Trump and Omarosa Had a ‘F*cking Weird’ Fight With Vietnam Vets
The Daily Beast
Asawin Suebsaeng
08.17.18
As if having Omarosa heading up veterans’ issues wasn’t strange enough, President Trump started arguing with Vietnam vets about napalm and Agent Orange.
Source present at the time tell The Daily Beast that multiple people—including Vietnam War veterans—chimed in to inform the president that the Apocalypse Now set piece he was talking about showcased the U.S. military using napalm, not Agent Orange.
Trump refused to accept that he was mistaken and proceeded to say things like, “no, I think it’s that stuff from that movie.”
Early on in the Donald Trump administration, the president vested many of his nearest and dearest with tasks they were woefully unprepared for—and Apprentice superstar Omarosa Manigault-Newman was no exception.
Long before she was his chief antagonist, Manigault-Newman was tapped by President Trump to handle veterans’ issues for the White House—causing immediate backlash from vets organizations who read this as a slap in the face and a betrayal of his campaign rhetoric about “taking care of our veterans.”
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Vietnam veterans reunite with ailing 'brother'
Tribune-Star
By Alex Modesitt
9 hrs ago
“When I got back from Vietnam I was tired of sleeping on the ground. So I joined the Air Force,” Dierdorf joked. Dierdorf served out the rest of his 27-year armed services career with the U.S. Air Force.
Ken Dierdorf wanted so badly to sit alongside his Army brothers and feel the rush of air blow through an open-sided UH-1 Iroquois “Huey” one last time at Saturday’s Terre Haute Air Show.
But fate, weather and his advanced Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis — ALS — wouldn’t allow it.
Meant as one last hurrah for a group of Vietnam veterans who call themselves the “Dirty Half Dozen,” the Visiting Nursing Association and Hospice of the Wabash Valley arranged for Dierdorf and his U.S. Army brethren from around the country to take one last ride in a Huey.
But the flight, scheduled to take off around 9 a.m., was grounded due to fog blanketing the airfield. True to form, as the soldiers’ wives tell it, the group didn’t pay the weather much attention as they waited, instead they took the opportunity to catch up on each others’ goings on and tell stories.
And boy were the stories from veterans that served together in second platoon of the 1st Cavalry Division’s 2nd Battalion, 5th Cavalry Regiment, Bravo Company worth hearing.
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Bush VA chief: It’s ‘astounding’ that outside advisers are influencing VA from Mar-a-Lago
The Hill
BY MORGAN GSTALTER
08/18/18
A former head of the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is expressing concerns over a report that a trio of allies to President Trump who do not hold government positions are affecting hiring at the agency.
Anthony Principi, who served as VA secretary under former President George W. Bush, told Stars and Stripes this week that he found the report of alleged influence by members of Trump's private Mar-a-Lago club "astounding."
“If these [Mar-a-Lago] assertions are true, I don’t think that’s good governance. It’s not the way the nomination and appointment process should work," Principi said.
ProbPublica reported earlier this month that three high-profile men — Marvel Entertainment chairman Ike Perlmutter, West Palm Beach doctor Bruce Moskowitz and Washington lawyer Marc Sherman — were interacting with VA officials almost daily and meeting with them at Trump’s Palm Beach, Fla., resort.
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When your ride is a helicopter
PTSD Patrol
Kathie Costos
August 19, 2018
LZ Landing Zone
In military terminology a landing zone (LZ) is an area where aircraft can land. In the United States military, a landing zone is the actual point where aircraft, especially helicopters, land (equivalent to the commonwealth landing point.)
In commonwealth militaries, a landing zone is the cartographic (numeric) zone in which the landing is going to take place (e.g., a valley). The landing area is the area in which the landing is going to take place (e.g., the field where the aircraft are to land). The landing point is the point on which aircraft are going to land (e.g., a point of the field). Each aircraft has a different landing point.
From John C Wolf video
Usually I know days ahead of doing these videos what the topic will be. This time, all I could think about is a Vietnam veteran named John Wolf and how his ride was a helicopter.
I posted the following on August 17, 2018 and could not get it out of my head.
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Young Boys Allegedly Abused By Air Force Colonel Now In His Sole Custody
FORBES
Tara Haelle
August 17, 2018
“Eric has admitted he cannot control his anger and sexual impulses. It’s sad he is like this because of the IED explosion, but that won't help the boys if he physically or sexually abuses them.” Air Force Master Sgt. Robert Arrant
Tomorrow morning, two six-year old brothers will leave the sole custody of the mother they have lived with for the past five years to live in the sole custody of their father, an Air Force colonel alleged to have physically and sexually abused the boys for years.
The US Air Force's handling of a child abuse case appears to have influenced a civilian custody decision.U.S. AIR FORCE PHOTO/TECH. SGT. RICHARD P. EBENSBERGER
The Air Force had deemed the abuse allegations against Colonel Eric Holt as lacking evidence, but as this reporter previously covered, an extraordinary amount of evidence from photographs, video, medical records and witnesses supports the allegations. This evidence includes five disclosures by the boys themselves to non-parental caregivers, medical authorities and child welfare authorities.
Yet in an August 15 Maryland Montgomery County family court decision, Judge Joan Ryon awarded sole custody of the boys to Col. Holt and ordered the boys’ mother, a Harvard-trained anesthesiologist, only to supervised visitation once every two weeks. Ryon did not require Col. Holt to pay any of the more than $100,000 he owed in back child support—despite a previous court order that he do so—but she ordered the boys’ mother, Dr. Holt*, to pay $5700 a month in child support to their father going forward.
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Inside the Daring Life of a Forgotten Female War Photographer
National Geographic
Nina Strochlic
August 17, 2018
But her tally of conflict zones would end in Vietnam, where she became the first American woman correspondent to die in action. Years later, other journalists reported that Vietnamese Airborne troops were still reminiscing about the small, foul-mouthed woman who’d jumped with them.
Dickey Chapelle was one of history's most fearless conflict journalists—and the first American woman to die on the job.
THE 36 HOURS before Dickey Chapelle leaped off a tower with the Screaming Eagles were terrifying. She was 41 years old and parachute jumping for the first time. But fear never lasted for the pioneering war correspondent, and she quickly proclaimed it among “the greatest experiences one can have.”
It was 1959 and Chapelle had hooked up with the U.S. Army’s 101st Airborne Division at Fort Campbell, on the border between Tennessee and Kentucky. She’d been working as a war correspondent since 1942 and had reported on dozens of conflicts. She’d been called “the polite little American with all that tiger blood in her veins” by Fidel Castro; held in solitary confinement during the Hungarian uprising; and affirmed as the first correspondent accredited by the Algerian rebels. After learning with the Screaming Eagles, she became the only woman authorized to jump into combat with paratroopers in Vietnam.
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Friends drink final toast to slain Vietnam veteran
ABC 10 News
Anthony Pura
Aug 16, 2018
Roth’s wife came home and found him dead Tuesday. Police say he suffered trauma to his upper body. His wife told police the garage door was open.
OCEANSIDE, Calif. (KGTV) - Dozens of people packed a room at Surfside Tap Room Thursday night for a well-known patron believed to have been killed in his home.
John Roth, 77, was a regular at the bar. More than 50 people came to celebrate his life and drink a final toast.
“He served in Vietnam, he was a topographer,” one of his friends, Tom Andrews said. “He crawled through rice paddies to make sure the maps had the right elevations.”
“We had some intense conversations, but we would always end up laughing,” he added.
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‘Never too Late’: Bill Vogt at Age 105 Finally Claims SDSU Diploma
Times of San Diego
Chris Stone
AUGUST 16, 2018
“It was pretty spectacular,” said Sandra Cook, associate vice president for academic affairs. “We get requests for replacement diplomas for students all of the time. … We’ve never had one back that far. Everyone was excited about it.”
Reminiscing about his years at San Diego State University, Bill Vogt wishes he had back all the hours he’d wasted — trying to find booze.
SDSU President Adela de la Torre presents 105-year-old Bill Vogt his 1935 diploma. Photo by Chris Stone
That was more than 80 years ago. Some things never change.
But Vogt was honored for academic achievement Thursday, finally receiving his university diploma at the age of 105½.
The cause for the delay? He failed to pass his last needed class because of an “obstinate” professor and had to take another class in the fall. Consequently, he finished midyear, during the Great Depression, when no graduation ceremony was held.
After finishing his education, he entered the Navy and served during World War II and the Korean and Vietnam wars.
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Army veteran and St. Louis police officer needs back surgery; denied by health insurance
KSDK NBC 5 News
Author: Rachel Menitoff
August 16, 2018
"I can't play with them. I can't wrestle with them. I can't throw the ball with them. I just can't do those things. This gives me a chance to do that. At least, it gives me a solution going forward."
ST. LOUIS — He was a patriot, fighting in Iraq, then became a police officer. He has numerous awards and medals, but he’s also a dad.
He can't even play with his sons because his pain is so severe, pain he got serving his country and community.
Timothy Nolan has had back problems throughout his life. He has a degenerative condition. And he was used to a lot of physical work as an infantry team leader in Iraq, and most recently as a St. Louis police officer.
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UPDATE from Louisiana, another veteran is fighting after he served in the Navy and then as a Sheriff's Deputy!
Vietnam veteran files federal lawsuit against Louisiana VA office director
Lafayette Daily Advertiser
Leigh Guidry
August 17, 2018
A veteran in Lake Charles filed a federal lawsuit against the Louisiana Veterans Affairs regional office director.
George Jackson, 76, lives in Lake Charles with his wife, Helene. On Thursday, she and a veterans advocate went to the U.S. District Court Western District of Louisiana to file the lawsuit against Mark Bologna.
Jackson, the plaintiff, stayed at their home.
"I'm here because my husband, George Jackson, can't be here," she told media Friday.
Jackson is considered tetraplegic, having lost the use of his limbs. He can still move them slightly but he has no strength. He splits his time between a hospital bed in his home and his electric wheelchair.
The Lake Charles native served 30 years in the U.S. Navy, climbing ladders, crouching, lifting heavy things and performing other jobs on ships. He was aboard wooden ships used to sweep rivers for mines during two tours in Vietnam.
"Most of my job was on ships ... 30 years of going up and down ladders," he said.
But he doesn't regret joining the Navy, he said. It was always his dream.
"That's the only thing I really wanted to do," Jackson said. "I watched Navy movies on TV. In first grade, I looked out the window, and I always wanted to be a sailor."
So he joined once he was old enough "and I put 31 years in the military."
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Freedom, war and the flag
Combat PTSD Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
August 18, 2018
Bad way to wake up this morning, was reading this headline.
ESPN won't air anthem before Monday Night Football games, returning to prior practice
"New ESPN president Jimmy Pitaro said on Friday that the network will not show the national anthem during Monday Night Football broadcasts, which is a return to standard operating procedure and a recognition of fans’ desires."
Oh, no, not that the decision to not cover it was bad, but it was what else was in the article.
“ESPN is not a political organization,” he said. “It’s not our job to cover politics, purely, but we’ll cover the intersection of sports and politics. When something happens, when the Eagles are disinvited from the White House, when someone takes a knee, when we think it’s newsworthy we’re going to cover it.”
Reporters still fail to understand that patriotism has nothing to do with politics because no matter who is in charge, the National Anthem means more than just words. I guess it is just not news to us how we feel about this stunt, so ESPN must avoid mentioning how offended we are with all of this.
The basis of the anthem was the War of 1812. The words are about the flag still flying after Americans fought back.
In the War of 1812, the United States took on the greatest naval power in the world, Great Britain, in a conflict that would have an immense impact on the young country’s future. Causes of the war included British attempts to restrict U.S. trade, the Royal Navy’s impressment of American seamen and America’s desire to expand its territory.
The United States suffered many costly defeats at the hands of British, Canadian and Native American troops over the course of the War of 1812, including the capture and burning of the nation’s capital, Washington, D.C., in August 1814. Nonetheless, American troops were able to repulse British invasions in New York, Baltimore and New Orleans, boosting national confidence and fostering a new spirit of patriotism.
The ratification of the Treaty of Ghent on February 17, 1815, ended the war but left many of the most contentious questions unresolved. Nonetheless, many in the United States celebrated the War of 1812 as a “second war of independence,” beginning an era of partisan agreement and national pride.
For anyone suggesting the National Anthem protest is not insulting the troops or the flag, that is exactly what it is.
“The Star-Spangled Banner” is the national anthem of the United States. By the time the song officially became the country’s anthem in 1931, it had been one of America’s most popular patriotic tunes for more than a century. The anthem’s history began the morning of September 14, 1814, when an attorney and amateur poet named Francis Scott Key watched U.S. soldiers—who were under bombardment from British naval forces during the War of 1812—raise a large American flag over Fort McHenry in Baltimore, Maryland.
In the almost 6 decades I have lived, there has been a lot of changes in this country because people stood up and refused to kneel to anything other than prayer.
I was raised by veterans willing to fight to keep this country free, but also, by 1st generations Americans. Yes, immigrants who came here from Greece, Italy and Canada. Members of my family and my husband's fought in three wars. WWII, Korea and Vietnam.
This country achieved the changes on rights because people also stood up, on their own time, and forced the politicians to do the right thing.
The football players are not doing either one. They are not taking a stand for civil rights and they are not doing it on their own time.
They use their fans paying money to enjoy the game, and stations like ESPN making money off covering this game. Using? Yes. They put on a uniform and then expect to be able to use the uniform to pull a stunt, as if that uniform entitles them to their personal views being displayed for the world to see.
Fans dropping support of these teams has nothing to do with Trump's tweets but has everything do to with disrespecting what we hold sacred.
If ESPN is really interested in what is "newsworthy" then they should give fans the same worth and attention they are giving the players. Let them cover how these stunts are pushing them away from the game they loved because they love the country, this imperfect country, and those who stood up to fight for it risking their lives, oh so much more!
