After Iraq, student soldiers struggle to adjust

After Iraq, student soldiers struggle to adjust
May 1, 2008
By Jessica Belmares
Reporter
The 150-degree desert brought beading sweat to his face. The ground shook from loud bombs heard from unknown directions. The happiest moments came from grilling a sausage.

This was a typical day of work for Army Sgt. and Coalinga, Calif., sophomore Glen Newell.

"Iraq, to me, was more like being in jail, basically, with a chance of dying," Newell said. "You're surrounded by towers that are about 15 to 20 feet apart and they have gunners in them, and that's what separates you from the outside world."

Newell was 19 years old, had a .97 GPA at a local community college and lacked the discipline he needed in order to make a good life for himself.

"My parents were at peace with me being away. They were okay with it," Newell said. "It was something that we all prayed about and were worried about, but we knew God would help us through it."

Newell is one of 1.6 million U.S. troops that have been deployed to wars in Iraq and Afghanistan since October 2001.

He is also one of nearly the 20 percent of military service members who have returned from Iraq or Afghanistan and report symptoms of post traumatic stress disorder or major depression.

Now he is a war veteran and student at Baylor University.

go here for more
http://www.baylor.edu/lariat/news.php?action=story&story=50836

Report: Needs of vets with TBI still unmet

Report: Needs of vets with TBI still unmet

By Hope Yen - The Associated Press
Posted : Thursday May 1, 2008 12:25:04 EDT

WASHINGTON — Many Iraq war veterans with traumatic brain injury are not getting adequate health care and job assistance for their long-term recovery despite years of government pledges to do so, Veterans Affairs Department investigators say.

“Significant needs remain unmet,” according to the report released Thursday by the VA’s inspector general. It is the first to examine the Bush administration’s long-term efforts in supporting veterans with traumatic brain injury, which is for soldiers struck by roadside bombs a leading problem that often causes lasting emotional and behavioral difficulties.

The study tracked a group of 52 patients that received VA treatment after sustaining brain injury during a seven-month period in 2004. An initial review by the IG in 2006 found gaps in follow-up care and family counseling 16 months after the injury and urged the VA to improve long-term case management.

The VA pledged to coordinate the necessary follow-up care with the Pentagon, but the latest audit concludes that efforts are still falling short for roughly one in four patients.

It found that 10 of the 41 veterans who agreed to be interviewed said they weren’t getting needed help for health care, vocational rehabilitation, family support or housing. At least four patients specifically cited trouble in getting primary or specialty eye care, while others reported gaps with family counseling for problems such as depression and anger.

The report included a VA response in which the department acknowledged problems with case management but stated that with recent improvements it now had “systems in place to ensure that all veterans with TBI are being followed as their clinical needs require.”

For example, the VA pointed to plans announced last week to start calling 570,000 recent combat veterans to make sure they know what services are available to them.
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http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/05/ap_tbi_050108/

Victory for Veterans' Voting Rights

May 1 Victory for Veterans' Voting Rights: VA Reverses Policy, Allows Registration After Pressure from Congress and VCS

The VA bows to public and political pressure, but soldiers still must ask for help. "VA's new directive is progress," said Paul Sullivan, executive director of Veterans for Common Sense, whose mission has long included advocating for former soldiers' voting rights. "They changed from actively opposing it to passively supporting it."

Please see prior article, "April 10, VCS in the News: VA Creates Roadblocks to Voter Registration for Injured Veterans: -
http://www.veteransforcommonsense.org/ArticleID/9783


May 1, 2008 - The Department of Veterans Affairs has issued new rules allowing former soldiers living at VA facilities to ask for help with registering to vote and voting -- a decision that could increase participation in the 2008 election by wounded Iraq and Afghanistan War veterans.

The new rules, to be published on government websites this week, reverses a years-long policy where the VA opposed helping patients and others living on VA campuses -- notably homeless veterans -- with voter registration and voting, saying to do so would be a partisan activity.

"It is VHA policy to assist patients who seek to exercise their right to register and vote," said the new policy, issued by the Veterans Health Administration as Directive 2008-02. "This policy establishes a uniform approach to assembling and providing information on voter registration and voting to veterans who request it."
go here for more
http://www.veteransforcommonsense.org/articleid/9993

PTSD no longer a "security" problem

Security clearance Question 21 rewritten

By Pauline Jelinek - The Associated Press
Posted : Thursday May 1, 2008 12:56:42 EDT

WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Thursday urged troops to get psychiatric counseling for wartime mental health problems, saying it’s “not going to count against them” if they apply for national security clearances for sensitive jobs.

Gates announced a new policy under which troops and civilian defense employees will no longer have to reveal previous mental health treatment unless it was court-ordered or involved violence.

He spoke to reporters after he visited with patients at a new center at Fort Bliss, Texas, designed to treat soldiers returning from war with post-traumatic stress disorder.

Gates pointedly called PTSD one of the “unseen wounds” of war. He said there are two issues in dealing with it, the first being developing care and treatment.

“The second, and in some ways perhaps equally challenging, is to remove the stigma that is associated with PTSD and to encourage soldiers, sailors, Marines and airmen who encounter these problems to seek help,” he said.

Thousands of troops are coming home from Iraq and Afghanistan with war-related anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress. But many hesitate to get psychiatric care because they fear that could cost them their security clearances, harm their careers and embarrass them before commanders and comrades.

A question on the government application for security clearances — what Gates called “the infamous Question 21” — has long asked federal employees whether they have consulted a mental health professional in the past seven years. If so, they are asked to list the names, addresses and dates they saw the doctor or therapist, unless it was for marriage or grief counseling and not related to violent behavior.

The new question allows them to answer “no” if the counseling was for any of the following reasons and was not court-ordered:

• Strictly marital, family or grief counseling not related to their own violent behavior;

• Strictly related to adjustments from service in a military combat environment.

Gates said a letter will be attached to applications explaining the department’s position on therapy.

“Seeking professional care for these mental health issues should not be perceived to jeopardize an individual’s security clearance,” said the letter from James Clapper and David S.C. Chu, undersecretaries of defense for intelligence and personnel, respectively.
go here for more
http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/04/ap_clearancescreening_043008/

Now do you have any more excuses to not seek treatment? Except the fact the VA has not been able to deal with the need. Bang on the doors until you get it!

Silver Star for Pfc. Monica Brown followed by insult

Woman Gains Silver Star -- And Removal From Combat
Case Shows Contradictions of Army Rules

By Ann Scott Tyson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, May 1, 2008; Page A01

KHOST, Afghanistan -- Pfc. Monica Brown cracked open the door of her Humvee outside a remote village in eastern Afghanistan to the pop of bullets shot by Taliban fighters. But instead of taking cover, the 18-year-old medic grabbed her bag and ran through gunfire toward fellow soldiers in a crippled and burning vehicle.


Vice President Cheney pinned Brown, of Lake Jackson, Tex., with a Silver Star in March for repeatedly risking her life on April 25, 2007, to shield and treat her wounded comrades, displaying bravery and grit. She is the second woman since World War II to receive the nation's third-highest combat medal.

Within a few days of her heroic acts, however, the Army pulled Brown out of the remote camp in Paktika province where she was serving with a cavalry unit -- because, her platoon commander said, Army restrictions on women in combat barred her from such missions.

"We weren't supposed to take her out" on missions "but we had to because there was no other medic," said Lt. Martin Robbins, a platoon leader with Charlie Troop, 4th Squadron, 73rd Cavalry Regiment, whose men Brown saved. "By regulations you're not supposed to," he said, but Brown "was one of the guys, mixing it up, clearing rooms, doing everything that anybody else was doing."

In Afghanistan as well as Iraq, female soldiers are often tasked to work in all-male combat units -- not only for their skills but also for the culturally sensitive role of providing medical treatment for local women, as well as searching them and otherwise interacting with them. Such war-zone pragmatism is at odds with Army rules intended to bar women from units that engage in direct combat or collocate with combat forces.
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Closing Arguments in Suit on Veterans’ Mental Care

Asked on the stand whether he was playing down the traumatic stress issue, Dr. Kussman said, “It is unfair and inappropriate to stigmatize people with a mental health diagnosis when they are having what most people believe are normal reactions to an abnormal situation.”

Gordon P. Erspamer, the lead lawyer for the plaintiffs, said the answer indicated that the V.A. had failed to recognize the problem. “That is 19th-century thinking about PTSD and mental health issues,” he said, referring to post-traumatic stress disorder, a combat trauma.

Closing Arguments in Suit on Veterans’ Mental Care

By NEIL MacFARQUHAR
Published: May 1, 2008
SAN FRANCISCO — The issue of whether veterans with mental health problems are neglected or whether their sheer numbers are overwhelming the system divided closing arguments on Wednesday in a class-action lawsuit in federal court here.

Arturo J. Gonzalez, the lawyer arguing on behalf of the Veterans for Common Sense and the Veterans United for Truth, the two groups who brought the lawsuit against the Department of Veterans Affairs, said that the agency had failed to fully put into effect an action plan it developed four years ago.

The fact that it takes more than 180 days to process a veteran’s claim for benefits represents a “pattern of neglect,” Mr. Gonzalez said, adding that anyone who enters an appeal has to wait four and a half years for a resolution.

“I don’t know how any veteran can stand it and stick with it and get to the end of this process,” Mr. Gonzalez said.

He also emphasized the high rate of suicide attempts, 1,000 a month, among the 5.6 million veterans that the V.A. treats, as a sign that mental health issues need far greater attention.

Daniel Bensing, who made the closing arguments for the V.A., noted that 838,000 claims were filed last year, an increase of 25 percent, because of the jump in veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan and a surge from aging Vietnam veterans. While acknowledging the delays were lengthy, he said that the increase in claims for help was one of four factors causing problems.

go here for more

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/01/us/01vets.html?_r=1&ref=us&oref=slogin

There you have it. If PTSD is a normal reaction to an abnormal event,,,as posted here many, many, too many times, then why are they going to treat it for what it is? Why didn't they get ready for any of this instead of behaving so deplorably that it took a law suit to get some honest answers? What is it going to take to get the VA and the Bush Administration to stop torturing veterans and start to take care of all of them? Do they even come close to understanding what it's like to be wounded serving your country and then told you have to wait for the income to pay your bills for this long, or in most cases even longer? Do they know what stress like this does to a veteran or their families especially when they are dealing with a stress wound like PTSD? Unbelievable!!!

Peake's answer to disabled veterans is to wait and pray

Mikolajcik urged Peake to grant all veterans with the disease, also called amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a service-connected disability. Currently only Gulf War veterans are covered, Mikolajcik said. "My comrades in arms don't get the same benefits, and it's not fair," he said.

For unknown reasons, veterans have a 60 percent higher chance of developing ALS.

The retired general described the meeting as "very personable." "Now we just wait and pray," he said.

Apr. 30: New Outrage, as VA Secretary Peake Tells Veteran Sick with ALS to Wait and Pray

Jill Coley


The Post and Courier (Charleston, South Carolina)

Apr 30, 2008
http://www.veteransforcommonsense.org/ArticleID/9974

As I read this I had to read it twice. I thought maybe I took nap time early at my desk instead of on my bed. There are times when I read way too much and my eyes grow tired to the point where I'll skip a work here and there totally changing the meaning of what I'm reading. My brain could not tolerate what I read the first time. I thought perhaps I misread this and it said Peake is praying veterans don't have to wait anymore leading into a report that he is pressing congress and the Bush to make sure every veteran of this nation is treated with the utmost respect and the honor they all deserve for having served this nation. Alas, no. Then I thought a man in his position could not be so callous, so removed from the suffering of the veterans, so inept to deal with the crisis Nicholson left behind that he would actually answer all of this with "wait and pray" instead of solutions. The wait will be resolved in the next election provided it is not McCain taking over Bush's seat and appointing yet another pal of the faithful instead of the most competent person they could find. We all know what McCain's attitude and track record on veterans issue is and it's equal to if not worse than Bush's performance. Maybe what Peake is suggesting they pray about is that they survived the greatest threat to their lives at a time when we lose more when they come home from combat than we do during it.

John McCain needs to remember he's a veteran

GI Bill Sparks Senate War
Politico: Sens. McCain, Webb Locked In Battle Over Webb's New GI Bill
Comments 6
April 30, 2008


The Politico) This story was written by David Rogers.

From Annapolis to Vietnam and back to the Pentagon, John McCain and Jim Webb trod the same paths before coming to the Senate. Iraq divides them today, but there’s also the new kinship of being anxious fathers watching their sons come and go with Marine units in the war.

So what does it say about Washington that two such men, with so much in common, are locked in an increasingly intense debate over a shared value: education benefits for veterans?

“It’s very odd,” said former Nebraska Democratic Sen. Bob Kerrey, a mutual friend. And that oddness gets greater by the day as the two headstrong senators barrel down colliding tracks.

An Arizona Republican, McCain has all but locked up the Republican presidential nomination and is preparing for a fall campaign in which his support of the Iraq war is sure to be a major issue. Yet the former Navy pilot and Vietnam POW makes himself a target by refusing to endorse Webb’s new GI education bill and instead signing on to a Republican alternative that focuses more on career soldiers than on the great majority who leave after their first four years.

Undaunted, Webb, who was a Marine infantry officer in Vietnam, is closing in on the bipartisan support needed to overcome procedural hurdles in the Senate, where the cost of his package - estimated now at about $52 billion over 10 years - is sure to be an issue. But McCain’s support would seal the deal like nothing else, and the new Republican bill, together with a letter of opposition Tuesday from Defense Secretary Robert Gates, threatens to peel off support before the Democrat gets to the crucial threshold of 60 votes.
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John McCain loves to remind people he served during the Vietnam war and was a POW. He has held this part of his life up as a reason to make him Commander-in-Chief of the military and also seems to think this makes him the perfect person to become President. If this reason alone qualified him to become President then there are a lot of others who would also qualify to become President since there were a lot of other prisoners of war.


There are these from the occupation of Iraq

Most of the POWs were captured from the ambush of the 507th Maintenance Company when a convoy of vehicles from the 507th got lost and entered the Iraqi held town of Nasiriyah on March 23, 2003. The 507th was in charge of supporting actual combat troops but were not combat troops themselves and were ill equipped for fighting and quickly surrendered after all their weapons jammed. From their unit nine soldiers in the company were captured in the ambush and following soldiers surrendered to Iraqi forces:
Spc. Edgar Hernandez, 21, of Mission, Texas, was hit in the biceps of his right arm.
Spc. Joseph Hudson, 23, of Alamogordo, New Mexico, was shot three times, twice in the ribs and once in the upper left buttocks.
Spc. Shoshana Johnson, 32, a naturalized American from Panama, was shot with a single bullet that sliced through both ankles. She was the first black woman ever taken prisoner in the American military history.
Private First Class Patrick Miller, 23, of Wichita, Kansas
Sgt. James Riley - 31-year-old bachelor from Pennsauken, New Jersey. As the senior soldier present it was he who ordered the surrender.

And famous one

Jessica Lynch born April 26, 1983 in Palestine, West Virginia suffered a head laceration, an injury to her spine, and fractures to her right arm, both legs, and her right foot and ankle. She was knocked unconscious after her Humvee crashed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_P.O.W.s_in_2003_Invasion_of_Iraq

We also have these from the Gulf War

Acree, Clifford M. USMC Jan.18, 1991 POW 03/05/91
Andrews, William USAF -- MIA 03/05/91
Berryman, Michael C. USMC -- MIA 03/05/91
Cornum, Rhonda USA -- * 03/05/91
Dunlap, Troy USA -- * 03/05/91
Eberly, David W. USAF Jan. 17, 1991 POW 03/05/91
Fox, Jeffrey USAF Feb. 19, 1991 POW 03/05/91
Griffith, Thomas E. Jr. USAF Jan. 17, 1991 POW 03/04/91
Hunter, Guy L. Jr. USMC Jan. 18, 1991 POW 03/05/91
Lockett, David USA Jan. 20, 1991 MIA 03/04/91
Roberts, Harry M. USAF Jan. - 1991 POW 03/05/91
Rathbun-Nealy, Melissa USA Jan. 30, 1991 MIA 03/04/91
Slade, Lawrence R. USN Jan. 21, 19915,3 POW 03/04/91
Small, Joseph USMC Feb. 25, 1991 MIA 03/05/91
Sanborn, Russell A.C. USMC Feb. 09, 1991 MIA 03/05/91
Stamaris, Daniel USA -- * 03/05/91
Storr, Richard Dale USAF -- MIA 03/05/91
Sweet, Robert J. USAF Feb. - , 1991 MIA 03/05/91
Tice, Jeffrey Scott USAF Jan. -, 1991 POW 03/05/91
Wetzel, Robert USN Jan. 17, 1991 MIA 03/04/91
Zaun, Jeffrey Norton USN Jan. 17, 1991 POW 03/04/91
http://www.nationalalliance.org/gulf/returnees.htm

And more from Vietnam

List of 1,205 P.O.W.s
In April 1993, Harvard scholar Stephen Morris discovered a document in a Soviet archive indicating that Vietnam may have misled Americans about the numbers of P.O.W.s it held at the war's end. The document, a translation of writings allegedly prepared by North Vietnamese general Tran Van Quang, stated that North Vietnam held 1,205 American P.O.W.s as of September 1972, just a few months before the release of the 591 P.O.W.s in Operation Homecoming. U.S. government officials suggested that the discrepancy in numbers might have been an exaggeration on the part of Tran Van Quang, or that a confusion of statistics between American soldiers and South Vietnamese commandos caused by an error in translation. Several independent analysts, however, including former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and former National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski, said that the document appeared authentic.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/vietnam/trenches/mia.html

Then you have survivors of the Korean War as well. But the only thing all of these people have in common is that they served their country and were held in some of the most horrific conditions anyone could endure. Fully 100% of people who have been tortured develop PTSD because of the treatment they received.

Yes, Mc Cain was a POW but he has also been a senator with a very poor record of voting for veterans. Again if being a POW qualifies him to be President then line up everyone else and let them all run against McCain. The media will not go after any of them on what they say because they never question McCain even though he has a record to either stand or fall on as a Senator.

McCain runs as a veteran but he also runs away from being one when it comes time to taking care of them. When the votes were needed to take care of the wounded from Iraq and Afghanistan, before he put his hat in the ring for the presidency, he voted against veterans. Did anyone ask him why?

These are just a few.

In mid 2007, Senator Reid noted that McCain missed 10 of the past 14 votes on Iraq. However, here is a summary of a dozen votes (two that he missed and ten that he voted against) with respect to Iraq, funding for veterans or for troops, including equipment and armor. I have also included other snippets related to the time period when the vote occurred.

September 2007: McCain voted against the Webb amendment calling for adequate troop rest between deployments. At the time, nearly 65% of people polled in a CNN poll indicted that "things are going either moderately badly or very badly in Iraq.

July 2007: McCain voted against a plan to drawdown troop levels in Iraq. At the time, an ABC poll found that 63% thought the invasion was not worth it, and a CBS News poll found that 72% of respondents wanted troops out within 2 years.

March 2007: McCain was too busy to vote on a bill that would require the start of a drawdown in troop levels within 120 days with a goal of withdrawing nearly all combat troops within one year. Around this time, an NBC News poll found that 55% of respondents indicated that the US goal of achieving victory in Iraq is not possible. This number has not moved significantly since then.

February 2007: For such a strong supporter of the escalation, McCain didn’t even bother to show up and vote against a resolution condemning it. However, at the time a CNN poll found that only 16% of respondents wanted to send more troops to Iraq (that number has since declined to around 10%), while 60% said that some or all should be withdrawn. This number has since gone up to around 70%.

June 2006: McCain voted against a resolution that Bush start withdrawing troops but with no timeline to do so.

May 2006: McCain voted against an amendment that would provide $20 million to the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) for health care facilities.

April 2006: McCain was one of only 13 Senators to vote against $430,000,000 for the Department of Veteran Affairs for Medical Services for outpatient care and treatment for veterans.

March 2006: McCain voted against increasing Veterans medical services funding by $1.5 billion in FY 2007 to be paid for by closing corporate tax loopholes.

March 2004: McCain once again voted for abusive tax loopholes over veterans when he voted against creating a reserve fund to allow for an increase in Veterans' medical care by $1.8 billion by eliminating abusive tax loopholes. Jeez, McCain really loves those tax loopholes for corporations, since he voted for them over our veterans' needs.

October 2003: McCain voted to table an amendment by Senator Dodd that called for an additional $322,000,000 for safety equipment for United States forces in Iraq and to reduce the amount provided for reconstruction in Iraq by $322,000,000.

April 2003: McCain urged other Senate members to table a vote (which never passed) to provide more than $1 billion for National Guard and Reserve equipment in Iraq related to a shortage of helmets, tents, bullet-proof inserts, and tactical vests.

August 2001: McCain voted against increasing the amount available for medical care for veterans by $650,000,000. To his credit, he also voted against the 2001 Bush tax cuts, which he now supports making permanent, despite the dire financial condition this country is in, and despite the fact that he indicated in 2001 that these tax cuts unfairly benefited the very wealthy at the expense of the middle class.
http://www.veteransforcommonsense.org/articleid/9559

When the media finally asked him about the new GI Bill, first he said he didn't have time to read it. Imagine that! All these veterans coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan and he didn't have time to even read the bill because he was out campaigning to become Commander-in-Chief of the military. Then the media asked him again why he did not support the bill. This time he responded by saying that he didn't think it was a good idea to make it more "attractive" to leave the military than to stay in it.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, seemed to give a thumbs down to bipartisan legislation that would greatly expand educational benefits for members of the military returning from Iraq and Afghanistan under the GI Bill.
McCain indicated he would offer some sort of alternative to the legislation to address concerns that expanding the GI Bill could lead more members of the military to get out of the service.
Read the whole story here.

The questions here are very simple ones. If Mc Cain wants to run as a veteran then why does he run away from what veterans need from him? Why does he keep turning his back on other veterans? Why is the media afraid to ask him questions they would have no problem at all asking anyone else? Do they think fact checking and asking him questions would insult the fact he was a POW? If that's the case then this would qualify all POW's this nation has for taking over as President and I'm sure they could all do a much better job for the sake of their brothers and sisters who deserve and earned so much more than he is willing to provide them with.


Chaplain Kathie Costos
Namguardianangel@aol.com
www.Namguardianangel.org
www.Namguardianangel.blogspot.com
www.Woundedtimes.blogspot.com
"The willingness with which our young people are likely to serve in any war, no matter how justified, shall be directly proportional to how they perceive veterans of early wars were treated and appreciated by our nation." - George Washington

Florida leads nation in attacks on homeless

Florida leads nation in attacks on homeless
Kate Santich Sentinel Staff Writer
April 30, 2008

Florida leads the nation in the number of violent attacks against the homeless -- a trend called "bum bashing" fueled largely by teenage boys targeting homeless men for sport -- according to a new study.

The increase nationwide in violent attacks, including a 40 percent rise last year in the number of homeless people killed by such violence, was detailed in a report released Tuesday by the National Coalition for the Homeless and the National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty.

"If these brutal attacks were committed against any other religious or minority group to the same degree, there would be a national outcry," said Michael Stoops, acting executive director of the national coalition.

He and other advocates for the homeless urged federal and state lawmakers to classify violence against the homeless as a hate crime, which would carry stiffer penalties and help keep better track of the problem.

The report's authors say their numbers likely underestimate the problem because they had to rely on tracking down the details of individual news accounts of attacks against the homeless. Yet in recent years, those numbers dramatically outpaced all categories of hate crimes combined.

Last year alone, there were 29 attacks on homeless people in Florida -- six of them fatal, the report said. Only attacks perpetrated by people who were not homeless themselves were counted.
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Yes but, this is such a "Christian" state the legislators think we should all drive around with the cross on the ass end of our cars!

No it's not a joke.

Florida's 'I Believe' plates hit roadblock
Story Highlights
Religious license plates not in legislation passed Tuesday in Florida

Proposed "I Believe" plate would feature cross, stained-glass window

Similar plate being considered in South Carolina, recently won state Senate approval
go here for more
http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/04/30/license.plate.ap/index.html?iref=mpstoryview

There was a time when being a Christian was something so sacred that it lived within us, in what we did and what we said as well as how we treated each other. No one needed to slap a fish on our cars or a bumper sticker to prove we were "Christians" at the same time we flipped someone off on the road, ran a red light because we were in a hurry or refused to stop and help someone who was unfortunate enough to break down in our lane.

There was a time when we really noticed the fact that Christ said out of his own mouth that he was the new covenant between God and man and he was dying for our sins because no one sin was worse than another but yet again Florida legislators would rather take the easy way out and appease fraudulent advertisers wanting to make a buck off a "show of faith" instead of actually supporting things that Christ stood for.

They should all be ashamed of themselves. I guess it wasn't bad enough the police were ordered to get the homeless off the streets and out of sight so that the tourist wouldn't have to see how little this state takes care of the most needy among us. Now we have one more sign of just how low these people are willing to sink.

Maybe they figure that homeless people cannot donate to their campaigns and the probability they would vote is far fetched but what they don't understand is the rest of us are paying attention and we're tired of being humiliated on the national news. This may be the land of Disney and amusement parks but this is not fantasy land. It's about time they started to act like the good Christians they pretend to be and actually live up to what Christ taught. Drive down any main street in Florida and you'll see more churches than you can count. Don't they understand that most of those churches have real Christians in them who actually do care about the homeless, the poor and the needy? Isn't that what being a Christian is supposed to be?


Chaplain Kathie Costos

Chaplain and King in Iraq

Chaplain would like to keep ministering to troops in Iraq, but knows a tribe in Ghana wants its king back Chaplain Nana E Kweku Bassaw joins the small circle of downcast, sun-beaten soldiers. The unassuming Army major slips into the conversation. Although it is early in the 2nd Brigade, 1st Armored Division’s deployment, and the fighting is yet to start, Bassaw wants to check the spiritual pulse. “So how are you doing?” he asks one soldier.

In his native Ghana, he is the king-elect of one of the country’s largest tribes. His official title is paramount chief of the Sekondi region, which includes about 500,000 Fanti tribe members.