Stray bullet killed Vietnam Veteran on his sofa

Stray bullet claims grandfather's life
Eyewitness News
By Mike Dinow
Published: Apr 20, 2014

BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KBAK/KBFX) — A 65-year-old man was fatally shot in the head Friday night while relaxing on a sofa.

While the shooting happened in Fresno, the man's family is grieving in Bakersfield.

"He had just laid his granddaughter Riley down and came and sat down," said Bob Watt, who is Gerald Perry's son-in-law.
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Ohio Veteran Saved Woman on Way to Ceremony for Him!

Veteran rescues neighbor while heading to ceremony in his honor
ABC
Monday, April 21, 2014

GRIMES, Iowa (KGO) -- A military hero came to the rescue again as he was heading to an event honoring him for his service.

Sgt. James Yates is a decorated Army reservist who completed tours in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Yates was picking up his girlfriend and heading to a football game in his hometown of Grimes, Iowa, where he was going to be honored, when suddenly an 11-year-old boy ran to the house looking for help.

Turns out the boy's mother got trapped under her SUV when the jack collapsed.
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Virtual Reality for PTSD disclaimer shows issues

We make fun of virtual reality. Veterans say while it is "cool" it does not do them any good. Sure it may help some, but then again, any step taken will make them feel better for a little while but it doesn't last.

There is a new report on virtual reality. No big shocker here because folks have been pushing this for a long time. The kicker was found in the disclaimer at the bottom of the report.

Rothbaum is a consultant to and owns equity in Virtually Better, Inc, which creates virtual environments, however Virtually Better did not create the Virtual Iraq environment tested in this study. Co-authors Kerry Ressler, PhD, and Michael Davis, PhD, are founding members of Extinction Pharmaceuticals/Therpade Technologies, which seek to develop d-cycloserine and other compounds for use to augment the effectiveness of psychotherapy. They have received no equity or income from this relationship within the last three years. The terms of these arrangements have been reviewed and approved by Emory University in accordance with its conflict of interest policies.

Now that you read that, take it into consideration when you read about claims made.

Emory researchers report first findings of virtual reality exposure therapy for veterans with PTSD
Emory University
Woodruff Health Sciences Center
April 21, 2014

A randomized controlled clinical trial of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) found that shorter doses of virtual reality exposure therapy (VRE) reduces PTSD diagnoses and symptoms.

The study was published in the April 18, 2014 online edition of the American Journal of Psychiatry,

Researchers at Emory University conducted the study with 156 veterans with combat-related PTSD. After an introductory session, each veteran was randomly assigned to receive d-cycloserine (DCS) (53 subjects), alprazolam (50 subjects), or a placebo (53 subjects) before each of five sessions of VRE.

The study found PTSD symptoms significantly improved from pre- to post-treatment with the VRE therapy and the DCS may enhance the VRE results for those veterans who demonstrated better emotional learning in sessions. In addition to self-reported symptoms, researchers used objective measures of cortisol, a stress hormone, and the startle response, and found reductions in reactivity after treatment. Alprazolam, known more commonly as Xanax, impaired recovery from symptoms.
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If it works for you, great. If not, don't give up. Keep looking for what works best for you. Make sure that you take care of the whole you. Your mind, body and spirit and heal. You are not "stuck" where you are and can change again.

Navy SEAL's body still missing after dive in 2013

Navy: SEAL Died in Dive Full of Safety Lapses
Honolulu Advertiser
by William Cole
Apr 21, 2014

Leathers was described as a "super-nice guy" who would give others the shirt off his back, according to friends and media reports. He was the father of three young children and had deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan.

The disappearance last year of a Pearl Harbor Navy SEAL who was spearfishing with other unit members on a training free dive off Kaena Point was accompanied by sweeping procedural and safety violations, according to the Navy's investigative report.

The death of special operations Petty Officer 1st Class Matthew John Leathers, 33, was likely caused by drowning due to shallow-water blackout during the breath-hold dive training, the command investigation concluded. No scuba gear was used for the exercise.

Leathers, a member of SEAL Delivery Vehicle Team 1, was wearing an estimated 8- to 10-pound weight belt on the day of his disappearance, Feb. 19, 2013, according to the report.

He was likely negatively buoyant, which would have kept him under water after a blackout, the report said. His body was never found.
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Marine and 2 year old son battling brain cancer

Marine father, toddler son both diagnosed with brain tumors
WCTI12 News
By Amber Roberts
Apr 20 2014

HAVELOCK, CRAVEN COUNTY
First, a Havelock family learned their 2-year-old son has brain cancer. Then, the toddler's Marine father learned he has a brain tumor too.

Devon and Valerie Morse, both 24, have a 2-year-old son named David. The family lives at MCAS Cherry Point, where Devon has been stationed as a Marine for the past six years.

The Morse family said they discovered in March that David was not feeling well. The toddler was vomiting, suffering from nose bleeds, and couldn't balance while walking. The family took David to Carteret General Hospital, and he was later airlifted to Vidant Medical Center.

Doctors said the 2-year-old boy had a tumor on the right side of his brain-- the size of a tangerine. After more examinations, the family found out the tumor was malignant. David has brain cancer.

"I stopped and I cried and I cried," Valerie said. "And my husband had to walk out of the room, just to take a breather real quick. And my son looked up at me, and said, 'What's wrong, mommy?' And I just lost it."

David underwent surgery, and doctors were able to remove the majority of the tumor, his family said. He is now undergoing chemotherapy treatments.

But just as Devon and Valerie were coming to terms with their son's long journey ahead, they learned more bad news.

In April, Devon went to Carteret General Hospital after suffering from numbness in his body. Doctors later discovered that Devon has a tumor in his head as well. Doctors said the tumor is too small for surgery, but serious enough for him to seek additional medical treatment and begin taking medicine to prevent it from worsening. Devon is continuing his visits to doctors to figure out how serious his condition is and how to handle it.

If you want to know more and help this family go here

19 Year Old Soldier Earned Bronze Star for Valor, 69 Year Old Receives It

Vietnam veteran honored
Marblehead native to join Ohio Military of Fame
Sandusky Register
ALEX GREEN OC
MARBLEHEAD
APR 20, 2014

Marblehead native John Henderson will never forget his time in Vietnam for a number of reasons. For one, his year-plus spent serving his country in the war is precisely detailed in his 12-inchthick binder. It neatly holds everything from war photos to maps of where he was deployed.

He doesn’t need it to remind himself of the horrors, however.

Plenty of memories are still triggered almost 50 years later as part of the Post Traumatic Stress Disorder he experiences frequently.

He was 19 years old when he departed for ’Nam. “It’s tough at 19 to handle that,” Henderson said.“It made life harder for me”

Both good and bad memories will always live with Henderson, but strictly good memories will be linked with Henderson’s name throughout eternity.

He will soon be inducted into the Ohio Military Hall of Fame for Valor.

“I never thought I’d be inducted into the hall of anything,” Henderson joked.

He’ll patch up his original green U.S. Army uniform and wear it to the May 2 induction ceremony at the Ohio Statehouse.

Yet another pin will be added to his already colorful collection — a bronze star medal with a “V” device. “It’s quite a deal; it means a lot,” Henderson said.
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Boston Strong Survivor with PTSD Gained Strength From Soldiers

Soldiers Inspire Boston Marathon Bombing Survivor to Run Again
People Magazine
By JOHNNY DODD
04/20/2014

"Army Lt. Col. Brett Sylvia not only helped counsel Clark, but also oversaw the soldiers who reached out to her. Sylvia says he and his men understood what the 37-year-old mother of two was going through and what she needed to hear."

When the Boston Marathon starting gun goes off Monday, runner Demi Clark will have a group of soldiers to thank as she heads out over the 26-mile course.

Clark says she struggled with post-traumatic stress disorder after becoming the final runner to cross the finish line while bombs exploded and debris rained down around her during the 2013 race.

"So many people around me were hit with shrapnel," recalls Clark, whose left eardrum was blown out by the blast.

"I had such massive guilt that I walked away uninjured."

Within months of the blast, the guilt and memories of the victims, the blood and severed limbs she'd seen, took its toll on her. She began seeing a therapist, who diagnosed her with PTSD.

"I wasn't sleeping, and I was anxious whenever I went into public spaces," she recalls. "I just wanted to close the drapes and become a hermit."
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National Guardsman fears discharge after surviving suicide attempt

There is something really wrong when soldiers are still trying to commit suicide. There is something even more wrong when they have to fear they survived.

If you have any advice for this Guardsman, read the post on Yahoo.

Military discharge for suicide attempt?
I dont want to hear any opinions or anybody giving me a lecture why i shouldnt have done it because its already happened and cant be undone.

About three weeks ago I attempted suicide by trying to OD on a variety of pills.

I started feeling really sick. Got very scared and went to the hospital. They pumped my stomach and sent me to a behavioural and mental hospital and had me locked in a room. Unfortunately it was the same weekend as my National guard drill.

After three days I was out and sent my documents of my stay to my First sergeant. Of course leaving out most of the information of why I was there in the first place. Then about a week later he called me enraged and kept going on about how he needs all my information and medical paper work from my stay there. He is very suspicious and very angry.

I just signed to have all my paper work released to my First Sergeant. It sounds silly because I just tried to takr my own life but I do not want to be discharge d at all. I fear that when he gets ahold of the paper work he I will be discharge d from the National Guard. Does any one know what they do for attempted suicide????

Nashville Double Amputee Rolling in Boston Marathon

Wounded Nashville vet in today's Boston Marathon
The Tennessean
Heidi Hall
April 21, 2014

(Photo: Photos by John Partipilo / The Tennessean )

What Marine-turned-marathoner Benjamin Maenza calls his arrogance, other people might call his valor. Or tenacity.

Or insanity.

Because Maenza finished his first marathon in 2011, only a year after an IED in Afghanistan efficiently shredded both his legs to above the knee. He used a handcycle to churn out those 26.2 miles without a day's training, and he was hooked.

At 9:22 a.m. today in Boston, the Lipscomb University student will start his seventh marathon. But this one will be like none he's finished before.

He will meet people who lost their limbs — not defending their nation overseas as he did, but because they simply wanted the exhilaration of running in the world's most famous marathon. Three people died and more than 250 were injured when a bomb exploded at the Boston Marathon finish line on April 15, 2013. Some survivors are expected back, some of them in handcycles such as Maenza's.
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Former U.S. Army Ranger thinks he may have shot Pat Tillman

Former U.S. soldier says his friendly-fire shots might have killed Tillman
Reuters
Reporting by Alex Dobuzinskis
Sun Apr 20, 2014

(Reuters) - A former U.S. Army Ranger who was in the same platoon as ex-NFL player Pat Tillman has stated in a television interview that he believes he might have fired the shots that killed Tillman in a 2004 friendly-fire incident in Afghanistan.

Steven Elliott, 33, told ESPN program "Outside the Lines" in an interview scheduled to air on Sunday that he regrets joining other soldiers in firing on the spot where Tillman had taken position during a chaotic incident in a mountainous area.

"It is possible, in my mind, that I hit him," Elliott said.

Tillman gave up a multimillion dollar career as a defensive back with the Arizona Cardinals football team to enlist in the military in the wake of the September 11, 2001, attacks and served in the U.S. Army's 75th Ranger Regiment, becoming one of the U.S. military's most high-profile service members.

The U.S. military initially said he was shot by enemy fighters in an ambush, but a subsequent investigation determined he was killed by friendly fire.

Elliott's comments to "Outside the Lines" mark his first public statements on Tillman's death. ESPN reported that two other soldiers who previously acknowledged firing at Tillman's position had declined to comment for the sports program.
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Did you hear the one about a woman, a Rabbi and a Chaplain

Did you hear the one about a woman, a Rabbi and a Chaplain walking into a room full of soldiers,,,,and then she began to preach?

Female rabbi, chaplain with 82nd Airborne in Afghanistan, has no regrets
The Fayetteville (N.C.) Observer
By Drew Brooks
Published: April 18, 2014

Capt. Heather Borshof, the battalion chaplain of the 330th Joint Movement Control Battalion, 1st Sustainment Command (Theater), speaks at a service at Bagram Air Field, Afghanistan, on March 14, 2014. JARRED WOODS/U.S. ARMY

BAGRAM AIRFIELD, Afghanistan — Army Capt. Heather Borshof expects the questions.

"What's that on your uniform?" passers-by ask the chaplain for the Fort Bragg-based 330th Movement Control Battalion. It's the Ten Commandments topped with a Star of David, the symbol for Jewish chaplains.

"Women can be rabbis?" they ask. Yes, they have served in that role for decades.

Borshof, who deployed with her battalion — part of the 82nd Sustainment Brigade — in November, said she is used to the queries.

A female chaplain is a rare sight in the military. A female Jewish chaplain? There is only one other in the active-duty Army, she said. And Borshof was the first in a generation. She follows in the footsteps of Chana Timoner, who served at Fort Bragg in 1993 and died in 1998 from complications with a virus.

This week, Borshof has hosted two Passover seders at Bagram Airfield, where she is the only rabbi to be stationed long-term. But she said her chief role is to counsel soldiers, no matter their religion.

"I travel for our soldiers," she said, referring to the battalion's 19 movement control teams spread across Afghanistan. "I actually don't travel for the religious community."
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Australia War widow touched by Kate's sympathy

War widow touched by Kate's sympathy
News Australia
24 HOURS AGO APRIL 20, 2014

WAR widow Nicole Pearce says her meeting with the Duchess of Cambridge was a surreal and privileged experience, but she desperately wishes it could have been under different circumstances.

It's been almost seven years since a roadside bomb claimed the life of her husband, Trooper David Pearce, just two weeks into a tour of Afghanistan.

Her daughters Stephanie and Hanna lost their father. She lost the man she loved, and, for too many years, any sense of a normal life.

Nothing can bring her 41-year-old husband back but the widow was touched by the duchess's heartfelt concern for her family.

Kate and Prince William spoke with four families who lost loved ones in Afghanistan and Iraq during their tour of Queensland's Amberley RAAF base on Saturday.

"She asked how long David had been in the military for and how long he'd been overseas when he was killed," Mrs Pearce told the Nine Network.

"She was sincerely quite sad for us to think David was only over there for two weeks when he was killed. She seemed very, very genuine and she was very sweet."

It was a bitter sweet occasion for the family.
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Returning soldiers now battling homelessness

When it happened to Vietnam veterans no one knew and few cared. With OEF and OIF veterans coming home and facing the same thing, everyone knows but not everyone cares. Think about all we've been told all these years later about what the DOD and the VA have been doing to counter Combat PTSD. Then think of how there is no excuse for any of this still happening. If you care, demand change and accountability because if no one is held accountable, nothing will change and our veterans will keep suffering.

US veterans: returning soldiers now battling homelessness
Channel 4
THURSDAY 17 APRIL 2014

Tens of thousands of US troops are withdrawing from Afghanistan, but many are finding their return home is less than heroic, and the substantial number of veterans facing homelessness is on the rise. Sergeant Randy Vaccaro is what most Americans would describe as a hero.

As a US Marine, he did three combat tours in Iraq. During one, he said he was facing attack every day, small arms and Improvised Explosive Devices. He saw two of his closest friends die in front of him during one firefight in Fallujah.

But now, almost three years on from the US troop withdrawal from Iraq, Randy and tens of thousands of his comrades from that war and America’s other 21st century conflict – Afghanistan – find themselves home. But homeless.

An estimated 48,000 Iraq and Afghanistan veterans were homeless in 2013, according to figures from the US Department of Veterans Affairs.

Although homelessness among military veterans in general is in decline – down by a quarter in the last four years – the current generation of combat veterans are finding themselves homeless at a rising rate.

We met Randy Vaccaro at the Veterans Village of San Diego.

Yes, an entire village created in 1981 to serve the men and women who served their country, and now can’t find their place in it.
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Pascha a new beginning for you

Pascha a new beginning for you
Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
April 20, 2014

Today we celebrate the day Christ defeated death and the stone was rolled away leaving the tomb empty. It was a new beginning for His followers after spending two traumatized days shocked by how it all turned out so bad. They lost hope, questioned everything they believed while suffering for believing that goodness and miracles from God were all false. After all, if God really sent Christ to them, then He would have not been nailed to the Cross and carried to that tomb.

Hope that they were forgiven for all they had done wrong in their lives was taken away from them. They saw with their own eyes that all Christ preached about led to His death. All the blessings He told them about resulted in this terrible ending.

Sermon on the Mount when He said:

3 “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

4 Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

5 Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.

6 Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.

7 Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.

8 Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

9 Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.

10 Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

11 “Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me.

12 Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you."

Christ even had mercy for a Roman Centurion. The Faith of the Centurion

5 When Jesus had entered Capernaum, a centurion came to him, asking for help.
6 “Lord,” he said, “my servant lies at home paralyzed, suffering terribly.”
7 Jesus said to him, “Shall I come and heal him?”
8 The centurion replied, “Lord, I do not deserve to have you come under my roof. But just say the word, and my servant will be healed.
9 For I myself am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. I tell this one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and that one, ‘Come,’ and he comes. I say to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.”
10 When Jesus heard this, he was amazed and said to those following him, “Truly I tell you, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith.
11 I say to you that many will come from the east and the west, and will take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven.
12 But the subjects of the kingdom will be thrown outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”
13 Then Jesus said to the centurion, “Go! Let it be done just as you believed it would.” And his servant was healed at that moment.

Those words had filled them with love for others and had them believing they were loved no matter what was happening in their own lives, yet when He died, they believed His life had been wasted and He was not what they thought He was. How could they believe anything He told them? What about the miracles they saw Him do? Were they all some kind of magic trick? Was any of it real?

For those two nights they were filled with grief but afterwards they rejoiced knowing that what Jesus told them, what He stood for and everything He did was from God.

John:20
Jesus Appears to His Disciples

19 On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jewish leaders, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!”

20 After he said this, he showed them his hands and side. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord.

21 Again Jesus said, “Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.”

22 And with that he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit. 23 If you forgive anyone’s sins, their sins are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.”

Peace be with you? He said that after being betrayed, abandoned, beaten, mocked and nailed to the cross. He said "Peace be with you" to the people he called his friends and was willing to die for yet they ran from Him as soon as there was trouble.

There was a spiritual awakening that Sunday morning.

For Greeks the day is called Pascha, otherwise known as Easter.

Origins of Pascha and Great Week Rev. Alciviadis C. Calivas, Th.D has a good article on this and points this passage out.

"...purge out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, since you truly are unleavened. For indeed Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us. Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth" (1 Cor 5:7-8).

These people made new. It all meant more to them after Jesus defeated death. His last words of asking for God to forgive everyone for what was done to them changed the way they felt about the spiritual connection they had to the Creator.

There is a difference between religion and spirituality. Most of them were living under the religious rules of their Jewish heritage but Christ made it more personal to them.

Kairos is in play when things happen unpredictably, but at just the right moment. Eternity and clock time seem to intersect for human benefit and instruction. Such an experience, when something eternal appears to break through into everyday life, is an ‘epiphany'. Heaven and earth may seem briefly to coincide and... ‘Something happens'! Something new and profound, something inspiring and life-changing is revealed in an instant.

The new wisdom resonates powerfully with something already present, deep inside. It feels like a reminder and confirmation of something already known but forgotten. Such revelations herald a kind of awakening, a key moment of transition on life's journey towards spiritual maturity. As the fallen leaf never rises to rejoin the tree, so is this a point of no return. The significance of these experiences is re-enforced by ‘synchronicities' unexpected but meaningful coincidences; such as may occur when two people meet for the first time, who later become life partners.

Synchronicities and serendipities - unexpected discoveries - often go together. There is a kind of mystery about kairos. Kairos is spiritual time.
Spiritual Wisdom for Secular Times The search for meaning and faith Psychology Today by Dr. Larry Culliford

So what does all of this have to do with you?

You are not stuck where you are spiritually. You do not have to question everything you thought was the right thing to do for the right reasons because you are hurting today. The outcome of your life has not been written yet.

The followers of Christ were miserable after doing things for a good reason and out of love but ended up knowing that they were not wrong. Their suffering did not have to last a lifetime and they were not stuck in those dark days between the Crucifixion and Resurrection. You are not stuck where you are spiritually either.

In one week it all went to hell from Palm Sunday when Jesus was welcomed.

8 A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, while others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road.
9 The crowds that went ahead of him and those that followed shouted, “Hosanna[b] to the Son of David!” “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!”[c] “Hosanna[d] in the highest heaven!”
10 When Jesus entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred and asked, “Who is this?”
11 The crowds answered, “This is Jesus, the prophet from Nazareth in Galilee.”
(Matthew 21)

To the night He was arrested and His friends abandoned Him, tried and people called for Him to be put to death to the day they heard the news the tomb was empty.

In 7 days the world changed for the people following Jesus but as you grieve now, know that the world can change for you as well.

Look at why you did what you did if the reason was from goodness, then forgive yourself as well as the people who did wrong against you. If you did it for the wrong reasons, ask for forgiveness and then forgive yourself. There is nothing you cannot be forgiven for. Christ not only asked for forgiveness for the people after they betrayed Him, He died for their sake and ours. Let Him heal your spirit so that you can rejoice again just as the people did when they heard the news they were not wrong believing that love lives on.