Fort Hood Soldier Found Dead in Barracks

FORT HOOD SOLDIER FROM MAYWOOD, ILL., FOUND DEAD IN BARRACKS
ABC 7 News Chicago
Associated Press
August 22, 2016

FORT HOOD, Texas -- Officials are still investigating the circumstances surrounding the death of a Fort Hood soldier from Illinois.

Spc. Dion Shannon Servant, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division,

(Fort Hood Press Center)

Spc. Dion Shannon Servant was found unresponsive in his barracks room at the Texas military base on Aug. 19.

The 24-year-old entered active-duty service in June 2014 as a petroleum supply specialist. He was assigned to 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, Fort Hood, since December 2014.
read more here

Suspected Drunk Driver Killed Female Iraq Homeless Veteran in Wheelchair

SUSPECTED DRUNK DRIVER KILLS HOMELESS VETERAN
WGMT News
August 23, 2016

Elaine Heyl stopped by an outreach center in Philadelphia’s Kensington neighborhood on Friday and gave photos and her family’s address in the South to one of the staffers there.

“She gave me two pictures … and she gave me her family’s address in South Carolina and said, ‘If I were to die at any point, this is where you send my information,'” Elvis Rosado, of Prevention Point Philadelphia recalled Monday.

Rosado never imagined he’d have to mail the package so soon.

Hours later, early Saturday morning, as Heyl sat in her wheelchair at Mascher Street and Lehigh Avenue — the corner where the woman, a homeless Iraq War veteran, was a permanent fixture for years — a man police say was driving drunk down Lehigh Avenue crashed into her.

Heyl, known as Lanie to most, died a short time later at the hospital. She was 37.

Rosado said he knew Heyl, an Air Force veteran who he said served in Iraq, from working at Prevention Point on Kensington Avenue, a center that provides a health clinic and other outreach services to people facing homelessness and addiction. He said she battled post-traumatic stress disorder and was never able to get the help she needed.

“She was trying really hard to get help, but unfortunately, the system is kind of slow, so she started to self-medicate,” Rosado said. “Unfortunately, self-medication turned to addiction.”
read more here

Veterans Home Flooded, Hearts Flooded With Loving Response

Veterans forced to relocate during the flood
KSLA News
By Kevin Frey, Reporter
Monday, August 22nd 2016

"My heart is just so full, I don't know what to say -- but thank you all so much," said Ethel Comeaux to the volunteers. "There is people who care, people do care. This is the evidence of what people do for you."

BATON ROUGE, LA (WAFB) - A handful of veterans in Baton Rouge were forced to relocate after the storm left their home flooded.

The owners of the Magnolia Care Center on Florida Boulevard are now working to get their veteran's home back up and running after it took on approximately 5 feet of water. The flood left a destructive path at the center, causing floor tiles to crack, walls to become waterlogged, and mold to grow.

Byron and Ethel Comeaux have owned the center for the last 15 years. Never once has it flooded.

The facility serves as a home to around 10 veterans. All of them suffer from either bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, or post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). As a result, they need constant and intensive care.

"It's very, very hard for changes to happen to them -- so when you have a change, they don't understand the change," said Byron Comeaux, who is himself an army veteran.

Last week, however, one of those changes came in the blink of an eye as the waters rose around the facility.

"It was coming fast. I told Mr. Comeaux, if we waited 20 minutes, we would not have been able to leave," said Donald Crochet, a resident of the facility.

The residents were relocated to a home in north Baton Rouge. Many of the residents are counting down the days until they can go back home to Florida Boulevard.
read more here

MOH: Marine Jumped on 2 Grenades But Only Received Navy Cross?

Medal of Honor being sought for Lebanon Marine
The Lebanon Reporter
By Rod Rose
Aug 20, 2016

“He jumped on a hand grenade: It turned out to be a dud,” Regan said. Soon a second grenade landed among the Marines. Bogan jumped on that grenade, which exploded beneath him.

Navy Cross Presentation: Marine Cpl. Richard E. Bogan (right) received the Navy Cross in a 1968 ceremony

Richard E. Bogan was a U.S. Marine Corps private first class, when he received the Navy Cross after jumping on a hand grenade in what was then the Republic of South Korea’s Thua Thien Province. The Navy Cross is the second-highest decoration for heroism awarded by the U.S. Navy and the Marine Corps. It is presented only for extraordinary valor in combat.

Bogan, a 1967 graduate of Lebanon High School, was 41 when he died in a single-car crash in December 1990.

Now, Gerry Regan, a Marine who was there when Bogan jumped on that grenade, is working to have the Navy Cross award replaced — with the Medal of Honor, the nation’s highest military honor.

Regan is recently retired, but has been active in Marine Corps organizations since he was discharged from the Corps following his service in Vietnam. He is a former president of the 1st Battalion, 5th Marines branch of the 1st Marine Division Association.

Nikki Baldwin, Bogan’s daughter, met Regan in 2008 at a Marine Corps reunion, she said recently. She is appreciative of Regan’s efforts to earn the Medal for her father.

She provided The Lebanon Reporter a copy of a letter that could be critical evidence in Regan’s efforts, as well as other documents about her father’s service.
read more here

Judge Asked Iraq Veteran If He Killed Anybody?

Albany judge to Iraq war veteran: 'Did you kill anybody, as far as you know?'
New York Upstate
Douglas Dowty
August 22, 2016
Albany, NY -- An Albany judge agreed to resign this month after being accused of making improper comments from the bench, among other behavior.

Specifically, City Court Judge Thomas Keefe, 64, admitted in his resignation letter to "exceedingly poor" judgment in the case of Iraq war veteran Joseph Hayner.

Hayner was before Keefe in 2013 on a marijuana case. The veteran disputed a positive drug test, but the judge questioned his honesty. Keefe asked about Hayner's military record and discovered he had fought in Iraq, the New York Law Journal reported.

"Did you kill anybody, as far as you know?" the judge asked.

"I don't want to talk about that, sir," Hayner replied.

"Have you killed anybody here in Albany in the past week?" the judge asked.

"No," Hayner responded.

The judge told Hayner he could not smoke marijuana under an alternative sentenciung program and that he must tell the truth about any drug use, the Law Journal reported.
read more here

Soldier's Widow Defeated Army To Restore Husband's Honor

A wife takes on Army to restore husband’s honor and acquire his benefits
Stars and Stripes
By Dianna Cahn
Published: August 21, 2016

WASHINGTON — In the eight years that her husband deployed repeatedly to Iraq and Afghanistan, she learned to be good at not having him around. So when the knock came to tell her that Sgt. 1st Class Anthony Venetz wouldn’t make it back from Afghanistan that last time, she was prepared, even in her grief, to pick up the pieces.

Debbie Venetz wore white to his funeral — she didn’t care whether people thought she was crazy. The 29-year-old widow wanted to celebrate her husband and let their 7- and 3-year-olds know that while they will miss Daddy, life will go on.

But nothing could have readied her for the nearly six-year battle ahead to restore her husband’s honor and secure benefits for their family.

Debbie took on the Army.

She faced down a withering backlash as she pressed for a more thorough investigation into his death. She sought powerful allies — colonels and generals — to push the case forward. But mostly, she never stopped believing that her husband died the way he lived as a Green Beret — honorably and in service to his country.

The mission to conduct outreach with local villages had met with resistance. He’d been wounded twice on that deployment alone and had earned a Bronze Star with “V” device for valor for remaining in a firefight for two days after he was shot in the leg on Sept. 29, 2010. He showed “selflessness, dedication to duty and courage under fire,” according to his medal citation, and helped to repel the enemy and save lives “in keeping with the finest traditions of military heroism.”

That medal was awarded to him Jan. 17, 2011 — 11 days before his death.
read more here

Sgt. 1st Class Anthony Venetz receives a Purple Heart in Afghanistan in October 2010, just months before his death. COURTESY OF DEBBIE VENETZ

Navy SEAL Order To Pay $6.6 Million Over Book?

Navy SEAL to pay $6.6 million to settle case over Osama bin Laden book
Associated Press
By Lolita C. Baldor
Published: August 19, 2016

WASHINGTON — The former Navy SEAL who wrote a book about his role in the raid that killed Osama bin Laden will pay the government more than $6.6 million for violating non-disclosure agreements and publishing without getting the document cleared by the Defense Department, according to federal court documents.

Matt Bissonnette, who wrote "No Easy Day" under the pseudonym Mark Owen, will give the U.S. government all profits and royalties from the book or movie rights. The proceeds already total more than $6.6 million. He will have four years to pay the bulk of that.

The payments were outlined in settlement documents filed in U.S. District Court in Virginia.

According to the settlement, Bissonnette also has 30 days to pay $100,000 from the proceeds of presentations he gave using slides that were not approved by the department.
read more here

Why Are Marine Veterans Forced To Fight Government After Camp Lejeune?

Marine’s toughest fight: getting compensated for exposure to Camp Lejeune’s toxic water
LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL
By KEITH ROGERS
August 20, 2106

Between 1952 and 1987, nearly 1 million Marines, sailors, civilian employees and military family members unknowingly drank, cooked with and bathed in contaminated water while living or working at Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune.

There’s no doubt in Stanley Furrow’s mind that his health problems and those of his wife, children and grandson come from drinking contaminated water and bathing in it years ago when he served in the Marine Corps at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina.

CHEMICALS IN THE WATER

They all have classic symptoms, according to the EPA, of people who have consumed water tainted with a witch’s brew of benzene, solvents and compounds with long names such as perchloroethylene, trichlorethylene and vinyl chloride. That is what was leaking into the camp’s water supply when Furrow, a Vietnam War vet, and his wife, Linda, lived there in the early 1970s.

He blames his exposure for the migraine headaches and neurological maladies he’s suffered from for years.

They believe it also explains why Linda had miscarriages; their son was born with only three fingers on his left hand; their daughter has battled cysts and tumors on her head all her life; and their 13-year-old grandson, Joseph, was born with twisted legs.

Jolie Furrow: “I just think it’s crazy. Why would you treat someone who served their country this way?” read more here

PTSD Suicide Collateral Damage Spread With Whispers, Not Awareness

Collateral Damage Spread With Whispers
Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
August 21, 2016


The 22 Push-up challenge sounds like a good thing to do and it has spread all the way to New Zealand. Major Kidd took up the challenge after someone he knew committed suicide. There is no evidence that any of this awareness has changed a damn thing. As a matter of fact, here in the US, it has gotten worse.

"When it comes to the awareness of what some of our young people, when they go offshore, see and do, I don't think there is that awareness." Major Rodger Kidd

The question is, what good has come out of any of this awareness?

Why push something that has changed nothing? Is it fun to do? Is it challenging to do? Does it feel good to try to do something? Wouldn't it feel better to actually achieve something meaningful instead?

The military uses push-ups for training and punishment. What good does it do to try and get the civilian population to understand something veterans do not even know? Veterans know they are killing themselves but they do not know how to find hope that tomorrow can be different from today.

The only way we can address healing in a meaningful way is to talk about facts not just easy numbers to remember.
The fact is simple. According to the VA tracking veteran suicides in 1999, the number they discovered was 20 a day. 17 years later the number is still 20 a day. Awareness now? Why when no one is talking about how it actually got worse?

It is still double the civilian rate of suicides and still most of the suicides happen to veterans over the age of 50.

Veterans are killing themselves at more than double the rate of the civilian population with about 49,000 taking their own lives between 2005 and 2011, according to data collected over eight months by News21. 

“It’s not enough that the veteran suicide problem isn’t getting worse,” he said, “it isn’t getting any better.” Rep. Jeff Miller

Rep. Jeff Miller showed that his committee does not understand that while they spend billions a year, hold hearing after hearing, they have actually achieved total ignorance.  It has gotten worse because in 1999 there were almost 7 million more veterans in the country than now. How does he claim the numbers have not gotten worse?

Suicide Mortality Among Individuals Receiving Treatment for Depression in the Veterans Affairs Health System: Associations with Patient and Treatment Setting Characteristics was published in 2007.

Conclusions. Unlike the general population, older and younger veterans are more prone to suicide than are middle-aged veterans. Future research should examine the relationship between depression, PTSD, health service use, and suicide risks among veterans.

It is not just the veterans we need to worry about. It is their whole families. This report is from 2014 Collateral damage: The mental health issues facing children of veterans

Ron Avi Astor, professor of social work at the University of Southern California, said, "The vast majority of the kids and families, even with a lot of deployments and a lot of moves, about 70 percent or more depending on the issue you're looking at, are doing fine."

But Astor says the other thirty percent -- up to a million and a half kids -- are not doing fine. He studied 30,000 high school students in eight California school districts. Particularly troubling: Astor found one out of four military kids is likely to consider suicide -- significantly more than non-military kids.

And what does the Veterans Administration do for the children and siblings of people who've come back from the war? Not much, said Astor.

The VA spent almost $500 million last year for PTSD treatments for veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan. But their family members (a VA spokeswoman informed us by email) may receive counseling "if determined to be essential to the effective treatment and readjustment of the veteran."

Christal Presley told Teichner, "My mom had asked me not to talk about the things that were happening with my father. In fact, if my mom mentioned the word Vietnam, it was with a whisper."

View More: U.S. News|Live News|More News Videos

The collateral damage of war is still being spread with whispers.

SWAT Standoff Ended After 11 Hours

Scottsbluff man arrested after 11-hour standoff
Star Herald
MAUNETTE LOEKS and DEAN TORSKE
Star-Herald Staff
August 20, 2016

UPDATE, 11:15 A.M.: Sheriff Mark Overman has confirmed reports that the man involved in the stand-off is a Vietnam veteran who has been suffering some recent emotional issues. Family members called in the report, but the man has mostly made threats to himself. 

Standoff nearing its sixth hour SHANA EMERICK/Courtesy Photo

Neighbor Shana Emrick provided photos of SWAT team and bomb robot teams readying at the site of a standoff Saturday.

After more than 11 hours, a standoff at a rural residence ended with officers taking the man into custody.

Scotts Bluff County Sheriff’s deputies and the Scottsbluff SWAT Team took Daniel Converse, 65, of Scottsbluff, into custody at about 6:45 p.m. Sheriff Mark Overman reported authorities had obtained a warrant for the man, charging him with two felony counts of terroristic threats.

“I am just proud of all of the efforts of all of the officers that we were able to get this resolved. It took quite a while, but we got it resolved peacefully,” Overman said.

The standoff began at about 7:30 a.m. when Scotts Bluff County Sheriff’s deputies were called to a residence at County Road H and County Road 19, about six miles west of Scottsbluff. A woman reported to deputies that a man at the residence was armed with a hand grenade. He was outside of the residence when deputies initially arrived, but went back into the residence.

“They (deputies) challenged him and tried to get him to stop, but he retreated into his house,” Overman said. “He was holding something in his hands that deputies said was the size and shape of a grenade.”
read more here