Only about 40 percent of firefighter suicides are reported

Law enforcement peer group meets in Dothan hoping to help others

WTVY News
By Ken Curtis
Feb 19, 2019

A few years ago, Houston County Sheriff Donald Valenza's fellow officer took his life. Valenza often wonders if he could have done something to prevent the tragedy.

Law enforcement officers, others attend seminar in Dothan to help them cope with job stress. Photo from February 19, 2019. That prompted him to to organize seminars that help law enforcement officers cope with job related stress.

Alabama Fire Marshal's Office Investigator Jason Clifton attended his fourth seminar in Dothan Tuesday.

“It's a life changer to know you're not alone and you don't have to keep it bottled up inside because, if you keep things bottled up inside, you'll create a bomb that will explode,” Clifton said.

In 2017, more officers nationwide died from suicide than in the line of duty,” according to the website officer.com. Statistics show 140 police officers and 103 firefighters committed suicide.

Making the figures more disturbing, the Firefighter Behavioral Health Alliances estimates only about 40 percent of firefighter suicides are reported.
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WWII sailor kissing nurse statue vandalized with #MeToo

'#MeToo' spray-painted on iconic statue of WWII sailor kissing nurse

CNN
By Amanda Jackson
February 20, 2019

(CNN)Police in Florida are looking for the vandal who painted "#MeToo" on the leg of the nurse in the "Unconditional Surrender" statue.

Florida police released images of the graffiti on Tuesday.

The statue is modeled after an iconic photo taken in Times Square in 1945, showing a woman dressed in a white uniform being embraced and kissed by a sailor to celebrate the end of World War II.

The woman, identified as Greta Friedman, was 21 at the time, and she didn't know the sailor, who has been identified as George Mendonsa. He passed away on Sunday at the age of 95.
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Prazosin study may be making suicide thoughts stronger

Study shows drug commonly prescribed to veterans could be making suicidal thoughts worse

WSET ABC 13 News
by Kathleen Jacob
February 19th 2019

One of those medications is Prazosin, a blood pressure medication that a VA doctor prescribed him to help with nightmares. “I didn’t wanna go to sleep. There are times I didn’t wanna lie down. I just didn’t want to go to sleep,” Sgt. Chapman said. Over time, he realized his nightmares weren't getting any better. In fact, he said they got worse.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WZTV) — A drug treating PTSD in our veterans could be killing them. Prazosin is a blood pressure medication commonly prescribed to treat PTSD nightmares, according to a WZTV news investigation. Only two drugs are approved by the FDA to treat PTSD, and Prazosin is not one of them.

Retired Sgt. Allen Chapman said he takes 10 pills a day to treat depression, PTSD, and all the other side effects that come with working in a war zone overseas.

“I’ve got so many medications, it takes a while to take them all in the morning,” Sgt. Chapman said.

He served in the 230th Signal Company of the National Guard. He spent time in Afghanistan from 2011-2012.

“When you get back, you’re used to all that high-speed stuff and then people here, people are just slow,” Sgt. Chapman said.

It's one of the reasons readjusting is so hard, and why Sgt. Chapman went to the VA for help.

Sgt. John Toombs took a video of himself on an early November morning in 2016.

“I went to the VA for help and they opened up a Pandora's box inside me and just kicked me out the door,” Toombs said in the video.
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Medevac crew refused to give up on saving Army Ranger

Medevac crew receives valor awards following harrowing rescue mission

STARS AND STRIPES
By CHAD GARLAND
Published: January 11, 2019

Under fire and carrying a badly wounded patient, the Black Hawk helicopter was just lifting off an Afghan battlefield when the crew chief saw an Army Ranger in the landing zone get shot and drop to the ground.

The Black Hawk darted back to evacuate the fallen Ranger.

From left: Sgt. Armando Yanez; Spc. Emmanuel Bynum; Sgt. 1st Class Andrew Six; Chief Warrant Officer 2 Jonathan Cole; and Capt. Benjamin Krzeczowski 101ST CAB, WINGS OF DESTINY/FACEBOOK

Spc. Emmanuel Bynum, thinking quickly, directed the pilot to make an emergency landing on a dusty patch masked from most enemy fire. They still took fire — in all, about two dozen rounds to the helicopter, which would become nearly unflyable.

After the wounded Ranger was loaded, the Black Hawk lifted off. But there was more danger to come as they flew from Paktia province toward a base in Logar province dozens of miles to the north.

For their courage during the July operation, Bynum and four other aircrew members received the Distinguished Flying Cross with valor during a Jan. 5 ceremony officiated by Gen. Scott Miller, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan.

Each of the five “completely disregarded his own safety” and refused to leave Army Ranger Sgt. 1st Class Christopher Andrew Celiz and an unnamed casualty on the battlefield, award citations said.
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MOH Marine Maj. Henry Courtney Jr. belongs in hometown

Nonprofit in dispute over Marine’s Medal of Honor agrees in principle to hometown display

STARS AND STRIPES
By MATTHEW M. BURKE
Published: February 20, 2019

The foundation’s board includes Medal of Honor recipient Army Col. Walter Marm Jr., who received the award for actions taken during the Vietnam War, and Doug Sheehan, the nephew of Doug Munro, the Coast Guard’s only medal recipient.

Marine Maj. Henry Courtney Jr. received the Medal of Honor posthumously for leading a daring assault on Okinawa's Sugar Loaf Hill on May 14-15, 1945. COURTESY OF COURT STORY

A Pennsylvania nonprofit dedicated to educating Americans about citizenship and community service has agreed — in principle — to send a Marine hero’s Medal of Honor back to his hometown for display following a protracted fight.

The family of Marine Maj. Henry Courtney Jr. has been seeking the return of his medal from the Valley Forge-based Freedoms Foundation since around 2015, family members previously told Stars and Stripes.

They accused the foundation of breaching the agreement over how the medal would be used and requested it be sent instead to the St. Louis County Historical Society’s Veterans Memorial Hall in Duluth, Minn., which has a substantial Courtney display.

At first, the Freedoms Foundation, which was founded in 1949 by a group that included future President Dwight Eisenhower, refused. Courtney’s family members then took their fight public.
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Air National Guardsman pretended to be CIA agent to fool woman

New York Air National Guardsman accused of impersonating CIA agent to impress woman

Syracuse Media Group
By CHRIS LIBONATI
Published: February 19, 2019

CICERO, N.Y. (Tribune News Service) — A New York man who police have accused of impersonating a CIA agent to impress a woman works for the New York Air National Guard as a drone camera operator, according to a New York Air National Guard spokesman and an Air Force website.

Staff Sgt. Ryan Houghtalen, who is currently a sensor operator on the MQ-9 Reaper with the 174th Attack Wing, was charged by New York state police with misdemeanor criminal impersonation for pretending to be a CIA agent. He was arrested Monday, Feb. 18, 2019 and spent a day in jail before being released. VIA LINKEDIN

Staff Sgt. Ryan R. Houghtalen, 25, was charged with second-degree impersonation of a public servant, a misdemeanor, according to court records.

After showing the woman a fake CIA ID, Houghtalen told the woman how he was currently targeted by terrorists.

“He was telling her his job as a CIA agent is very dangerous,” said New York State Police spokesman Jack Keller. “He was hoping to use that information to start a relationship with her.”

Houghtalen told the woman he met at church that, because he was a CIA agent, both he and her were targets of ISIS, according to court documents.
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Find help to heal PTSD before you spread suicide

Fate of two soldiers sheds light on veteran suicide, points out where to get help

Delaware Online
Jerry Smith
February 19, 2019

Pfc. Jacob Jonza (left), and Sgt. Daniel Grime of Company B, 2nd Battalion, 325th Airborne Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division, provide security for their platoon during a patrol through a business district in Baghdad's Sha'ab neighborhood in 2008. (Photo11: Staff Sgt. Michael Pryor/Defense Visual Information Distribution Service)

Free: This abridged version of the story about veteran suicides is presented free as a public service to allow access to information to get help. To read the full story, please subscribe online.

Francis Graves III and Jacob Jonza each carried emotional scars after returning home from military deployments to the Middle East.

Ultimately, each tried to take his life. One lived, while the other died.

About 24 First State veterans kill themselves each year, part of 6,000 veterans who commit suicide nationwide, according to a 2016 U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs survey.

Because the number has risen in the last decade, both the Trump administration and Wilmington Veterans Administration Medical Center have made veteran suicide a priority.

Graves, from Townsend, lost his battle years after returning from a stint in Saudi Arabia when he killed himself in 2015.

Jonza tried to kill himself in 2008, but was saved.
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As you'll see in the video, the pain never stops for those you leave behind. Stop spreading suicide and start inspiring healing!

Go to the link and look at what help is out there for you in Delaware. If you live in another area of the country, you can find help to heal there too~


#CombatPTSD and #Take BackYourLife

Veteran in crisis began to heal on Arizona Trail

The Arizona Trail chrysalis for life

Payson Roundup
Micheal Nelson
February 19, 2019

Mike Buckley makes his way from the Roosevelt Marina where he met a very friendly and helpful bar owner.

Mike Buckley stared at the gun on his desk.

“It was the night I started to crack,” he said in front of more than 200 members of the Arizona Trail Association at its annual meeting recently.

The 30-year Army veteran commanded a bomb squad in Afghanistan, but after months of sending his boys home in pieces, he’d reached his breaking point.

Sitting with the gun and his despair, he had no way to know the Arizona Trail would save him.

Little did he know a bartender on a golf cart, an Australian woman with body odor and a Pine winemaker with a bathrobe encountered along the trail would restore his faith in humanity — and heal the wound in his soul.

He ultimately found himself again in a charred burn scar, near the end of the 800-mile-long trail.

“At Telephone Hill, passage 41 runs through a burn scar,” said Buckley. “It incinerated ponderosa pines. Even to go out through the devastation is profound because you see life. I became overwhelmed. It was like a chrysalis of new life and I realized it was who I was.”
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After VA GI Bill scam, jail next mission for ex-VA employee

11 years in jail for ex-Veterans Affairs official in disabled vet fraud scheme

WTOP News
Valerie Bonk
February 18, 2019

WASHINGTON — A former U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs official has been sentenced 11 years in prison for a $2 million bribery scheme involving a program for disabled military veterans.

James King, 63, of Baltimore, previously pleaded guilty to one count of honest services and money wire fraud, one count of bribery of a public official and one count of falsifying records to obstruct an investigation, authorities said in a news release.

King was sentenced Friday to serve 132 months in prison to be followed by three years of supervised release and to pay $155,000 in restitution to Veterans Affairs.

Three school owners and employees, who admitted to bribing King, were sentenced last week.

Albert Poawui, the owner of Atius Technology Institute, was sentenced to serve 70 months in prison and ordered to pay $1.5 million in restitution.

Sombo Kanneh, Poawui’s employee, was sentenced to serve 20 months in prison and ordered to pay $113,000 in restitution.

Michelle Stevens, the owner of Eelon Training Academy, was sentenced to serve 30 months in prison and ordered to pay $83,000 in restitution.

“James King and his associates exploited an important VA program that provides valuable services to our disabled military veterans,” said Justice Department Assistant Attorney General Brian Benczkowski in a release. “This prosecution once again demonstrates the Justice Department’s commitment to hold accountable those who seek to defraud government programs for their own personal enrichment.”
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Blue Water Veterans Closer to Justice

'Blue water' Vietnam veterans may finally be able to seek help with Agent Orange side effects

WCPO 9 News
Craig McKee
February 19, 2019

A Jan. 29 federal appeals court ruling could expand the pool of Vietnam veterans able to claim disability benefits connected to Agent Orange, a chemical weapon known to cause serious health problems in those exposed.

“It’s about time,” veteran John Ranson said Monday.

That category — those exposed — for years did not technically include Navy veterans like him.

Agent Orange was a defoliant herbicide American soldiers deployed to thin out the Vietnamese jungle, depriving guerilla insurgents of both cover and food. When its deadly long-term health impacts became clear, Congress passed the Agent Orange Act of 1991 to provide some financial relief for all those who served.

However, the Department of Veterans Affairs repeatedly denied the claims of so-called “Blue Water Veterans,” claiming only soldiers present on the Vietnamese mainland could reasonably claim to have interacted with the substance.

That’s not what Rex Settlemore, who served from 1967 to 1998 and spent two tours in Vietnam, thinks. He watched from the U.S.S. Durham and U.S.S. Richard S. Edwards as airplanes releases chemical weapons overhead, and he remembers how close to the shore both ships sailed.

Agent Orange particles must have made it into the ocean water he and the rest of the crew used, he said, if not the air they breathed. He believes some of the early deaths among his comrades from that time are connected to that exposure.

“Ships who ingested the sea water, even if the sea water was distilled for fresh water on board, would still contain the Agent Orange contaminants,” he said.
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Will the US do the right thing finally after Australia did it for their Vietnam veterans?