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

Category: Veterans in the news

  • SFC Brian Keaton’s first pitch

    SFC Brian Keaton’s first pitch

    SFC Brian Keaton

    That’s wounded veteran, Sergeant First Class Brian Keaton in the picture above tossing out the first pitch at Game 2 of the National League’s Division Series the other day. From Associated Press;

    Retired vet Brian Keaton walked onto the grass before getting on his stomach and crawling several feet at Nationals Park on Saturday. He threw the ball with his left hand from behind the mound and the toss bounced home.

    The crowd cheered loudly before San Francisco played Washington.

    According to the Nationals, Keaton was wounded in a bomb explosion. The team said he spent 3 1-2 years at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center recovering from a traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder.

    The video;

  • Now, That’s Work Ethic!

    We all know some anecdotal stories about veterans and good work ethic.  But this one might just take the cake.

    New Jersey veteran, 101, still working same job 73 years later

    Well done, Mr. Goldman.  Well done.

    I do have to say I hope I never have to travel through the same town he works in while he’s commuting, though.  According to the article, he still drives himself to and from work.  (smile)

  • ABC News, Second Tour; Lt. Emily Núñez

    ABC News, Second Tour; Lt. Emily Núñez

    Emily Núñez

    The folks at ABC News sends us their latest article about veterans after their service. This article is about Army 1Lt. Emily Núñez who founded the company “Sword and Plough” which recycles military surplus items into fashionable accessories.

    Although Núñez was committed to a career in the military, she and her sister Betsy Núñez, 26, co- founded Sword & Plough in 2012. Growing up in a military family Emily followed in her father’s footsteps and joined the Army. She currently serves as an Intelligence Officer with the Group Support Battalion in the 10th Special Forces Group (Airborne) at Fort Carson, Colorado. Prior to joining the military, Núñez enrolled in the Army ROTC at the University of Vermont and and Middlebury College in Vermont in 2008. It was there during her senior year that the idea to launch her entrepreneurial venture was born.

    The idea to create her fashion company came to Núñez after a talk at the Middlebury’s Center for Social Entrepreneurship. During the Social Entrepreneurship Symposium at Middlebury Jacqueline Novogratz, founder and CEO of Acumen Fund talked about businesses that had incorporated recycling into their business model. Núñez took note and put her social entrepreneur spirit to work. She began to think about what around her was routinely wasted and could be recycled and turned into something powerful. ”I was aware that there was a lot of military surplus that was wasted, thrown away or burned,” Núñez says.


    Watch more news videos | Latest from the US

  • Kelly Carlisle and Acta Non Verba Youth Urban Farm Project

    Kelly Carlisle and Acta Non Verba Youth Urban Farm Project

    ABC_Kelly_Carlisle

    The folks at ABC News send us their interview with Kelly Carlisle, the Navy veteran who founded the Acta Non Verba Youth Urban Farm Project, a farm experience for kids in Oakland;

    Growing up in East Oakland, Carlisle said she remembers feeling hopeless at a young age.

    “At 9 years old there’s nothing to do, there’s nowhere to go, no program that my family can afford, or for me to engage in,” Carlisle said. “It was hard, you couldn’t go outside, we had a one-block radius that we can play in and I remember feeling and asking, what I am going to be and where I’m going to go?”

    The former Navy Operation Specialist said she wants to be able to give “her kids” a chance at working towards a better future. Back in early 2010, Carlisle remembers hearing news reports about Oakland’s high crime rate, childhood obesity, school dropout rates and teen prostitution.

    “My initial reaction was, thank God I don’t live there. Then the more I thought about it and the fact that I have a young child, it occurred to me that there’s one population that has no choice to decide where they live or what their community looks and feels like and that’s young people,” she said.

    As a result, Carlisle founded Acta Non Verba: Youth Urban Farm Project, a nonprofit urban farm that focuses on serving at-risk youth from kindergarten to 8th grade, and their families. She launched Acta Non Verba to teach children how to invest in themselves and ultimately invest in their communities.

    Children plant, harvest and sell produce and 100 percent of those proceeds go to savings accounts to pay for their education.


    ABC News | More ABC News Videos

  • ABC News: Marine’s Email Asking for Supplies Leads to Lifeline for Troops

    ABC News: Marine’s Email Asking for Supplies Leads to Lifeline for Troops

    Aaron Negherbon

    The folks at ABCNews send us a link to their latest in their series of stories about veterans “Second Tour”. This time it’s about Aaron Negherbon and his organization “TroopsDirect” that was born out of an email with a friend, a Marine captain;

    The email read: “Major firefight last night. Medical supplies destroyed or depleted. Resupply could take 6 weeks considering where we are relative to the supply depot. Stethoscopes, gauze, bacitracin and hydro cortisone are the big needs. Any way you can help? We’ll take anything.”
    He sent the package to his friend who at the time was leading a unit with 150 marines. “I came to find out that service members were not issued these essential items,” says the 40-year-old Northern California native.

    That was the first time Negherbon ever sent a care package to anyone. “As patriotic as I am and was, I just never thought to do it,” he says. That email touched off a process that would lead him to reinvent himself and touch the lives of thousands of service members.


    ABC News | ABC Sports News

    You should read the rest.

  • Vets as “Urban Warriors”

    I’m sure you’ve read about the terrible death toll and of the rising violence in Chicago over the last few weeks. There have been 171 homicides so far this year and over 1300 wounded in the city. In comparison, there have been 34 US deaths in Afghanistan this year.

    The Stars & Stripes writes about a group calling themselves “Urban Warriors” on the mean streets of Chicago. It’s a group of veterans from the most recent wars who try to connect and commiserate with youngsters there as folks who have been under fire;

    [Eddie] Bocanegra and his co-director, Ryan Lugalia-Hollon, started designing trauma-based treatment programs a year ago across the city. By the end of the year, they will have served 400 youths and 100 parents. Urban Warriors was launched in Little Village but will expand into South Chicago at the end of the summer.

    Vets chosen for the project, after two rounds of interviews, indicated a willingness to work with at-risk youths. They also suffered stress from having served. And many, having grown up in Little Village too, talked of their own scrapes with trouble or of having family members involved in violence. One, Alberto Boleres — who survived a roadside bomb near Tikrit, Iraq, in 2007 — had been shot in Chicago.

    Organizers of Urban Warriors also saw a critical benefit to the veterans — providing a sense of purpose, something many who leave the military crave but struggle to find, they said.

  • Chance Perkins; veteran saving the world

    This is the story of veteran Chance Perkins who stopped to get gas one evening and witnessed a man shoot a woman near by;

    But instead of running away in fear for his own life, he says his training kicked in and he tackled the alleged killer.

    The female victim has been identified by police as Cyril Chatman Jones, 33.

    “He still had his pistol in his hand and he shot at me,” Perkins said. “He shot at me three times while I’m grabbing him and we’re struggling.”

    Perkins finally got the man on the ground, but not before the shooter fired off one more shot.

    Amazingly, Perkins was not hurt.

    Perkins said, “In my heart, I know what’s right. I knew it and when I saw that happen, I mean, I couldn’t live with myself if I just walked away or if I just ran or something, you know, I couldn’t do that.”

    I’m sure you saw that on the evening news, right? No? I wonder why.

  • Vet stops robbery

    Jamy sends us a link to KHOU in Houston which reports that a vet was peacefully eating a sandwich at a strip mall when he saw a couple of folks loading boxes in their car. He dropped his sandwich and went to his car for his gun. The two criminals opened fire on him – that was probably the wrong thing to do;

    Police said at least seven shots were fired and in the end, one suspect was dead in his car.

    The other suspect was located following a search.

    Harris County Sheriff’s Deputies placed North Shore Middle School, North Shore High School, and Harvard Elementary on lockdown during the search.