This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here

Author: Jonn Lilyea

  • Tuesday morning feel good stories

    Tuesday morning feel good stories

    AW1Ed sends us a story from Bonsall, California;

    While arguing with the 30-year-old woman inside a van parked on a large rural property, Raymond Rivera, 39, allegedly began punching and choking her and slammed her head against a window, then punched her daughter in the arm when the child tried to intervene, said Lt. Dave Schaller.

    The woman eventually managed to get outside, after which Rivera allegedly chased her around the vehicle and threw a portable air-conditioning unit at her.

    “Fearing a continued attack and while fleeing, the victim produced a pocket knife and stabbed Rivera in the buttocks in self-defense,” the lieutenant said. “This action provided sufficient time to flee on foot and call 911.”

    The mother and daughter then hid in a nearby 40-acre parcel covered by thick chaparral as deputies arrived and caught Rivera as he tried to flee the area on foot, Schaller said.

    The suspect was treated at the scene for his stab wound and then transported to Palomar Medical Center. His girlfriend, whose name was withheld, declined treatment, and the child was unhurt.

    From Mobile, Alabama;

    Mobile Police have confirmed to News 5 a homeowner shot an intruder around 9:00 p.m. Sunday.

    No arrests have been made in the incident, but Mobile Police are continuing their investigation.

    From Ballard, Washington;

    At approximately 4:15 a.m. on Sunday, a Ballard resident was sleeping at a home in the 6700 block of 25th Avenue NW when he heard someone breaking into his house.

    According to the Seattle Police Department, the resident armed himself with a handgun and left his room to find that the intruder had already broken into the mudroom and was trying to gain access to the main house. He then fired a gun through the window of the door and into the mudroom.

    The homeowner called 911 himself and officers responded.

    Ten minutes later, a 35-year-old man with a gunshot wound in his abdomen was dropped off at Swedish Hospital in Ballard and was later transferred to Harborview Medical Center for further treatment.

    A neighbor also reported seeing a dark-colored station wagon driving away from the resident’s house. Officers later located the car several blocks away and observed fresh blood on the inside and outside of it as well as what appeared to be stolen property inside. A man and a woman were standing near the car when it was found and were taken in for questioning.

    The man had an outstanding warrant and was arrested, and the woman was the sister of the man who suffered the gunshot.

  • Michael Chesna, Weymouth officer, killed

    Michael Chesna, Weymouth officer, killed

    JacktheJarhead sends us a link to the sad news that Weymouth, Massachusetts police officer Michael Chesna was murdered by 20-year-old Emanuel Lopes.

    Police say the suspect crashed a car, fled the scene, and was later discovered by Chesna allegedly vandalizing a home. Prosecutors say that’s when he attacked Chesna with a rock to the head. Chesna fell to the ground, and officials say, Lopes took the officer’s gun and shot Chesna multiple times in the head and chest.

    Lopes then fled and fired more shots during a chase. Police say one of those shots fatally struck the woman in her home.

    Lopes was shot in the leg during pursuit by other officers. Unfortunately, he’s expected to recover.

    According to Weymouth Police Chief Richard Grimes, Chesna is a military veteran of the war in Afghanistan;

    Grimes said he had spoken to Chesna’s mother and she said her son joined the military ‘‘to open the doors to get in this job.’’

  • Itta Bena, MS remembers fallen Marines

    Itta Bena, MS remembers fallen Marines

    BlueCord Dad sends us a link to the story of Itta Bena, Mississippi and their memorial to the 15 Marines and the Navy Corpsman who died in a plane crash last year in a soybean field.

    It’s an active form of memory — building, telling, hiking, running — to honor the New York-based crewmembers who flew the KC-130T military transport, as well as the special forces Marines they were carrying from North Carolina to California for training.

    “All we want to do is talk about them and share who they were with the rest of the world,” said Anna Johnson, the widow of Gunnery Sgt. Brendan Johnson, a crew member.

    More than 200 family members and friends gathered Saturday in the Mississippi Delta town of Itta Bena to dedicate a monument to the July 10, 2017, crash of the plane, whose call sign was Yanky 72.

  • Retired Navy SEAL questions Wisconsin American Legion commitment to ferreting out valor thieves

    Retired Navy SEAL questions Wisconsin American Legion commitment to ferreting out valor thieves

    The Wisconsin State Journal reports that Derrick Van Orden, a retired Navy SEAL, planned to question the Wisconsin American Legion Department about their commitment to ferreting out valor thieves when his time to speak at a state convention was yanked.

    Derrick Van Orden, a 26-year military veteran and resident of Butternut in northern Wisconsin, pointed to two veterans in particular who were allowed to serve as state Legion officials — including one who served as a state commander — despite having lied about or misrepresented the extent of their service.

    Van Orden said he was the one who let the state Legion know its then-historian, Howard “Gordy” Clewell, had exaggerated his service during the Vietnam era by claiming to have been in Special Forces. He had actually been stationed in Germany as a social worker.

    Clewell resigned, and we discussed him last month. His wife, now the commander of the Wisconsin Department claims that she is kicking his ass to the curb in a divorce.

    Van Orden also gave the organization documents that prove that their former state commander Robert Oliver, who died in 2011, was dishonorably discharged which disqualified him from membership in the Legion.

    Van Orden points to a variety of groups that seek to expose those who are lying about their service or falsely claiming to be veterans and says it’s likely many Legion members are among the fraudsters.

    Most recently a Legion member since 2014, Van Orden said his broader goal is to ensure Legion members who aren’t being truthful about their pasts don’t undermine the organization’s ability to help younger veterans cope with the trauma they’ve experienced during wartime.

    “I take this super seriously,” he said, pointing to veterans he’s known who have been killed in combat or committed suicide. “That is the beginning and end of my agenda.”

    We’ve done our share of exposing members of the American Legion who have lied about their service, as well as members of the VFW and Disabled American Veterans – all are organizations to which I am proudly a Life Member.

    The American Legion has been instrumental in our battle against valor thieves. They shouldered much of our legal battle in Florida last year. While the Legion has some problems with commands below the National level, overall, they’ve been doing a great job in supporting us in our efforts.

    Amber Nikolai, state adjutant of the Wisconsin American Legion, said she has a lot of respect for Van Orden but his presentation was canceled only a few hours before he was to give it because it wasn’t appropriate for the convention, which was marking the department’s 100th anniversary.

    “It is important and we want to address the issues,” she said. “It’s just that this isn’t the forum.”

    When I first started on this quest to rid the country of military fakes, I battled with the VSOs almost as much as I did with the fakes, but that culture in VSOs is shifting more to my point-of-view. They are magnitudes better than they used to be. The Legion has been leading that shift among the VSOs.

    It’s been my experience that many of these phonies joined the organizations before the internet and before Jug Burkett’s book which opened all of our eyes to the size of the problem. By that time, many were ensconced in their organizations. Now it takes a crowbar to pry them out of their dark corners.

  • Trainees await infantry training

    Trainees await infantry training

    According to the Army Times, there are more than 400 trainees waiting for slots to open in infantry basic combat training companies. Traditionally, Summer months following high school graduation, Fort Benning, Georgia has been flooded with trainees;

    Generally, trainees spend a week or two at a reception battalion before reporting to training, but during the summer, it can take as long as three. The Army’s end strength increase, on its second year, contributed to the current “summer surge,” [spokesman Benjamin] Garrett said.

    Fort Benning has also been overbooked, he added, a common practice that allows an overflow of recruits booked in each training cycle, anticipating that some of them will be delayed or drop out before they arrive.

    “Regardless of the number of personnel preparing from their basic training company pick-up date, the Reception Battalion Cadre are well equipped and organized for their mission to prepare the personnel for their basic training class,” Garrett said.

    That’s good news, actually, since recruiters are able to keep up with the increase in combat units after years of manpower cuts.

    Thanks to TSO for the link.

  • Mark Davis; phony SEAL

    Mark Davis; phony SEAL

    Our partners at Military Phonies send us their work on this fellow Mark Davis who claims that he was a Navy SEAL. He likes the hokey T-shirts;

    And, of course, there’s a do-rag, a vest and a motorcycle club involved, but no dog;

    A tattoo is required for all phony SEALs;

    Military Phonies have pulled the FOIA, thinking that they have the wrong records. He’s still not a SEAL, though.

  • Monday morning feel good stories

    Monday morning feel good stories

    From Houston, Texas;

    A suspect was hit in an officer-involved shooting Sunday morning in north Houston, according to police.

    No officers were wounded, and Houston police initially declined to say whether the suspect was wounded or killed in the shooting just after 8 a.m. in the 700 block of Doverside.

    The shot man was believed to be involved in an aggravated robbery, authorities said, though they wouldn’t give out any further information about the circumstances leading to the gunfire.

    From Lauderhill, Florida;

    A Sunday morning alley encounter between a robbery suspect and a police officer ended with the suspect shot, Lauderhill police said.

    The suspect, who wasn’t named, is in stable condition, according to Lauderhill police. The officer has been placed on administrative leave, as is standard procedure, while the Florida Department of Law Enforcement investigates the 10 a.m. shooting.

    After an attempted robbery at the Valero gas station just inside Sunrise city limits at 6000 W. Oakland Park Blvd., Lauderhill cops were helping their Sunrise counterparts search the surrounding area. Lauderhill police say an officer rolling around the Inverness Plaza area, a strip mall across the street from Lauderhill city hall and less than a half mile from the Valero, ran into the suspect in an Inverness Plaza alley.

  • Douglas Winn; phony combat veteran

    Douglas Winn; phony combat veteran

    Our partners at Military Phonies share their work on this Douglas Winn fellow who claimed in court documents that he was an Iraq War veteran and that he suffered from PTSD. He also claimed an award of the Bronze Star Medal.

    At the time he was facing a bunch of charges for being a fairly bad dude;

    The following are criminal charges against Douglas Ray Winn in Oklahoma. Some are ongoing in the courts and related to his military claims in court for leniency, and one (i.e. cultivation of controlled substance) were dismissed.

    CF-2016-00250 – Assault & Battery with a Dangerous Weapon
    CF-2016-00250 – Domestic Abuse – Assault & Battery
    CF-2016-00248 – Domestic Abuse – Assault & Battery
    CF-2016-00248 – Feloniously Pointing Firearm
    CF-2016-00248 – Plan/Attempt/Conspire to Perform Act of Violence
    CM-2012-00054 – Possession of CDS (Controlled Dangerous Substance)
    CF-2011-00201 – Cultivation of Controlled Substance (Felony-Dismissed)

    Anyway the Army remembers his enlistment a bit differently than Douglas;

    It doesn’t look like he deployed. He was assigned to the 208th Signal Company, but they deployed to Iraq and returned before he even enlisted. His next assignment was to an OSUT Company of the 2/81st Armor at Fort Knox, Kentucky – a training unit that didn’t deploy to the war against terror.

    The military records do not support Douglas Ray Winn’s claim of several things:

    No designation of “Spec Ops” identified in his records.
    No assignments overseas. No medals to support overseas assignments/deployments.
    Nothing to support the claim that he fought in the Iraq War.
    No Bronze Star Medal.
    If Douglas Winn has PTSD, it doesn’t appear that he has it from experiencing the Iraq War directly.
    Trained as Nuclear/Biological/Chemical NCO and a Chemical Ops Sgt vs. a “Spec Ops Sgt” as he claimed. Nothing wrong with being an NBC / Chemical Warfare specialist, which is an admirable profession – just wasn’t in Spec Ops.
    He could have been retired after five years, but it would have been a medical retirement.