HOA lost to Vietnam veteran and his patriotic van after neighbors stood up!

Vietnam veteran wins dispute with Henderson HOA over patriotic van

NBC 3 News Las Vegas
by Kelsey Thomas
April 24th 2019

“Being a veteran and serving other veterans should not be offensive.” Donna Lee

The HOA told Johnson to remove the van from his driveway or have it towed and face fines.

(sorry wrong video attached to the report so just the picture on this one. KC)

“I was wondering if we had someone that was unpatriotic (in my neighborhood)?", said Johnson.

The Vietnam veteran fought back.

Now, he’s claiming victory and it’s partly thanks to the support of his neighbors after a story on News 3.

Johnson said his fight is finally over.

The homeowners association in Palm Hills backed down from its order to remove the van from his driveway.

“It’s just a vehicle to transport honor guard to and from the cemetery,” said Johnson.

“To let them know, and their family, they’ll never be forgotten,” he continued.
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First Navy SEAL team has last living member

Last remaining member of first-ever Navy SEAL team celebrates 94th birthday

CBS NEWS
BY CAITLIN O'KANE
APRIL 24, 2019

From the beginning, Dawson was a bit rebellious. When he missed the deadline to apply for the unit, he snuck through a window to add his application was in the pile. He was eventually chosen to be a part of the team of 10, specializing in explosives.

Bill Dawson, the last living member of the first-ever U.S. Navy SEAL team, celebrated his 94th birthday earlier this month, and CBS News visited him to hear stories that only he can tell.

Dawson was just 17 when he enlisted. To get on the elite team, he snuck through a window to hand in his application past the deadline.

Dawson is now in a wheelchair and he uses oxygen, but he was once part of an elite special operations team. The veteran from Washington, D.C. was just 17 years old when he enlisted in the Navy and he and his teammates were deployed on top-secret and often life-threatening missions.

Before they were known as Navy SEALs, they were Frogmen. "There was no such thing as SEALs, so Frogmen seemed like an appropriate name," Dawson told CBS News.

Dawson served in the Pacific arena from 1943 to 1945, when the Japanese surrendered. As the last living Frogman, he doesn't have anyone to relate to. But he does have "the book" — a three-ring binder that is so stuffed with information, it's about six inches thick.

Dawson admits it wasn't always easy to stay brave. "Of course I was scared," he said. "Anybody tells you they wasn't scared, I'll call them a liar." He said it isn't about not being scared — it's about what you do when you are scared.
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Driver who plowed into strangers had history of mental illness

Suspect in Sunnyvale ramming of crowd moaned, ‘Thank you, Jesus,’ over and over

San Francisco Chronicle
Evan Sernoffsky , Matthias Gafni , Gwendolyn Wu and Lauren Hernández
April 24, 2019

Joshua Peoples, 38, said his brother served in the military overseas. The U.S. Army Reserve confirmed he served as a civil affairs specialist “from March 2004 to July 2009, attaining the rank of Sergeant. He deployed to Iraq from June 2005 to May 2006.”

Moments after Army veteran Isaiah Joel Peoples careened his car through a crowded Sunnyvale intersection, sending bodies flying through the air, the 34-year-old Sunnyvale resident with a history of mental illness praised Jesus, according to investigators and a witness.

“Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus,” a witness said Peoples moaned after emerging from his wrecked car Tuesday night, just feet from a crooked line of crumpled bicycles and mangled, bloody bodies.

Peoples was arrested at the scene, and police, who said they believe his actions were intentional but not connected to any terrorist group, booked him on suspicion of eight counts of attempted murder. They said he did not express remorse.
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Col. Gregory Townsend died helping stranger on the road

Army hero killed while helping stranded driver along Virginia highway

BY TRIBUNE MEDIA WIRE
APRIL 24, 2019

The 46-year-old served two tours in Iraq (February 2003 – February 2004 and August 2009 – August 2010) and one in Afghanistan (October 2009 – January 2010). He arrived at Fort Lee in July 2017 where he assumed command of the brigade.

FORT LEE, Va. - A decorated military veteran was killed after stopping on a Virginia highway to help a stranger change a flat tire on April 18, according to a Fort Lee spokesperson.

Col. Gregory Townsend, commander of the 23rd Quartermaster Brigade at the U.S. Army Quartermaster School, died Monday.

"As he finished changing the tire, the vehicle fell on him," Fort Lee spokesperson Dani Johnson said. "He was taken by a life flight helicopter to VCU Critical Care Hospital, Richmond, Virginia, where he received treatment until his death."

The incident on Route 460 happened April 18.

"The loss of Col. Greg Townsend is devastating for his family and the Army," Brig. Gen. Douglas M. McBride Jr., 55th Quartermaster General and commandant at the Quartermaster School.
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Hundreds of Boy Scouts sexually abused came forward

Hundreds of former Boy Scouts come forward with new claims of sexual abuse

USA TODAY
Cara Kelly
April 24, 2019

"I probably would have gotten kicked out" for coming forward at the time, Kimber said.

Kretschmer said he was abused by a Scout leader who was his psychologist through the Air Force base where his dad was stationed. He was a kid with attention issues, he said, which were less understood at the time.

"Nobody would have listened to me," Kretschmer said. "The problem is, then you think, ‘Is it something I did? What was I doing, was it my fault? If I hadn’t done whatever, he wouldn’t have done that.’ It took me years and years to realize it wasn’t that little child’s fault. It was the adult who had control."

More than 200 individuals have come forward with new allegations of sexual abuse by members of the Boy Scouts of America in recent weeks as a trio of law firms seek to uncover unidentified child abusers.

Advised by Tim Kosnoff, an attorney who has litigated more than a thousand cases of sexual misconduct against organizations such as the Scouts and the Mormon church, the group of attorneys said it has identified 150 alleged pedophiles never before publicly accused.

The law firms began running TV and Google ads encouraging victims to sign on as clients for a potential lawsuit after a report in December that Boy Scouts of America – rebranded as Scouts BSA – prepared for a possible Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing. The volume already gathered could double the number of cases the organization already is facing although a bankruptcy would halt existing and future litigation, the attorneys told USA TODAY.

In a statement about the new allegations, Scouts BSA said, "Any incident of child abuse is one too many, and nothing is more important than the safety and protection of children in our Scouting programs."

Kosnoff and his colleagues said a bankruptcy filing would have a chilling effect on victims' ability to expose predators who are a threat to their communities. The number of victims who have signed on since last month is evidence for the Seattle-based attorney that many more have yet to step forward.
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Army veteran-mailman killed helping protect woman

Mailman fatally shot by teen was father of four, Army veteran

KOAT
Kay Dimanche
Reporter
Jozelyn Escobedo
Digital Editor
April 23, 2019

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M.

A U.S. Postal Service mailman was gunned down Monday afternoon and police believe a 17-year-old boy is the one who shot him. According to an arrest warrant, 47-year-old Jose Hernandez was trying to intervene in a fight between the teen and the teen’s mother at the time of the shooting.

Hernandez's Bishop tells KOAT he was an Army veteran, husband and father of four.

The shooting happened in the 700 block of Terracotta SW, which is near Tower Road and 98th Street.

Xavier Zamora's mother told police Hernandez was trying to help her, but Zamora became "aggressive" with the mailman because he tried using Mace on the teen.
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Video of Afghanistan veteran being stabbed to death regarded as "trophy"

Fugitive captured in fatal stabbing of Cherry Hill war veteran

Philly.com
by Robert Moran
April 23, 2019

A 26-year-old man wanted in the fatal stabbing in Chinatown of a 28-year-old Afghanistan War veteran from Cherry Hill was captured by authorities Tuesday morning in Southwest Philadelphia.

Victor Yan has been accused of killing Brett Berdini, who was attacked by a group in the 1000 block of Race Street shortly before 2 a.m. last Oct. 14.

The attack, including the stabbing, was recorded on a camera phone by one of the assailants and shared among the attackers and others for their amusement, said Anthony Voci Jr., chief of the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office homicide unit.

“We have a generation that is apparently obsessed with recording just about everything, and that includes violent crimes,” Voci said.

Voci said the defendants regarded the video as a “trophy.”
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Afghanistan veteran and wife on motorcycle killed by vulture

Army Veteran, Wife Killed in Crash With Vulture: Kansas Patrol

By The Associated Press
April 22, 2019

MEDICINE LODGE, Kan.—Authorities say a vulture caused a crash that killed an Army veteran and his wife as they rode a motorcycle in southern Kansas.

The Kansas Highway Patrol says the bird came out of a ditch Saturday afternoon, April 20, and struck 42-year-old Brandon Husband, of Fowler, in the head on a rural road near Medicine Lodge, about 75 miles southwest of Wichita. 

The motorcycle then went off the road, struck a barbed wire fence and overturned. The patrol says neither Husband nor his wife, 43-year-old Jennifer Lynn Husband , was wearing a helmet.

Brandon Husband’s obituary says he served one tour in Kosovo, three in Afghanistan and was part of an Iraqi soldier training mission on the Iraq-Jordan border.

The Husbands leave behind four children.
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Police officer found dead at headquarters

Montebello police officer dies after being shot with his own gun at police headquarters

Los Angeles Times
By RICHARD WINTON
APR 22, 2019

A Montebello police officer who had been on the force less than a year died of a gunshot wound Sunday after discharging his weapon inside police headquarters, authorities said.

Officer Kenneth Utsinger, 41, was pronounced dead at the police station at 1600 W. Beverly Blvd. at 5:24 a.m. Sunday, according to Sarah Ardalani, a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles County coroner’s office.

While the call for assistance came in as a suicide, an autopsy is still pending for Utsinger, who lived in Downey, according to the coroner’s office.

A source familiar with the investigation but not authorized to discuss it said Utsinger’s body was found inside the police station’s locker room.
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PTSD Patrol 2 years of giving the keys to hope

PTSD PATROL 2nd anniversary

Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
April 23, 2019


Getting road hogs with high beams off the road, was behind the creation of PTSD Patrol two years ago. It is one of the reasons why this post is not going up on PTSD Patrol. Doom and gloom needs to be left off there.

A group of us like minded workers of the harvest were tired of other people taking the attention away from healing so they could keep talking about failing.

That is exactly what raising awareness that veterans are committing suicide is doing. Talking about what failed for more veterans than they can even imagine.

The proof was right before their eyes, but they did not bother to even look. They did not bother to read the report they found so important they began countless fundraisers after snagging a headline.

The report they claimed was so important stated clearly that it was limited data from just 21 states...worse than not even half, because the states that were not counted, were among the largest veteran populations.

California and Illinois passed legislation to track veterans committing suicide long after the report was issued. Arizona will start to do it. 

The followup report with "20 veterans a day" was almost as useless. While the VA stated it involved all 50 states, including statistics from the CDC, the CDC reported that it did not have total numbers from states like Texas and Florida. 

As for the VA itself, less than half of the veterans in this country have sought benefits from the VA. The VA and states do not count veterans without "honorable discharges" as veterans, leaving them out of reports.

Now that you have a better idea of what is not known, add in these parts;

➣The majority of known veterans committing suicide are over the age of 50.

➣The known number of veterans committing suicide was 20 a day back in 1999 with 5 million more veterans alive at the time.

➣The percentage of known suicides has risen, in the veterans population as well as those currently serving this country.

According to the Department of Defense there were 504 service members who committed suicide in 2017. As of the 3rd quarter of 2018, there were 375. The total report should have been released the beginning of April, but as of this morning, it has not been released.

Recent news reports have revealed an increase to a ten year high.

Raising awareness about a subject they know very little about, has become a business. People making a great living off veterans no longer wanting to live. Worse is, they seem to find it acceptable to be profitable while "having fun" at the same time.

Road hogs with their high beams on endanger those behind them by clogging up the way for others to pass them by. They blind those coming the opposite way. Collisions occur because they want all eyes on them instead of on what will get other drivers on the right road to be glad they survived what caused PTSD in the first place.

This is my 37th year on this road. I had to learn how to read the road maps to know the way out, just as I had to learn the rules of the road. Along the way I encountered those who were prepared to lead and those who just getting in the way.

All of this matters because it is my life. It is all personal to me and that is how I started out. I needed to know for the sake of my family. Once I learned, I knew there were even more just as lost as I was. That is why I share the knowledge gained the hard way.

Much like a moped is different from a Harley, that is the difference between raising suicide awareness and actually doing the work to prevent them from happening in the first place.

Lives can be changed when we, not only offer hope, but give them the keys to use it!

#BreakTheSilence and #TakeBackYourLife