Marines Catch ‘Deserter’ … 5 Years After His Honorable Discharge

Marines Catch ‘Deserter’ … 5 Years After His Honorable Discharge
By Dave Maass
July 30, 2012

SAN DIEGO, California — On Jan. 26, 2011, a pair of U.S. Marines put Alan Gourgue in handcuffs and a restraint belt and hauled him across the country to face trial as a deserter. Gourgue was distraught and completely confused; he had been honorably discharged in 2006 and finished his reserve obligation four months earlier.

Gourgue’s ordeal provides a glimpse into a rarely seen, slow-moving, stiflingly bureaucratic world of military desertions, where one administrative mistake can result in a catch-22 that Joseph Heller couldn’t have invented.

In the military, there are two types of unauthorized absence: Absent without leave (AWOL) and desertion. The key difference between them is that AWOL is a misdemeanor, while desertion is a felony that assumes the missing soldier abandoned the service with the intent never to return. To employ a school analogy: AWOL is like cutting classes, while desertion is dropping out altogether. If a soldier is gone for more than 30 days, the charge is automatically converted to deserter status, according to Victor Hansen, a professor specializing in military law at New England Law, Boston. It’s like a teacher striking a missing kid from the rolls after a few absent weeks to make room for another student.
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This is what happened to soldier

9 years after leaving Army, veteran mistakenly declared AWOL is arrested, jailed

Air Force chaplain quits Southern Baptist Convention over gay wedding

Air Force chaplain quits Southern Baptist Convention over gay wedding
July 29, 2012
Justin Griffith

On Friday, The Associated Press ran a story chronicling the fallout over the first gay wedding on a military base, at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst. Chaplain Col. Timothy Wagoner has abruptly left the Southern Baptist Convention, even though he didn’t conduct the ceremony.

A few days before the wedding, Col. Wagoner decided to attend as a show of support to the base community, and to Tech. Sgt. Erwynn Umali.

Umali no longer has to hide his sexual orientation from his peers in the Air Force. He’s also paving the way for many other gay and lesbians in the military to demand a similar level of equality. He met his partner in a church that now considers them apostates. They both remain religious, and having a chaplain’s presence was very important to them.
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Maine VA employee suspected in murder-suicide

Former Jacksonville resident killed girlfriend, then himself, Maine State Police say
Posted: July 29, 2012
By Associated Press

HAMPDEN, Maine — Maine State Police identified the man who shot his girlfriend and then killed himself at a Hampden house where a state police SWAT team had assembled.

The shooter was identified Saturday as 53-year-old Lawrence Beaute, who had lived in Jacksonville.

Police say Beaute was a medical technician at a Veterans Affairs facility in Bangor. read more here

McCain jumping on "it's Obama's fault" when Republicans pushed for it.

McCain jumping on "it's Obama's fault" when Republicans pushed for it.

This line of attack has angered Democrats, who argue it is hypocritical for Romney to blame Obama when congressional Republicans were the driving force behind a compromise to cut $1.2 trillion from the budget, split evenly between defense and domestic non-defense programs.

We've all seen the ads on TV with politicians making all kinds of claims to score points hoping the American people don't really know what is going on. They count on our ignorance.

The ad by Romney and company say that Obama cut $500 billion from Medicare but they left this part out.

Obama administration claims record $4.1 billion in Medicare fraud savings
By Julian Pecquet
02/14/12

The Obama administration saved the federal Medicare program $4.1 billion last year thanks to its investments in efforts to prevent fraud, waste and abuse, according to a new report from the Justice and Health and Human Services departments.

That's almost twice the $2.14 billion in fraudulent claims recouped in 2008, according to the report, while the number of individuals charged with fraud increased 75 percent — to 1,403 — over the same time period.

The report credits investments made in the healthcare reform law, including tougher sentencing guidelines, enhanced screening for Medicare providers and suppliers, better coordination between health and law enforcement officials and technological investments.

So where did the $500 billion claim come from? This.

Q. So Medicare will remain untouched at least until next year?

No. The 2010 health law made some potentially important money-saving changes to the program. It saved $500 billion in Medicare spending over 10 years, in part by cutting rates to private Medicare Advantage plans and by reducing payments to hospitals and other medical providers. It also requires higher-income seniors to pay more for their care. In addition, the law created a yet-to-be-constituted panel of experts, called the Independent Payment Advisory Board, to cap federal spending on Medicare at no more than the growth rate of gross domestic product plus 1 percent.

Does McCain explain why he wanted Sarah Palin over Romney when he had to pick the person he'd most like to see take his place?

Where is McCain who constantly claims to be all about veterans on any of this? Does he know most Vietnam veterans are on Medicare now? They are paying attention to what is real and they know McCain has voted against them most of the time.

Barack Obama/Jim Webb vs John Mccain - Veteran GI Bill



At 1:50, then Senator Obama took on McCain and President Bush because they said the GI bill was too good and would cause the troops to leave the military.

Is anyone in Washington honest anymore? For heaven's sake, this country has enough differences on what is real. Why do they have to make stuff up when they are the ones who caused it in the first place? How can they expect us to trust them enough to elect them after they lie to us? If they don't respect us now enough to tell the truth, they sure won't do it after they get what they want!

Doctors often miss PTSD if they don't look for trauma

I read a lot of mental health news reports that do not get posted here because they do not involve veterans. This one is something anyone living with PTSD should know about. Psychiatrists can and often do misdiagnose PTSD as something else. If they are are not looking for a traumatic event in a life, they usually diagnose it as something else. The only way to end up with PTSD is after trauma but the symptoms can look like other forms of illness. This is the story of a woman diagnosed by different doctors.

DIAGNOSIS ROULETTE

Psychiatric patients can be labeled with numerous conditions during their treatment, labels that come to define them and their insurance status. Now psychiatry is revamping the mental-disorder book, further jumbling the picture.
By Stacey Burling
Inquirer Staff Writer

Over her life, June Sams has been told she has schizophrenia and four mental health disorders: bipolar, post-traumatic stress, major depressive, and personality. The 60-year-old Chester woman's current diagnoses - she thinks these fit - are major depressive and generalized anxiety disorders plus PTSD due to childhood trauma.

A doctor told Elisa-Beth Gardner, 51, of Swarthmore, that she had borderline personality disorder (BPD) in 1996. Three months later, she was told she had bipolar disorder. Then a doctor said she had both. Her current doctor thinks she has BPD and PTSD, but not bipolar.

When Sonia Weaver, now a 43-year-old Lancaster resident, got sick in 1997 - as a new mother and University of Chicago divinity school student - a psychiatrist said she had postpartum depression.
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Military Dog Up for Hero Award

Military Dog Up for Hero Award
Jul 28, 2012
Knight Ridder

On Oct. 6, Gabe, a weapons sniffing dog at Fort Jackson who conducted 210 combat missions in Iraq -- and has more than 20,000 Facebook friends -- will be cooling his paws at the Beverly Hills Hilton with the likes of Betty White and Whoopi Goldberg.

The 10-year-old lab mix -- who was rescued as a puppy from a Houston shelter just one day before he was to be euthanized -- is the 2012 American Humane Association Hero Dog in the military category. Now he and his handler, Sgt. 1st Class Charles "Chuck" Shuck, will face off against other service dogs, from guide dogs to search and rescue dogs, for the title of American Humane Association Hero Dog of the Year before the panel of celebrity judges.
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Marine finds Dad after Internet search

Marine finds Dad after 15 year search made the news and it is a good story. It reminded me of a little known other story that happened because another Marine was searching for his Dad as well. Here in Orlando, there was another story of a Marine finding his Dad because of the Internet and the fact I posted the story because I was so touched by what happened.

The Marine's Dad was Vietnam Vet Andrew Elmer Wright and he found a home as a homeless vet with a church and was loved.

I ended up knowing about this because Chaplain Lyle Schmeiser from Orlando DAV Chapter 16 made sure I did. Andrew was being laid to rest. Lyle knew I cared about homeless veterans. Andrew's funeral was different than any other homeless veteran's funeral I had ever seen. Andrew's service was a full of people grieving for the loss.

56 seconds into this video Pastor Joel talks about another Marine finding his Dad but was serving overseas and his Dad, well, his Dad was a homeless Vietnam Veteran and by the time his son found him, he had already been laid to rest. I did the story he found.

This is the update to the story
The Story of Vietnam Veteran Andrew Elmer Wright, Proof of Love

At about 9 minutes in you'll hear how this Marine found he also had brothers and sisters he never knew about.



The Internet, for all of the good things it can be used for, like the above stories, can include acts of love all the time as well as acts of evil that get more attention. All you have to do is look for them. If you only search for what is bad, you'll usually miss what is good.

Security guard at Olympics called soldier "baby killer"

G4S Olympic security guard faces sack after calling soldier who had served in Afghanistan a 'baby killer'
Asian guard is also said to have spat at the serviceman during confrontation
Pair were working at the archery contest at Lord's Cricket Ground
G4S has begun urgent internal investigation into claims
By ROB PREECE
PUBLISHED: 03:13 EST, 30 July 2012

Under-fire private security firm G4S was at the centre of another embarrassing Olympics scandal today after an employee allegedly called a soldier a 'baby killer' as they worked at a Games venue.

The Asian civilian guard, who faces the sack, is said to have spat at the serviceman and made the abusive remark at the archery contest at Lord's Cricket Ground.

The remark is believed to have been a reference to the soldier's service in Afghanistan.
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Flip side of a group home and neighborhood

I thought this was going to be about another neighborhood trying to keep people in need out but wow, was I wrong on this. If you ever wanted to know the flip side of the story, here's one that will leave your blood pressure boiling.

Group homes stir anger in quiet Normandy Park
July 29, 2012
Normandy Park residents accuse for-profit care provider Hanbleceya of secrecy and deception in housing mentally ill and drug-addicted clients in their neighborhoods, and were even more dismayed when told state and local authorities have no power to step in.
By Christine Willmsen
Seattle Times staff reporter

One person heard the rumor at a Normandy Park book club. Another got wind of it chatting with neighbors on a walk. Then residents saw strangers moving in next door.

By the time citizens of this small, tight-knit suburb, just south of Seattle, realized that a private, for-profit California company was buying houses and moving in the severely mentally ill and drug-addicted — well, it was too late.

In the past six months, the La Mesa-based company, called Hanbleceya, has opened a treatment clinic in Normandy Park, bought three homes and rented two others. The company has plans to expand in Normandy Park, and also possibly to Burien and Des Moines.

When residents sought answers from Hanbleceya, which charges about $100,000 a year per client for treatment and housing, they say they encountered secrecy and deception. What has disturbed them most is that there appears to be no government oversight of this new breed of long-term mental-health treatment that couples semi-independent living with off-site clinical care.

Because Hanbleceya doesn't provide treatment inside the homes, they are not considered residential treatment facilities, which are regulated by the state Department of Health (DOH). And because Hanbleceya doesn't provide other supervised care inside the homes, they most likely do not fall under Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS) regulation.
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Aurora shootings survivor says Navy training saved her life

Aurora shootings survivor says Navy training saved her life
By JIM CARNEY
Akron Beacon Journal
Published: July 28, 2012

AKRON, Ohio — Carli Richards instinctively knew the smell.

The former Summit County woman had learned all about tear gas in Navy basic training.

And so when a tear gas canister was tossed at her and her boyfriend inside the dark theater in Aurora, Colo., during the midnight premiere a week ago of the Batman movie The Dark Knight Rises, her “fight or flight” instinct kicked in.

“I dropped my purse on the way out with all of my cards — insurance, ID, bank card as well as my cell phone and car keys,” Richards, 22, said of her escape as a gunman fired into the crowded theater.

Authorities say James Holmes killed a dozen moviegoers and wounded nearly 60, including Richards.

The Akron native ran for the exit as soon as the gunfire started with her boyfriend, also a Navy veteran, following close behind.
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