Disabled veteran finds little help 2 years after Hurricane Harvey
Victoria Advocate
By Elena Anita Watts
Aug 24, 2019
“It’s very uncomfortable with no kitchen and no fridge; I eat out all of the time, and I’m tired of it,” Ruiz said. “It’s stressful, and I have PTSD, which makes it worse.”
Rain poured down the old shingle walls of the Callis Street house owned by Jesus Ruiz Jr., 67, when Hurricane Harvey hit two years ago.
A green tarp is still stretched across the roof of Jesus Ruiz Jr.’s home in the Silver City neighborhood of Victoria. Ruiz, 67, was ineligible to receive aid after Hurricane Harvey because he is purchasing the home through owner finance. The Homeowner Assistance Program recently changed its assistance criteria to accept these types of ownership agreements. Ruiz will have to reapply, which will take four to six months.
Evan Lewis | elewis@vicad.com
Harvey had blown into town with wind gusts that reached 83 miles per hour, and before they died down, they cracked and carried shards of glass and sheets of rain into Ruiz’s house.
Two years later, Ruiz, a disabled veteran, remains essentially homeless.
Ruiz, who lives alone in the house, evacuated before the storm hit and returned when the flooding subsided and the roads were passable again. He found numerous damaged trees in his yard, which he and friends immediately began clearing. Shingles were missing from his roof, windows were blown in and his walls were waterlogged. He has since torn out the cabinets, countertops and particle board flooring in his kitchen and has lived without a functional place to prepare a meal.
Ruiz served as a structural mechanic in the Marine Aircraft Wing from 1970 to 1974. He served in several countries and across the United States, but on April 14, 1974, he fell mysteriously ill. He spent about six months in a hospital in Japan where he ran a high fever and dropped down to 95 pounds. Bedridden, he was sent back to the United States on a stretcher with a service-connected disability.
Ruiz had worked for about seven months on aircraft used to spray Agent Orange during the war. His health improved enough that he was able to leave the hospital, but he has been sick ever since. And many of his symptoms have worsened with age. He suffers from fibromyalgia, insomnia, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder, and he takes 14 medications a day.
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Vietnam veteran evicted from apartment; people seen rummaging through belongings
by: WBTW
Posted: Aug 23, 2019
Trinemeyer said the veteran suffered a heart attack at around the same time he got the eviction notice and only recently got out of the hospital.
MYRTLE BEACH, S.C. (WBTW) – A Carolina Forest veteran is headed to New York after an eviction.
Veterans Outreach Program Specialist Chris Aranda, with the Department of Veterans Affairs, told WBTW the veteran, identified as Tom, was released from the hospital around 3 p.m. on Wednesday and was dropped off at a homeless shelter.
When VA members went to the shelter, the veteran wasn’t there, Aranda said. The members went looking for the veteran and found him on Oak Street.
The veteran stayed in a hotel overnight, where he was able to shower and sleep in a bed, Aranda added. On Thursday, volunteers from various vet organizations helped the veteran load the rest of his things before he heads to New York to stay with family and friends.
“Very unfortunate event that he came home to this, but veteran community stepped up once again and ensured we leave no veteran behind,” Aranda said.
“I will never leave a veteran behind. If there’s a veteran in need, if there’s a veteran in the street, if a veteran just needs a meal – I’m there,” said Chase McCarthy.
Some volunteers stayed overnight to protect Tom’s property.
“We basically just stayed here to make sure that what was left of his property was, that nobody else looted or messed with anything else. A lot of his stuff had already been taken. To my understanding it had been here a few days already,” said Chuck Hooks.
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Trump Signs Bill Protecting Disability Payments for Veterans Who Declare Bankruptcy
Military.com
By Patricia Kime
23 Aug 2019
President Donald Trump signed legislation Friday that prevents debt collectors from seizing veterans' disability compensation if they declare bankruptcy.
U.S. President Donald Trump stands with World War II veterans during a ceremony to mark the 75th anniversary of D-Day at the Normandy American Cemetery in Colleville-sur-Mer, Normandy, France, Thursday, June 6, 2019. (AP Photo/David Vincent)
The Honoring American Veterans in Extreme Need, or HAVEN, Act extends the same protection for veterans disability payments that's afforded Social Security disability payments: By law, debtors are now not allowed to count these benefits as disposable income subject to seizure during a bankruptcy.
The bipartisan legislation, introduced earlier this year by Rep. Lucy McBath, D-Georgia, in the House and Sens. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wisconsin, and John Cornyn, R-Texas, in the Senate, passed by voice vote in both legislative bodies and was widely hailed by veterans groups.
"Our disabled veterans should never be penalized for injuries they sustained in service to our country. They have earned their benefits, and it's our duty to stand up for them if they fall on tough times," McBath said.
"By protecting their disability compensation during bankruptcy, we can help [veterans] and their families regain financial stability," Cornyn said after the Senate passed the measure.
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Memorial cross returned to Marine Veteran's widow
ABC 10 News
Author: Giacomo Luca
August 24, 2019
A memorial cross at-risk of being removed due to construction has been returned to the widow of a U.S. Marine veteran through the help of a community member.
ANTELOPE, Calif. — A patriotically painted red, white, and blue cross with both stars and stripes was placed alongside Don Julio Boulevard in Antelope, California following the 2014 shooting death of Marine veteran Ryan Matthew Shannon.
Gina Schaeffer, who lives nearby, drove past it for the five years that it’s been there. She’d always pay respects as she drove past but says she never stopped.
“I always noticed that cross, and I’ve always wondered who it belonged to and what it was associated with,” Schaeffer said.
Recently, a construction project in that area grew close to where the cross was standing. Afraid it would be removed or bulldozed, she stopped and asked construction crews if she could bring it home, and they allowed her to do so. Afterward, she took to community pages on Facebook to seek out why the cross was there and who she should return it to.
“The minute I picked it up and felt the solidness and the heaviness of it and the well builtness (sic) of it, I just felt a really big emotional feeling that you know this was bigger than just finding the family. It needed to go back home,” Schaeffer said.
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Vietnam vet hurt after $1,300 tickets for Rolling Stones concert in Phoenix vanish
AZ Family
LiAna Enriquez
August 26, 2019
Things quickly changed when Constable tried to retrieve those downloaded tickets, and they were gone. He said he called Vivid Seats, the company he purchased the tickets from. He said he was shocked when they told him his purchase had been disputed and reversed, so they re-sold his tickets.
PHOENIX (3TV/CBS 5) -- A Marine veteran who went to a Rolling Stones concert in the 1960s says he was thrilled to get the opportunity to go again more than 50 years later. But he says his tickets for Monday's concert vanished after purchasing them.
"This will probably be my last hoorah cause I’m in my 70s and they’re in their 70s," said Vietnam veteran Lenny Constable. "One of us may go before the other one, but this might very well be the last chance I have to see their concert."
Constable says he's been a life-long Rolling Stones fan.
“That was good machine-gun music. It got ya wired up a little bit," he said.
He says their music helped him through the hard times.
“You'd come back after being out in the bush for 30 days or so, and they'd blast them out," said Constable. "'Paint It Black’ and stuff like that."
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2 men falsely claimed military service to get their cases moved to a veterans court
Associated Press
August 25, 2019
Before they can be eligible for parole, Pinski ordered both men to hand write the names of all 6,756 Americans killed in Iraq and Afghanistan; write out the obituaries of the 40 Montanans killed in Iraq and Afghanistan and send hand-written letters of apology to several veterans groups identifying themselves as having lied about military service to receive help and possibly a lesser sentence through a veterans court.
The first Veterans Treatment Court (VTC) was started in 2008 in Buffalo, N.Y. There are 220 operational VTCs in the United States with approximately 11,000 veterans currently participating. (U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs)
GREAT FALLS, Mont. — Two Montana men who were sentenced to prison for violating the terms of the probation in separate crimes won’t be eligible for parole until they complete a writing assignment given because they falsely claimed to have served in the military to have their cases moved to a veterans court.
Cascade County District Judge Greg Pinski sentenced Ryan Patrick Morris, 28, and Troy Allan Nelson, 33, on Friday. Morris got 10 years in prison for violating the terms of his probation for felony burglary, while Nelson got five years on a drug possession conviction. Pinski suspended three years of each defendant’s sentence.
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