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

Category: Veterans Issues

  • Donating to a Charity That “Helps Vets”? Might Want to Check It Out First

    Charitable giving is good.  But there are good charities and there are those who give the word “charity” lip service.  It always pays to check before you send that check.

    For example:  are you thinking of donating to Help Hospitalized Veterans  – or any other organization founded by Roger Chapin?  If so, you might want to read this article first.

    Help Hospitalized Veterans  is pretty efficient at raising money – an average of $40+M a year over 10 years.  But it seems they’re not exactly one of the more effective charities when it comes to putting that money to good use.  In fact, it seems there are quite a number of questionable practices at  Help Hospitalized Veterans, such as

    • $80,000 golf memberships for board members
    • Loans and grants by Help Hospitalized Veterans to other organizations founded by Roger Chapin
    • Only around 35% of donations actually going towards program costs
    • Highly inflated and “spiked” salaries for senior officials, including Roger Chapin and his successor
    • A $2M “golden parachute” retirement for Roger Chapin when he retired from the charity in 2009

    Indeed, this isn’t the time Roger Chapin and Help Hospitalized Veterans have been in the public spotlight.  They were investigated by Congress in 2008 for allegations of mismanagement.

    But this does appear to be the first time they’ve been taken to court.  The state of CA is suing them for financial improprieties as a charitable organization.  The state is seeking the ouster of the current president and several board members – and to recover at least $4.3M that’s alleged to have been misspent.

    I’m not against the head of an organization with annual revenue of $40M+ receiving a good salary.  But I do have a problem with charities using donations as a “cash cow” and skimming big bucks off the top for salaries and perks for their leadership, then spending barely 1/3 of what they take in on actual charitable programs.  And based on what’s been made public to date that’s certainly what seems to have been be going on at Help Hospitalized Veterans – though it has yet to be proven in court.

    Given what’s been discovered at Help Hospitalized Veterans I’d also be wary as hell about giving my money to any other organization founded by Roger Chapin, too.  He’s apparently founded over two dozen other organizations besides Help Hospitalized Veterans.

    Hey, Yon:  if you want to spend time bitching about a charity, you really might want to check these guys out instead of Soldier’s Angels.

  • A Belated Valor Award – With a Backstory

    In the early morning hours of June 13, 1968 – in Kontum Province, South Vietnam – an enemy unit moved into position for a night attack on a US camp.  SGT Frank Spink was on guard duty.  At 3AM, he noticed the enemy night attack about to begin, sounded the alarm, and engaged the enemy.  His actions gave sufficient warning to his unit to allow an effective response and prevent his camp from being overrun.

    His actions also drew the enemy’s full attention, however, and nearly cost SGT Spink his life.  He was severely wounded by enemy rocket fire during the attack.  His life was likely saved by his lieutenant, who rendered immediate aid during the battle.  SGT Spink did, unfortunately, lose an arm due to his wounds.

    For his wounds SGT Spink received a Purple Heart.  He was also recommended for the Silver Star, and apparently the award was approved.  Unfortunately, because of some administrative SNAFU, it was also never presented to SGT Spink.  Nor was SGT Spink aware of it.

    That’s where this story would normally have ended – no presentation, and no story.  Just another deserving but unknown hero denied proper recognition by a regrettable admin SNAFU.

    Except here, years later, someone followed up.

    Everyone in the military gives LTs and ENSs grief.  Much of the time, that’s well-deserved.  Virtually all new officers – particularly non-prior service ones – are naïve as hell.  Some new “butterbars” actually think they know their ass from a hole in the ground the day they’re commissioned.  And a few are really obnoxious and arrogant “pieces of work”.

    But most junior officers know they’re ignorant, and listen to (and learn from) their NCOs.  One thing most junior officers learn quickly from their NCOs is to take care of their troops.  And the good ones remember that for the rest of their lives.

    A few years ago SGT Spink’s former lieutenant was doing research on his old unit.  He came across paperwork for Spink’s Silver Star.

    He got in contact with his former soldier, and thanked him for saving lives that long-ago night.  He found out that Spink had never received his award.

    The former lieutenant and another vet then took action.  And though it took a while, the rest – as they say – is history.  A longstanding SNAFU was finally corrected; a deserving hero was recognized.  Earlier this week, SGT Frank Spink, US Army, was presented his Silver Star. Belatedly, yes – but he received it.

    Kudos, SGT Frank Spink.  Through your valor, many friendly lives were saved.  We belatedly honor your actions – and your heroism – on that long-ago day in June of 1968.

    And kudos also to John McHenry, SGT Spink’s former lieutenant, who followed up and took care of his soldier.  And to fellow veteran Fred Golladay – who, along with McHenry, simply wouldn’t let the matter rest.

  • Racists in the military

    You know what I hate more than the media slicing up veterans? I hate veterans doing that to each other;

    “Outside every major military installation, you will have at least two or three active neo-Nazi organizations actively trying to recruit on-duty personnel,” said T.J. Leyden, a former white power skinhead in the U.S. Marines who now conducts anti-extremism training.

    That’s from a link that Art sent us from a Hampton Roads local TV station. With all of the years I spent in the Army, almost all of it on military installations, I never witnessed anyone being recruited by a neo-Nazi group. And then this quote;

    To J.M. Berger, a counterterrorism analyst and editor for IntelWire.Com, the military attracts extremists because of the weapons training it provides.

    “One thing that we really have to keep in mind is that extremists are often explicitly interested in joining the military because they get training that they can use later,” Berger told CNN, adding that “there have been some explicit discussions among leaders of some of these groups that their followers should join the Army to get trained.”

    And what, exactly, are they going to do with that training? Seriously. This miniscule portion of the population is going to raise up and use their military training to take over country? Or will they just use it to make pin-prick insurgencies that will make them more hated than are already?

    I’m pretty sure that most gun owning Americans would say they’ll protect their homes and families from neo-Nazis just as quickly as they’d defend against anyone from the other end of the political spectrum.

    Leyden, the former white supremacist who wrote the book “Skinhead Confessions: From Hate to Hope,” said he openly displayed his extremist leanings while serving in the Marine Corps in the late 1980s.

    “I used to hang a swastika flag on my wall locker and everybody in my unit all the way up to my commander knew it,” he said. “The only time they ever asked me to take it down was when the commanding general would come through, just so they wouldn’t get in trouble. And afterwards, I would put it right back up and they were perfectly fine with it.”

    He noted that his brother’s unit had less tolerance for such displays.

    Yeah, I don’t see that happening. A Nazi flag would last about three seconds in any of my units and more than likely, it’d be one my privates who would have removed it before I saw it.

    According to the Department of Defense website, the task force visited 28 installations and interviewed more than 7,500 soldiers. It found that less than 1% said they had seen soldiers or civilian employees involved with extremist groups.

    A decade later, the Southern Law Poverty Center reported in 2006 that some high-profile members of extremist groups were serving in the U.S. military.

    Yeah, we talked about the SPLC report a few years ago. The assclowns went on what the Neo-Nazis told them about their military service but never bothered to check on them. We could find no record of them ever serving. So if you suspend common sense, it’s easy to believe SPLC.

  • Obama campaign plotting against veteran votes in Ohio

    Breitbart writes that the Obama for America Campaign, the Democratic National Committee and the Ohio Democratic Party filed a suit last month in Ohio that opposes the three day grace period for absentee votes…you, know, the way that veterans are more likely to vote from their military addresses outside of Ohio. I guess it has nothing to do with the fact that Ohio is a battleground state, and that polls say that almost 2/3 of veterans are supporting Romney in this election. From Mike Flynn at Breitbart;

    If anyone proposes legislation to combat voter fraud, Democrats will loudly scream that the proposal could “disenfranchise” some voter, somewhere. We must ensure, they argue, that voting is easy and accessible to every single voter. Every voter, that is, except the men and women of our military.

    Make no mistake, the Democrat lawsuit is intended to disenfranchise some unknown number of military voters. The judge should reject it with prejudice.

    So, I guess the Democrats aren’t buying that their big push for veterans’ votes this season is going to work, so it’s back to the tried and true disenfranchisement strategy. This is not my shocked face.

  • Combat vet to play at Clemson

    Daniel Rodriguez promised his friend, PFC Kevin Thompson that someday he was going to play college football. A few days later, Thompson was killed in a battle at Kamdesh, Afghanistan when 400 Taliban swarmed over the 40 defenders in October 2009. Rodriguez left Kamdesh with shrapnel in his leg and neck and a bullet in his leg, and with a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart, but he never forgot his promise to his fallen comrade. Fox News reports;

    Rodriguez’s home state schools of Virginia and Virginia Tech contacted him, too. Virginia said his grades were not good enough to enroll while Rodriguez said Virginia Tech wasn’t eager to move forward with getting waivers from the NCAA and ACC for him to play. Swinney said the Tigers would give it a try.

    “There was a lot of paperwork and Clemson was willing to do that,” Rodriguez said. “I’m grateful to them.”

    [Clemson football coach Dabo] Swinney is happy to have Rodriguez on his sideline. “He is getting the opportunity to follow his dream,” the coach said. “We are excited to have him join our program. I have no doubt that he will become a great leader for us.”

    Rodriguez repeats what millions of veterans have told themselves for generations after war;

    “I’m using the hardships, the horrors, the killing, the friends that I’ve lost as my fuel to (get) where I want to be,” he said. “So I think if you can turn and manipulate anything negative in your life and use it as something good, that’s what I’ve taken into my life.”

    Thanks to SGT K for the link.

    ADDED: Read more at our buddy, Parachute Cutie‘s house.

  • No Enemy But Peace update

    If you’re wondering what happened to the graphic novel I talked about a few weeks back, the one that many of you helped fund, Richard made mission and was able to get his novel going. He wrote to tell me that loads of the money came from you guys, so here is my thanks to you for helping a veteran get started on his new career.

  • Sometimes One Individual Can Make a Difference

    The Clackamas Town Center mall in Oregon has a “kiddie train”. Some time ago, mall management noticed that the kiddie train  conductor had adorned the train with the American flag.

    Mall management was not amused. They decided the flag was an “unapproved visual”, and ordered it removed.

    However, the train’s conductor balked. And not only did he balk, though in doing so he risked losing his job or being banned from the mall. He also went public to local media.

    Public reaction was reasonably swift. And it wasn’t in favor of mall management.

    Mall management relented. Old Glory still adorns the train.

    Why did this happen? You’ll have to ask the mall’s management why they chose to act like ignorant fools. I certainly can’t explain their behavior.

    But it turns out the kiddie train driver was a vet. ‘Nuff said about why he stood his ground.

    Thanks, Thomas Phelps. I don’t know your branch of service – and I don’t care.   Well done, fella; very well done.

    And I’m also guessing you’re not related to that crowd of idiots who run the Westboro Baptist Church, either. (smile)

  • No arrests in murder of veteran in DC

    I’m not really surprised since few murders in DC get solved, but the Albany Times Union reports the story of Clifton Park, NY resident, Patrick Casey, who left college to join the Army, went to Afghanistan, returned to finish college at George Washington University and ended his life in a pool of blood outside of a MacDonald’s in Georgetown;

    U.S. Attorney Ronald Machen Jr., responded to the Caseys’ concerns in a May letter. He told them the office concluded there was insufficient evidence to pursue criminal charges because the government could not prove the person who punched Pat did not act in self-defense, or in defense of a third party. The matter could be re-opened if additional evidence materializes, Machen said.

    Casey’s parents had to file a FOIA to get a copy of the surveillance camera footage of events leading up to their son’s death, got a heavily redacted copy from police and eventually got a clean copy. After determining that the video didn’t support the police’s contention that Casey may have attacked the people who eventually killed him, they discovered that there were several other tapes, one that might actually have images of his death.

    [D.C. Police Capt. Michael Farish] also stated Sept. 30 that detectives had interviewed people on both sides of the confrontation, which the Caseys later found out from police wasn’t true. While investigators identified the three men in Casey’s opposing party within days, they did not interview two subjects until Oct. 1 [more than a week after the death], and the man who struck Pat Casey until a later date, Kucik told the Caseys in an email.

    See, here’s the thing that angers me almost as much as the incompetence of the DC Metro police investigators; If roles had been reversed that night, and the Afghanistan veteran had pummeled a local to death, we’d be reading about terrible it is that we allow veterans to continue to roam among us without leashes and muzzles. We’d be hearing about how the military had trained him to kill and never shut off that switch. We’d be seeing the bereaved family of the victim screaming for justice every night on DC local news. But in this case we have to read about the events in the District from a distant newspaper with local connections to Casey.