A Tribute to Medal of Honor Recipients on 149th anniversary

A Tribute to Medal of Honor Recipients

Staff Sgt. Abram Pinnington Reporting
news@clarksvillenow.com

FORT CAMPBELL, Ky. - While facing insurmountable odds with their backs against a wall and their comrades' lives at stake; brave men and women, without hesitation, place the well-being of others before their own. On Sunday we remember these brave and courageous warriors.

In 1862, President Abraham Lincoln signed a bill creating the Medal of Honor. The distinguished award was designed to recognize those whom displayed valorous actions while serving on the battlefield.

The President of the United States of America, in the name of Congress, presents this unique award.

This Sunday, March 25th, marks the 149th anniversary of the first presentation of the medal in 1863. On that day, six soldiers were given the award for their bravery during the Great Locomotive Chase in 1862.

Since the medal's inception, there have been 3,458 recipients, 19 of whom were double awardees.

Some of the most recognizable and distinguished recipients include; President Theodore Roosevelt, for his actions during the Spanish-American War. Gen. Douglas MacArthur was recognized for his selfless service in the Philippines during World War II. Sgt. Audie Murphy, World War II's most decorated US soldier, was awarded the Medal of Honor for his courageous gallantry. Most recently, Marine Sgt. Dakota Meyer was recognized for his heroism while serving in the mountains of Afghanistan during Operation Enduring Freedom.
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Double Medal of Honor

BALDWIN, FRANK D. First Lieutenant U.S. Army
BUTLER, SMEDLEY DARLINGTON Major U.S. Marine
COOPER, JOHN Coxswain U.S. Navy
CUKELA, LOUIS Sergeant U.S. Marine Corps
CUSTER, THOMAS W. Second Lieutenant U.S. Amry
DALY, DANIEL JOSEPH Gunnery Sergeant U.S. Marine
HOFFMAN, CHARLES F. (AKA ERNEST JANSON) Gunnery Sergeant U.S. Marine
HOGAN, HENRY First Sergeant U.S. Army
KELLY, JOHN JOSEPH Private U.S. Marine Corps
KING, JOHN Watertender U.S. Navy
KOCAK, MATEJ Sergeant U.S. Marine Corps
LAFFERTY, JOHN Fireman U.S. Navy
McCLOY, JOHN Coxswain U.S. Navy
MULLEN, PATRICK Boatswain's Mate U.S. Navy
PRUITT, JOHN HENRY Corporal U.S. Marine Corps
SWEENEY, ROBERT Ordinary Seaman U.S. Navy
WEISBOGEL, ALBERT Captain of the Mizzen Top U.S. Navy
WILLIAMS, LOUIS Captain of the Hold U.S. Navy
WILSON, WILLIAM Sergeant U.S. Army
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12 Rangers get Silver Stars for Afghan heroics

12 Rangers get Silver Stars for Afghan heroics
By Michelle Tan - Staff writer
Posted : Sunday Mar 25, 2012

Twelve soldiers from 1st Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment, were awarded the Silver Star during a ceremony March 16 at Hunter Army Airfield, Ga. The soldiers were honored — two of them posthumously — with the nation’s third-highest award for valor for actions spanning two deployments to Afghanistan.

SGT. 1ST CLASS MICHAEL A. EIERMANN
SGT. TODD D. MARK
SGT. DYLAN J. MAYNARD
SGT. 1ST CLASS MICHAEL A. DUCHESNE
STAFF SGT. ETHAN P. KILLEEN
CAPT. JONATHAN F. LOGAN
SGT. JONATHAN K. PENEY (POSTHUMOUS AWARD)
STAFF SGT. TREVOR D. TOW
SGT. MARTIN A. LUGO (POSTHUMOUS AWARD)
STAFF SGT. JOHN M. ROWLAND
SGT. 1ST CLASS KEITH A. MORGES
SGT. ALAN D. SOLOMON
read their stories here

Coming home: The enduring sacrifice

Coming home: The enduring sacrifice
By William Brangham and Jessica Wang
March 23, 2012

There’s been intense coverage of the nation’s suddenly improving economy – including the sharp drop in the unemployment rate. But one part of that story may have slipped by in a mass of numbers.

There’s apparently been a dramatic fall in joblessness among America’s newest veterans – those who served in Iraq and Afghanistan. Last month, their unemployment rate actually dipped below the national average. One possible explanation: new tax credits for businesses to hire vets.

Still, more than a 150,000 veterans are still unemployed, and some have even become homeless. Need to Know’s Maria Hinojosa has been following several of these new veterans since last fall.

Watch The enduring sacrifice (update) on PBS. See more from Need to Know.

Wife says Iraq War changed Nicholas Horner

Wife: Iraq changed Horner
March 24, 2012
By Phil Ray
The Altoona Mirror

HOLLIDAYSBURG - When Army Sgt. Nicholas A. Horner returned from his third tour in Iraq in the summer of 2008, he was no longer the "happy-go-lucky goofball" that his wife, Windy, had fallen in love with just a few years before.

Windy Horner testified Friday in a Blair County courtroom that Horner, 31, was "more antsy" and subject to mood changes. He was suicidal at times. He carried a handgun and avoided crowds. He, for instance, would not go to local stores.

Windy Horner was one of the opening witnesses for the defense in her husband's double-homicide trial. The prosecution is seeking the death penalty against Nicholas Horner for the shooting deaths of Scott Garlick, 19, and Raymond Williams, 64, during a 2009 robbery and getaway at the 58th Street Subway.

She filed for divorce in 2010. The petition is pending, Windy Horner said under cross-examination.

She said her husband would disappear for hours, citing two instances when the couple lived in Dixon, Mo., just 20 miles from his station at Fort Leonard Wood, in which he left home and later appeared at the house of a friend, Staff Sgt. Kevin Hall, a trainer at Fort Leonard Wood.

She remembered him leaving a barbeque with another family one night.

He said he was going for a cigarette but when she went outside to look for him, he was "taking off for the treeline."

Windy Horner said she let him go, knowing she couldn't catch him.
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Katy Perry video features 80 Marines from Camp Pendleton

10,889,959 hits as of this moment!


Marines say Katy Perry video is good publicity
Video features 80 Marines from Camp Pendleton

Written by
Jeanette Steele

Pop star Katy Perry is known for her blue hair and quirky videos.

When she wanted to get tough for her latest release, the young singer picked up an M-16 and trained with actual Marines at Camp Pendleton.

Perry’s “Part of Me” video, released Wednesday, was shot over three days in February at Pendleton’s Camp Horno area and at Red Beach, the sandy stretch off Interstate 5 where Marines practice maneuvers.

It’s likely the first major music video to be shot at a Marine base, officials say.
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Katy Perry Part of Me video

Wounded in Iraq NJ Marine dies after 7-year fight to save leg

NJ Marine dies after 7-year fight to save leg
Mar. 24, 2012

BY REBECCA D. O'BRIEN, THE RECORD

WOODLAND PARK, N.J. (WTW) — Staff Sgt. Oscar Canon lived in constant motion — an athlete and a Marine, raised in Colombia, Florida, Texas and New Jersey. He served two tours of duty in Iraq, fighting in some of the war's bloodiest battles. Not even a 2004 insurgent assault, which nearly claimed his left leg and his life, could stop the Dumont High School graduate.

After more than seven years and 80 surgeries performed after the attack to try to save the leg, Canon died last month after lapsing into a coma at a naval hospital in Oceanside, Calif. Though his death is still under investigation, it appears to be connected to an infection in his leg.

The military considers it a combat death.
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Suicides Highlight Failures of Veterans’ Support System

Yesterday I posted about Wounded Warrior Project asking Is Wounded Warrior Project a country crock for all I've been hearing about them while they take in millions of dollars a year but we hear little about what they actually do. Now they are being quoted all over the internet with this claim.

80% of wounded veterans cite mental health woes
By Patricia Kime - Staff writer
Posted : Saturday Mar 24, 2012 9:24:33 EDT
In a survey conducted this year of wounded Iraq and Afghanistan veterans, nearly 80 percent reported having symptoms of a combat-related mental health condition, and roughly half said they had a traumatic brain injury.

Among the 2,300 Wounded Warrior Project members who responded to the survey, 62 percent said they currently have depression — nearly eight times the rate in the general population and more than four times the figure cited in a 2008 Rand Corp. report on military head injuries and mental health conditions.

About a third said their conditions have made it difficult to get or hold a job. The conditions also hamper relationships and recovery, respondents said.

2,300 members but millions a year donated to them? There are organizations all over this country claiming to be helping veterans but we see little evidence of success. We see even less success coming from the DOD and the VA. Frankly I'm just tired of it.

Everyday I get up and start to read the stories from across the country and everyday I'm reminded that our veterans are not getting what they deserve or coming close to getting what they need. What are they asking for? They want to heal, make a living after offering their lives in service and to know they can take care of their families.

Suicides Highlight Failures of Veterans’ Support System

Noting that an average of 18 veterans commit suicide every day, Judge Stephen Reinhardt wrote, “No more veterans should be compelled to agonize and perish while the government fails to perform its obligations.” The department appealed, and Judge Reinhardt’s opinion has been temporarily vacated, pending a ruling from a an 11-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit.


Gordon Erspamer, a San Francisco lawyer representing the two groups that brought the suit, Veterans for Common Sense and Veterans United for Truth, said it was “incredible that this sorry record of ineptitude and lack of procedures for emergency cases continues even under the watchful eye of the Ninth Circuit.”

By AARON GLANTZ
Published: March 24, 2012

Courtesy of Dianne Hamilton
William Hamilton, an Iraq war veteran, stepped in front of a train hours after being discharged from a Travis Air Force Base hospital.

Francis Guilfoyle, a 55-year-old homeless veteran, drove his 1985 Toyota Camry to the Department of Veterans Affairs campus in Menlo Park early in the morning of Dec. 3, took a stepladder and a rope out of the car, threw the rope over a tree limb and hanged himself.

It was an hour before his body was cut down, according to the county coroner’s report.

“When I saw him, my heart just sank,” said Dennis Robinson, 51, a formerly homeless Army veteran who discovered Mr. Guilfoyle’s body. “This is supposed to be a safe place where a vet can get help. Something failed him.”

Mr. Guilfoyle’s death is one of a series of recent suicides by veterans who live in the jurisdiction of the Department of Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System. The Palo Alto V.A. is one of the agency’s elite campuses, home to the Congressionally chartered National Center for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. The poor record of the Department of Veterans Affairs in decreasing the high suicide rate of veterans has already emerged as a major issue for policy makers and the judiciary.

On Wednesday, the V.A. Inspector General in Washington released the results of a nine-month investigation into the May 2010 death of another veteran, William Hamilton. The report said social workers at the department in Palo Alto made “no attempt” to ensure that Hamilton, a mentally ill 26-year-old who served in Iraq, was hospitalized at a department facility in the days before he killed himself by stepping in front of a train in Modesto.

The Bay Area was also shocked by the March 14 death of Abel Gutierrez, a 27-year-old Iraq war veteran, who the police said killed his mother and his 11-year-old sister before shooting himself. Two weeks earlier the Gilroy Police Department intervened to ask the V.A. to help Mr. Gutierrez.

An examination of each case reveals faulty communication inside the V.A. system, which missed opportunities to help the veterans.
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Remains of soldier MIA since 1951 come home after Korean War

Remains of soldier MIA since 1951 come home
The Associated Press
Posted : Saturday Mar 24, 2012 11:17:45 EDT

CALUMET, Mich. — More than six decades after Army Pfc. Arthur Leiviska died in a Korean prisoner of war camp, the soldier will be buried with full military honors on Memorial Day at a cemetery in his hometown in the Upper Peninsula.

Leiviska’s remains were among those of more than 4,200 dead soldiers that were returned in 1954, but his weren’t identified until 2010. His relatives were located and notified over the past few months, The Daily Mining Gazette in Houghton reported Saturday.

Leiviska was 18 when he was reported missing in action in 1951.

His remains will be buried in Calumet at Lake View Cemetery, where a marker remembering Leiviska is already placed.
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A U.S. soldier was executed inside Afghan's security HQ's

US soldier executed in Afghanistan
www.youtube.com
A U.S. soldier was executed inside Afghan's security HQ's, and an American family is demanding answers.

Cari Johnson on Facebook found this.

Vietnam Vet war hero returns home, 40 years later

A war hero returns home, 40 years later
By John Blake, CNN
Sat March 24, 2012

STORY HIGHLIGHTS
War hero's book is a memoir, and warning
Author: Soldiers trained to kill, but not trained to deal with aftermath
Karl Marlantes took 40 years to sort through secrets he left in Vietnam
Marlantes: The war is "just starting" for families of Iraq and Afghan veterans

(CNN) -- Karl Marlantes stared at the young man through the sights of an M-16 rifle and slid his muddy finger over the curve of the trigger.

Turning toward him, the man locked eyes with Marlantes and froze.

"Don't throw it. Don't throw it," Marlantes whispered, hoping the man would surrender.

Moments earlier, the North Vietnamese soldier had been hurling grenades at a group of U.S. Marines. He was cornered near the top of a hill. Blood streamed down his face from a head wound; the crumpled body of a friend lay at his feet.

Marlantes had slithered undetected to a spot just below the soldier's foxhole. When the soldier popped up, arm cocked to throw another grenade, he spotted Marlantes.

The soldier's dark eyes widened in fear; he looked around for a way out, but there was none; and then he snarled, showing his teeth.

Marlantes watched as the grenade left the soldier's hand and tumbled straight toward him.
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