Stars & Stripes tells the story of Private Shamika Burrage who lost one of her ears in an automobile accident. The Army doctors at William Beaumont Army Medical Center in El Paso, Texas, grew a new ear for her on her arm;
Doctors harvested cartilage from her ribs and carved an ear shape out of the cartilage. The cartilage was placed under the skin of her forearm to allow the ear to “grow.” Then the ear was attached to her head at William Beaumont Army Medical Center in El Paso.
“The whole goal is by the time she’s done with all this, it looks good, it’s sensate, and in five years if somebody doesn’t know her they won’t notice,” said Lt. Col. Owen Johnson III, chief of plastic and reconstructive surgery for the medical center, in the Army statement…Epidermis from Burrage’s forearm will be used to cover scar tissue in the area around her left jawline, the statement said. Burrage, a supply clerk with 1st Battalion, 35th Armored Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Armored Division, still has two surgeries left to go, but she says she’s optimistic.
According to Tulsa World, Oklahoma Legislator Mike Ritze who represents Broken Arrow has been called out by two of his peers for wearing a Disabled American Veterans cap with a Purple Heart attached on the floor of the chamber;
Two of his House colleagues — Reps. Kevin McDugle, R-Broken Arrow, and Josh West, R- Grove — are accusing Ritze of embellishing his military record. They say he has been wearing on the House floor the DAV cover — or hat — with a Purple Heart insignia, implying that he was a member and had been awarded the medal.
He also claimed that DAV had given him a honorary membership in the organization. DAV denies that and they’ve asked him to stop using their name in his campaign material.
Ritze did serve in the Army’s Medical Corps and he was discharged as a Captain after eight years of service, according to his discharge certificate;
McDugle called Ritze’s situation a case of stolen valor — when someone wears something they didn’t earn. McDugle served eight years with the U.S. Marines, serving with an infantry unit, special forces unit and airborne forward observer unit, and was also a drill instructor.
“It is a big deal,” McDugle said. “It is an honor situation. The idea is: Why portray himself as something he is not? It calls into question everything else he does.”
West, who served nine years in the Army, was awarded a Purple Heart from a firefight in Iraq in 2003 where he was shot in both legs and the stomach and sustained a traumatic brain injury.
West said he respects all veterans, regardless of whether or not they served in combat.
“It is very personal when people embellish their service,” West said. “I take issue with it.”
According to Reuters, Iranian Quds Force rocket batteries fired dozens of rockets at Israeli installations in Golan. The Israeli’s Iron Dome shot down about 20 of those rockets, other Iranian rockets fell short of their targets.
The Israelis responded to the attack by destroying all of the Iranian batteries in Syria;
It was the heaviest Israeli barrage in Syria since the start in 2011 of its civil war, in which Iranians, allied Shi’ite militias and Russian soldiers have deployed in support of President Bashar al-Assad.
Syria’s Army Command said three people were killed and two injured. A war monitor, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said the strikes killed at least 23 military personnel, including Syrians and non-Syrians.
Late Tuesday, Syrian state media said Israel struck a military outpost near the capital of Damascus. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the missiles targeted depots and rocket launchers that likely belonged to Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guard, killing at least 15 people, eight of them Iranians.
Last month, an attack on Syria’s T4 air base in Homs province killed seven Iranian military personnel. On April 30, Israel was said to have struck government outposts in northern Syria, killing more than a dozen pro-government fighters, many of them Iranians.
The Israeli military accused the Revolutionary Guards’ Al Quds force and its commander, Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani, of launching the attack at the Israeli Golan Heights. This is the first time Israel has directly accused Iran of firing toward Israeli territory…Russia’s Defense Ministry said that the Israeli strike on Syria used 28 planes, fired 70 missiles, adding that Syria shot down more than half of Israeli missiles.
Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman said Thursday morning that Israel has struck “all of the Iranian infrastructure in Syria.” Lieberman said that Israel does not seek escalation, but added that it won’t allow Iran to turn Syria into a “forward base” against Israel.
Our partners at Military Phonies share their work on this fellow Angelo Santopolo who claims to be a Navy SEAL, or maybe a Navel SEAL and that he attended a secret BUD/S class;
He actually served on two submarines, USS Raton, a Gato-class attack submarine and USS Ronquil, a Balao-class submarine. He served off the coast of Vietnam with the Raton as an electronics technician in the pay grade E-5, earning a Vietnam Service Medal, but no BUD/s training.
Based on Angelo’s summary Sheet shows that he did 4 years of active duty in the Navy. He was discharged as a ETR2 (SS), E-5 and did earn his Submarine Warfare insignia. There is no record of him attending BUD/S and NO SEAL Command.
[37-year-old Eric R. Weiler]’s conviction stems from a crime in the wee hours of Jan. 22 at the Admiral station at 2626 Center Ave. He entered the store and asked for cartons of Pall Mall and Newport cigarettes, which the 61-year-old male clerk put in a bag and rang up for $129.96.
The clerk tried running a credit card provided by Weiler, at which point Weiler grabbed the shopping bag and headed for the door. The clerk grabbed Weiler’s arm and a scuffle ensued, with the older man getting the upper hand.
Eventually, Weiler managed to free himself and ran outside, only to be pursued by the clerk. When police arrived, the clerk had Weiler pinned on the pavement.
The clerk told police he had pain in his left side and upper right leg, but declined medical treatment. Weiler had injuries to his right cheek and above his right eye and complained of trouble breathing, so he was taken to the hospital.
The suspect who died in a Wednesday morning officer involved shooting has been identified as 30-year-old Elliot Reed.
The second suspect involved in the shooting has been identified as 26-year-old Chauncey Reed. Chauncey Reed was arrested and charged with aggravated assault on a police officer and capital murder.
JPD says “Chauncey Reed’s actions in the shooting involving Elliot Reed are what led him to be charged with capital murder”
The shooting happened just after 1 a.m. at the Valero gas station on Cooper Road. According to Sgt. Roderick Holmes, several shots were fired from both the suspects and the officer.
Elliot Reed was taken to the hospital where he died.
WKYT-TV reported that Bobby Ray Osborne was talking to two men about a car they were supposedly interested in, but then they told him they had a flat tire and needed a jack to change it.
Osborne told the television station that when “the big boy” went to get the jack, “the tall, skinny guy” grabbed him from behind, got him down on the floor and began beating him.
“Then he yells to the big boy, ‘Get his money! Get his money!’” Osborne told WKYT. “The big boy is the one that reached his hand in and got the money. Soon as they got the money they took off.”
When a woman inside the business told the men she’d call the police if they didn’t give the money back, they returned $200 to Osborne. He said they kept $300.
But Osborne wasn’t finished.
He managed to pull a handgun on the two men.
When one of the men said, “Don’t shoot me,” Osborne said he replied, “I ought to kill you.”
He fired one shot but did not hit either of the men, who ran off.
State police were looking for the suspects Tuesday. One of the men reportedly left his driver’s license behind.
“I was putting up a pretty good fight to be 78,” Osborne told WKYT.
Bobo sends us a link to Stars & Stripes which reports that Sergeant John Skipper of the 1st Squadron, 91st Cavalry Regiment, 173rd Airborne Brigade was sentenced for causing the destruction of three Humvees during an airborne landing in Hohenfels Training Area, Germany.
Sgt. John Skipper, 29, was found guilty at court martial in Vilseck, Germany, of destroying military property and giving a false official statement, according to a statement from the 7th Army Training Command, based in Grafenwoehr.
Skipper was sentenced by a military jury to a bad-conduct discharge and reduction in grade to E-1.
Skipper, a scout who had been assigned to assist the brigade’s Italy-based parachute riggers during the exercise, intentionally cut parachute straps on three Humvees included in the heavy drop during the exercise, the jury found.
We talked about Skipper last year when he was charged.
A sergeant first class heard laughing and cursing on a video of the Humvees falling from the sky was punished previously. The sergeant, an observer trainer coach assigned to the 7th ATC’s Joint Multinational Readiness Center, was given an administrative letter of reprimand.
DPAA reports the earthly remains of Major Donald G. Carr have been identified and that he is being returned to his family;
Army Maj. Donald G. Carr, 32, of San Antonio, accounted for on Aug. 19, 2015, will be buried May 11, at San Antonio National Cemetery. On July 6, 1971, Carr was assigned to the Mobile Launch Team 3, 5th Special Forces Group, as an observer in an OV-10A aircraft that supported an eight-man Special Forces reconnaissance team. During his mission, his aircraft encountered bad weather. Shortly afterward, the ground team heard an explosion to their northeast, which they believed to be that of an OV-10A. They failed to locate the crash site, however, and Carr was declared missing in action.
Between September 1991 and March 2014, joint U.S./Lao Peoples’ Democratic Republic teams conducted more than 25 investigations and site surveys, but could not locate his remains.
In April 2014, a Vietnamese citizen contacted American officials, claiming to know about possible American remains in Kon Tum Province, Vietnam. Wreckage, photos, personal effects, and remains were located and transferred to DPAA, and later identified as Carr’s.
To identify Carr’s remains, scientists from DPAA and the Armed Forces Medical Examiner System used circumstantial evidence and DNA analysis, including mitochondrial DNA.
The support from the government and the people of Vietnam was vital to the success of this recovery.
In March 2014, Owen Bell, a Canadian expat, was giving a motorcycle tour in southern Vietnam. At a sightseeing stop, he encountered a young Vietnamese man dressed in combat fatigues (apparently a local fashion statement) making a hard-to-believe claim. The man said a few of his friends, while on a hunting excursion four years earlier, had come upon the wreckage of an American military plane with a body nearby.
To prove it, the guy showed Bell a bone fragment he carried around for good luck and a copy of a dog tag, belonging to a Donald G. Carr.
Later that day, Bell Googled Carr’s name and found an article Cox had written about the search for the solider. This guy might be telling the truth after all, Bell thought.
Bell later met with the man and his friends, three tribesmen who were nervous about being found out by Vietnamese authorities. Bell, assuring them he would keep their identities confidential, broached the idea that the American government might pay reward money for information about missing soldiers.
The men went on to tell Bell about how, during that hunting trip in the jungle, they encountered an aircraft that resembled a frog, with a tail and two legs, and a dead body about 10 to 15 feet away. They admitted goofing around and playing with the defunct machine gun for a bit, before selling what they could for scrap. They showed Bell the original dog tags, as well as more pieces of bone.
An 11-year-old girl escaped from a fellow who had been waiting for a victim in the stall of a ladies’ room in a mall in Cobb County, Georgia, according to Fox 5 Atlanta;
Police said around 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, a girl was with her family in the food court at Town Center at Cobb when she asked to used the restroom. Her father walked her to the hallway leading to the women’s room, and then waited for her to return.
The girl told investigators she didn’t see anyone when she went into the bathroom, but after coming out of the stall, the door for another one opened. She told police a black male came out of the stall and grabbed her. According to police, the attacker put a knife to the girl’s throat. She screamed and managed to escape.
The girl ran back to her father and pointed out the attacker as he left the women’s room. Other shoppers saw what was going on, and helped tackle the man and held him until mall security arrived.
