Vietnam Veteran's Widow Planned Lonely Funeral For Tomorrow

UPDATE She was not alone!

Colorado Springs widow gives final salute to veteran husband who died suddenly

Read the story here

Widow of Vietnam veteran worries she'll be alone for his funeral

KOAA News

Alasyn Zimmerman

September 28, 2017

When Ute Belasco's husband Roman passed away, she felt a series of emotions. From sadness, loneliness, and even anger- she wasn't sure where to turn. 

'It's like your brain dies for a while," said Belasco.

Roman, a Vietnam veteran served in the United States military for 20 years. Belasco remembers those years fondly. 

With nowhere to turn and unsure of what to do, she did know one thing: 'I knew he needed the honor,' said Belasco. 

With no family and not many friends, Belasco worried she would be all alone for her husband's funeral. 

Luckily, her neighbor reached out to some veterans services in hopes she would be alone and would have the support of some of his fellow veterans. 

'We can't let a veteran down, we really need[ed] to help," said Cynthia Galvin.

Galvin is with the Veterans of Foreign Wars, she says when she heard Belasco's story it was tough news to hear. "We have a saying, never leave a comrade behind, so we had to go and help," said Galvin.

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"The funeral will take place on Saturday, September 30th."

If my work has done anything for you over these years, then please give me an anniversary gift. Tomorrow is my anniversary with my husband. She is burying her's.

Please show up for this widow and honor the love she had for her husband! 

Florida Firefighters Remembered For Service After Suicide

Firefighters who took their own lives will be added to memorial

KOAA News

Lena Howland

September 15, 2017

COLORADO SPRINGS
With the annual IAFF Fallen Fire Fighter's Memorial ceremony coming up this weekend in Colorado Springs, 196 names of firefighters who have made the ultimate sacrifice will be added to the memorial.

David Dangerfield is one of several other firefighters that took their own life and will be added to the IAFF Fallen Fire Fighter Memorial. (KOAA)

Among them, a handful who didn't die in the line of duty, rather, from suicide caused by post-traumatic stress disorder they got on the job.

Usually when we hear about PTSD, it's related to our military but it's a growing issue among firefighters too.

They are first on scene to nearly every emergency, from fires, to drownings, to terrible accidents, they see it all and it can take a toll.

"Every three days, he experienced a trauma and then he came home to his family for 27 years," Leslie Dangerfield, a widow said.

David Dangerfield was a Battalion Chief in Florida.

But sadly one day, his wife, Leslie took the last call she would ever get from him.

"I love you, you're a good mom, take care of our kids... I begged him, please don't leave them, please don't do this, he said I can't do it anymore, I can't, the nightmares, I can't do it anymore," she said.

She had seen some warning signs. For years, he struggled with anger outbursts, sometimes irrational behavior and trouble sleeping.

"His nightmares about babies dying in his arms, about trying to save someone from a shark bite who lost a limb or he couldn't find a body part and had to bring a decapitated body onto the beach where the mother was standing," she said.

Sadly, he's not alone.

Richard Sandell, a Florida firefighter for 18 years, also took his life when his wife Diana was pregnant with their third child.

Read more here

Burial planned in Ohio for soldier found murdered

Burial planned in Ohio for soldier found murdered in Colorado Springs hotel room
ABC 7 Denver News
Posted: 02/21/2013
Last Updated: 21 hours ago

CINCINNATI - Funeral services with military honors are planned in Cincinnati for a 28-year-old Army corporal killed in Colorado.

Authorities say Kimberly Walker was found dead Sunday in a Colorado Springs motel room. Her soldier boyfriend, Montrell Lamar Anderson Mayo, was jailed in Greenville, N.C., on a Colorado murder warrant.
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PTSD may play role in soldier's defense at murder trial

PTSD may play role in soldier's defense at murder trial
September 14, 2012
LANCE BENZEL
THE GAZETTE

A Fort Carson soldier accused of killing an unarmed man outside a Colorado Springs motorcycle club appears likely to argue at trial that he suffers the effects of combat stress and war injuries.

Christopher Anthony Mountjoy, 31, of Fountain, pleaded not guilty Thursday to aggravated robbery and first-degree murder in the March 3 shooting-death of Virgil Means on the city’s near-west side.

Means, also 31, was wounded in the head during an apparent ambush outside the Sin City Disciples Motorcycle Club, 628 W. Vermijo Ave.

Portions of Vermijo Avenue had been barricaded near the entrance to the club — which a member described to Colorado Springs police as a “1-percenter” outlaw biker gang — and shooters crouched low behind a trash bin and slow-moving cars while directing a hail of gunfire at a Cadillac in which Means was a passenger, according to previous court testimony by Colorado Springs police detectives.
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Colorado National Guard Female Officers murdered

Murder victim was mother, National Guard officer
July 18, 2012

The 39-year-old woman found dead in southwest Colorado Springs on Friday was a mother of four and a 2nd lieutenant in the Colorado Army National Guard.

Cristina Cornejo, a 13-year Colorado Springs resident, enlisted in the National Guard in June 2006 and juggled her pursuit of a full-time career as an officer while raising three sons and a daughter.

Cornejo served as a career counselor with the Guard's Recruiting and Retention Battalion before attending the Officer Candidate School on Fort Carson, where she graduated in August 2010. She was commissioned as 2nd lieutenant in 2011 and served with the 100th Missile Defense Brigade, receiving several honors.
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Fort Carson scrambled to build fire breaks

Fire Forces Air Force Academy to Evacuate
Jun 28, 2012
UPI

Army combat engineers rushed to stop a major wildfire that left tens of thousands of people homeless, from consuming the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs.

The military school for officer candidates relocated about 550 cadets off academy grounds Wednesday night, 200 new cadets were moved to the University of Colorado's

Colorado Springs campus and 350 moved in with local sponsor families, the Army said.

Commanders suspended all training programs as an engineer battalion from the Army's Fort Carson near Colorado Springs scrambled to build fire breaks around the 18,500-acre school's boundaries.

The Army, which initially committed 121 troops, along with construction and demolition equipment, to helping the Academy -- said in a statement Fort Carson would devote as much resources as it had to fighting the Waldo Canyon fire, which doubled in size Wednesday and blackened more than 30 square miles by Thursday morning.

An aerial photograph taken Wednesday and published in The Denver Post Thursday showed approximately 300 homes, all of them inside the Colorado Springs city limits, evidently reduced to charred rubble.
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also

News: Fort Carson assists displaced service members, Families

Using Art To Help Deal With PTSD

Using Art To Help Deal With PTSD
American heroes in Southern Colorado are suffering. They're dealing with the stress of deployments; some of them have post traumatic stress disorder.
Oct 16, 2011
Reporter: Alyssa Chin

There’s a new type of help for American heroes in Southern Colorado who are suffering. They're dealing with the stress of deployments; some of them have post traumatic stress disorder.

An organization called Military Creative Expressions is in Colorado Springs. They’re using art to help our veterans and retired military personnel heal.


Sunday they held an exhibit in Old Colorado City. 11 News talked to one artist who's dealing with PTSD and she said this is the only way she can cope.

After more than 17 years in the military, Juliet Madsen was forced to retire. An explosion in Iraq caused her to come home with a traumatic brain injury and she developed PTSD.

"They don't have a lot of female PTSD programs," Madsen said.
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Veteran rated 70% for PTSD, can't get money?

Veteran Says He Can't Get Benefits

Posted: June 15, 2009 06:36 PM EDT

Soldier Struggling Without Benefits
1:41

By Stephanie Wurtz
s.wurtz@krdo.com

COLORADO SPRINGS - A six-year Army veteran says he's missing out on thousands of dollars in benefits and says now he's at risk of losing his home. Sgt. Clayton Wingfield completed three tours of duty and applied for his disability benefits at the end of 2008.

He's been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and traumatic brain injury (TBI) and is still waiting on his benefits. "No answers on anything," Wingfield says, "just a big run around."

For about eight months, Wingfield has been trying to track down his $1,300 a month in disability benefits from the Department of Veterans Affairs. "I'm just waiting to get my money," Wingfield says, "they've already rated me 70% disabled, but there's a competency issue and they say I'm not competent enough to control my own funds."
go here for more
http://www.krdo.com/Global/story.asp?S=10536987

Don't even get me started on this one! What good will it do him to have his claim approved if he ends up homeless? Do they think of this kind of stress on a veteran with PTSD when he's already proven his claim?