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

Category: Veterans Issues

  • PTS myths

    Ex-PH2 sends us a link to NBC News entitled “What you think you know about veterans is probably wrong“. I expected it to be a POS article about how veterans are blood-lusting mass murderers, because it was written by two people, Sally Satel and Richard J. McNally from the Atlantic. But it turns out that the article is just the opposite.

    They track the myth of the crazed veteran from it’s hippie roots after Vietnam, through Hollywood depictions and eventually they get to the actual truth about vets with PTS and the suicide scourge;

    [O]ne of the most important forms of care a veteran can receive is the work itself. Based upon our experience with patients, work is the single most effective key to easing financial stress, marital tensions, and the void of loneliness. Unfortunately, unemployment among veterans from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars is almost 10 percent, above the national average.

    The Department of Veterans’ Affairs puts the numbers of veterans who die by suicide at between 18-22 per day. While the percentage of all suicides nationwide reported as “veteran” has decreased since 2000, the absolute number of suicides by veterans has increased. Yet over half of the veterans who died by suicide last year were over 50 years of age; far fewer were from the post-9/11 cohort.

    Contrary to expectation, the roots of suicide do not appear to lie in the number or extent of deployments, exposure to combat, or to PTSD itself, as data from the massive US Millennium Cohort Study indicate.

    In fact, according to a study featured in The Journal of the American Medical Association in 2013, over half of all active duty personnel who died by suicide between July 2001 and December 2008 were never deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan, and 77 percent of all personnel who died by suicide never saw combat.

    Of course, at TAH we’ve been broadcasting those simple facts for years, but no one is listening – the solution for veterans is put them to work, and you have nothing to fear from them if you do give them a job.

  • Some Veterans’ Day thoughts

    This is from one of our readers;

    My life was late nights and early mornings, physical exhaustion and boredom, my life was hurry up and wait.

    My days were broiling heat, my nights freezing cold. I lived in pouring rain, freezing snow and stifling humidity. Dust, sand and mud were my bed, my pillow a rucksack, butt pack or helmet.

    My feet toughened by thousands of miles of roads, paths, trails and fields trod. My back made strong and wide by days upon weeks upon years of carrying my rucksack just one more click.

    My youth spent learning my craft, sharpening my will and hardening my body for whatever was asked of me. Taught by men who had been taught by men who had hit the beach, held that hill or leapt from that airplane.

    My teacher’s lessons collected by experiences written in blood, sweat and tears. My classroom was the forest, the jungle, the desert and the mountain. My certificate a colorful ribbon, a shiny badge and those stripes.

    My traditions are ageless, my heritage stretches back centuries, I descended from giants and am proud to be counted as one of them. My youth was spent in service to my country. My youth was spent with my brothers and sisters I served with. My youth was not misspent.

    I salute all of you who served. As we approach Veterans Day let us look back and remember those we served with and also look forward and thank those that still serve. God bless you all.

    Blue Harrell

    This link is from Denise Williams, a Gold Star Mom.

    This link is from ROS at Victory Girls.

    I remember when Veterans’ Day was just another day off from work…well for everyone except veterans. My first Veterans’ Day after I left the military, in 1993, (I was actually on terminal leave at the time) was spent working as a security guard on a construction site…I was working full time while I attended college full time. I happened to pick up a newspaper on the way to work and it contained a column by the late Mike Royko on veterans and I always remembered his sage words.
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  • NRA Life of Duty; Veterans’ Day message

    The folks at NRA Life of Duty send a message to all Americans about a few Americans;

    Today, we honor the millions of Americans who have donned the uniform of military service and have valiantly fought to build, improve and defend our nation’s freedom. May God bless our heroic service men and women and the families that support them. Thank you for your service.

  • Giffords/Kelly’s veterans’ gun control group

    Chief Tango sends us a link to a CNN article about the new group of veterans being sponsored by the Gabby Giffords/Mark Kelly organization, the misnamed Americans for Responsible Solutions, calling it Veterans for Responsible Solutions. From their own press release, here is their list of members;

    Founding Members
    Veterans for Responsible Solutions
    November 8, 2013
    Major General Vance Coleman, US Army (Ret.), Sun City, AZ
    Rear Admiral James A. Barnett, US Navy (Ret.), Arlington, VA
    Brigadier General Stephen A. Cheney, US Marine Corps (Ret.), Alexandria, VA
    Brigadier General Evelyn “Pat” Foote, US Army (Ret.), Accotink, MD
    Brigadier General Keith H. Kerr, California State Military Reserve (Ret.), Santa Rosa,
    CA
    Captain Joan E. Darrah, US Navy (Ret.), Alexandria, Virginia
    Captain Gail P. Kulisch, US Coast Guard (Ret.), Reston, VA
    Captain April F. Heinze, US Navy (Ret.), Coronado, CA
    Captain James Jordan, US Navy (Ret.), Fairwood, WA
    Former Captain John Gillies, US Navy, Lynden, WA
    Former Captain Howard Christofersen, US Navy, Chesterton, IN
    Former Captain Bill Kingston, US Marine Corps, New Castle, NH
    Former Captain Frank Quinn, US Marine Corps, Bay City, MI
    Colonel Thomas F. Field, US Army Reserve (Ret.), Arlington, VA
    Commander Beth F. Coye, US Navy (Ret.), Ashland, OR
    Commander George Trotman, US Navy (Ret.), Philadelphia, PA
    Former First Lieutenant Colonel Frederic Stephens, US Army, Roseville, MN
    Lieutenant Colonel Victor J. Fehrenbach, US Air Force (Ret.), Dayton, OH
    Lieutenant Colonel Victor J. Fehrenbach, US Air Force (Ret.), Dayton, OH
    Former Lieutenant Commander Jim Engelking, US Navy, Golden, CO
    Former Lieutenant Commander Phil Green, US Navy, Portage, MI
    Former Lieutenant Commander John Gadzinski, US Navy, Virginia Beach, VA
    Former Lieutenant Commander G.K. Desjarlais, US Navy, Drummonds, TN
    Major Michael Almy, US Air Force (Ret.), Dayton, OH
    Major Colleen Jew, US Army (Ret.), Oakland, CA
    Former Major Schwartz Malibu, US Army, Los Angeles, CA
    Former Major Charles Arnold, U.S. Air Force, Lompoc, CA
    Former Captain Susanne Scott, US Air Force, Sequim, WA
    Former Captain Joe Wiederhold, US Air Force, Bellingham, WA
    Former Captain Jacobo Van, US Army, San Juan, PR
    Former Captain Anthony C. Woods, US Army, University Park, MD
    Former Captain Kenneth Richards, US Army, Evergreen, CO
    Former Captain Joe Meyer, US Army, Amery, WI
    Former Captain and Vietnam veteran Ralph Siewers, US Army, Sedgwick, ME
    Former Lieutenant Junior Grade Daniel Cripe, US Navy, Missoula, MT
    Former Lieutenant Junior Grade Gary Bogle, U.S. Naval Reserve, St. Helena, CA
    Former Lieutenant Junior Grade Robert Austin, US Navy, Norwalk, CT
    Former Lieutenant Junior Grade Glenn Nichols, US Navy, Philadelphia, PA
    Former First Lieutenant Marx Bowens, US Naval Reserve, Worchester, MA
    Former First Lieutenant Barry Wolfer, US Air Force, Houston, TX
    Former First Lieutenant David Small, US Army, Middleboro, MA
    Former First Lieutenant Cooper Wood, US Army, Casselberry, FL
    Former First Lieutenant Ann Marie Briggs, US Air Force, Kennebunkport, ME
    Former First Lieutenant and World War II veteran Edgar Peara, US Army, Eugene, OR
    Former First Lieutenant Ronald Wos, US Army, Chicago, IL
    Former First Lieutenant Craig Richmond, US Air Force, Cincinnati, OH
    Master Chief Petty Officer of the Coast Guard Vincent W. Patton III, Ed.D., US Coast
    Guard (Ret.), Alexandria, VA
    Former Sergeant Major Jerry Corbin, US Army, Jonesboro, AR
    Senior Master Sergeant Rick Etheridge, US Air Force (Ret.), Port Angeles, WA
    Former Sergeant First Class Camelus Walker, US Army, Clinton, MD
    Former Petty Officer Joe Fouts, US Navy, Avon, OH
    Former Senior Chief Petty Officer Nelson Miller, US Navy SEALs, Tucson, AZ
    Former Private First Class Earsell Leslie, Sr., US Army, Los Angeles, CA
    Former Radarman 1st Class Michael Taccardi, US Navy, Norwich, CT
    Former Staff Sergeant Eric F. Alva, USMC, San Antonio, TX
    Former Sergeant Paul Madarasz, US Air Force
    Former Sergeant Frank Gifford, US Navy, Oakland, ME
    Former Sergeant Martin Wong, US Army, Boulder, CO
    Former Sergeant Mel Pontious, US Army, North Platte, NE
    Former Sergeant Edward Silha, US Army Austin, TX
    Former Sergeant Larry Butler, US Marine Corps, New York, NY
    Former Sergeant and Vietnam War veteran Bob Buckman, US Air Force, Houston, TX
    Former Sergeant Dave Ogilvie, US Army, Santa Barbara, CA
    Former Sergeant Neil Friedman, US Army, Brooklyn, NY
    Former Sergeant Thomas Adamski, US Air Force, Oxford, CT
    Former Radarman 2nd Class John Schaefers, US Navy, Seven Fields, PA
    Former Staff Sergeant Laura Giblin, US Air Force, Alexandria, VA
    Former Sergeant Shane Gibney, US Marine Corps, Alexandria, VA
    Former Engineman 2nd Class Francis C. Hynds, US Navy, Upper St. Clair, PA
    Former Staff Sergeant John Brophy, US Marine Corps, Vista, CA
    Former Sergeant Michael Alexander, US Army, Northville, MI
    Former Sergeant Nelson Van Brunt, US Army, Kensington, MD
    Master Sergeant Douglas Poore, US Air Force (Ret.), Vacaville, CA
    Former Staff Sergeant Christel Holcomb, US Air Force, Amery, WI
    Former Sergeant and Vietnam veteran Joseph Thomas, US Air Force, Holt, MO
    Former Staff Sergeant David Hall, US Air Force, Washington, DC
    Former Sergeant Tony Kourtakis, US Marine Corps, Novi, MI
    Former Storekeeper 2nd Class Robert Houseman, US Navy, Liberty, MO
    Former Sergeant Ruben Neria, US Army, Dallas, TX
    Former Sergeant Bob Simons, US Army, Ardmore, PA
    Former Sergeant Thomas McKenna, US Army, Lake Forest, CA
    Former Sergeant Mara Solberg, US National Guard, Fargo, ND
    Former Sergeant Michelle Wilmot, US Army, Athens, GA
    Former Specialist Guy Stoddard, US Army, Los Altos Hills, CA
    Former Petty Officer Third Class Don Morgan, US Navy, Magalia, CA
    Former Senior Airman Emory Stevens, US Air Force, Las Vegas, NV
    Former Petty Officer Third Class Robert Hadden, US Coast Guard, Cincinnati, OH
    Former Specialist William Herrera, US Army, Walnut Creek, CA
    Former Petty Officer Third Class S. Scales, US Navy, Buda, TX
    Former Corporal David Farwell, US Marine Corps, San Jose, CA
    Former Senior Airmen Richard Anderson, US Air Force, Milwaukee, WI
    Former Petty Officer Third Class Leonard Banaszak, US Navy, Saint Louis, MO
    Former Specialist Vivian Ghazarian, US Army, Penn Wynne, PA
    Former Specialist Odis (Chuck) Tanner, US Army, Russellville, AR
    Former Corporal Rickie Byers, US Army, Lynnwood, WA
    Former Specialist Larry Barton, US Army, Crookston, MN
    Former Corporal Kevin McGowan, US Army, Danbury, CT
    Former Aviation Boatswain Mate 3rd Class Arthur McDonald, US Navy, Gilette, NJ
    Former Petty Officer Third Class Thomas Futch, US Navy, High Springs, FL
    Former Petty Officer Third Class Dave Elvin, US Navy, Seattle, WA
    Former Specialist Tom Herr, US Army, Westerville, OH
    Former Specialist Third Class Hooker Horton, US Army, Raleigh, NC
    Former Corporal John Helfrich, US Army, Burbank, CA
    Former Senior Airman Dave Ogilvie, US Air Force, Santa Barbara, CA
    Former Specialist Victor Daub, US Army, Tucson, AZ
    Former Specialist 5 Howard J. Kendall, US Army, Yarmouth Port, MA
    Former Corporal Robert Parson, US Army, Tucson, AZ
    Former Buck Sergeant Frances Kellogg, US Army Air Corps, Gwynedd, PA
    Former Corporal Earl Nikkel, US Marine Corps, Denver, CO
    Former Seaman Albert Rossignol, US Navy, Seal Beach, CA
    Former Airman First Class Leon Demars, US Air Force, Ajo, AZ
    Former Private First Class Sidney Cholmar, US Army, Berkshire, MA
    Former Private 1st Class Dennis Kreiner, US Army, Carpentersville, IL
    Former Airman First Class Rennie Ferris, US Air Force, Newport, OR
    Former Lance Corporal, Robert Raiche Sr., US Marine Corps, Manchester, NH
    Former Private Second Class John Stickler, US Army, Los Angeles, CA
    Former Private First Class Richard Meader, US Army, Austin, TX
    Former Airmen Robert J. Stedman, US Air Force, Las Vegas, NV
    Former Private 1st Class Eric Serati, US Army, De Sotto, IL
    Former Seaman Apprentice Mercer Gewin, US Coast Guard, Country Club, MO
    Former Seaman Jeff Nisbet, US Navy, Waterford, WI
    Former Cadet Devon Maness, US Army, Rainbow City, AL

    From the CNN article;

    “We’re for gun rights,” said James Barnett, a retired rear admiral.

    Instead, Veterans for Responsible Solutions wants commonsense actions like universal background checks, Kelly said.

    These are background checks an overwhelming majority of Americans have said they support, polls show.

    Vance Coleman, a retired Army major general, said on the call that he also owns guns. But not everyone should, Coleman continued, namely criminals and the mentally ill.

    “They should not own guns and the Congress needs to do something about that,” Coleman said.

    No one who joins forces with the crackpots at Americans for Responsible Solutions is for gun rights if they have a measure of common sense. It’s not the “gun lobby” that opposes the ownership of guns by criminals and the mentally ill. Jared Loughner who shot Gabby Giffords, should have been in the national background check system, but the police who had contact with him never arrested him in previous encounters, so he was never on the list.

    It’s the doctors and law enforcement who aren’t putting the criminals and mentally ill in the system – background checks are working in their current form, but when the people responsible for putting names in there aren’t doing their job under the current law, the solution isn’t making new laws – unless you want to make doctors and law enforcement do their job and hold up their end of the bargain.

    This is yet another exploitation of the “veterans” brand, using our the honor and trust that Americans have for their veterans to force some vacuous ideology into the national discussion that we never had after the President promised us that we’d have a discussion.

    The CNN article says that Veterans for Responsible Solutions “will be doing little more than lending their names while others will be pursuing a greater measure of activism, perhaps by writing newspaper editorials” – attention whores all. It’s nothing more that VoteVets, IAVA, March Forward – organizations that used the “veterans” brand to influence politics, mostly in conflict with our own interests.

  • Hagel calls for pay, benefits cuts to military

    Like I said when he was selected to be the Secretary of Defense, Hagel was chosen to be a hatchet man. Yeah, everyone was saying how great it’d be to have a former enlisted soldier in the position, but he’s a selfish piece of shit more interested in getting along than doing any real work. This is from military.com, sent to us by ROS;

    Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel warned Tuesday that troops and their families will be asked to sacrifice on pay and benefits to preserve readiness in an era of tighter budgets.

    Hagel listed politically-charged changes to compensation and personnel policy as one of his top six priorities in reforming the military following the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as the department gears up to meet new challenges.

    “This may be the most difficult” to achieve among his six priorities, Hagel said of proposals to trim pay increases, overhaul TRICARE and review retirement benefits while adapting to cuts in personnel.

    “Without serious attempts to achieve significant savings in this area, which consumes roughly half of the DoD budget and is increasing every year, we risk becoming an unbalanced force,” Hagel said.

    The alternative was to have a military that is “well-compensated, but poorly trained and equipped, with limited readiness and capability,” Hagel said in a keynote address to a Global Security Forum 2013 sponsored by the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

    Yeah, well, I don’t see Congress discussing their own pay cuts, or planning to do more with less. Are we talking about Hagel taking a cut in either his pay or his pension from the Senate? I’d believe he is serious about saving money if he turned in his pay check.

  • Discrimination?

    Chief Tango sends this link from Tennessee, where a soldier claims that cab driver picked him up at the bus station in Nashville and then let him out a few blocks later because he’d been in the military;

    [Allen] Pendley said Sunday afternoon he took a bus from Clarksville to Nashville after a weekend of training.

    He was dressed in uniform standing outside the downtown Greyhound station trying to get a cab home.

    “Before I could call one, a Yellow Cab pulled up and asked me if I needed a cab and I said yeah sure,” Pendley said.

    But after only a few blocks Pendley said the questions started coming and it was obvious the cab driver didn’t like his answers.

    “He asked me. He said ‘are you in the military?’ I said ‘yes sir I am.’ And then it got real quiet,” he recalled.

    “Then when he pulled over he said get out of the cab.”

    It sounds weird to me since Pendley was in uniform before he got in the cab. But the cab company says they’re investigating the incident and it may cost the cab driver his job.

    In the video, Pendley says that he thinks the cab driver is Somali, but that he’s not sure.

    In a related story, sent to us by ROS, Fox News reports that a veteran in Georgia who posted a picture of her Concealed Carry Weapon license on Facebook which resulted in her being banned from school property where her daughter attends;

    Tanya Mount says she was approached by a police officer from the Richmond County Board of Education at McBean Elementary School and was warned that she was about to get a criminal trespass warning.

    The officer told her that the principal at the school was “scared” of her and did not want her on the school property, she told the station.

    “He asks: ‘Were you in the Army?,”‘ she said. “I said, yes. He’s like, ‘Do you have a concealed weapons permit?’ I said yes,” she told the station.

    From the local news;

    It’s a bit telling that the officer would ask her if she had been in the Army. I guess the principal has succumbed to the “scary vet” stories in the media. But, yeah, I wouldn’t post a picture of my CCW license on Facebook. The whole point of having a concealed weapon is that no one knows you have a weapon.

  • About That Proposed National Cemetery Law . . . .

    Burial in a National Cemetery is a benefit accorded to most veterans.  However, as is the case with most government benefits, it’s not a right guaranteed by the Constitution.  Congress created the benefit, and Congress can set the rules as it sees fit.

    Congress occasionally does change the rules about burial in National Cemeteries, or allow the VA to do so.*  Today, those rules are considerably more lenient than I’d personally prefer.  A veteran with a Dishonorable Discharge is banned by law from burial in a National Cemetery; all others who qualify legally as veterans – including those who accepted discharge in lieu of court-martial or received a Bad Conduct Discharge – can be.  (Those with less than an honorable discharge are evaluated on a case-by-case basis and can be buried in National Cemeteries if the VA approves.)

    Congress has placed a number of legal restrictions on burial in National Cemeteries.  The aforementioned ban on those with a DD being buried therein is one such legal restriction.  Another is the fact that even an honorably discharged veteran loses the benefit if he or she (1) is convicted of a capital crime, (2) dies before they can be tried for a capital crime, or (3) if clear and convincing evidence exists that the individual committed a capital crime.

    However, there is presently no legal authority for the VA to order the removal remains once interred.  And that apparent omission in the law has led to the following conundrum.

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  • Vet’s SpongeBob headstone removed

    SpongeBob Gravestone Removed

    From Fox News the story of the family of Corporal Kimberly Walker, a veteran of two tours in Iraq, battles the Spring Grove Cemetery over the family’s choice of a head stone for the twenty-eight-year-old who was found strangled and beaten in a hotel room in Colorado Springs on Valentine’s Day. It appears that the Cemetery had approved the headstone initially and then withdrew that approval of the seven-foot monument after it was installed along with an exact duplicate for Walker’s sister.

    “We’ve decided that they aren’t appropriate for our historic cemetery and they can’t be displayed here,” Freytag said, adding that the employee who approved the headstones made an inexplicable error in judgment, given the cemetery’s traditional, stately appearance.

    He acknowledged that the cemetery is at fault and that staff members would be meeting with Walker’s family on Tuesday to try to find a solution, which could include a more traditional gravestone bearing small likeness of the character.

    Freytag also said Spring Grove is prepared to reimburse the family for each headstone, which cost a combined $26,000, and pay for new ones.

    “I feel terrible that it got to this point but I’m hoping we can come out at the other end of the tunnel with a solution,” he said.

    The only opinion that I have over this is that the Cemetery probably shouldn’t have approved it in the first place, but since they did, they need to abide by that decision. In the Greater Scheme of Things, a Sponge Bob headstone probably doesn’t effect most people’s GIS meter, but the cemetery’s word does. By the way, Sponge Bob’s flag is on backward, the 82d patch is incomplete, and if she was a corporal, why is SB wearing sergeant stripes? Yeah, I couldn’t help myself.