Veteran's Company Helps Patriotic Teen in Wheelchair Rise Again

Veterans gift disabled teen featured in flag photo with standing wheelchair
FOX.com
November 11, 2016

A wheelchair-bound teen who went viral after his photographer uncle shared a photo of him standing for the flag is in the news again, as a veteran-owned company who saw the photo has stepped forward to gift him with a standing wheelchair.

Arek Trenholm, of Lake County, Florida, was born with spina bifida, a birth defect that causes incomplete closing of the backbone and membranes around the spinal cord. The 16-year-old has only stood from his chair two times in the last seven years, Fox 35 Orlando reported, with one of those occasions occurring when headlines were dominated by athletes choosing to kneel during the playing of the national anthem. Trenholm was commended nationwide for his efforts to stand during his town’s homecoming parade as the flag passed him.

Veteran Scott Liesch came across the photo of Trenholm and presented it to his employers at The Standing Company, who are also fellow veterans. The Michigan-based group decided to surprise Trenholm with a standing wheelchair to help him gain more independence and be able to stand upright more easily, Fox 35 reported.
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Virginia Pilot 'Help Us Investigate the Impact of Agent Orange'

Reliving Agent Orange: What the children of Vietnam vets have to say
The Virginian-Pilot
by Terry Parris Jr. and Charles Ornstein, ProPublica, and Mike Hixenbaugh
June 17, 2016

The children of Vietnam vets describe how they believe their fathers’ exposure to Agent Orange during the war has impacted their families and their health.

For the past year, ProPublica and The Virginian-Pilot have examined how Agent Orange has impacted the health of Vietnam vets. We’ve written about Blue Water Navy veterans who are currently ineligible for benefits, as well as vets with bladder cancer and their struggle for compensation.

Help Us Investigate the Impact of Agent Orange

We’ve also asked vets and their family members to tell us how their lives have been affected by exposure to the toxic herbicide, receiving more than 5,000 responses.

ProPublica and The Virginian-Pilot are looking into the multigenerational effects of Agent Orange. Please fill out the corresponding questionnaire if you are:
A veteran
Child of a veteran
Family member of a veteran
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Linked from Stars and Stripes

This is something we worry about all the time.  We keep worrying about every time he goes to the VA for tests. In 1993 my husband was entered into the registry because there was spraying when he was in Vietnam and where he was. The doctor said the words, "No adverse health effects yet." In other words, we knew there will be.

There are obvious risks to those who go into combat. Bullets and bombs are always on the minds of soldiers. What is not on their minds is that the government would risk their lives with what they do.

Agent Orange was supposed to save lives by getting rid of places for the enemy to hide.  It turned out that was what caused a lot more deaths, not just for those who survived Vietnam, but for their families as well.

VA Taking Another Look at Agent Orange Casualties

VA might add more 'presumptive' illnesses for Vietnam veterans
Stars and Stripes
By Tom Philpott
Special to Stars and Stripes
Published: March 17, 2016

The IOM concludes that the research supports changing the strength of association to herbicide exposure for several ailments. For bladder cancer and hypothyroidism, it found “limited or suggestive” evidence of an association, an upgrade from previous “inadequate or insufficient” evidence.

By August this year many more thousands of Vietnam War veterans, those suffering from bladder cancer, hypothyroidism, Parkinson’s-like symptoms and even high blood pressure, could learn they will be eligible for Department of Veterans Affairs health benefits and disability compensation. Or perhaps not.

Difficult months of study lie ahead for a working group of senior scientists and health experts that VA Secretary Bob McDonald convened last week, following release of a 10th and final biennial review of evidence of health problems linked to Agent Orange and other herbicide exposures.

Every review in the series, going back two decades, has been conducted, as Congress mandated, by the Institute of Medicine (IOM), a division of the National Academies of Sciences. Its latest review, Veterans and Agent Orange: Update 2014, takes into account medical and scientific literature published from Oct. 1, 2012, through Sept. 30, 2014.

For only the second time, the IOM withdrew an earlier finding of that herbicide exposure may have caused an ailment, in this case spina bifida in children born to Vietnam veterans. For 20 years VA has used a preliminary finding of an association to grant children benefits. The IOM says it no longer believes the evidence merits retaining spina bifida in that category.
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Wife's death, wartime PTSD tore at Orosi shooter

This story has it all. All the things tied together producing a sad ending. Alvarez, a Vietnam veteran was dealing with a lot from Vietnam. PTSD and Agent Orange plus a daughter born with Spina Bifida. He also had a marriage that survived over 40 years until his wife passed away in 2012.

It is a story about a veteran wanting to heal and seeing VA doctors to take an active part in getting better.

He cared about his daughters and grandkids. So what happened? Aside from having a gun in the house some will want to point to, when there was no sign of Alvarez being dangerous before, there was no need to remove his weapons. Some will want to blame PTSD but again they will be missing the point that this veteran was getting help as well as the part of the article pointing out that violence is hardly ever a part of PTSD. Most of the time they are a greater danger to themselves than someone else.

All the way around, this story has a lot of sadness.

Wife's death, wartime PTSD tore at Orosi shooter
By Lewis Griswold
The Fresno Bee
Tuesday, May. 28, 2013

OROSI -- His family meant everything to Anthony "Tony" Alvarez Sr., a 63-year-old Vietnam war veteran who was devastated when his wife died last year. He shared his home with his two daughters, Valerie Alvarez, who has spina bifida and uses a wheelchair, and Jennifer Kimble, who moved back home last summer with her husband and three children.

So what made this family man take a gun and shoot his daughters, killing Kimble and critically injuring Valerie Alvarez, before killing himself early Monday morning?

His wife's death, and the post-traumatic stress disorder that was the legacy of his wartime service, may have been too much for him to bear, his son said Tuesday.

Alvarez spared Kimble's three children, an 8-year-old girl and two boys ages 11 and 13, who were in the home at the time of the shootings.

"His grandchildren meant the world to him," Anthony Alvarez Jr. of Corcoran said Tuesday outside the home where the murder-suicide took place.
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Agent Orange Veterans Pay Attention and Do Something!

When my husband went to the VA and was tested for Agent Orange,they knew where the spraying was, when they did it and what units were there. They told my husband he was exposed to it, which he already knew. Then they said the words we were not prepared for. "There are no adverse health affects YET!" Which meant someday there will be. That was over ten years ago. Ever since then, any health problems he has, we see our stress level go up until we find out what it is.

Make sure you get tested and make sure you get on the Agent Orange registry. You will get updates from them so that you can stay on top of what's going on. They are still linking illnesses to Agent Orange. Even if you don't think that you are one of the many, get tested and find out for sure if they sprayed in your area.

This was sent by email.

We need you help getting to word about an Agent Orange related illness also related to Spina Bifida to all Vietnam Veteran and their children..


My Fellow Vietnam Veterans.. I have information for you that you all of you should know about your children even in their 40’s may be at risk for illnesses from your exposure to Agent Orange... This is very serious and is for real.. And you need to forward this on to every Vietnam Veteran you come in contact with…I ask you to forward this on to all Vietnam Veterans on your buddy list and post this in your local VFW’s American Legion and pass the word on to everyone you know that is a Vietnam Veteran..

1.) If you served in Vietnam or offshore during the Vietnam War you were exposed to Agent Orange.. This is a fact..

2.) Your children may be flirting with danger they may have an illnesses that is related to your Agent Orange exposure that now just be showing up in your children.. Because in many, many cases this illness does not show up in our children until they are in their 30’s and even into their 40’s and beyond..

This illness is a Spina Bifida Related Illness that you may have never been aware of… Now I can just hear some of you there is nothing wrong with my kids.. well maybe and maybe not.... Do you want to chance it ??? this illness is called Arnold Chiari Malformation (ACM) And there are various forms of this illness .. And they can not be detected without an MRI and a trained neurologist or neurosurgeon reading your MRI films.. Many,many doctors have no clue as to what the hell Arnold Malformation(ACM) even is... so don't go to your General Practitioner and expect to get answers..… there are many, many symptoms to this illness like dizziness, head rushes, numbness in the arms legs and back , blindness, and a ton of other symptoms like migraines and even paraplegia .. A good place to check out symptoms is on the Mayo Clinics web site.. Or on any of the ACM web groups on Yahoo.com or just type in Spina Bifida.com. Or you can go to this VA's web site and read the fact sheet on this here is the address..http://www.va.gov/hac/factsheets/spina/FactSheet01-13.PDF..


Veterans if your child has this illness the VA does provide medical benefits and monetary compensation for this illness for your child.... You can also learn about this at http//:www.va.gov. then type in Spina Bifida … the VA has posted lots of information about this illness.. I have two of my children with this illness so I have already done much investigating of this.. And have already filed claims for each of my kids.. So I would suggest that you talk with your kids no matter what ages they are.. And if they have ever had any symptoms that were not found to be something other then this illness I would suggest they seek out medical help and get an MRI done as soon as possible. Again this is a very serious illness that can leave you paralyzed from the neck down as my daughter almost was.. also once they reach that point this this can not be reversed .. But if caught before this is to bad they can do decompression surgery and make life worth living again..

Vietnam Veterans this is one time Vietnam Veterans need to take a stand on something .. These are our children.. And they deserve better.. The Gov. poisoned us with Agent Orange which was worng as hell… Now we are just finding out they have also poisoned our children and this to me is unacceptable

This kind of uncaring for our Veterans and our Veterans Children will not be tolerated by Veterans any longer or by the American People..

Please Take Action Now.. Forward this to everyone on your mailing list.

To contact me Email: Tom at toby549_99 @yahoo.com …..or I can be contacted me at http://mail.lycos.com/lycos/mail/MailComposeFrame.lycos?TO=Veterans4VAReform@yahoogroups.com where I will be posting more information about this ..
Thank God Bless and good luck to you all .....

Tom…. 5th Inf. Div. I Corp. Quang Tri Vietnam 68-69
Dave..... MCB-40 Chu-Lia, Quang Tri,Phu-Bia,Dung-Ha, Viet Nam 66&68

Agent Orange: HR5729 needs support now

Hello. It's us, the Nesler family again! Writing about the Agent Orange, Congress, the VA and Spina Bifida Children.

HR 5729 a piece of legislation to improve the health care services provided by the Department of Veteran Affairs (VA) to the roughly 900 Agent Orange Spina Bifida children such as our daughter Honey Sue was recently passed by the House of Representatives. In the House it was sponsored by Congressman Brad Ellsworth (DEM of IN) and Co-Sponsored by Congressman Steve Buyer. (REP of IN)

The VA already acknowledges these children under existing law and provides them SOME health care compensation. But this bill (HR 5729) will improve and increase the level of care provided by the VA.

Now HR 5729, having passed in the US House of Representatives has been sent to the US Senate. The urgent need NOW is to prevent it from dying in a Senate committee. Which is often the fate in the Senate of House of Representatives' bills effecting only small politically insignificant numbers of war veterans and our families.

I am now asking that you help by writing to your two Senators asking that they provide real TANGIBLE support for this bill. Without which the bill will NEVER move out of committee for a vote. If you are willing to help you may use the suggested FORM letter below to contact your two Senators. If you will print out the suggested letter below, adding your name and address to the signature block, and send it to your two Senators it will help immensely.

Because of 9-11 paper communication with members of Congress has become difficult. So I am including this link Complete E-Mail Addresses for Congress, Senate, Governors & State Legislators to a list of Senatorial fax numbers. So that you may fax rather than mail the letter if you prefer. Faxing is easier and cheaper and does not require the months of security Hoop La required for a paper snail mail letter to get through to a Congressional office.

But ANY way in which you can get the letter into the office of your state's two Senators will help to get this legislation out of the Senate committee and on the way to the Senate floor for a vote. If we do not get the support of at least a few Senators the bill will die in committee without ever being voted on. Please take the time to help Honey Sue and the other 900 or so Agent Orange children.

Below is the suggested form letter. It is also attached to this Email as a file if you want to open the file to print it. Remember that to be of help you must add your name and address to the signature block to prove you are a constituent of your particular two Senators. Otherwise it will go into the trash can as junk mail.

Also if you chose to write your own letter in your own words please remember that it is necessary to request that the Senator take the three specific pro-active steps listed in the suggested form letter. If you contact the Senator WITHOUT requesting these specific three tangible acts of support your letter will only generate a computerized response thanking you for writing and telling you that the Senator will sagely "consider your comments" while "monitoring the progress of the bill in committee." Which translated to plain English means they will do NOTHING and the bill will die in committee without ever being voted on.

By requesting the three specific actions you will greatly increase the chances that your letter to the Senators will actually be read by an actual human staffer. Possibly even answered by a human person rather than with a meaningless computer generated form letter. And in today's political world that in itself is a major accomplishment!

Thank you for whatever level of help you can render. The suggested letter is below our signature block. And it is also attached to this Email as a file for you to view and print. .


Ron and Suzanne Nesler....... Parents, guardians and care givers for
Honey Sue

HERE IS THE SUGGESTED LETTER TO SENATORS

Senator,


I strongly support America’s war veterans and their families from all wars. Both past and present. I am very interested in HR 5729 also known as the Honey Sue bill. This is a bill to improve VA health care services for the fewer than 1000 children of Vietnam War veterans. These few children of Vietnam War veterans are already acknowledged by the VA to be afflicted with birth defects resulting from a birth parent’s exposure to Agent Orange during that war. But are neglected for fair health care compensation because they are so few in number.

As you know HR 5729 has easily passed in the House of Representatives with bipartisan support and it’s financial cost is reported as insignificant by the Congressional Budget Office. But as you ALSO know this bill will die in committee in the US Senate UNLESS it receives your tangible support in the form of a companion bill to HR 5729 and a letter of support to the Veteran Affairs Committee. As well as a request for mark up on the bill to that committee.

I am writing to ask that you show TANGIBLE support of America’s past war veterans by sponsoring a companion bill for HR 5729 in the US Senate. And that you send a letter of support to the Senate Veteran Affairs Committee and make a request for mark up on this bill to that committee.

Will you provide this small tangible support for America’s past war veterans and their families?


Thank you very much.






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