TEAM Rubicon Vietnam Veteran Still Serving Others

Team Rubicon: Veterans help flood victims
Veterans who served their country, now serve their communities
4 News Detroit
Author: Lauren Podell
Local 4 Reporter
Published On: Aug 20 2014

DEARBORN, Mich.
They served in the military at different times.

“I am actually still serving, I am an Army reservist,” said Eric Burghardt of Kalamazoo.

They served at different places.

“I’m a Vietnam veteran, so I am considered one of the older guys in the group,” said Bob Pries of Farmington Hills.

Meet Team Rubicon.

When disasters strike anywhere across the country, this veterans group helps with the clean up. That’s exactly what the cities of Dearborn, Dearborn Heights and Southfield did after last week’s flooding left so many homeowners helpless.

“We like to say disasters are our business but Veterans are our passion,” said Pries, Team Rubicon’s incident commander.
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ISIS Video Shows Journalist Beheaded in Iraq

BREAKING: US officials confirm video released by ISIS shows gruesome beheading of US journalist James Foley
BY LARA JAKES AND BRADLEY KLAPPER
Aug 20th 2014

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A grisly video released Tuesday shows Islamic State militants beheading American journalist James Foley, U.S. officials said, in what the extremists called retribution for recent U.S. airstrikes in Iraq. The militants threatened to kill another captive they also identified as an American journalist.

Separately, Foley's family confirmed his death in a statement posted on a Facebook page that was created to rally support for his release, saying they "have never been prouder of him."

"He gave his life trying to expose the world to the suffering of the Syrian people," said the statement, which was attributed to Foley's mother, Diane Foley. She implored the militants to spare the lives of other hostages. "Like Jim, they are innocents. They have no control over American government policy in Iraq, Syria or anywhere in the world."

The statement was posted on a Facebook page called "Find James Foley," which his family has used a number of times since his November 2012 disappearance. Earlier Tuesday, a red-eyed but gracious Diane Foley said the family would not have an immediate statement when approached at her home by an Associated Press reporter. A priest arrived at the home several hours later.
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Iraq Veteran and Member of ISIS Bond Over Robin Williams?

An American veteran and a jihadi bond over Robin Williams
PRI's The World
Producer Christopher Woolf
August 19, 2014

Who would have thought that Islamic militants might also enjoy Robin Williams movies?

The death of the actor and comedian last week provoked an outpouring of sympathy from across the world. That included activists with ISIS, the militant group that has proclaimed an Islamic caliphate in northern Iraq and Syria.

Alex Horton found that out when he went to tweet his his own fond memories of William. Horton, currently a journalist and blogger on national security issues, served as an infantryman in the US Army.

During his tour in Iraq in 2006 and 2007, some of the insurgents he fought were much like ISIS.

But Horton still engaged some of the activists when they posted their admiration of Robin Williams on Twitter. He ended up having a long conversation, both on- and off-line, with one Islamist in particular: a 19-year-old guy called Abdullah.
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Pain Added After Memorial Stolen in Washington

Thieves steal monument to Washington soldier who died in Afghanistan
KGW News
Aug. 19, 2014

Suspected metal thieves stole this memorial from a Longview, Wash., park. (Steven Bragg)

LONGVIEW, WASH. — Thieves stole the monument of an Afghan War soldier, along with eight others from Lake Sacajawea Park over the weekend.

Mikayla Bragg served in Afghanistan and took her own life in that country in December 2011.

The city of Longview honored her service with a plaque that was dedicated in April 2012. The touching ceremony included poetry, prayers, eulogies and the singing of the national anthem by the Mark Morris High choir, according a report in the Longview Daily News.
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Marine's Missing Wife Found Dead in California Mine Shaft

Marine's Wife Found Dead in California Mine Shaft
Associated Press
by Gillian Flaccus
Aug 19, 2014

SAN BERNARDINO, Calif. — Deep in a mine shaft in the California desert, the body of a pregnant wife of a U.S. Marine was discovered after a search of nearly two months.

Far off in Alaska, a man alleged to have been her lover was arrested on suspicion of homicide.

Authorities on Monday outlined the discovery of 19-year-old Erin Corwin and the arrest of 24-year-old Christopher Brandon Lee, who until recently was also a Marine.

The search for Corwin ended Saturday when her body was spotted with a video camera 140 feet down a mine shaft on federal land near her home in Twentynine Palms, where her husband was stationed, San Bernardino County Sheriff John McMahon said. He said deputies searched many of the 100 mine shafts in a 300 square mile area before zeroing in on right one.

The following day authorities arrested Lee, Corwin's former neighbor, in Anchorage.
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Ex-POW Veteran of 3 Wars Passed Away at 92

Brevard Vietnam veteran, POW dies
FLORIDA TODAY
Norman Moody
August 18, 2014

Retired Col. Larry Guarino was a POW for more than seven years. The Indian Harbour Beach resident died of natural causes at the age of 92.
(Photo: File photo)

MELBOURNE – Retired Air Force Col. Larry Guarino, a fighter pilot who in the Vietnam War was shot down near Hanoi in 1965 and held as a prisoner of war for more than seven years, has died.

He was 92.

Guarino, an Indian Harbour Beach resident, was a highly decorated veteran, who also served in World War II and Korea. He told the story of his captivity in Vietnam in "A POW Story — 2801 Days in Hanoi."

"That book inspired so many people," said Evelyn Guarino, his wife of 71 years.

She said a young private once wrote her husband to say that after reading about what Guarino went through in prison, he was ashamed of himself for complaining about not having his family with him in Germany where he was serving.

"He was a wonderful man," Evelyn Guarino said. "He had a great sense of humor."

She said he served for 33 years as a pilot and loved the plane he flew in World War II, the Spitfire.

His medals included the Air Force Cross, the second highest military award, Air Force Distinguished Service Medal, Silver Star, the Distinguished Flying Cross and two Purple Hearts.
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Homeless veterans most devoted to helping build for others

Homeless Veterans Help Build 'Homes For Our Heroes'
WFMY
Meghann Mollerus
August 19, 2014

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. -- The 'Homes 4 Our Heroes' project in Winston-Salem continues to garner community participation, including that of two veterans who are working to curb a situation they understand firsthand--veteran homelessness.

Whole Man Ministries' project has had several setbacks--including rotted floor joists and lead abatement--but now is back on track to be completed by Veterans Day. The five duplexes on Cameron Ave. will house at least 10 homeless veterans, who have been asked to apply and have not yet been selected.

"I started coming out here because I needed something to do. And it infused in me. I have to be here. Even on the days [the project] has paperwork, I want to come out and work," said volunteer Myron Smith.

Prior to staying with a friend, Smith was among the 57,000 veterans estimated to be homeless on any given night. He is one of two veterans in Whole Man Ministries' apprenticeship program, in which homeless individuals from local shelters can come work on the project.
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Fort Hood Soldier died of gunshot wound

Fort Hood soldier found dead at home
Army Times
Joe Gould
August 18, 2014

Fort Hood officials have identified a soldier who died Aug. 13 from an apparent gunshot wound in Killeen, Texas.

Sgt. Triston James Johnson, 23, of Houston, entered active duty service in October 2009 as a combat engineer, according to a news release from the post. He had been assigned to Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, Fort Hood, since November 2012.

Johnson deployed in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation New Dawn from April 2010 to March 2011.
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Learning from Twitter Veterans with PTSD Tweets

One more thing worth thinking about when you read this article about a study on PTSD and tweets is the US military has been cutting troops, leaving them unemployed. That isn't the worst. They lost a part of who they are on top of that.

For far too many, this is all they ever wanted to do with their lives. It was part of who they are. Far more attached to their jobs than anyone else, these career choices came with being ready to die on the job. Military life is part of their identity.

Tracking traces of depression and PTSD in tweets
Beta Boston
Nidhi Subbaraman
7 DAYS AGO

Losing a job can take a toll on mental health. That’s a case that’s been made time and again.

For the first time, researchers are showing that this relationship can be seen in the geo-tagged tweets sent by Americans across the country.

At the Joint Statistical Meeting held in Boston last week, researchers from the U.S. Naval Surface Warfare Center and Johns Hopkins University presented early evidence that counties in the U.S. with higher rates of unemployment also had a higher proportion of Twitter users with depression-signifying language in their tweets.

That isn’t all. In counties with high populations of veterans, more Twitter users showed traces of post-traumatic stress disorder in their public posts. Counties with a lower median household income had a higher proportion of people who had tweets with signs of depression.
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Linked from
Twitter opens a window on depression and PTSD Boston Globe AUGUST 19, 2014

Bikers Hunt Homeless Veterans on Skid Row

Local veterans ride from Whittier to help the homeless
Whittier Daily News
Sandra Molina
August 18, 2014

Harout Aogryan, of the Armenia Brigade Motorcycle club leads volunteers during an event hosted by Vet Hunters Project.
Photo by Robert Huskey

WHITTIER

More than 100 motorcyclists gathered in Whittier on Sunday at a rally point before heading out to Skid Row in Los Angeles to help the homeless and look for military veterans among them.

The event hosted by Vet Hunters Project, “Operation Restore Hope,” helped feed and support the homeless, handing out 1,230 meals.

The Vet Hunters Project is a San Gabriel Valley based non-profit that was founded by Joe Leal, an Iraq combat veteran and advocate for America’s homeless heroes.
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More forgotten news on Combat PTSD

Keeping with the theme of the night, here is one more piece of forgotten news on our veterans.

A study finds a high rate of depression and stress disorders, and many are not getting proper treatment.

WASHINGTON — The latest and most comprehensive study of veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars has concluded that nearly 1 in every 5 veterans is suffering from depression or stress disorders and that many are not getting adequate care.

The study shows that mental disorders are more prevalent and lasting than previously known, surfacing belatedly and lingering after troops have been discharged.

An estimated 300,000 veterans among the nearly 1.7 million who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan are battling depression or post-traumatic stress disorder. More than half of these people, according to the study conducted by the Rand Corp., are slipping through the cracks in the bureaucratic system, going without necessary treatment.

The Rand study underscores one of the lessons of modern counterinsurgency conflicts: Such wars may kill fewer troops than traditional fighting but can leave deeper psychological scars.

Screening techniques for stress disorders are vastly improved from previous wars, making comparisons with Vietnam, Korea or World War II difficult. But a chief difference is that in Iraq and Afghanistan all service members, not just combat infantry, are exposed to roadside bombs and civilian deaths. That distinction subjects a much wider swath of military personnel to the stresses of war.

Stop right there. Was this supposed to be serious? Bombs were planted all over Vietnam and they had seen a lot of civilian deaths too.

"We call it '360-365' combat," said Paul Sullivan, executive director of Veterans for Common Sense. "What that means is veterans are completely surrounded by combat for one year. Nearly all of our soldiers are under fire, or being subjected to mortar rounds or roadside bombs, or witnessing the deaths of civilians or fellow soldiers."

Military officials praised the Rand study, saying that its findings were consistent with their own studies, and said it would reinforce efforts to try to improve mental health care. Veterans Affairs officials, while questioning the study's methodology, said their department had intensified efforts to find discharged service members suffering from mental disorders.

The Rand Study was undertaken for the California Community Foundation, which also has funded other programs for returning veterans. Lt. Gen. Eric Schoomaker, the Army surgeon general, said the study would help draw the nation's attention.

"They are making this a national debate," Schoomaker said.

The Army previously has said that an estimated 1 in 6 service members suffered from a form of post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, a slightly lower rate than the Rand study found. In addition to current PTSD rates, the Rand study found that 19.5% of people who had served in Iraq or Afghanistan suffered a concussion or other traumatic brain injury during their combat tour, a number similar to Army estimates.

Taken together, the study shows that 31% of those who have served in combat have suffered from brain injury, stress disorder, or both.

Combat-related mental ailments and stress can lead to suicide, homelessness and physical health problems. But more mundane disorders can have long-term social consequences.

"These conditions can impair relationships, disrupt marriages, aggravate the difficulties of parenting, and cause problems in children that may extend the consequences of combat trauma across generations," the study said.

It wasn't written last week, last month or even last year. It was from 2008!

Veterans struggle with war trauma by Julian E. Barnes Times Staff Writer April 18, 2008

Troops on food stamps news to NBC finally?

Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
August 18, 2014

Days like this I really think about changing the title of this site to simply WTF News!

Wounded Times Forgotten News. What did you think I meant? Can't fool you!

The headline "Hungry Heroes: 25 Percent of Military Families Seek Food Aid" by Miranda Leitsinger should have added the word "still" but it seems the reporter had no clue of how long this has all been going on.

"Defense Department spokesman Lt. Cmdr. Nate Christensen said in a statement that the Pentagon was reviewing the survey and was “concerned with anything that impacts the wellness and readiness of service members and families. The work of Feeding America and other organizations will help the department amplify the DOD resources available to service members and families, particularly in high-cost locations.”

He added that the Pentagon “recognizes that personal financial readiness of service members and their families must be maintained to sustain mission readiness” and offers personal financial management counselors, as well as other tools and services, to help personnel get a clear understanding of their finances. Military stores – like exchanges and commissaries – provide savings to troops, he said."

Later in the article was this

“Lowest income military families are living paycheck to paycheck, and even those paychecks aren't enough to make ends meet,” said Shana Hazan, a director at Jewish Family Service (JFS) of San Diego, which began holding food distributions at military locations in early 2007. As JFS makes its yearly plans, “I don't think we ever questioned whether the need will remain in terms of food insecurity among military families. That is just a base of assumption for us.”

So how did the Department of Defense spokesperson get away with just making a claim like that?

They knew in 1994 when the Commander-in-Chief was President Clinton
As Military Pay Slips Behind, Poverty Invades the Ranks

But a 1992 survey by the Defense and Agriculture Departments found that about 3 percent of the 1.7 million service members qualified for food stamps and that 1 percent, or about 17,000 people, received them monthly. The Agriculture Department manages the food stamp program.

The Defense Department said the total value of food stamps redeemed at military commissaries increased to $27.4 million last year from $24.5 million in 1992. That amount included those redeemed by retired military recipients. Food donation centers are bustling at bases from Hawaii to Florida.

And they knew when the Commander-in-Chief was President Bush

Military families on food stamps? It's not an urban myth. About 25,000 families of servicemen and women are eligible, and this may be an underestimate, since the most recent Defense Department report on the financial condition of the armed forces -- from 1999 -- found that 40 percent of lower-ranking soldiers face "substantial financial difficulties." Senator Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada, reports hearing from constituents that the Army now includes applications for food stamps in its orientation packet for new recruits.

A 10-percent spike in food-stamp redemptions at military commissaries is likely a lingering aftereffect of Hurricane Katrina and other storms, commissary officials said.

Across the commissary system, food-stamp redemptions were up by about $2.3 million, to $26.2 million in fiscal 2006 compared to the previous year.

Officials have not definitively verified the causes for the spike, said Defense Commissary Agency spokesman Kevin Robinson, but three stores affected by Hurricane Katrina and other storms accounted for about 83 percent of the increase, at levels that were five or six times the previous year’s redemptions for those stores.

Those commissaries, which usually are not close to the top of the list when it comes to quantities of food stamps, were in the top five of all commissaries. Fort Polk, La., had the highest total of all.

At Fort Polk, where a number of people were evacuated after the storm, the commissary rang up $973,544 worth of food-stamp redemptions in fiscal 2006, five times the previous year’s total of $190,682.

The fiscal years run from Oct. 1 to Sept. 30; Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast in August 2005.

The New Orleans Naval Air Station store, which is relatively small, redeemed $687,585 worth of food stamps in fiscal 2006, nearly six times its 2005 total of $116,329. It ranked number five among commissaries for food-stamp redemptions in 2006.

“Feeding America’s Families Act of 2007,” a bill introduced by Reps. James McGovern, D-Mass., and Jo Ann Emerson, R-Mo., has a provision that would exclude from food-stamp eligibility calculations any additional payment received by a service member as the result of deployment to a designated combat zone, for the duration of the member’s deployment. The additional pay must be the result of deployment to or service in the combat zone.

The proposal likely will be considered as lawmakers craft a new farm bill, which provides spending authority for federal nutrition programs. The current law will expire at the end of this fiscal year.

The administration requested this exclusion in its budget proposal earlier this year, noting that combat pays could reduce a family’s benefits or make them ineligible. “This policy change recognizes this problem and would ensure that military families are not penalized for doing their civic duty,” according to the Department of Agriculture’s farm bill proposal released in January.

The proposal has been a part of the budget for several years and was first enacted in the 2005 Appropriations Act, but it has been handled on a recurring annual basis. The new farm bill proposal would make the annual policy fix permanent, agriculture officials stated.

Most military families are not eligible for food stamps because of their housing allowance, said Joyce Raezer, chief operating officer of the National Military Family Association.

Keep in mind that all of these articles are from the same post in 2008 Armed Forces Day Armed with Food Stamps.

That post was followed up by this one in 2008.

Using food stamps now easier at commissaries
The new checkout system is dubbed the Commissary Advanced Resale Transaction System, or CARTS.

Previously, commissaries had to use stand-alone, state-provided systems to process the benefit cards, and the terminals were installed on only one or two registers. Food stamp benefits are not received overseas.

“On occasion, customers with food-stamp EBT cards found themselves in the wrong line, and we’d have to direct them to use one of the registers with an EBT terminal,” said Gary Hensley, director of the commissary at Fort Benning, Ga., in an announcement from the Defense Commissary Agency. The Fort Benning commissary rang up more than $1.1 million in purchases in the food stamp redemption program in 2007, tops among commissaries.

The best one is the letter written to the Huffington Post by a veteran

Afghanistan veteran on food stamps has message for Congress I'm a 35-Year-Old Veteran On Food Stamps
Huffington Post
Jason Kirell
Combat veteran, former reporter and blogger
Posted: 09/20/2013

My name is Jason. I turned 35 less than a week ago. My first job was maintenance work at a public pool when I was 17. I worked 40-hours a week while I was in college. I've never gone longer than six months without employment in my life and I just spent the last three years in the military, one of which consisted of a combat tour of Afghanistan.

Oh, and I'm now on food stamps. Since June, as a matter of fact.

Why am I on food stamps?

The same reason everyone on food stamps is on food stamps: because I would very much enjoy not starving.

I mean, if that's okay with you:

Mr. or Mrs. Republican congressman.
Mr. or Mrs. Conservative commentator.
Mr. or Mrs. "welfare queen" letter-to-the-editor author.
Mr. or Mrs. "fiscal conservative, reason-based" libertarian.
I do apologize for burdening you on the checkout line with real-life images of American-style poverty. I know you probably believe the only true starving people in the world have flies buzzing around their eyes while they wallow away, near-lifeless in gutters.

Hate to burst the bubble, but those people don't live in this country.

I do. And millions like me. Millions of people in poverty who fall into three categories.

Maybe if NBC didn't forget about all of this all these years along with the rest of the "national news" stations, they wouldn't have to still report on veterans and military families going hungry all this time and maybe, just maybe they would have been able to confront the Department of Defense spokesperson with some actual facts to get some actual answers thus causing some actual change to happen for the people the article was putting in the headline.

UPDATE

Charity says military use of food pantries has been rising for years
Stars and Stripes
By Travis J. Tritten
Published: August 19, 2014

WASHINGTON — The number of military families who struggle to put food on the table has been growing in the years since the Great Recession, the nation’s largest network of soup kitchens and food pantries said Tuesday.

That increase convinced the Feeding America charity to study servicemembers who use the food assistance network, leading to a landmark report released Monday that found about one in four active-duty and reserve troops or someone in their household sought out charitable meals or groceries over the past year.

The Hunger in America report and an interview with the nationwide charity indicate troops are increasingly falling into a segment of the working poor that makes too little to consistently afford food but too much to qualify for government aid such as food stamps.
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Minnesota National Guardsmen Life After Afghanistan

Minn. National Guard Soldiers Attacked in Afghanistan Adjust to Life at Home
KSTP News 5
Kate Renner
August 16, 2014

Members of a Minnesota National Guard unit that was attacked on their base in Afghanistan by a suicide bomber this past winter met Saturday in Anoka to learn how to re-integrate into society.

The 849th Mobility Augmentation Company spent 11 months in Afghanistan. Of the unit’s 100 soldiers, five were wounded in the January attack and two were sent home early.

The company returned to Litchfield in June. The group participated in their 60-day reintegration program over the weekend.

Captain Matt Jukkala, 849th Mobility Augmentation Company Commander, has spent the past two months returning to life as a husband and a manager at Caterpillar Paving in Brooklyn Park.

"Deployed life was very simple,” Jukkala said. “You woke up, you ate, you got ready for your mission, you did your mission, you got back, cleaned your stuff, ate again and went to the gym and worked out.

And just literally repeat.”

He was among those who were at Saturday’s workshop at Anoka County Technical College. The group focused on a range of topics, including employment and family life.

"(When) You get into civilian world it's really based on building repertoire with the people who report to you, getting to know people, networking, that you really don't have to lean so hard on in the military because of the rank structure and the structure of the organization," Jukkala said.
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Law Students helping veterans fight for legal rights

Veterans’ next battle: Legal rights
Associated Press
By LAUREN KIRKWOOD
August 17, 2014

To increase the number of attorneys serving veterans, the Pro Bono Resource Center, in partnership with a few other groups, offers several free training sessions each year for attorneys who make a commitment to use their training pro bono.

BALTIMORE (AP) - In a year when the Department of Veterans Affairs has repeatedly come under fire for problems ranging from deadly delays in medical appointments to its hefty backlog of benefit claims, the need for legal assistance for veterans has often taken a lower priority.

But that’s about to change.

Recent efforts to help veterans obtain benefits or gain access to other resources are underway at law schools, bar associations, community groups and even the VA itself.

“I think the sheer number of claims, and the resources that are available to process them, necessitate more lawyering in this area,” said Hugh McClean, director of the new Bob Parsons Veterans Advocacy Clinic at the University of Baltimore School of Law. “There’s just a tremendous need for veterans’ assistance right now.”

Four law students supervised by McClean, a veteran of the Air Force Judge Advocate General Corps and a former Air Force law professor, will work about 20 hours each week handling cases while also learning through a weekly seminar and reading assignments, he said. In the spring, the number of students in the clinic will likely increase to six.

There are only about 30 such veterans clinics at law schools across the country, McClean said. Pushing for more, the American Bar Association voted at its annual meeting Aug. 11 to urge law schools to create veterans’ clinics or, if that’s not possible, to serve veterans’ needs through an existing clinic.
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