US Navy Ship Struck USS Arizona Memorial

Witness: US Navy Ship Struck USS Arizona Memorial in Hawaii 
Military.com
by Brendan McGarry, Amy Bushatz and Michael Hoffman
May 27, 2015

The USS Arizona Memorial is the final resting place of most of the ship's 1,177 crewmen who were killed during the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, according to the National Park Service. The 184-foot-long memorial structure spans the mid-portion of the sunken battleship, according to the service.

A U.S. Navy ship struck part of the USS Arizona Memorial in Pearl Harbor on Wednesday morning, according to a woman whose husband witnessed the accident.

Photos submitted by the woman, who declined to be identified because her spouse serves in the Navy, show the naval hospital ship USNS Mercy sailing dangerously close to the USS Arizona Memorial. Her husband took the photographs from nearby Ford Island.

"It went right over the dock," she told Military.com. "You could hear the metal crunching. My husband said you could see mud and water being kicked up. It backed up to within feet of hitting the white memorial building."

Tug boats were guiding the hospital ship from its port at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam at around 7 a.m. local time.

A Navy official who asked not to be identified said of the incident, "It looks like one of the tugs that was pushing her as she left the harbor might have hit the visitor landing to the Arizona."

It's unclear how much, if any, damage was done to the USS Arizona wreckage.
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Marine Broke Record But Didn't Walk The Plank

Former Marine Officer Breaks World Record Plank to Benefit Semper Fi Fund 
NBC San Diego
By Monica Garske
May 30, 2015

George Hood, 57, spent a total of five hours, 15 minutes and 15 seconds in the abdominal plank position on Saturday in Oceanside

A former U.S. Marine officer from Carlsbad, just north of San Diego, crushed the world record for the longest plank Saturday, raising money and awareness for wounded warriors in the process.

Former Marine officer and retired Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agent George Hood, 57, spent a total of five hours, 15 minutes and 15 seconds in the abdominal plank position at the Junior Seau Amphitheatre in Oceanside as he broke the Guinness World Record previously set at four hours and 26 minutes by Mao Weidong of Beijing, China, last September.

Before Weidong took the title, Hood held the planking record at four hours and one minute, which he set in June 2014.

The athlete and fitness professional’s planking feat – dubbed “The People’s Plank” – doubled as a fundraiser to benefit the Semper Fi Fund for injured U.S. service members, a charity that’s near and dear to Hood’s heart.
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MOH Sgt. Charles Schroeter No Longer Lost Soul

Medal of Honor soldier set for reburial
The San Diego Union Tribune
By Jeanette Steele
MAY 30, 2015

Civil War-era cavalryman will be reburied at Miramar National Cemetery

Nearly a century after he died and was placed in an unmarked, communal crypt in San Diego, a Civil War-era soldier who received the Medal of Honor will be returned to his comrades-in-arms.

Sgt. Charles Schroeter will be buried at Miramar National Cemetery in July with full military honors, including a mounted Army detachment from Fort Irwin.

“We’re happy to be able to correct this mistake. It’s really important to us — even though he’s gone, he’s still a soldier,” said Kenneth Drylie, spokesman for the National Training Center at Fort Irwin.

“You never leave a fallen comrade.”

No one really knows why Schroeter, a cavalryman who bore saber scars and bullet marks from fighting Confederates and Indians, had no one willing to claim his ashes.

Throughout history, 3,493 Medals of Honor have been awarded. Of those, Morfe estimated there are still roughly 200 “lost souls” whose grave sites are unknown — like Schroeter’s until recently.
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Veteran Sent To Jail After Asking For Help

UPDATE
June 4, 2015
Update from News Observer
Army vet who made threatening call will learn his fate Thursday

(Corrected title of original post: I apologize for the error. Usually readers point out mistakes because I do not have an editor checking what I do.)

Army combat veteran’s call for help lands him in jail
News and Observer
BY MANDY LOCKE
May 30, 2015

A search of federal court records across the country found charges against at least six other veterans whose rants on the crisis line or to a trusted VA medical provider brought arrest and imprisonment.

For years, Ryan Broderick has been trapped inside his mind, watching a constant reel of explosions that rocked the Army vehicles he had scrubbed of blood during three combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Since January, Broderick has been stuck inside a real jail, fortified by cinder blocks, surrounded by barbed wire. The government that Broderick upended his life to serve locked him up in Edgecombe County, about 75 miles east of Raleigh.

In the eyes of federal officials, Broderick posed a threat to America and should be treated as a criminal.

Broderick, 31, of Fayetteville, is being prosecuted for comments he let fly during a call to speak with a counselor at the Veterans Affairs suicide crisis hotline. He was frustrated and sleep-deprived.

His words were clear: If he didn’t get the help he needed for his post-traumatic stress disorder, he would bring a gun to the VA hospital and Fort Bragg and start shooting.
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Surfs Up And So Is Morale For Wounded Veterans in Virginia

Surfing at Va. Beach Oceanfront helps vets cope with injuries
The Virginian-Pilot
By Elisabeth Hulette
© May 31, 2015

VIRGINIA BEACH
How does a triple amputee get up on a surfboard?

Easy, said 32-year-old Luis Rosa-Valentin, who lost an arm and both legs in a roadside explosion about seven years ago in Baghdad. You just pop up into a sitting position, balance and ride the wave to shore.

"I love being in the water," Rosa-Valentin said Saturday during the Wave Warriors Surf Camp that took over the beach by Rudee Loop. "There's nothing else in this world that I love more."

Of all the ways wounded veterans cope with injuries physical and mental, the Wave Warriors crew says becoming one with the sea is a pretty good way to go.

Ken Hunt, who helped launch the nonprofit seven years ago, said that out in the surf, stress and trauma just melt away.

"We call it saltwater treatment," he said. "It is so therapeutic. For us, it is a simple way to give back."

Preston Schofield, a 58-year-old from Tampa, Fla., who fell out of a helicopter and injured his back, said meeting other veterans at the event is good for morale.
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Story Behind Desert Storm Famous Photo Continues

Strangers linked by iconic Desert Storm photo finally meet 24 years later
Buffalo News
By Tim Graham
News Sports
Reporter
May 30, 2015

Veteran whose face came to symbolize Desert Storm meets comrade’s widow 24 years after tragedy that forever binds them

The face of war: Sgt. Ken Kozakiewicz, left, wails with grief after learning that the soldier in the body bag is fellow crewman Pvt. Andy Alaniz, in this February 1991 file photo. The widely published photo came to define the Persian Gulf War for many.

UNIONTOWN, Pa. – Twenty-four slow, burning years have passed since Sgt. Ken Kozakiewicz got wrecked to his soul.

Raw from a battle that ended moments before, dazed from the two missiles that smoked his Bradley Fighting Vehicle and weary from traversing an ungodly expanse of Iraq desert, Kozakiewicz did what any man would.

He read the name on the dead soldier’s identification card, looked away from the bloody body bag and wailed.

Kozakiewicz’s helpless, primal howl became the signature image of Operation Desert Storm. The picture, taken by David Turnley, showed war’s wicked truth and is considered one of military history’s most provocative photos.

Kozakiewicz, his broken left hand in a sling, had been guided into a medical evacuation helicopter after the Jalibah Airfield rout Feb. 27, 1991. The battle was among the final objectives of a dominant campaign to expel Iraq dictator Saddam Hussein’s army from neighboring Kuwait.

Kozakiewicz and Cpl. Mike Tsangarakis were about to be whisked away. Then a body bag was loaded onto the helicopter floor. Kozakiewicz demanded the dead soldier’s name.

A medic reluctantly handed Kozakiewicz the ID for 20-year-old Pvt. Andy Alaniz. In the center of the photo, Tsangarakis lifted his head bandages to glimpse the sack at his feet.
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Beau Biden Passed Away At 46

Vice president's son Beau Biden dies at 46 of brain cancer 
The Associated Press
RANDALL CHASE
May 31st 2015

In addition to his work as a lawyer and attorney general, Biden was a major in an Army National Guard unit that deployed to Iraq in 2008.

DOVER, Del. (AP) -- He was the privileged son of a longtime U.S. senator and two-term vice president, yet Joseph R. "Beau" Biden III was no stranger to personal adversity.

When he was only 3, just weeks after his father, Joe Biden, had been elected to the Senate, the younger Biden was seriously injured in a 1972 car crash that killed his mother and infant sister. His father was sworn into office at his hospital bedside.

As a young college student, not long after his father's 1987 presidential campaign imploded among allegations of plagiarism, he was back in the hospital, holding vigil with other family members as Joe Biden underwent surgery for a life-threatening aneurysm.

And after launching his own successful political career, Beau Biden was dogged by health problems. In 2010, he suffered a mild stroke at the age of 41.

On Saturday, Beau Biden died of brain cancer, less than two years after he was diagnosed. He was 46.
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National Guard Family Told Son Can't Be Buried at Arlington?

UPDATE
Army sec. approves Arlington burial for La. guardsman killed in helicopter crash

Dad: soldier son killed in training crash deserves Arlington Cemetery burial
FOX News
Published May 30, 2015

A soldier from the Louisiana National Guard who died alongside Marines in a training accident deserves to be buried in Arlington National Cemetery, his father said Saturday.

Former Green Beret Stephen Florich told Fox and Friends it is a “travesty” his son has been denied that honor because he was not on active duty at the time of his death.

Most active duty or retired military members of military service are eligible for in-ground interment at Arlington. Members of the reserves or National Guard are not eligible unless they have been on active duty.

“I think my son was very active on that aircraft,” Florich said. “My son was in uniform. My son was serving in the capacity as a crew chief and a door gunner. And in adverse weather conditions, he accepted a mission to train people for combat in the future. And in that, he gave all and lost his life.”

The March 11 crash in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Florida killed Staff Sgt. Thomas Florich, 26, of Baton Rouge, La., three other guardsmen and seven Marines. The Army UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter went down in heavy fog.

One of the Marines involved in the crash, Sgt. Andrew Seif, who had recently been awarded the Silver Star, the nation’s third highest award for valor, was buried at Arlington in April.

The seven U.S. Marines aboard the helicopter were all active duty service members and part of Marine Special Operations Command (MARSOC).
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National Cemetery Administration

Members of Reserve Components and Reserve Officers’ Training Corps


(1) Reservists and National Guard members who, at time of death, were entitled to retired pay under Chapter 1223, title 10, United States Code, or would have been entitled, but for being under the age of 60. Specific categories of individuals eligible for retired pay are delineated in section 12731 of Chapter 1223, title 10, United States Code.

(2) Members of reserve components, and members of the Army National Guard or the Air National Guard, who die while hospitalized or undergoing treatment at the expense of the United States for injury or disease contracted or incurred under honorable conditions while performing active duty for training or inactive duty training, or undergoing such hospitalization or treatment.

(3) Members of the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps of the Army, Navy, or Air Force who die under honorable conditions while attending an authorized training camp or on an authorized cruise, while performing authorized travel to or from that camp or cruise, or while hospitalized or undergoing treatment at the expense of the United States for injury or disease contracted or incurred under honorable conditions while engaged in one of those activities.

(4)Members of reserve components who, during a period of active duty for training, were disabled or died from a disease or injury incurred or aggravated in line of duty or, during a period of inactive duty training, were disabled or died from an injury or certain cardiovascular disorders incurred or aggravated in line of duty.

Alabama VFW Gave Vietnam Veteran New Wheels to Heal

Vietnam Veteran Gets Wheelchair
WTVY News
By: Toneshia Watkins
May 29, 2015

You may remember, Thursday, we told you about Joe Parrish. The Vietnam Veteran unable to get out of bed because of his broken wheelchair.

After seeing his story, many of you reached out wanting to help.

And thanks to the local VFW, Joe Parrish may no longer be tied to his bed.
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Jon Stewart Looking For A Few Funny Veterans

Jon Stewart is helping veterans break into the TV industry
Army Times
Jon Stewart is leaving 'The Daily Show' but is leaving a job training program for Veterans as a parting gift.
Keri Lumm has the story.