Category: Veterans in the news

Bobo sends us a link from the Arizona Republic about the progress of 23 wounded Marines and our own TSO, you know if wounded Marines don’t have enough problems already;

Raising the money took almost two years. Along the way, [Hank] Detering and the river runners won the backing of the American Legion and the Marine Corps, which helped select the men who went. The group set out Friday with the good wishes of many, including, via Twitter, U.S. Sen. John McCain.

Organizers were still working out a few logistics late last week (how do you charge the battery on an artificial leg in the wilderness?) but it was all coming together for a group that had become the Grand Canyon Warriors.

Whether the trip will change their lives, Detering couldn’t predict. No two people come off the river with exactly the same experience, he said, but just getting these men on the river achieved one of his goals. If the trip makes a difference in their lives, all the better.

[…]

“I’ve been to the Grand Canyon about 20 times, but always saw it from the rim,” said [Benjamin North, a sergeant currently stationed at Camp Pendleton, Calif., with the wounded warrior battalion], who served a tour in Afghanistan. “This will be a different perspective.”

“It’s just been on my bucket list,” said Levi White, a staff sergeant who was deployed and wounded in Iraq. “I’ve never had a chance to do it.”

Patrique Fearon, a sergeant who fought in Afghanistan and Iraq, listened to his buddies and then admitted he wasn’t too excited about the idea at first.

“I kinda had to be forced into it,” he said. ‘Then I took it on and I started researching it and I figure it’ll be something I can put on my ‘been there, done it’ list. Not a lot of people can say they’ve done this.”

They all deserve this chance, even TSO, I’m more than a little jealous of this opportunity.

From MSN comes the sad, but not unexpected news that Emma Didlake, who was feted at the White House last month for being the oldest living veteran passed on Sunday. She was 110-years-old.

With the deaths of Coffey and Didlake, the oldest known veteran of the war is Richard Overton, a Bastrop County native. He was born three days before Coffey in May 1906.

Like Didlake, he, too, is black. Both stepped into roles that had been reserved for white men in a highly segregated society.

“I didn’t know I was breaking barriers,” said Didlake, who turned 110 on March 13 and received more than 250 birthday cards. “But I enjoyed doing what I was doing because I had committed myself to do just this.”

From an earlier MSNBC article;

Didlake was born in Boligee, Alabama in 1905. She was a 38-year-old wife and mother of five when she joined the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps in 1943.

Making the decision to join the army was a bold move for the veteran from the segregated south, during a period where many women remained at home. During her service, she held the rank of Private and served for seven months stateside as a driver.

CNN reports that Vietnam Veteran, Larry Yepez, was attacked by a bear, despite the fact that he told the bear to leave.

Larry Yepez, 66, is now speaking out about the terrifying ordeal fighting off a bear outside his Mariposa County home.

“I could feel his strength. I felt like a little rag doll underneath him,” Yepez said. “I could hear the crunching like ‘crr’–like that when he bit down on it. See, and that’s why I was trying to hit him again to try and get him off me.”

Yepez was in shock when he came face-to-face with the 250-pound bear. But when he realized it was fight or die, adrenaline kicked in.

Yeah, 250-pounds sounds a little light for a bear this time of year, but I’m sure Larry didn’t take the time to weigh him properly.

Larry says that he kicked the bear off of him and his dog distracted the animal long enough for both of them to escape to the safety of his house. Then Larry drove himself to the hospital drenched in his own blood.

Chip sends us a link to Atlanta’s Fox5 News in which they report that this Harry Tracey fellow, who they claim is a 72-year-old Vietnam veteran, entered an Army recruiting office and started asking a recruiter there about his security training.

The police report said Tracey showed a weapon under his waistband and asked a recruiter if “he felt safe, if he was armed and if he could protect himself against an attack like the one that happened in Chattanooga.”

[…]

Police said Tracey was arrested outside the Dollar Tree store nearby after he left the recruitment office unhappy with the soldier’s response.

The police report states Tracey admitted bringing his handgun to “keep the guys on their toes” and “keep them aware of their surroundings.” He was jailed on a charge of carrying a concealed weapon into a government building.

[…]

[N]eighbors said they weren’t surprised by the arrest.

“Not surprising to me because of his attitude,” one neighbor told FOX 5’s George Franco.

“We always keep to ourselves because you know he seems the kind of person who likes to be boasting and bragging,” said another neighbor.

Yeah, I’m pretty sure that recruiters don’t need that kind of “support”. While the cops are involved, they should run a FOIA check on Harry. The folks at MyFoxAtlanta know the process – they busted Shane Ladner.

Atlanta News, Weather, Traffic, and Sports | FOX 5

The Military Times reports that Michael Linnington, a recently retired Army Lieutenant General who took over the new Defense POW-MIA Accounting Agency DPAA sees value in his agency partnering with non-government agencies and private groups who are searching for missing military personnel like his agency is supposed to find. That makes sense, since they’ve been at least as successful as the Defense Department’s folks. He claims that merging two agencies into one will be accomplished by the end of this year;

He has little experience in the MIA mission, but told The Associated Press last week that he knows its history is riddled with controversy as well as criticism from Congress and groups that advocate for families of the missing.

“I am aware of some of the reports on the dysfunction,” he said, referring to 2013 reports of deep conflict among multiple agencies previously assigned to the accounting mission.

“Whenever you have disparate organizations all focused in the same area, there’s going to be a natural tendency to step on each other,” he said.

I’m glad that he’s taking on this job, but my problem is that they’ve completely undone everything that was in place before and started from the beginning. Hondo can tell you that they’ve changed their website, so that it’s has been more difficult to find information on actual POWs, and it’s a more complicated process now just verifying a POW’s claims – but it’s been getting better since the changes began. However it’s easier finding news about recently identified remains than it used to be, so there’s that.

Having a combat veteran in the catbird seat who understands the importance of reclaiming our missing can only improve the agency, I suppose.

Our friends at Purple Hearts Reunited were able to return to Ernest C. Boren his Purple Heart medal. Usually PHR is only able to return the medals to the awardees’ survivors, but in this instance, thankfully, the 91-year-old Mr. Boren, personally received the medal from PHR.

Private First Class (PFC) Ernest C. Boren was born in 1924 in Idaho. On 20 January 1943, he enlisted in Sacramento, CA and joined the United States Army. He would later serve with Company A, 1st Battalion, 323rd Infantry Regiment, 81st Infantry Division, known as the “Wildcats,” as a Medic. During operations at Peleliu Islands 17 October 1944, he was wounded in action. His actions at Peleliu also earned him the Bronze Star with Valor. His citation reads: “while on a combat patrol, the company of which Boren was an aid man, was ambushed and suffered many casualties. Without hesitation and without regard for his personal safety he advanced to administer first aid under covering fire of elements of the company and in the face of the enemy fire. The soldierly virtues shown by Boren were an inspiration to those who witnessed his act of self-sacrifice and bravery.”

The story continues that Mr. Boren had lost his medals years ago and had given up hope of ever seeing them again.

Thanks to PHR for providing such a valuable service for our veterans and their families.

I guess it’s the same all over – about 3,000 Chinese military veterans of the country’s war against Vietnam in the late 70s and their nuclear program converged on the capitol to protest the fact that they hadn’t been paid promised benefits for their service according to the Associated Press;

On Thursday, a website maintained by a veterans group and postings on Chinese social media said about 1,000 former soldiers from around the country joined in a sit-in protest Tuesday at the petitions office under the central military command.

The reports said they were part of a group of about 3,000 that had arrived recently in the capital, while several thousand more had been prevented from coming to Beijing by authorities in their hometowns.

Such protests have grown increasingly common among aging veterans and are treated as extremely politically sensitive by the ruling Communist Party that commands total control over the armed forces. China’s entirely state-controlled media made no mention of Tuesday’s protest and military spokesmen said they had no knowledge of it.

The Chinese government said “Whachou talkin’ ’bout” ignoring media inquiries. The Business Mirror reports;

In Tuesday’s sit-in, the bulk of the veterans were bussed to a sprawling detention center used to house petitioners from out of town while their chief representatives held talks with military officials.

While they were promised that their concerns would be addressed, they were warned that the sit-in was illegal, the web site said, adding that the talks ended on an “unpleasant note.” Organizers decided to end the action that evening and the veterans began returning home, the site said.

The Obama Administration should be looking over their collective shoulder. If this can happen in China, it would be more likely to happen here.