Disabled veteran fought for his service dog rights...and all others

‘Service animal’ signs going up at Hillsborough parks after veteran files suit

Tampa Bay Times
By Christopher O'Donnell
Published 4 hours ago

The county recently reached a settlement in the suit that requires posting “service animals are welcome” at all 200 or so of its parks. The county must also ensure that information about service animals is included in annual employee training about accommodations required for disabled people under federal and state law.

Cesar Silva and his 7-year-old service dog Sophia visit Rotary Riverfront Park in Temple Terrace on Tuesday. A disabled Iraq war veteran, Silva takes Sophia with him everywhere but ran into trouble with a park ranger during a 2016 visit to Veteran’s Memorial Park. [OCTAVIO JONES | Times]

It started with a heated encounter between Cesar Silva, who has disabilities, and a park ranger. Silva helped bring about the same changes at city parks in 2013.

TAMPA — Sophia, a bright eyed 7-year-old German shepherd, is Cesar Silva’s constant companion.

A disabled Army veteran, Silva struggles with post-traumatic stress disorder and physical injuries that affect his balance. Sophia is trained to get help if he falls. She will gently nudge him and distract him when he’s overwhelmed.

Sophia was with Silva when he and partner Samantha Tapia visited Veteran’s Memorial Park and Museum on U.S. 301 in Tampa in May 2016. Their arrival caught the attention of park ranger Roger Cramer who questioned why Silva had parked in a disabled spot and why Sophia, wearing her service dog vest, was not on a leash.

Silva, 38, has a disability symbol on his license plate. He explained that he doesn’t always use a leash because his balance problems put him at risk of falling, an exemption allowed by state law.

That did not satisfy Cramer, according to Silva. As the discussion became heated, Cramer called the couple combative and refused their request for his name and title. Tapia said she felt afraid and called the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office.
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Veterans Memorial Park taken over by homeless

Port Angeles considers fencing off Veterans Memorial Park from the homeless

King 5 News
Author: Eric Wilkinson
April 19, 2019

PORT ANGELES, Wash. 

Police calls to Veterans Memorial Park in Port Angeles have skyrocketed and residents say they no longer feel safe.

At Veterans Memorial Park in Port Angeles, a replica of the Liberty Bell is defaced with graffiti. The park is teeming with garbage. Nearby residents say they no longer feel safe.

"This can be a horrific mess of trash and human waste," said Karen Rogers. "We have needles, illicit sex acts. This is a school bus route, for crying out loud!"

Rogers is a former mayor of Port Angeles. Her son is an Iraq War veteran. To her, seeing the memorial this way just isn't right.

"This place, to me, is the heart of service," she said. "We honor those who have served our country. We honor those who have given the ultimate sacrifice."

The situation has grown much worse over the past three years with the opioid epidemic. Police calls to the park have skyrocketed.
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Christmas gift of love delivered in Casselberry today

Rain did not stop Wreaths Across America in Florida

Combat PTSD Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
December 15, 2018

This morning in Casselberry Florida, a large group gathered together to make sure the veterans buried at All Faiths Memorial Park were not forgotten. It did not matter that it was raining.

Sgt. Dave Matthews of Never Forgotten Memorials was the MC.

Flag dispute sparks veteran angst at city leaders in Idaho

Flag dispute sparks veteran angst at city leaders in Idaho
The Associated Press

Kellogg, Idaho » A dispute between military veterans and town leaders in Kellogg over flagpole etiquette and the fate of a war memorial park has now take a political turn, with veterans leading a drive to recall the mayor and all six members of the City Council.

The veterans' frustration with the officials focuses on the city's response to complaints about flying a second flag below the American flag on the same flag pole at Kellogg's Memorial Park.

The flagpole, located at a stone memorial dedicated more than 50 years ago for veterans of the two World Wars and Korean War, displayed Old Glory along with a Tree City USA flag.

But commanders of the Silver Valley veterans groups complained last summer that it was improper to fly the Tree City flag over a memorial honoring soldiers. Veteran Lee Haynes said the group asked the city to remove the Tree City flag and display it on a separate pole.

In response, the city removed the American flag, dug up the stone memorial and moved it to a newer veterans memorial inside the park, irritating and frustrating veterans.

"We look at a memorial much like you do a gravesite," Haynes told the Spokesman-Review. "Why you think you can rip apart a 50-year-old memorial is beyond my imagination."

But Mayor Mac Pooler said city leaders met with veterans and believed moving the stone memorial was a suitable solution.
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http://www.sltrib.com/news/ci_15154975

Flag flies in memory of POWs, MIAs

Raising awareness
Flag flies in memory of POWs, MIAs
By Gus Thomson, Journal Staff Writer


The black and white flag for America’s missing in action joined the red, white and blue on one of Auburn’s most prominent flagpoles Friday.

And as the flag snapped in a stiff breeze above Veterans Memorial Park and below Old Glory, heads turned proudly upward, a school choir sang the National Anthem and veterans’ thoughts drifted to those left behind in the fields of Normandy or in the jungles of Southeast Asia.

Vietnam veteran R.C. Bynog had made it a goal to have the flag fly this year on national POW-MIA Remembrance Day. The Auburn ironworker sold commemorative hats to raise funds for the flag and helped convince county authorities that the flag deserved a place on a pole it had never graced before.

Friday’s ceremony took Bynog back to a time when he was barely 20 and driving convoy vehicles east of Saigon. He turns 60 later this year.

“It’s important,” Bynog said. “So we don’t forget the people who paid the ultimate sacrifice.”
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Raising awareness

Community comes together for Veterans Park

Janesville memorial fills a void
A memorable dedication for memorial

By Mark Fischenich
Free Press Staff Writer

JANESVILLE —
Veterans Park has been a fixture in Janesville for decades, but local veterans always thought something important was missing, said Mark Slama, a Vietnam veteran and member of the local American Legion.


In March of 2008, they decided to do something about it.

“The guys at a meeting decided, ‘How come we’re not getting a memorial built?’” Slama said. “And we checked what it would take to do it.”

As it turned out, all it took was to ask the people of Janesville.

“The people here in the community made the memorial happen,” Slama said. “No one has ever said no to us.”

The result was a handsome six-sided memorial, designed for free by retired Milwaukee architect Harold Krueger. Projected to cost $75,000, area contractors were so generous with their bids that costs came in at less than $60,000.

And when it came time to dedicate the new memorial, the community of 2,200 came out in droves. They filled the 400 chairs set up by the Minnesota National Guard for the 10 a.m. event Saturday, and a similar number sat in lawn chairs or stood around the park.

The community also worked to make the dedication ceremony a memorable one. A local woman whose father was a Merchant Marine, for instance, had a contact with the National Eagle Center in Wabasha.
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http://www.mankatofreepress.com/local/local_story_228011337.html

Kansas Vietnam Memorial Causes Wall Between Veterans

In Kansas, Proposed Monument to a Wartime Friendship Tests the Bond

By MONICA DAVEY
Published: August 2, 2009
WICHITA, Kan. — This city’s small population of Vietnamese-Americans imagined a new monument in Veterans Memorial Park, a peaceful slope along the Arkansas River blooming with monuments to soldiers gone.

They pictured an American service member, in bronze, his arm resting protectively around the shoulder of a South Vietnamese comrade — an appreciation, they said, of the Americans’ alliance in a war that shaped their lives.

But in an effort to remember an old friendship, the bond seemed to come apart a little.

To the surprise of the Vietnamese here, some American veterans objected to the plan. And after long, tense talks, a compromise emerged last month at City Hall: the monument will sit just outside the John S. Stevens Veterans Memorial Park (named for a former local official and veteran), set apart from the rest of the memorials by a landscaped, six-foot earthen berm, with no sidewalk between.
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Proposed Monument to a Wartime Friendship Tests the Bond

Veterans share thoughts with opening of Memorial Park

Veterans share thoughts with opening of Memorial Park
By Ann Kagarise
The Suburbanite
Fri May 29, 2009, 10:43 AM EDT

Clinton, Ohio -
Three-thousand-ninety-four men, and one woman from Ohio, died in the Vietnam War. A wall was erected.

Veterans from that war, WWII, Korea, Desert Storm and Operation Iraqi Freedom, paid tribute.
In their words…

Vietnam infantry veteran, John Carroll, of the Portage Lakes.

“This wall is to pay homage to our fallen comrades. It is for all people who served. They all did their part whether they were infantry or cooks. Everybody served hard.”

“It is hard for me to talk about,” Carroll said as he looked down. “There are times I don’t want to remember. Sometimes it feels good.”

He, along with 7,000 other veterans, traveled great distances, by motorcycle, through Canal Fulton for the unveiling of a wall that was long overdue. “This is for my fallen friends. Members of my team are on that wall.”

“Many of us had a hard time coming back and adjusting, drugs and different things,” Carroll explained. “Life itself. Not being sure of what really happened. It was real. It happened. I know that. Well, a lot more of these men suffered much more than I ever had,” he said as he looked over the crowd of bikers.”

Carroll used to do military escorts, before he was in the war. “We buried a lot of people from infantry. I escorted a lot of military funerals, but after I got out, all I wanted to do was forget. This is not about me. This is about all of these people.”
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Veterans share thoughts with opening of Memorial Park