Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Congress members want answers on Lejeune toxic water report

Congress members want answers on Lejeune report
January 31, 2012 4:47 PM
ASSOCIATED PRESS

CAMP LEJEUNE — Three members of Congress from North Carolina, along with lawmakers from other states, are worried that information left out of a new report on water contamination at Camp Lejeune could set a troubling precedent for future research on the subject.

The three sent a letter to Dr. Thomas Frieden, director of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, asking why an affiliated agency blacked out information in its Jan. 19 report on the location of water systems used on the base that houses Marines.

The Marine Corps said that was sensitive national security information. The lawmakers are concerned that the agency was too willing to leave out the information, and that future data about contaminated water could be kept from the public without a valid reason.

"An open and transparent process is essential to this scientific endeavor and it is particularly important for the ongoing and future studies on Camp Lejeune's water contamination," Sen. Kay Hagan, Sen. Richard Burr and U.S. Rep. Brad Miller said in the letter that was also signed by lawmakers in Florida and Michigan.
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Marines in wreck remain hospitalized

Marines in wreck remain hospitalized
January 31, 2012 5:28 PM
DAILY NEWS STAFF
Two Camp Lejeune Marines remained hospitalized in Greenville Tuesday following a weekend wreck in Jones County.

Lance Cpl. Igor Teterin was listed in fair condition and Lance Cpl. David VanDyne was listed in critical condition at Vidant Medical Center, formerly Pitt Memorial Hospital, as of Tuesday afternoon.

Both Marines are with Battalion Landing Team, 2nd Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment, 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit, according to information provided by 22nd MEU spokesman Capt. Binford Strickland.
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Disgraceful pot group uses POW-MIA flag for their own!

UPDATE
Pro-pot vets group changes name but keeps logo
By Rick Maze - Times staff writer
Posted : Wednesday Feb 1, 2012
Veterans For Weed is becoming Veterans For Weed United in a retreat after the nation’s largest organization for combat veterans raised objections to the use of the acronym VFW.

“We have chosen to remove all current artwork using the VFW sign,” said a statement on the group’s website. “We respect the Veterans of Foreign Wars and apologize for any inconvenience this caused them with the similar abbreviation.”

However, the VFWU group — which it now wants to be known as — isn’t backing down from appropriating a modified version of a POW/MIA logo as a symbol of its campaign.

Veterans of Foreign Wars, which owns the copyright to the acronym VFW, sent a cease-and-desist order to the Milwaukee-based pro-pot organization demanding it stop using the name.

Joe Davis, a spokesman for Veterans of Foreign Wars, said the marijuana group has taken a small step.

“We would prefer their new acronym be something different, like VWU (Veterans for Weed United) but at least it helps eliminate some confusion,” Davis said.

Davis added that continuing to use the POW/MIA logo is wrong.
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I cannot put into words the depth of what I am feeling right now. There are just no words for this disgraceful act!

Pro-Pot Group Criticized Over Use of VFW Name, POW Flag

February 01, 2012
Stars and Stripes
by Leo Shane III
Pro-Pot Group Appropriates VFW Name, POW Flag




WASHINGTON -- The Veterans of Foreign Wars does not support and is in no way connected with Veterans For Weed, even though both are using the VFW acronym. Now, officials from the traditional VFW are warning leaders of the stoner VFW they’ll sue if they don’t stop riding their coattails.

On Monday, the real VFW (they’ve held the copyright on the acronym for more than six decades) sent the Milwaukee-based pro-marijuana group a cease-and-desist letter, calling their use of the acronym misleading and illegal. Officials said they’ll move ahead with more serious legal action if the other guys don’t drop the three-letter name on all communications, websites and other products.

Veterans for Weed has also drawn criticism in recent days for posting a doctored version of the POW/MIA logo, this time with the words “POT POW” and “Semper High” and a silhouette of a servicemember smoking. The logo, created for the National League of POW/MIA Families, is not copyrighted, but is revered by many in the veterans and military community.

Officials from that group have also requested the picture be taken down, calling on the pro-pot group to do “what is right and responsible.”read more here

Murder for hire "once great soldier" faces death penalty

What happened to turn a man from "great soldier" into what Sher is accused of becoming? Did combat change him that much or was this part of his character all along?

There are criminals who never once cared about someone else. We are never shocked when they murder someone. Read any newspaper and you'll find a lot more stories about civilians committing murder than you do about veterans. These men and yes, even some female veterans, were willing to die for the sake of someone else so when one of them takes a life back home, it leaves us all wondering what happened to change them that much.

There have been a lot of reports tying PTSD to crimes, which could have had something to do with the way this man thinks but the fact is, with hundreds of thousands of veterans with PTSD, you don't read about them simply because they never cause any trouble at all.



Murder-For-Hire Suspect Faces Death Penalty

Josiah Sher Accused Of Killing Robert Rafferty, Amara Wells

Written By Kim Ngan Nguyen, Web Editor
January 31, 2012

DOUGLAS COUNTY, Colo. -- Prosecutors will be pursuing the death penalty against an Army veteran accused of killing two people in a Douglas County home last February, the district attorney announced Tuesday.

The case against Josiah Sher will be among the state's few death penalty cases.

Sher, 26, has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder charges. However, in videotaped testimony played in a Douglas County District courtroom in August, Sher admitted he killed Robert Rafferty and Amara Wells for $15,000.

Christopher Wells, Amara Wells' estranged husband, is accused of hiring three of his former coworkers -- Sher, Matthew Plake and Micah Woody -- to kill the pair.

Sher Once Called 'Great Soldier' In Army Reserves

Sher said on the videotape that he was high on cocaine at the time of the killings and suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder from his time in the military.

Sher was called a "great soldier" who served in Iraq and Afghanistan during eight years with the U.S. Army Reserve, a military official told 7NEWS last March.

Sher earned high marks as an "aircraft structural repairer" working on military helicopters, said Capt. Malisa Hamper, spokeswoman for the Army Reserve's 11th Aviation Command, a helicopter and fixed-wing aircraft unit based at Fort Knox, Kentucky.

"He's been a great soldier," Hamper said of Sher last spring. "He's done great things for the Reserves."

"He was just really great in his performance (reviews)," she said, referring to Sher's extensive skill on repairing and maintaining aircraft. "He's constantly strived to learn more about his job and learn other duties."
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More than 500 people wait on tarmac for fallen Marine to come home

Hundreds salute fallen Pendleton Marine


A member of the Patriot Guard dabs his eyes as the body of Marine Cpl. Christopher G. Singer returns to Southern California in what is called a Hero Mission ceremony at the Joint Forces Training Base in Los Alamitos.
REED SAXON, AP

Jan. 31, 2012
Family members weep over the casket as the body of Marine Cpl. Christopher G. Singer returns to Southern California in what is called a Hero Mission ceremony at the Joint Forces Training Base in Los Alamitos, Calif., Tuesday, Jan. 31, 2012. Singer, 23, died in combat in Helmand province, Afghanistan, on Jan. 21.
REED SAXON, AP
By ERIKA I. RITCHIE / THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

LAKE FOREST - Hundreds of firefighters and law enforcement officers on Tuesday waved flags from freeway bridges from Los Alamitos to Laguna Hills saluting a procession carrying the remains of Cpl. Christopher G. Singer, a Marine killed in Afghanistan on Jan. 21.

The procession of more than 200 vehicles followed a Hero Mission – a ceremony that marks the return of an American service member killed in action – at the Joint Forces Training Base at Los Alamitos.

Singer's family – including his wife, Brooke, 21, his father, Greg Singer, and his mother, Marlene Shaw – was escorted to the plane as the coffin was lowered.

More than 500 people stood on the tarmac and paid their respects. Honoring Our Fallen, a nonprofit group, will give Singer's 2-year-old daughter, Briyana, birthday and Christmas gifts until she is 18, said founder Laura Herzog.

Singer, 23, was killed while conducting operations in the Helmand province, Afghanistan. He was assigned to Twentynine Palms-based 3rd Combat Engineer Battalion, an element of Camp Pendleton's 1st Marine Division. Singer was born in San Diego and grew up in Lake Forest and Temecula.
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Maine Bill would create alternative sentencing court specifically for veterans

Bill would create alternative sentencing court specifically for veterans

By Eric Russell, BDN Staff
Posted Jan. 31, 2012, at 5:03 p.m.

AUGUSTA, Maine — Last November, a day before Justin Crowley-Smilek was shot and killed by police, the 28-year-old Farmington native and U.S. Army Ranger who suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder and bipolar disorder appeared before a judge.

Earlier that year, Crowley-Smilek was charged with assault and cultivation of marijuana. The judge, likely sensing that the young man’s diagnoses contributed to those crimes, ordered him to undergo a full psychological evaluation. His family said it was welcome news because they had been trying to get Crowley-Smilek help for months since his return from Afghanistan.

Crowley-Smilek never made it to that evaluation.

In a bizarre incident outside the Farmington police station, Crowley-Smilek approached an officer in a threatening manner while wielding a knife. The officer fired several shots, one of which killed Crowley-Smilek.
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He wanted to die
Thursday, November 24, 2011

Fort Drum wounded soldier admits killing infant he wanted to adopt

NY soldier from RI who was wounded on Afghan tour admits killing infant he was trying to adopt

By Associated Press, Published: January 31

WATERTOWN, N.Y. — A Fort Drum soldier wounded in Afghanistan in 2009 admitted Tuesday that he killed a 4-month-old girl he and his wife were trying to adopt by banging her head against a hard surface and throwing her into a crib.

Jeffrey Sliker, a native of Middletown, R.I., could get 15 years to life in prison at sentencing on March 14 — almost a year after his arrest at the couple’s home near the military post in northern New York.
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East Long Island Police Pipe and Drums going to Walter Reed

East End Police Pipe Band Performs for Veterans
Members of the Eastern Long Island Police Pipes and Drums were in Washington, D.C., on Friday.
By Erica Jackson
January 31, 2012

Credit Mike Tessitore
To show their appreciation, 35 members of the Eastern Long Island Police Pipe and Drums band headed to Washington, D.C., on Friday to perform at the Walter Reed Hospital for wounded veterans.

"We wanted to show them that we appreciate their sacrifices," said Kevin Gwinn, the founder and drum major of the band.
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Wounded combat medic's love story ended too soon

Wounded Warrior, Married in Mesquite, Dies
Posting Date: 01/31/2012

By John Taylor
Army medic Kevin Hardin died Jan. 22 of
injuries sustained in Iraq. He and his wife
Lillian received a storybook wedding a year ago
thanks to the Eureka and the Mesquite
community. Photo provided.
Slightly more than a year has passed since the storybook wedding in Mesquite of former Army medic Kevin Hardin to the woman who cared for him at Walter Reed Army Hospital after he was severely injured when a rocket propelled grenade slammed into his Humvee during combat operations in Samarra, Iraq in 2007.

Hardin spent two years in the hospital and was forced to undergo 32 surgeries and a lengthy, painful rehabilitation. During his recovery, Hardin met Lillian May who cared for him through the painful times. Over the course of two years Hardin was receiving medical treatments, the couple fell in love.

In August, 2009, Hardin proposed to May but the reality was he was severely injured including injuries to both arms, a fused wrist and loss of fingers. He also had several pieces of shrapnel in his brain which were inoperable. After being medically retired from the military, he was without a job.
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Sgt. Adam Page Surprises Daughter At School On Birthday

Sergeant Adam Page, Military Dad, Surprises Daughter At School On Birthday (VIDEO)

When Bailey Page, a 6-year-old girl from Salt Lake City, Utah, told her classmates that all she wanted for her birthday was her dad to come home from Afghanistan, she could never have guessed her wish would come true so quickly.

As she continued her show-and-tell, Bailey's father, Sgt. Adam Page, walked into the classroom and swooped his very surprised daughter into his arms, Utah's Fox 13 news reports.

As she tried to clear the tears from her eyes, Bailey exclaimed, "that's my only birthday present I wanted is you," KSL reports.
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