterans in Bristol Township.
The occasion was a ceremony to mark the 42nd anniversary of the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Vietnam, signaling the end of a 10-year conflict and North Vietnam’s release of what it claimed were the last of its American prisoners of war. It would be four more years before the last of the American troops came home.
Among the attendees was Dennis Parr, a Bristol resident who served in the U.S. Navy from 1969-1973. The ceremony was particularly poignant for him because of the many friends he lost in battle, and the fact that his son, Riccardo, served two tours in Iraq as a Marine hospital corpsman. read more here
Virginia
Vietnam veterans honored for courage, service at Lynchburg commemoration
News Advance
Katrina Dix
March 28, 2015
The first U.S. combat troops arrived in Vietnam 50 years ago this month, but the conflict claimed one of Lynchburg’s own more than a year earlier, when Lt. Kenneth Shannon died after his helicopter was shot down over South Vietnam on March 15, 1964, just five days after his arrival overseas.
At a commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the Vietnam War at the American Legion Post 16 Saturday afternoon, veterans who served with him or even went to college with him greeted his widow, Ginger Shannon-Young, who moved back to Lynchburg about four years ago.
Some were saying hello for the first time in almost 50 years; others, for the first time ever. read more here
Tennessee
Vietnam Veterans Day
WDEF News
March 29, 2015
Knoxville, TN (WDEF)- Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam and Department of Veterans Affairs Commissioner Many-Bears Grinder announced March 29th will now be known as Vietnam Veterans Day.
The day is to recognize the courage, service and sacrifice of the men and women who served during the Vietnam War. read more here
Missouri
Missouri honors Vietnam veterans today
KMA Land
Special to KMA -- Mona Shand
March 30, 2015
(Jefferson City) -- It's been nearly 40 years since the official end of the Vietnam War and today Missouri honors the sacrifices of all those who served in the conflict. Many Vietnam veterans came home to find the country in the midst of the anti-establishment, anti-war movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Daniel Bell, public information officer with the Missouri Veterans Commission, says today's observance of Vietnam Veterans Day gives Missourians a chance to make up for the past.
"Vietnam veterans were not welcomed home in the same manner that your World War II, Korea, and your current returning veterans were treated," says Bell. "This is just a way of recognizing their sacrifices and their service to our country."
read more here
Alaska
Vietnam Veterans Day honors Alaskans who served
News Miner
By Weston Morrow
March 30, 2015
ERIN CORNELIUSSEN/FAIRBANKS DAILY NEWS-MINER Vietnam Veterans Day Veterans and audience members listen to a panel discussion during a Vietnam Veterans Day program at Randy Smith Middle School on Sunday, March 29, 2015.
FAIRBANKS — Veterans, active-duty military members and community members gathered in the gymnasium at Randy Smith Middle School on Sunday to honor the service of Alaska’s many Vietnam veterans.
The event Sunday was timed purposefully to fall on March 29 — a date that commemorates the withdrawal of the last United States troops from Vietnam in 1973. Forty years later, in 2013, the Alaska Legislature declared March 29 to serve from then on as Vietnam Veterans Day, “to acknowledge and commemorate the military service of American men and women in Vietnam.” read more here
Army cautions sequestration could cut 14,000 service members
Killeen Daily Herald
Rose L Thayer
Herald staff writer
March 29, 2015
Dropping the Army’s end strength to 450,000 would require the involuntary separation of about 14,000 soldiers, Gen. Daniel B. Allyn, Army vice chief of staff, told lawmakers during Wednesday testimony before the Senate Armed Services subcommittee on readiness.
Army officials last week cautioned what troop reductions could look like should sequestration return in January.
Dropping the Army’s end strength to 450,000 would require the involuntary separation of about 14,000 soldiers, Gen. Daniel B. Allyn, Army vice chief of staff, told lawmakers during Wednesday testimony before the Senate Armed Services subcommittee on readiness.
“It will increase significantly the involuntary separation of officer and noncommissioned leaders who have steadfastly served their country through the last 13 years of war,” Allyn said, according to a report from Army News Service.
“Sequestration will undermine readiness, ultimately putting soldiers’ lives and our mission success at risk,” he said.
As Col. Karl Konzelman, chief of Army Force Management at the Pentagon, explained during Tuesday’s listening session in Killeen, the Army already exhausted all other means of troop reduction. Now it will have to start making cuts from active units. The listening session addressed troop reductions directly linked to the draconian budget cuts. read more here
Late vets' family members to have their say about VA care USA TODAY
Donovan Slack
March 29, 2015
He checked him into Tomah for severe anxiety and a painkiller addiction last summer. But in late August, Jason texted him to say the medications were making him crazy. He asked his father for help. So Marv Simcakoski set up a meeting with his son, a patient advocate and his son's doctor, who consulted with Houlihan on adding another opiate to his son's regimen.
WASHINGTON — A construction contractor will relive the "most painful day" of his life when his veteran son died at a Wisconsin Veterans Affairs' center.
A widow will recount receiving bags of pills in the mail for a husband who hadn't been home for months.
A daughter will chronicle the final lucid hours of her veteran father as he waited hours for care, then slumped over limp and unresponsive.
And a pharmacist will raise questions about three more "unexplained" veteran deaths — all patients like the others who received treatment at the Tomah Veterans Affairs Medical Center.
All are set to testify at what promises to be an emotional congressional hearing in Tomah, Wis., Monday. It will be their first chance to publicly face VA officials overseeing the facility since news reports drew national attention to their struggles and triggered investigations by several state and federal agencies, including the VA and the Drug Enforcement Administration.
Five months after Daigh declined to release his findings, 35-year-old Marine veteran Jason Simcakoski died from an overdose as an inpatient in Tomah. It was just days after Houlihan agreed that another opiate should be added to the 14 drugs he was already prescribed.
