Lance Corporal Prevented 100th Attempted Suicide For 2015

Lance corporal awarded medal for preventing fellow Marine's suicide 
Marine Corps Times
By Derrick Perkins, Staff writer
June 7, 2015

The attempt is one of 100 recorded by Corps officials through April 30. At least eight deaths among active duty and reservists were ruled suicides since the start of the year, according to the Marine and Family Programs Division.

Lance Cpl. Victor Padilla, right, received the Navy and Marine Corps Commendation
Medal for intervening in his best friend's suicide attempt in April. (Photo: Courtesy)

Lance Cpl. Victor Padilla never saw his best friend's suicide attempt coming.

Hours before the fellow Marine tried to take his life April 11, he and Padilla were fishing together. Spirits were high despite not catching anything, said Padilla, a corrections specialist aboard Naval Consolidated Brig Charleston, South Carolina.

The other Marine seemed excited even, Padilla said, looking forward to meeting up with a longtime friend for dinner.

The pair returned to the barracks so Padilla's friend could shower and prepare for the evening. By then, though, his mood had changed, Padilla said.

"He wasn't doing too well," Padilla said. "He was moving around kinda quick, kinda upset."

Knowing his friend had a short temper, Padilla decided to let him blow off steam privately. But after a few minutes passed, he went searching through the second-floor residence.

And that's when he came across his friend, hanging from the balcony by two belts, tied together. Padilla does not remember much of what followed, but he got out beyond the railing and hauled his friend to safety.
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Marine receives Navy Commendation Medal for rescuing child

Marine receives award for rescuing young girl
DVIDS
Cpl. Devin Nichols
2nd Marine Logistics Group
January 14, 2014

Cpl. Devin Nichols
Cpl. Brian E. Babineau, a Gardner, Mass., native and a warehouse clerk with Supply Company, 2nd Supply Battalion, 2nd Marine Logistics Group, shakes hands with Lt. Col. Jesse A. Kemp, the commanding officer of Supply Battalion, after receiving the Navy Commendation Medal for saving a young girl's life at North Topsail Beach, N.C., July 14, 2013 at an award ceremony at the French Creek barracks aboard Camp Lejeune, N.C., January 10, 2014. Babineau swam out into the ocean and brought back the young girl who was being drifted away by a rip current.

CAMP LEJEUNE. N.C. -With the arrival of the weekend, Marines and their friends gathered together to head to North Topsail Beach, N.C.

This particular Saturday couldn’t be a better day to hit the beach. The sky was clear and the sun was radiant, calmed by the sound of crashing waves.

It was a relaxing way to enjoy a summer weekend.

In the midst of the calm and relaxing weekend Cpl. Brian E. Babineau, a Gardner, Mass., native and a warehouse clerk with Supply Company, 2nd Supply Battalion, 2nd Marine Logistics Group, and his friends were lying on the beach when they heard a scream.

The Marines stood up, curious of where the scream came from.

“An older woman yelled from next to us ‘help there is a girl drowning out there’,” said Babineau. “As soon as I heard that I started to run to the water and dove in.”

Without hesitation Babineau swam to the young girl screaming from far out in the ocean.
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Vietnam Veteran to receive Commendation Medal after 47 years

Indiana vet receiving medal long after Vietnam attack
WDTN News
Friday, 05 Jul 2013

CENTERVILLE, Ind. (AP) - A Marine veteran from eastern Indiana is about to be honored 47 years after the fact for valor during the Vietnam War.

The Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medal will be presented to Roger Kimble of Centerville during a July 13 ceremony in Richmond.
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Marine receives medal for saving life in Afghanistan

Marine awarded medal
HHS grad saves worker's life in Afghanistan
Jan 4, 2013
Written by
Tena Lee
Sumner A.M.

Those who know 24-year-old Justin Williams were not surprised to learn that he saved a stranger’s life recently while serving in Afghanistan.

Williams, a 2006 graduate of Hendersonville High School, was recently awarded the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medal for Meritorious Achievement for risking his own life and freeing a construction worker from a collapsed building at Camp Leatherneck, a U. S. Marine Corps base in the war-torn country.

“Corporal Williams' decisive action undoubtedly saved the constructions worker's life and prevented further injury,” reads the citation issued Nov. 27 by the U. S. Navy Department. “Corporal Williams' initiative, perseverance, and total dedication to duty reflected credit upon him and upheld the highest traditions of the Marine Corps and United States Naval Service.”

The citation says Williams risked his own safety by entering the collapse site, spotting the worker’s foot, and digging him out of three-foot-high dirt and debris with his bare hands.
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Vietnam Vet receives medal for USS Forrestal fire heroism

Vet receives medal for USS Forrestal fire heroism
The Day
Published 08/13/2012

Norwich - U.S. Rep. Joe Courtney presented service medals to Gregory Potts, a Vietnam veteran, in the Norwich District Office Aug. 6.

Potts, of Willington, received the Navy Commendation Medal with Combat "V," National Defense Service Medal and Vietnam Service Medal with one bronze star, medals he earned but never received when he left the Navy.
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Vietnam veterans help returning Iraq soldiers deal with shocks of war

Vietnam veterans help returning Iraq soldiers deal with shocks of war
Neil Kenny, decorated for his service in Vietnam, plays big brother to Jeremiah Workman, a medal winner in Iraq struggling with the psychological effects of combat.

By Jennifer Miller Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor

from the January 30, 2008 edition
Washington - Marine Sgt. Jeremiah Workman wasn't born yet when his friend Neil Kenny received the Navy Commendation Medal for dragging dead and wounded soldiers out of combat in Vietnam. But he has a good idea what it must have been like.

In 2004, during the second battle of Fallujah in Iraq, Sergeant Workman pushed through exploding grenades and machine-gun fire to rescue 10 trapped marines. His bravery earned him the Navy Cross, the military's second-highest honor. Yet today Mr. Kenny and Workman share more than medals. They came home from war with severe psychological wounds – anxiety, anger, and depression. More than their Marine brotherhood and shared valor, it is the painful legacy of combat that has now forged a singular bond between them. "I can tell him everything," Workman says. "I don't trust anybody. He's one of the few people I can talk to."

Their relationship is symbolic of a grass-roots movement by Vietnam veterans to help soldiers returning from Iraq cope with the mental rigors of war and ease the transition to civilian life. Across the country, both groups of Vietnam veterans and individual former soldiers are pitching in to help console, counsel, or just be a voice on the other end of the phone to those who have served in the Middle East.

Throughout history, veterans of one war have always helped those of another. But rarely has the homecoming experience of two sets of veterans been so different, and the bonds between them so deep, as those from Vietnam and Iraq.

One reason is that many Vietnam-era soldiers understand the trauma that some of today's returning fighters are going through and want to help them in ways they feel they never were. Kenny is currently mentoring five Iraq war veterans. When he looks at today's young soldiers, he sees a mirror image of himself returning from Southeast Asia at 19. "That's where I was," he says. "I don't want to turn my back on them."
go here for the rest
http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0130/p20s01-usmi.html

This is one of the biggest reasons I did the video Hero After War. The Vietnam veterans have been doing it all along. Most of them have their own kids involved in the two occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. Most of them are as divided on Iraq as the rest of then nation but the one common bond they all share is the brotherhood.

Vietnam veterans began so many different support groups it's nearly impossible to keep track of all of them. From Rolling Thunder, to Nam Knights motorcycle groups, to Vietnam Veterans of America. They have taken leadership positions in local government, business and state government. They have filled the seats of the House of Representatives and the Senate. They are still giving back at the same time so many are still paying for their service to this nation. They are among the finest people I've ever met and the above article is just one of the reasons I feel the way I do. My husband, naturally is the biggest reason of all.