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

Category: Veterans Issues

  • Kudos, Mr. V

    Most baseball fans – and many others as well – have heard of Justin Verlander.  For those that don’t, he’s a seriously talented pitcher for MLB’s Detroit Tigers.

    However, beyond his athletic skill Verlander’s heart and head are apparently also right.  As is his wallet, which he recently opened.

    Verlander has pledged to donate $1 million to a help launch new initiative by his team’s charitable foundation, called “Wins for Warriors”.  This initiative is “designed to support mental health and emotional well-being of veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan along with their families in Detroit, his hometown of Richmond, Virginia and Norfolk, Virginia, where he attended Old Dominion University.”

    Kudos, Mr. Verlander.  All too many sports figures these days are selfishly fixated on “I ME MINE”, and seem to care about nothing but dollar signs.  You’re one of those who are willing to give something back.

  • A Punchbowl Argument

    It seems there is some rather high-level contention going on within DoD these days.  (Yeah, I know – you’re thinking, “Tell us something we didn’t know.”  Keep reading.)

    Arguments between the Services and/or between a Service and a Joint Agency or Command are nothing new.  But this one is a bit unique.

    It seems as if the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) wants to exhume a rather large number of those buried at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific (AKA the “Punchbowl”) as “Unknowns” – 330+ total – from the USS Oklahoma.  They believe they may now be able to identify a fair number of these individuals.  Further, some of the graves are thought or known to contain commingled remains – so exhuming only selected graves isn’t really feasible.

    JPAC would also like to do the same for those buried as “Unknowns” from the USS California and the USS West Virginia at a future date.

    Part of the reason JPAC wants to do this is because Congress has set mandates for annual numbers of identifications by JPAC, and this is likely the only way they can reach those mandates.  Yet another part of the reason is, well, their mission.  JPAC exists to recover and identify previously unaccounted for US casualties – and those buried as “Unknowns” are by definition still unaccounted for.

    To me, this seems like the proverbial “no brainer”.  New data and forensic techniques are available that may identify some of these lost.  IMO, we should use them to do so.

    However, JPAC is receiving opposition from what is to me a rather surprising source within DoD:  the Navy.  According to an excellent article from Stars and Stripes,

    But the Hawaii-based military command, known as JPAC, is getting resistance from the Navy, which prefers to maintain the “sanctity” of the graves at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, officials said.

    Further, the Navy would like to take the partial and commingled remains of more than 100 Oklahoma crew members who were disinterred in 2003 from a single casket at Punchbowl, possibly re­bury them at a memorial and grave site to be created on Ford Island, and invite family members to an interment ceremony on Dec. 7, 2014.

    To an extent, I can understand the former objection.  But I cannot agree.  IMO, the chance to identify some of the fallen should outweigh that consideration.  Further, I’d be willing to give long odds that – could we but poll the fallen – they’d universally agree to the brief disturbance of their rest so that some of their fallen brothers-in-arms could be identified and receive a by-name, proper burial.

    And the second objection?  Frankly, that strikes me as little more than showboating and PR.  In other words:  pure bull.

    But I might well be off base here.  This is an issue on which I have a hard time being objective; I firmly believe that the fallen deserve a proper, by-name burial if at all possible.  IMO, burial as an “Unknown” or a centotaph for an unrecovered body just isn’t the same.

    Thoughts?

  • Vet criminals to be deported

    The Washington Post has a long-ass article on veterans who are being deported to their home countries because they broke the law after they were discharged;

    Once [Marine Milton Tepeyac] served in the Kuwaiti desert in a recon battalion, a highly trained grunt monitoring the movements of Saddam Hussein’s military across the border in Iraq. Later he ran a seafood business in Phoenix, drove a BMW, and owned a five-bedroom house with a billiards room and a pool.

    But then, with his business foundering in the 2008 recession, he was offered $1,000 to help with a drug deal that turned out to be a police sting. He was convicted of felony “possession of marijuana for sale” and was sentenced to four years in an Arizona prison. When he completed his time, he was deported from the country where he had lived since he was 3.

    I don’t remember Iraqis crossing any borders except Kuwait’s but whatever. If you deal with illegal drugs then you should take what you’re given, that you made the deal with federal agents doesn’t mitigate your intentions.

    MCPO Ret. in TN sends a link to a similar story from Arizona, in regards to John “mental plate” Ferron. Apparently, because he was an illegal alien, Ferron stole someone’s identification in order to join the Navy. He says that the VA gave him treatment after he was discharged despite his admission of that fact;

    [T]o the Navy, Ferron was known as Clyde Anthony Steele.

    An identity he says he got from a friend who gave him a copy of his birth certificate. “He says, ‘You keep it. You will need it more than I will.’”

    According to documents from Veterans Affairs, Ferron was honorably discharged two years later.

    “I have a mental plate in my head,” he says.

    Ferron claims he came clean, telling the VA he enlisted using someone else’s identity. “The VA told me ‘don’t worry about it. That happens all the time.’”

    So for 40 years, Ferron continued to receive treatment from the VA.

    But in 2007, benefits were cut when he was convicted for six different counts of identity theft and fraud charges for using the name Clyde Anthony Steele.

    He spent four years in prison. And now he wants forgiveness. “I did my time. I paid for my mistake.”

    But his criminal history doesn’t stop there, Ferron was arrested several times for drug related offenses.

    So he was just a crook, and since he only did two years in the service, I’m guessing he and the Navy didn’t part ways amicably. The thing is, just “being” a veteran isn’t enough. You have to live a good life to honor those who didn’t get discharged and no one understands that more than we understand it. We have to live lives worthy of their sacrifice and since civilians are so quick to judge all of us by the actions of a few, we owe it to each other to not deal drugs and stuff. There must be a reason that these people didn’t get US citizenship, so let that be just another of their shortcomings. If they wanted to stay here, they should have taken steps to guarantee that for them.

  • Disabled Vet memorial in DC

    Someone sent us a link to Military.com article that there’s going to be a memorial in DC near the Capitol for disabled veterans;

    The $81.5 million memorial, which will feature 48 glass display panels, will open on Oct. 12, 2014, according to the Disabled Veterans’ Life Memorial Foundation. It will sit on a 2.4-acre site across from the U.S. Botanic Garden. Its centerpiece will be a star-shaped fountain — each point representing a service branch — and pool that will capture the reflection of the nearby U.S. Capitol.

    “We looked at 22 sites that were given to us by the National Park Service. We selected [the C Street] location because of its proximity to the U.S. Capitol,” said Rick Fenstermacher, chief executive officer for the project. “We wanted Congress to be able to look at the memorial and see that the cost of war is more than [the price] of bullets and bombs.”

    Inscribed on the thick, transparent panels will be quotations that help tell the story of war’s wounded and crippled, along with historic images of servicemembers and veterans reproduced from archival photos. Behind the images — seen through the transparent panels — will be bronze sculptures depicting the returned wounded veterans.

    Thanks, I appreciate the sentiment, really I do, but I’d much rather they spend the money on clearing the backlog, improving the conditions in VA hospitals, just about anything except another empty gesture to veterans. They said that they chose site near the Capitol to remind Congress about the cost of war beyond dollars…by spending more dollars on something that no Congressman will look at after the opening ceremony. When I moved to DC, just being there every day reminded me of the cost of our freedom in human sacrifice. If they can’t be inspired every moment of every day just by being in the nation’s Capitol, no little fountain which will probably cost billions to maintain and will end up being another trash bin for tourists can inspire them.

    No, thanks, I’m not impressed. Stick another yellow ribbon magnet on your car instead.

  • Obama signs bill for vets at airport screening

    The Associated Press reports that the President signed into law yesterday the Helping Heroes Fly Act that is intended to ease TSA airport screening for disabled and wounded veterans;

    [Democratic congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii, an Iraq war veteran who sponsored the bill] says the law ensures troops can return to life at home as quickly and seamlessly as possible. She says veterans deserve dignified screening processes that respect their service and sacrifices.

    You can read the bill at the link above, but don’t expect everything to change overnight. The bill just directs DoD and the VA to “develop and implement a process to support and facilitate the ease of travel and to the extent possible provide expedited passenger screening services for severely injured or disabled members of the Armed Forces and severely injured or disabled veterans through passenger screening.” Knowing the speed at which those two agencies work, I wouldn’t expect much in the near future, although it is a step in the right direction.

  • Fake combat veteran gets violent record expunged and murders 4

    Chief Tango sent us a link an article in the Dallas News about Erbie Lee Bowser a peacetime veteran who used a program designed to help combat veterans get their lives back on track to get his criminal history wiped clean. To thank society for helping him to straighten his life out, Bowser went on to murder four people, and wound four more the other day.

    Toya Smith, 43, and daughter Tasmia Allen, 17, were shot in Smith’s home in the 7100 block of Long Canyon Trail, near West Wheatland Road and Mountain Creek Parkway. Smith’s 14-year-old son, Storm Malone, and a 17-year-old family friend, Dasmine Mitchell, were shot. Both remain hospitalized. Dasmine underwent surgery and remains in critical condition.

    Bowser then went to the home of his 47-year-old estranged wife in the 100 block of Galleria Drive in DeSoto, busted down the back door, and tossed in a hand grenade, authorities said. The explosion “blew out the walls and a couple of windows,” said Cpl. Melissa Franks, a DeSoto police spokeswoman, but no one was hurt by the blast.

    Police said Bowser then entered the home and shot to death Zina Bowser and her daughter, Neima Williams, 28.

    Zina Bowser’s two young boys were also wounded by gunfire before the gunman apparently ran out of bullets. Her 13-year-old son was able to call police.

    When police encountered Bowser at the scene, he started mumbling his name, rank and social security number, playing the crazed combat vet part.

    Bowser served in the Army from 1991 to 2000. Those who enter Veterans Court must demonstrate that their time in combat caused them to commit whatever crime they are accused of.

    […]

    But on Thursday, the Army had no record of him being in combat, which should have made him ineligible for the program.

    Of course, the other day when the crime was first broadcast, all of the headlines blasted the fact that he was a veteran, without mentioning that he was also a teacher and a dancer for the Dallas Mavs ManiAACs, which had about as much to do with this heinous crime as his military service in the 90’s.

  • That St Louis fire

    The Stars & Stripes has a pretty good article on the July 12, 1973 fire at the National Personnel Records Center that we’ve so often heard phonies use an excuse for their inaccurate records not squaring with their stories;

    The calamity ultimately destroyed the records of about 18 million veterans, including roughly 80 percent for Army personnel discharged between 1912 and 1960 and 75 percent of Air Force personnel discharged between 1947 and 1964.

    The article is actually about my brothers and sisters at the National Archives and their attempts to recover the damaged records;

    Decades later, technicians with the National Archives facility in St. Louis still painstakingly search for and process the burnt and brittle personnel files requested by veterans, their wives and children and researchers. Often the requester is looking for proof needed for federal entitlements, such as medical care, education benefits and burial.

    But if you look at the sidebar, there are also instructions and links for requesting your records and records of your deceased family. I get a couple of requests every week for helping people to get their family’s records. It’s easier for you to get those records than it is for me to do it.

  • Deployments don’t cause suicides says study

    Stars & Stripes reports that a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association and conducted by Cynthia A. LeardMann, M.P.H., of the Naval Health Research Center, San Diego, CA has come to the conclusion that we’ve all suspected; military suicides are virtually unrelated to deployments;

    Between 2001 and 2008, there were 83 suicides — 12.8 percent — among a total of 646 deaths of those enrolled in the Millennium Cohort Study.

    “In models adjusted for age and sex, factors significantly associated with increased risk of suicide included male sex, depression, manic-depressive disorder, heavy or binge drinking, and alcohol-related problems,” the study said. “The authors found that none of the deployment-related factors (combat experience, cumulative days deployed, or number of deployments) were associated with increased suicide risk in any of the models.”

    The study noted that other studies have shown a marked increase in the incidence of mental health disorder diagnoses among active-duty servicemembers since 2005, paralleling the suicide incidence.

    “This suggests that the increased rate of suicide in the military may largely be a product of an increased prevalence of mental disorders in this population …,” the study said.

    Yeah, I think you and I have been telling the public this for years. It’s the culture not the military that is causing this increase in suicides. Now, can we get down to the business of dealing with it instead of propagating stereotypes that only serve to worsen the problem?