Columbus Air Force Base Major drowned on cruise ship

Air Force Major Drowns in Pool Aboard Cruise Ship

Sun Sentinel
By Ron Hurtibise
18 Jun 2019

An Air Force major drowned in a Caribbean Princess cruise ship pool Friday morning, the Broward Medical Examiner's Office said.

Stephen Osakue, 37, worked for the Air Force as a research pharmacist, according to a statement by the Medical Examiner's Office on Monday. Osakue was based at Columbus Air Force Base in Mississippi.

In an email statement, Princess Cruises spokesman Nagin Kamali said Osakue was found unresponsive in one of the ship's swimming pools about 5:15 a.m. Friday as the ship, which sails out of Port Everglades, was on the sixth day of a seven-day Western Caribbean voyage.

The ship's medical personnel were unable to revive him, Kamali said. "Appropriate authorities were notified and conducted an investigation. A final determination is pending, however authorities have indicated that this incident appears to be accidental."
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Roofers ripped off disabled veteran in Florida

Two Brevard roofers accused of scamming $35,000 from disabled veteran

Florida Today
Tyler Vazquez
June 18, 2019

Two Brevard County roofers are accused of stealing thousands of dollars from a disabled veteran, according to court records.

Craig Favero, 44, and Christopher Harris, 43, used intimidating tactics to compel the customer to pay for uncompleted work after Hurricane Irma, according to arrest records.

Harris, of Melbourne, was arrested Sunday and charged with exploitation of an elderly or disabled adult and grand theft. Favero, of Satellite Beach, received the same charges in addition to burglary of an occupied dwelling.

Favero and Harris were hired in November of 2017 to provide a new metal roof after damage from Hurricane Irma. At one point, Harris showed up at the customer's house and aggressively demanded payment but refused to accept her credit card, police said.

At various times, they would wait for the customer's husband to leave the house before showing up at her home to aggressively demand money for work they had not yet done, police said.
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Blind veterans in Florida got their hands on flag they can feel!

Blind veterans get a flag they can see with their hands

WCJB ABC 20 News
Landon Harrar 
June 13, 2019

GAINESVILLE, Fla. (WCJB) -- Even if they can't see it, they know it's there and it's there for them.

Here's how blind veterans in Lake City are being honored with their own type of flag that they can see, with their fingers.

It may not be very big, but for the visually impaired veterans in Lake City, it's powerful. A plaque with the stars and stripes raised up so you can feel it with your fingers and the pledge of allegiance written in braille now adorns the VA hospitals walls.

The sight of the flag over Iwo Jima boosted the spirits of marines fighting there.

But there are now many veterans who can't see at all.

Humberto Rodriguez is a U.S. Army veteran who is totally blind who he said "it is important from the standpoint of being blind and the place like we are now in the VA hospital in Lake City. It's very important to know that you're remembered because we're a very small percentage of the population the blind percentage is less than 2 percent."

There are nearly one thousand legally blind veterans in North Florida and four times that many categorized as visually impaired.

Judy McMillan works as a case manager to blind veterans through the VA, she said "to not be able to see the flag is kind of sad. To be able to touch this and remember all the things that this means to you, this way he can touch that and it's going to bring back all those memories of colors."

James Hodges served in the naval reserved and is classified as visually impaired, he said: " you're never far away from it and it's never far from you. So to be included and know there's a flag there for vision impairment even though we can't see the flag, we still can."
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Army veteran committed suicide after Lasik surgery

Ex-FDA Advisor Says Of LASIK Eye Surgery: ‘It Should Have Never Been Approved’

CBS News Pittsburgh
June 17, 2019

Burleson said the surgery caused her son, an Army veteran, to go legally blind. She said his chronic suffering caused him to take his own life. “They found the suicide note on him that said the doctor ruined his eyes,” she said.

PITTSBURGH (CBS) — A former FDA advisor, who told the government to approve LASIK eye surgery in the 1990s, is now saying it should have never happened.

It comes as more patients are having the procedure, and a number of them are seeing problems instead of seeing better.

“Imagine every good thing you see today, tomorrow you don’t,” said Rick Rackley, who gets emotional talking about his corrective eye surgery one year ago.

The gourmet food truck owner, who loves the outdoors, didn’t want to wear prescription sunglasses when he was outdoors. But he says LASIK eye surgery made his eyesight worse.

“There is substantial blurriness. It’s just fuzzy,” he said.

Heather Christensen also had LASIK eye surgery eight years ago.

“For months after that I was seeing rainbows and halos around everything,” she said.

She didn’t need glasses when she got the procedure, so it frustrates her that now she does. She blames LASIK for making her eyes worse.

“I was reaching 40. I was having trouble reading labels and small print,” she said explaining the reason behind getting LASIK.
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Same General Bull on stellate ganglion block

update:just found an old post on this and how they also found Bigfoot!

Medal of Honor recipient praises revolutionary neck injection treatment for PTSD

Military Times
By: J.D. Simkins
June 18, 2019

Two years later, the Army received a $2 million grant from the Department of Defense to begin a randomized, three-year study to test the effects of the treatment on a group of 240 veterans afflicted by PTSD

A patient is administered the SGB treatment by doctor and former Navy SEAL Sean Mulvaney. (Dr. Sean Mulvaney) A therapy for post-traumatic stress disorder that some doctors believe will “revolutionize the way PTSD is handled” was the subject of a recent “60 Minutes” report featuring a number of afflicted veterans, including one Medal of Honor recipient.

The breakthrough treatment, called stellate ganglion block, or SGB, has been shown to significantly diminish various symptoms of PTSD, such as depression, anxiety, and insomnia.

By injecting an anesthetic that numbs a bundle of nerves at the base of the neck, the SGB treatment dulls the area that serves as the body’s “fight or flight” response transmitter, providing instantaneous relief from some of the epidemic’s most chronic symptoms.

The shot, which was initially used to treat women experiencing menopausal hot flashes, is meticulously administered using ultrasound imagery to track the injection’s precision. Its results, meanwhile, are almost immediate and can last for months.

“I feel like a million pounds was taken off me,” Medal of Honor recipient and Marine veteran Dakota Meyer told “60 Minutes” immediately after being administered one of the shots.
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First...this is not new, so the "revolutionary" claim is about as old as the actual Revolutionary war we had. This is just one more thing that proves when it comes to "prevention of suicides" and spending money, the tax payers have all been snookered!

Now, take a look at this piece of news

A nearly century-old anesthesia technique is showing promise as treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder, relieving symptoms in 70 percent of combat veterans who received it once or more, according to a new review.

The therapy, stellate ganglion block, or SGB, quelled symptoms of PTSD, such as sleep disturbances, anxiety and depression, as measured by a checklist in nearly 100 service members suffering from combat-related stress within a week of treatment, according to the report published in October.

SGB involves injecting an anesthetic into a bundle of nerves — the stellate ganglion — that sits near the base of the neck.

In some cases, the shot, given under general anesthesia and guided to the exact spot by a physician using an ultrasound, gave instantaneous relief to patients with chronic PTSD symptoms, according to the review of cases published in the journal Military Medicine.

"Among patients with one-week followup (after injection), 78.6 percent of responders had an average reduction of their PTSD checklist score" of 22 points, the study noted.

That was reported on Military Times...in 2014!  If it worked...they would have been mass producing it!

Now, check this part out from the same article.

To date, Lipov has treated 40 military or veteran patients with PTSD, he said, largely financing the $1,000 cost per treatment through donations or out of his own pocket.The patients have paid for little besides a hotel room in Chicago for appointments, he said.

According to a new VA study of 60,000 post-9/11 veterans, 13.5 percent screened positive for PTSD.

Off Duty Police Officer Died Protecting Others

Wisconsin off-duty police officer shot dead while trying to stop armed robbery: Chief

ABC News
By EMILY SHAPIRO
Jun 18, 2019

An off-duty Wisconsin police officer was shot dead while trying to stop an armed robbery at a bar Monday night, according to the police chief.

Officer John Hetland, a 24-year veteran of the Racine Police Department, had worked the day-shift on Monday, Chief Arthel Howell said.

PHOTO: Racine police officer John Hetland was shot dead June 17, 2019. Racine Police Dept.

Racine police officer John Hetland was shot dead June 17, 2019. At 9:40 p.m., the veteran officer was off-duty when he saw an armed robbery unfolding at Teezers Tavern in Racine, about 25 miles south of Milwaukee.

"Hetland took immediate action," Howell said, and "during his effort to intervene," he was shot.
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"NAPALM GIRL" alive and well...and author

NAPALM GIRL: VIETNAM VETERANS EMBRACE KIM PHÚC AND HER MESSAGE OF LOVE DURING MILWAUKEE VISIT

Milwaukee Independent
Posted by Lee Matz
Jun 14, 2019

“Faith is what helped me learn how to move on, and rediscover joy in my life. I had to let go of my suffering since I was that 9 year old girl and forgive those who caused it.” Phúc added. “So, now my focus is on those children who were like me. I can use my life to give them hope. I am still alive, so I have to use my voice to speak for them, and all those who can’t. Children are suffering right now, and I want them to know, never give up.”

One of the most unforgettable images from the Vietnam War was of a little girl running naked, after surviving an accidental napalm attack on the village of Trảng Bàng. The composition of the Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph “The Terror of War,” taken by Vietnamese photographer Nick Ut, captured the shattered innocence and tragedy of the American conflict there.

No longer that 9-year-old little girl, Phan Thị Kim Phúc commemorated the 47th anniversary of that bombing during a visit in Wisconsin on June 8, with a powerful message of hope. Known as the “Napalm Girl,” Kim Phúc still carries the physical and emotional scars from that day in 1972.
> “In history, there have always been stories of resistance and fighting back. But now, my weapon is love and forgiveness,” said Phúc. “It all comes from that little girl in the napalm photo, and her life in Vietnam means a lot to me.”

Phúc traveled from her home in Canada to several cities across Wisconsin, giving keynote presentations and signing copies of her 2017 book Fire Road: The Napalm Girl’s Journey through the Horrors of War to Faith, Forgiveness and Peace.

Nick Ut, the Associated Press photographer who captured the iconic war image of her pain and desperation, joined Phúc for her visit to Madison. The events were designed to help raise funds to build a Peace Library in the Vietnamese province where she was born and raised. Children’s Library International has more than such 30 libraries in Vietnam and Cambodia, and number 35 will be in Trảng Bàng, 30 minutes north of what was then Saigon.

Chuck Theusch, a Wisconsin native and veteran who served in Vietnam from 1969-70, started the foundation in 1999 after his first return trip to the country. He had originally only intended to sponsor an orphan, like other veterans were doing at the time.
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Audit finds veterans accounts had "breach of the home's fiduciary" responsibilities

Audit finds funds missing from veterans' bank accounts at Grand Rapids home

Detroit Free Press
Paul Egan
June 14, 2019

LANSING – An audit at the Grand Rapids Home for Veterans found discrepancies totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars involving the bank accounts of residents, prompting a separate forensic analysis.

The Michigan Veterans Affairs Agency, which manages the home, transferred $304,250 into the bank accounts of home residents to make them whole, spokeswoman Suzanne Thelen told the Free Press on Thursday.

It's not clear from the audit whether any resident funds were improperly taken, but "the matter represents a breach of the home's fiduciary responsibilities to appropriately segregate and safeguard the personal funds attributed to it by its members," the report said.
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Vietnam Vet Wes Studi has 5 must see movies

5 Must-See Movies Starring Native American Vietnam Vet Wes Studi

Military.com
By James Barber

Wes Studi stars in "Hostiles." (Entertainment Studios)

Vietnam veteran Wes Studi, a hardworking actor with almost 100 film and TV credits, will become the first Native American to be awarded an Oscar when he receives an Honorary Award this fall at an Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences ceremony.

Studi didn't begin his acting career until he was in his thirties and has become one of Hollywood's go-to performers for Native American roles in modern westerns.
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Under the Radar Military.com

Studi got on the phone to talk about movie but we ended up talking about his own service in Vietnam and why Native Americans commit themselves to military service just as much as we mentioned "Hostiles." It's a great movie about coming to terms with your enemies after the war is over.

Moving is hard but staying is worse

Moving parts

PTSD Patrol
Kathie Costos
June 16, 2019

Today is a hard post for me to put up. We are leaving Florida. After 15 years, hundreds of events and countless veterans coming into our lives, it is time to move back north.

Our daughter moved a few years ago and the last trip we took up there, it finally felt like Christmas for us. I miss our family and all the memories we had, as well as the change in seasons.

The heat and humidity down here is not good for someone with my health filming for hours in the sun most of the year.

That said, my life is like any vehicle with moving parts. There are changes as we all get older and we need to be prepared to stop being comfortable complaining about them. 

Each of us know when it is time to change but the trick is actually doing it.

My husband needed to let some people we know about the move before I went public with it. In this video, the move is mentioned, so I figured it was the best time to let readers know why things have been a bit out of whack for a while.

Between getting this house ready for sale and trying to find the area we want to move, it has been really draining my energy.


editors note

In this post and the video, Sgt. Dave Matthews and I are reading and discussing parts of the book For The Love of Jack, His War My Battle.
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