Marine Veteran Carves Honors For Fallen Brothers

Marine Corps vet travels cross-country delivering unique sculptures
Pieces intended to honor fellow Marines
KSAT News
By Adrian Ortega
July 16, 2017

Marine Corps veteran Anthony Marquez served in the same unit as Lance Cpl. John Felix Farias, who was killed during a deployment to Afghanistan in 2011, along with 16 other Marines in his unit.

Now, Marquez is determined to honor each fallen hero with a wooden sculpture of the battlefield cross. He carefully crafts the boots, rifle and helmet with a chainsaw.

"At times, it seems overwhelming, (like), ‘How am I going to complete all this?’” Marquez said. “But it's just one at a time."

The project is a personal mission fueled by a passion. He takes great pride in honoring those who paid the ultimate sacrifice. The task has taken him across the country, and on Sunday, it brought him to Fort Houston National Cemetery, where rows of markers were lined up like military members standing at attention.
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Community Turning Abandoned House to Homeless Female Veteran's Home

Louisville community comes together to rehab vacant house for homeless veteran

WRB News 
By Fallon Glick
July 15, 2017

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) – A United Sates Navy veteran served her country, and now her community is serving her.

For every nail and rotting piece of wood that’s removed and thrown in a dumpster, it's one step closer to a new beginning and the start of a new life for Marlena Aldrich.

Aldrich is a single mother of four children who now has five grandchildren. In 2014, she fell on hard times.

“I just couldn't get caught up and found myself homeless,” Aldrich told WDRB News.

But soon, she will no longer be homeless.

Dozens of local organizations and community members have come together to repay Aldrich for her service including, Greater Louisville area unions, The Housing Partnership Inc., Kentucky Department of Veterans Affairs, Kentucky Habitat for Humanity, Metro United Way, Athena’s Sisters and the Louisville Fire Department.
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WDRB 41 Louisville News

Homeless Veterans Treated Like Honored Guests At Canceled Wedding

Canceled $30K wedding becomes dinner for Indiana homeless, veterans
By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: July 16, 2017

Cummins said she decided that rather than throw away the food she would bring some purpose to the event and contacted area homeless shelters. She cheerfully greeted and welcomed her guests when they arrived Saturday.

Several local businesses and residents donated suits, dresses and other items for the guests to wear.

Sarah Cummins talks with men from Wheeler Mission, at the Ritz Charles, Saturday, July 15, 2017. Cummins called off her wedding which was supposed to be this day. She decided to bring purpose to her pain by inviting area homeless to enjoy the reception.

KELLY WILKINSON/THE INDIANAPOLIS STAR VIA AP

INDIANAPOLIS — An Indiana woman didn't want her canceled $30,000 wedding to go to waste, so she threw a dinner party for the homeless.

A bus pulled up to the swanky event center on Saturday that Sarah Cummins had booked for the reception in Carmel, a suburb north of Indianapolis. About a dozen veterans from a local organization were among the guests who dined on bourbon-glazed meatballs, roasted garlic bruschetta and wedding cake.
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Doctors Warn Manchester VA is Endangering Patients

UPDATE
Stars and Stripes July 17. 2017
"WASHINGTON — The director and chief of staff of the VA hospital in Manchester, N.H., have been removed from their posts following a news report of dirty conditions, long patient wait times and substandard care, Department of Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin announced Sunday."

At a four-star veterans’ hospital: Care gets ‘worse and worse’
Boston Globe
By Jonathan Saltzman and Andrea Estes, Globe Staff
July 15, 2017

So far, 11 physicians and medical employees — including the hospital’s retiring chief of medicine, former chief of surgery, and former chief of radiology — have contacted a federal whistle-blower agency and the Globe Spotlight Team to say the Manchester VA is endangering patients.

MANCHESTER, N.H. — This is what the US Department of Veterans Affairs says a four-star hospital looks like:

One operating room has been abandoned since last October because exterminators couldn’t get rid of the flies. Doctors had to cancel surgeries in another OR last month after they discovered what appeared to be rust or blood on two sets of surgical instruments that were supposedly sterile.

Thousands of patients, including some with life-threatening conditions, struggle to get any care at all because the program for setting up appointments with outside specialists has broken down. One man still hadn’t gotten an appointment to see an oncologist this spring, more than four weeks after a diagnosis of lung cancer, according to a hospital document obtained by the Globe.

Remarkably, leaders of the Manchester VA have confirmed many of the problems, from the fly-infested operating room — “an episodic issue,” said one administrator — to thousands of patients waiting indefinitely for specialist care, which the leaders blamed on the private company hired by the federal government to set up veterans’ appointments outside the hospital. read more here

But as Congress has a habit of doing, they just talk about fixing the VA. When you read this part, be prepared to grab your head first. It will explode like mine did!

“They ignored him basically for 20 years and allowed this thing to grow and grow and grow,” said Abramson, who recently wrote the VA in Manchester and in Boston that his client intends to sue for negligence.

And as for the VA, this is the statement that came into my email.

VA Announces Immediate Actions at Manchester VA Medical Center
07/16/2017 04:55 PM EDT


WASHINGTON – Today, U.S. Secretary of Veterans Affairs David J. Shulkin, M.D., announced actions the department is taking immediately to respond to whistleblower concerns at the Manchester, New Hampshire, VA Medical Center (VAMC) detailed in an article in today’s Boston Globe.

The VA Office of the Medical Inspector and the VA Office of Accountability and Whistleblower Protection are being sent in beginning Monday to conduct a top-to-bottom review of the Manchester VAMC, including all allegations in the article.

In addition, effective immediately, the department has removed the director and chief of staff at the facility, pending the outcome of the review.

Alfred Montoya, the director of the VAMC in White River Junction, Vermont, will serve as the new director of the Manchester VAMC and the new chief of staff will be announced shortly.

Dr. Shulkin said, “These are serious allegations, and we want our Veterans and our staff to have confidence in the care we’re providing. I have been clear about the importance of transparency, accountability and rapidly fixing any and all problems brought to our attention, and we will do so immediately with these allegations.”

Camp Pendleton Marine Saved Wife Before Fatal Motorcycle Crash

Camp Pendleton Marine Saved Wife Before Dying in Motorcycle Crash
Times of San Diego
POSTED BY CASSIA POLLOCK
JULY 15, 2017

A man who saved his wife by pushing her off their motorcycle before a fatal collision was identified Saturday as a Camp Pendleton Marine.

“He is so selfless that he pushed me off the motorcycle before we hit the bottom of the embankment. I miss my best friend, my soulmate, my everything,” said his wife, in a post on social media.

Promlikhit Khamkhong, 27, was riding a motorcycle with his wife seated beside him late Thursday near Lower Otay Lake, when they careened off a curve on westbound Otay Lakes Road and plunged down a steep embankment, according to the medical examiner’s office.
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Australia Suicide Report on Boots Left Behind by Their Veterans

Veteran Jesse Bird, who took his own life, spent years asking for help, says mate 
Laura Armitage, Lilydale and Yarra Valley Leader 
July 16, 2017

"On June 27 — on National PTSD Awareness Day, and three weeks after getting the letter — the 32-year-old took his life." A FORMER soldier from Boronia says a fellow veteran who committed suicide did so only after spending seven years trying to get officials to recognise his post-traumatic stress disorder. 

Phil Hodgskiss said his mate and fellow veteran Jesse Bird, from St Kilda, was deployed to Afghanistan in 2009 and returned in 2010. Mr Hodgskiss said since his return, Mr Bird tried to get the Department of Veterans Affairs to recognise his PTSD and other conditions, but it was a recent rejection letter for permanent impairment compensation that was the final straw. 

A copy of the rejection letter was posted on a Facebook page of The Warrior’s Return — a group that provides services for returned servicemen and is run by veterans and their families. The post said Mr Bird’s claim was rejected “because there is evidence the impairment you suffer from … post-traumatic stress disorder, major depressive disorder, alcohol abuse, is not considered permanent and stable at this time”. read more here

ESPN Exposes Stunning Combat Wounded Veterans

ESPN BODY ISSUE POWERFUL VETERANS!

Veteran and hopeful Paralympian Ennis on the power of sports

KIRSTIE ENNIS: "I attribute sports to who I am today. Rolling that into my recovery --that's what saved me." Photographs by Peter Yang Behind the scenes by Eric Lutzens

Iowa Vietnam Veterans Served With Honor

They Served With Honor: North Iowa's Vietnam Veterans

Globe Gazette

From the Thanking North Iowa service members and veterans in 2016 series 
9 hrs ago

The Globe Gazette will publish 50 stories — starting on Veterans Day — about North Iowa’s Vietnam Veterans. The stories will appear on Sundays and Wednesdays. 

We’ll culminate this  "They Served With Honor" project with a special section (publishing on the day before Memorial Day) that will include all of the profiles. It will be great keepsake and resource for family members, educators and part-time historians.

read their stories here

Death of Fort Hood Soldier Under Investigation

Fort Hood: Soldier found unresponsive in on-post residence identified

KWTX News 
Sam De Leon 
July 14, 2017

FORT HOOD, Texas (KWTX) Fort Hood officials identified Specialist Justen Glenn Ogden as the soldier found unresponsive at his home on Fort Hood on July 11.

Spc. Justen Glenn Ogden (photo courtesy: Fort Hood Press Center)

Spc. Ogden, 22, is from Humble, Texas and he joined the army in March 2014 as a motor transport operator. In August 2014 he was assigned to 61st Quartermaster Battalion, 13th Expeditionary Sustainment Command, Fort Hood, Texas.

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Colonel Stood Saluting in Pouring Rain

Soldier’s salute at funeral procession goes viral
WSMV News
Rudy Kalis
July 14, 2017

Col. Jack Usrey got out of his car and saluted a funeral procession on a rainy day in Kentucky. (Photo by Erin Hester/Instagram)

NASHVILLE, TN (WSMV)
A simple gesture of respect became a nationwide viral phenomenon.

That’s what happened on the side of the road in a small town in Kentucky.

A Tennessee National Guard soldier, Col. Jack Usrey, got out of his vehicle and stood at attention and saluting in the pouring rain in Vine Grove, KY.

A passerby was so impressed she stopped and took a picture.

Ask Usrey why he did it, and he will tell you it was just the right thing to do.
read more here