Navy Thanksgiving Message

CNO Thanksgiving Message 2015
BY U.S. NAVY
NOVEMBER 24, 2015

SOUDA BAY, Greece (Nov. 27, 2014) Culinary Specialist 2nd Class David Tiberio, from Red Hook, N.Y., prepares food for a Thanksgiving meal aboard the guided-missile destroyer USS Cole (DDG 67). Cole is conducting naval operations in the U.S. 6th Fleet area of responsibility in support of U.S. national security interests in Europe.
(U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communications Specialist 2nd Class John Herman/Released)

Team, Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays. This weekend, many of us will gather with family, friends, and loved ones to celebrate each others’ company over a nice meal in our homes. Dana and I wish you a peaceful and safe weekend, and we thank YOU for all that you do to keep our Navy and nation prosperous and secure.

As we take this time to pause and reflect, let us remember those who are quietly celebrating while underway or forward deployed around the world. While we talk with family, they have the watch. We’ve all been there and know those mixed feelings of pride at accomplishing the mission, but also missing our loved ones while deployed during this time. For those at home, please keep these shipmates in your thoughts and prayers. If you’re forward, reach out, be good company for each other, and wish your shipmate a Happy Thanksgiving.

Finally, I must add that in addition to turkey, pumpkin pie, and football, wherever you are, please add safety to your list of things to keep track of this weekend. Remain alert and cognizant of your surroundings. Ensure you keep yourselves and those around you safe and sound. You and your families are all far too valuable to the Navy and the nation to experience a needless accident – I need you all to come back rested and ready to go.

Happy Thanksgiving.
-Adm. John Richardson, Chief of Naval Operations

Navy ship docks in Detroit, brings crew member home for Thanksgiving
MLIVE.com USS Milwaukee

Crew Suspended After Hospital Attacked

U.S. suspends military personnel over airstrike in Afghanistan
Tampa Bay Times
Wednesday, November 25, 2015

"The investigation found that some of the U.S. individuals involved did not follow the rules of engagement," said Gen. Wilson Shoffner, the top U.S. military spokesman in Afghanistan.

KABUL — The crew of an American gunship that attacked a hospital in Kunduz last month, killing 30, misidentified the target, had suffered a loss of electronic communications, had not been carrying a "no-strike" list though one existed and was beset by "fatigue and a high operational tempo," a U.S. military investigation has concluded.

Gen. John Campbell, the top U.S. commander for Afghanistan, describes the errors that led to the errant airstrike on a hospital. New York Times

"This was a tragic and avoidable accident caused primarily by human error," Gen. John Campbell, the top U.S. commander for Afghanistan, said at a news conference in Kabul on Wednesday. But that human error, he said, was "compounded by systems and procedural failures."

Several American personnel, most likely pilots and special operations forces who made the decision that led to one of the deadliest incidents of civilian casualties of the war, have been suspended and could face further disciplinary action.
read more here

PTSD Gulf War Veteran Gets New Wheels

Valley vet wins vehicle for heartwarming life story
KPHO News
By Jason Volentine
Nov 26, 2015

PHOENIX (KPHO/KTVK) - A Valley veteran got an early holiday surprise after a string of bad luck and a battle with addiction.

He's turned his life around and won a car for his efforts.

“Oh my goodness.Yeah! Alrighty!” said Douglas Jackson, starting his new car for the first time.

The sound of the engine turning over was the sound of a page turning in Jackson’s life. “My children are just going to be so happy. They've been having to go around on buses and riding bikes and everything. It's going to give me a whole new life with my children,” he said.

The U.S. Marine veteran served in the first Gulf War. He helped sweep mine fields so troops with heavy equipment could make it safely from the bases in Kuwait to the battlefields in Iraq.

But years after the battles faded from the headlines, the things Jackson experienced remained unforgettable. Post-traumatic stress disorder and alcoholism sent him into a spiral that cost him many things, including a place to live and a car to drive.
read more here

Time to Stuff the Jerky

If you are planning on spending Thanksgiving with your cell phone taking selfies and sharing on Facebook, your own self importance is nauseating!

Instead of enjoying this day off to actually spend time with the people in your life, you'd rather spend it with folks you don't even know?

You wouldn't be so offended by others if you actually took time to understand exactly what is going on in the real world.

You wouldn't think that you are all that matters if you actually took a look at who should matter to you.

Stop being so jerky and enjoy the turkey while giving thanks for what you do really have in your life!

One more thing, if you think having pictures of yourself all over the internet makes you famous, then why are you taking your own picture?

Boys and Girls Scouts help feed 800 people at Camp Pendleton

Thanksgiving Feats: Volunteers, Boys and Girls Scouts help feed 800 people at Camp Pendleton
San Clemente Times
Eric Heinz
November 25, 2015

Food for Thanksgiving piled up on Monday at the commissary at Camp Pendleton in order to provide the holiday feast for U.S. Marines and their families.

People make their way to the donations from the Thanksgiving Turkey Giveaway organized by the San Clemente Military Family Outreach on Monday at Camp Pendleton.

For the past eight years the nonprofit San Clemente Military Family Outreach has hosted a Thanksgiving drive to help out the families in the north Camp Pendleton to people living in San Onofre Housing. Many of the families have a relative or loved one who has been deployed. Recently about 2,000 troops were sent to South Pacific Asia.

“It got started by the predecessor by the Friends of San Onofre Marines,” Robert Crittendon, a volunteer with SCMFO, said. “They had started the distribution for units that were being sent overseas. On one occasion, the St. Margaret’s Church had invited them, and there were 250 people who had signed up. The church I think was overwhelmed and they really had to scramble to provide that meal.”
read more here

Thanksgiving meal together at Fort Carson

Fort Carson

"This is my first Thanksgiving away from home, I mean, it sucks, but they do their best to make up for it," Wolf said. "This is the coolest thing ever or at least since I've been in the army."

Soldiers serve families and compete in Thanksgiving culinary competition
FOX 21 News
By Christina Dawidowicz
Published: November 25, 2015

FORT CARSON, Colo. — A full meal compete with dessert and music.

More than 800 people shared a Thanksgiving meal together at Fort Carson’s annual Thanksgiving meal and culinary competition.

“Trying to brighten their spirit since they’re not there with their families,” said Sfc. Francis J Orcutt with the U.S. Army.

“There’s the ham, there’s the turkey, there’s,” said Spc. Francisco Silva, who’s been at Fort Carson for two years now.

Each soldier worked on a project with a team for one of the six dining facilities on post.

“They work on shift, they put out the meal for the day, and then they would come over and help the team after their meal,” Orcutt said.
read more here

PTSD Soldiers Abandoned: Discharged With Adjustment Disorder

When The Army Pushes A Soldier Out, His Mental Health Struggles Are Left To Others
Colorado Public Radio
Michael de Yoanna
NOV 25, 2015

Costabile was discharged from the Army on March 27, 2012, and soon he was homeless. His wife was living with her parents, and he wasn’t welcome there. So he went to a shelter and filed for unemployment.

Frank Costabile, a former Fort Carson Army private first class, was discharged with an "adjustment disorder" after serving in the war in Afghanistan. (Michael de Yoanna/CPR News)

Frank Costabile was broke and paranoid after the Army forced him out in 2012. The former private first class was so jittery from his time in a war zone he says he couldn’t walk down the street without looking over his shoulder.

Finally one day, after his wife left to drop their daughter off at school, Costabile went into the bathroom and swallowed 57 pills from the bottles of anti-depressants and sedatives that military doctors had given him.

Then, he settled down in the bathtub to die.

“I didn't want to fall and hit my head on anything severe, and cause blood all over the place,” Costabile said. “I figured I ought to sit down and take these things and everything would be alright.”

“My depression is under control,” he said. “I mean it's still a constant struggle. I'm never going to be off medication for it. Also my PTSD, it's never going to be cured, but I have tools now that I know how to cope with certain things and I still have nightmares but not as intense as they used to be.”
read more here

Former Fort Carson Commander: 'We Need To Help, Not Judge'
Army Kicked Out Thousands With Mental Health Issues
Senators Demand Probe Into Army's Discharge Practices

Fort Hood Hug Lady Makes News in Australia

Fort Hood's 'Hug Lady' promises she will be back from breast cancer treatment 
ABC Australia
Posted yesterday at 7:13am

"Sometimes the line is so long that we have to turn people away."

A woman who estimates she has hugged 500,000 soldiers at Fort Hood, Texas, has promised she will be back from treatment for breast cancer.

Elizabeth Laird, 83, is known as the "Hug Lady" at Fort Hood, where she has given hugs to almost every soldier entering and leaving the base since 2003, when soldiers stationed there began deploying to Iraq. "I don't know when I started hugging, but one soldier hugged me and there was another soldier there, so I had to hug him and it kind of just snowballed," she told the Killeen Daily Herald in 2009. "I hugged all the soldiers. I promised them that. I told them as they left, I'd be here to hug them again when they came back."

Ms Laird has a military background herself, having enlisted in the US Air Force in 1950, the US Department of Veterans Affairs reported in a Facebook post earlier this month. 
read more here

For one WWII veteran, a day to give thanks for 'one more sunrise'

For one WWII veteran, a day to give thanks for 'one more sunrise' 
The Washington Post
By T. Rees Shapiro
Published: November 25, 2015

"I was not sure I was going to live until morning," Graff said in an interview this week at his home. "I prayed to God for one more sunrise." He saw another dawn on that distant November day. Just as he has for almost 26,000 mornings since.

Richard Graff is a 91 year-old veteran from Ashburn, Va., who has been visiting classrooms to talk with students about his experiences in battle. KATE PATTERSON/FOR THE WASHINGTON POST

ASHBURN, Va. — On Thanksgiving Day in 1944, Dick Graff opened his Army-issue mess kit and took comfort in his turkey and mashed potatoes, a welcome respite from the brutal battlefront near Weisweiler, Germany.

As a soldier with the 104th Infantry Division, the 20-year-old who grew up on a hog and cattle farm in Iowa was grateful for the hot meal a world away. Things had changed in the few weeks since he had narrowly survived his first combat experience. The night mission had called for Graff and the other U.S. troops in his unit to maneuver through a forest, and as they moved, German artillery shells began to quake the earth around him.

The bombardment seemed endless. The Army had trained him how to fight and how to shoot machine guns, but the terror of facing enemy fire was like nothing he could have imagined.
read more here

Marine Fought Cancer and Won

Marine Vet Hopes His Victory Over an Aggressive ‘Terminal’ Cancer Inspires Others to Reject Assisted Suicide 
The Blaze
Mike Opelka
Nov. 24, 2015

“People who wanted to fight and live were now being told, ‘Well, you have no options, why don’t you choose assisted suicide?’” This was “a huge danger,” Hanson said.

J.J. Hanson, a Marine Corps veteran who beat one of the most aggressive forms of cancer known to man, is now working to defeat the push to normalize doctor-assisted suicide in America.

Hanson faced the same diagnosis as the late Brittany Maynard, who elected to end her own life rather than continue her battle against an aggressive tumor, and decided surrendering to cancer was not an option. Instead of giving up and choosing the assisted suicide option available to him and others, Hanson chose to fight.

In May 2014, Hanson was in a business meeting when he suddenly felt something in his body going horribly wrong. Hanson told his clients he needed them to call 911. They initially thought he was joking, until Hanson pleaded with them, “Seriously, call 911.”

That was the last thing Hanson remembered of the meeting as a grand mal seizure overtook his body, rendering him unable to communicate.

An ambulance rushed Hanson to the hospital. After he was stabilized, Hanson’s wife Kris insisted doctors perform an MRI to find out what was going on with her husband. The scan revealed lesions on Hanson’s brain with two possible causes — an infection or cancer. A biopsy of his brain revealed the worst possible news. Growing in the vet’s temporal lobe was a stage 4 glioblastoma (GBM), an aggressive form of cancer capable of doubling in size in just two weeks.
read more here