What Does Donald Trump Say to Veterans Waiting Decades?

Trump says a lot of things. All politicians do. There is a passage in the bible about knowing them by the fruits of their deeds because frankly, talk is still cheep.


Matthew 7:15-20 New King James Version (NKJV)

You Will Know Them by Their Fruits
15 “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. 16 You will know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes from thornbushes or figs from thistles? 17 Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. 18 A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. 19 Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20 Therefore by their fruits you will know them.

The truth is there are far too many veterans waiting even longer for Congress to fix the problems with the VA but year after year, folks run for office and complain about what they all let happen. Folks run for President and tend to avoid mentioning the simple fact that no President has ever lived up to taking care of our veterans.

There is a rich history of what our politicians let happen. Veterans are tired of blame games and promises before they get elected followed by even more excuses for what was not fixed. Is there anyone in Washington that is actually ashamed enough to apologize to veterans? Wouldn't you like to hear them explain how all this happened decades ago for a change? At least that way you'd know they really did care enough about you.

Donald Trump's surprise promise to a wounded veteran
CNN
By Noah Gray
October 27, 2015

Sioux City, Iowa (CNN)Donald Trump on Tuesday night did something he doesn't normally do: He stepped off the stage and went into the crowd to speak with a voter.

A question from a wounded veteran on Tuesday compelled Trump to walk off stage and speak with the man, eye-to-eye, and pledge to do his utmost to move his case forward and help him get the care he needs.

"I am going to put pressure on the (Department of Veterans Affairs) like you wouldn't believe," Trump said, asking the veteran for his contact information. "As president, I can guarantee it. As Trump, I can probably say, I'm going to be able to pull it off anyway."

The man was First Sgt. Todd Landen, a 22-year Army veteran. Sitting in his wheelchair in the front row, he asked Trump about his plans to improve health care at the VA -- a topic Trump has often touched on during the campaign.

Landen, who served three tours overseas, was wounded from an IED attack in Iraq, he told CNN in an interview after the rally. Along with his wife, April, and their 8-year-old daughter, Brianna, he moved to Iowa last year, after Landen finished up surgeries and retired from the Army.
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Tet Offensive Survivors Reunited After Google Search

Nurses, soldier who saved them in Vietnam reunite
The News-Press
Patricia Borns
October 27, 2015

Paliughi still has a photo of the wall in the nurses' room stitched with bullet holes. "They were brave," he says. "They're nurses."

On the night of the Vietnamese lunar New Year, Ron Paliughi woke to the sound of fireworks in the seacoast city of Nha Trang.

Only "it wasn't fireworks," the decorated Army veteran remembers. "It was the rockets and mortars of 850 North Vietnamese soldiers launching the Tet Offensive."

Housed in a decaying French colonial villa were Carol Portner and Maureen Orr, young nurses on a USAID mission. As the streets filled with corpses and chaos, the soldiers' and nurses' paths crossed in a life-saving moment.

No names were exchanged. They barely saw one another's faces through the tear gas and smoke. What were the chances they would reunite 46 years later at Portner's Gulf Harbour home in south Fort Myers? And yet last week, the group met again for the second time in two years. It took a death to bring them together.

A Google search

After working in 75 countries, Steve Orr wrote a book about his travels, "The Perennial Wanderer, an American in the World."

In the end, Paliughi's search came down to Googling the words 'Robert's Compound, Nha Trang, Vietnam.' A chapter from Orr's book popped up describing the Tet Offensive there. The nurses were named. He reached out to Orr to confirm.
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First Responder Trauma Linked to PTSD, Suicides

First responder trauma linked to PTSD, suicides
Click 2 Houston
Author: Sara Donchey, Reporter
Tera Roberson, Special Projects Producer
Published On: Oct 27 2015

HOUSTON
Robert Harrington Jr. fondly remembers his father.

“I remember going to the station quite a bit on holidays: Christmas, Easter, always being in my Halloween costume, going up there to see him because he was working so much,” Harrington said. “I was proud of him, he was my hero, and he always seemed to have it together."

But those memories soon give way to the reality that his father is no longer alive.

"I just texted him back, 'I love you too,'" Susan Anderson said. "I found out later that 15 minutes later he had taken his own life."

Though Jason Anderson never talked about it, Susan Anderson said she feels her son suffered from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder after his time in the military and as a firefighter. She wants others to know that it's OK to ask for help.
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Fort Hood 1st Cavalry Museum Hit By Vandals

Courtesy photo Damaged helicopter Steven Draper,
director of the 1st Cavalry Division Museum,
posted this photo of one of the damaged
vehicles to the museum's facebook page.

Helicopters vandalized at 1st Cavalry Division Museum
Killeen Daily Herald
JC Jones
Herald staff writer
October 27, 2015

FORT HOOD — Military police are investigating after multiple vehicles on display outside the 1st Cavalry Division Museum were vandalized over the weekend.

Three helicopters were vandalized, including one with major damage, said Maj. John Miller, a 1st Cavalry Division public affairs officer.

“Military police investigators scrubbed down the crime scene and are conducting an investigation,” Miller said.

The damage was discovered Sunday afternoon by an on-duty staff sergeant walking the museum grounds.
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Darkhorse Fake Marine Called Out

Stolen Valor
KMPH News
BY SHELDON GAJARIAN
OCTOBER 26TH 2015

A Fresno Marine called out a store clerk after hearing talk about the clerk's supposed deployment.

U.S. Marine Dave Kind was standing in line listening to the clerk talking about being in the service and deployed overseas and was going to join the conversation, but then heard things that made him suspect the kid's story.

He decided to record the conversation with his phone and called him out.

After he put it on Facebook, it took off, getting shared over 3500 times.
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"VA Lying" Veteran Breaks With Group

Too bad that veterans have been aware for decades about the troubles they have all along. So much for raising "awareness" of what the realities actually are.

Local veteran behind two billboards before breaking with 'VA IS LYING' group
Daytona Beach News Journal
By Mark Harper
October 28, 2015

Roger Gagnon stands along Interstate 95 in September in front of one of two 'VA is Lying' billboards he paid for to express his dissatisfaction with the agency. The billboards have since been replaced.
News-Journal/David Tucker

ORANGE CITY — At the back of an RV park just off Interstate 4, Roger Gagnon — a disabled ex-Marine — has his "little corner of paradise," a camper he shares with his 9-pound dog Nicky.

The solitude suits him. A self-described alcoholic in recovery, Gagnon said he has maintained sobriety for years but still suffers the effects of post-traumatic stress disorder and seizures.

The past several months have brought anything but peace.

Gagnon blames the Veterans Administration for a three-week coma, then refusing to pay for his nursing care while he was recuperating in April. He started posting on a Facebook page, VA IS LYING, where other veterans and their families vent about the $169 billion agency and collaborate to help one another get help with care and claims.

Back stateside, he left his unit, was declared a deserter and was not sent back with his unit after the infamous Oct. 23, 1983, bombing of the Marine barracks. When he returned to the Marines in December, he was put in handcuffs and sent to the brig. He was discharged in 1984, his service records show, and he said he entered the VA's care in 1986.
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Hard Earned: The Military Photographs of Stacy Pearsall

Stacy Pearsall: An Iraq War veteran whose weapon was a camera (Review)
Syracuse.com
By Katherine Rushworth
Contributing writer
October 28, 2015

In the image titled, "New Dawn, June 22, 2003," one of the most powerful and sensitively composed images in the exhibition, Pearsall positions herself beneath the wing of a transport plane; a silent observer cloaked in the veil of night as she captures the solemn movements of US Air Force personnel transferring a soldier from an ambulance to the plane. The dark figures in the middle ground are deeply silhouetted against an orange and yellow sky in the background; her composition a study of lights and darks, angles and lines, figures and forms.

This photo by soldier/photographer Stacy Pearsall, is titled, "Breaking Dawn, June 22, 2003." It portrays the transfer of a wounded soldier from an ambulance to an Air Force transport plane. Pearsall took the photo during one of her three tours of duty in Iraq. An exhibition of Pearsall's photos remains on view at the SUArt Galleries through January 24, 2016.
(Stacy L. Pearsall)

Stacy Pearsall served three tours in Iraq, but the shots she took were with a camera.

"I carry a gun," Pearsall has stated, "but my real weapon is my camera."

Through January 24 visitors to the Syracuse University Art Galleries in the Shaffer Art Building can take in an impressive array of about two dozen photographs taken by Pearsall during her tours in Iraq and a series of portraits comprising her more recent "Veterans Portrait Project," which she began following her retirement from service.

The show, titled "Hard Earned: The Military Photographs of Stacy Pearsall," was curated by Theresa Moir, a dual degree candidate in Museum Studies and Art History at Syracuse University.
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Ex-Deputy Facing Charges as Fake Veteran With PTSD

How is it that there is still a stigma about being a veteran with PTSD yet so many non-veterans are claiming they have it from service?

Former Warren County sheriff's deputy accused of filing false report, lying about military honors
KMOV News
By Stephanie Baumer, Online News Producer
Oct 28, 2015

WARREN COUNTY, Mo. (KMOV.com) – A former deputy with the Warren County Sheriff’s Department is accused of faking a report and lying about being a combat veteran with post-traumatic stress disorder.
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Dark Side of Disney Unauthorized Film "Keep Moving Forward"

See 'The Dark Side Of Disney' At The Logan Thursday Night
Chicagoist
BY JOEL WICKLUND IN ARTS and ENTERTAINMEN
OCT 27, 2015

The Dark Side of Disney and the preview of Keep Moving Forward begin at 7 p.m. Thursday night at the Logan. Tickets can be purchased online via this link, or at the theater if the event is not sold out.

Needless to say, this is a strictly unauthorized Disney doc, so it might make a nicely twisted double feature with the 2013 narrative film, Escape from Tomorrow (filmed without permission at the amusement park). But Thursday The Dark Side of Disney will be part of a different twin bill, paired with a rough cut of the documentary short, Keep Moving Forward, about a veteran who finds relief from post-traumatic stress disorder though a heavy dose of Disney.
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Alleged McDonald's shooter: I'm a veteran with PTSD

PTSD is no excuse for this. It is rare for veterans with PTSD to harm someone else, but it does happen. There just seems to be a trend now to blame everything on it. One more reason why Veterans Courts are a good thing. No "get out of jail free card" and plenty of work for them to do to heal but they are still held accountable.

Alleged McDonald's shooter: I'm a veteran with PTSD
Des Moines Register
MacKenzie Elmer
October 27, 2015

The man accused of shooting two teens outside an Ankeny McDonald’s Saturday after they got into a dispute with employees about pickles says he suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder from serving two tours in Iraq.

Gabriel John Coco, 36, of Des Moines allegedly pistol-whipped and shot the two 18-year-olds outside after he became angry over their exchange with McDonald's workers that "alluded" to pickles, police say.

Police wouldn't elaborate on what was said, and Coco’s attorney, Timothy McCarthy, would not permit him to answer questions regarding the shooting.
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Police: Pickles dispute preceded McDonald's shootings