Fort Carson soldier drowned in Florida

Fort Carson GI killed in Florida incident
March 04, 2012 10:31 PM

TOM ROEDER
The Gazette
A Fort Carson soldier drowned in Florida on Sunday after walking off a beachside dock.

Authorities in Pinellas County, Florida said 36-year-old Luis G. Serrano was walking along a boardwalk in Indian Rocks Beach just before 5:30 a.m. when a bystander saw him plunge into the Gulf of Mexico.
read more here

The New Gulf War, depression

When we feel as if we wait for what we want, we feel in power of changing today with hope. When we believe that if we do a good job and work hard, we can hold our heads up high. The problem comes when we are at the mercy of others. In this case, BP.

The people living and working in the Gulf did nothing wrong to cause this to happen to them. This was totally out of their control, but they are left to suffer for what other people decided to do. There is very little hope for them of this getting better until BP stops the oil from escaping into the Gulf. Once they know that is done, then their outlook on the next day will change but the bigger problem comes as the days go on. Mental health help will ease some of the stress but without real change in their lives, their depression may last a long time.

Faced with oil spill, Gulf residents fight mental pain


By Agence France-Presse
Thursday, July 22nd, 2010 -- 2:29 pm


With the Gulf oil spill destroying livelihoods across southern Louisiana, anxiety over an uncertain future is prompting a desperate rise in depression, health officials and residents warn.

"This whole area is gonna die," cried fifth-generation fisherwoman Darla Brooks in an interview Wednesday with AFP, in the small fishing-based town of Buras.

"Down here, we have oil and we have fishing. We are water people. Everything we do involves the sea, and the spill has taken it all away from us," she said.

Brooks, 37, who grew up on the Gulf of Mexico being taught how to fish and shrimp by her father, lamented the loss of a way of life -- and being deprived of teaching a five-year-old grandson how to be fish boat captain just like her.

"I'm angry, I'm frustrated. I've been contemplating suicide to the point of making myself a hangman's noose; honest to God. Then I decided that's not going to do anything, apart from shut me up," she said, promising not to cry anymore.
read more here
Gulf residents fight mental pain

Iraq War Veterans Join Environmentalists in the Oiled Gulf of Mexico

Iraq War Veterans Join Environmentalists in the Oiled Gulf of Mexico
By Bryan Walsh Saturday, Jul. 17, 2010
Robin Eckstein has a closer relationship than most of us to the long supply chains that brings oil from the well to the wheel. In 2007 she was an Army truck driver in Iraq, shipping fuel from Baghdad International Airport to the forward bases of American operations. The U.S. military is an oil-thirsty machine, and it was the job of troops in logistics, like Eckstein, to keep the occupation fueled. That meant driving miles every day in a fuel convoy through some of the most dangerous streets in the world.

"Every day when we left the airport, I was thinking, time to roll the dice," she said. "Would it be insurgents, an IED, something else? We were just a big, slow, vulnerable target."

To Eckstein—who made it home OK from her tour in Iraq—the epiphany was inevitable. If gas was still cheap in America it was in part because the U.S. military was paying to keep some level of stability in the Middle East. Oil had its hidden costs for the U.S., costs that weren't factored into the price of gas—one of which was the blood of young American soldiers. "It all really resonated with me," the 33-year-old said. "Why weren't we doing things in a more efficient way?"

Read more: Iraq War Veterans Join Environmentalists

Coast Guard defends response to Gulf oil spill

The Department of Defense, the National Guard and the Coast Guard have all been called in to clean this up. The question is, will BP pay for what the government (tax payers) has to do to take care of what they failed to do? Will they cover the risk to our first responders? Will they take care of the families of the missing and take care of the wounded? What about the way this will hurt the natural world?

Coast Guard defends response to Gulf oil spill

By Cain Burdeau - The Associated Press
Posted : Sunday May 2, 2010 10:14:54 EDT

MOUTH OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER — Oil from a massive spill in the Gulf of Mexico oozed into Louisiana’s ecologically rich wetlands Friday as storms threatened to frustrate desperate protection efforts. The White House put a hold on any new offshore oil projects until the rig disaster that caused the spill is explained.

Crews in boats patrolled coastal marshes early Friday looking for areas where the oil has flowed in, the Coast Guard said.

The National Weather Service predicted winds, high tides and waves through Sunday that could push oil deep into the inlets, ponds and lakes that line the boot of southeastern Louisiana. Seas of 6 to 7 feet were pushing tides several feet above normal toward the coast, compounded by thunderstorms expected in the area Friday.

As the sun rose over Venice, dozens of boats, some carrying booms that will help hold back the oil, sat ready at Cypress Cove pier. Fishing guide Mike Dickinson, 56, was taking out some fishermen from Georgia in hopes of making money before more oil washes in.
read more here
http://www.armytimes.com/news/2010/04/ap_gulf_oil_spill_043010/

Shipmate died saving my life

Sailor: Shipmate died saving my life
Story Highlights
Sailors say Roger Stone stayed behind to get others to safety

The five survivors were found and airlifted to land around 2 a.m. Sunday

Safety officer Steve Conway: Sailors all "had a fierce will to live"


Steven Guy, a Texas A&M University sailor, said Roger Stone saved him and another sailor by helping them to safety.

"He is my hero," Guy said. "He saved me. If it wasn't for him, I would not be here."

The group never saw Stone after he pushed the two men out of a hatch in the boat, the mariners said. Stone, the boat's second safety officer, was found dead by the Coast Guard on Sunday afternoon.

The two men said they spent a day in open water after their vessel sank in the Gulf of Mexico.

The survivors -- four university students and a safety officer -- told the Coast Guard they were forced off their sailboat after it took on water and capsized early Saturday.

go here for more
http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/06/09/sailors.rescued/index.html