Veterans Court Saved Veteran Who Save Child

Man who rescued toddler graduates Veterans Treatment Court

WLOS NBC 10 News
October 26, 2018

BUNCOMBE COUNTY, N.C. (WLOS) - A man who was hailed as a hero after rescuing a toddler in a crash celebrated a milestone on Friday.

Gage Hampton, an Afghanistan veteran who rescued a toddler from a wreck in May, graduated from Buncombe County's Veterans Treatment Court. (Photo credit: WLOS Staff)

Back in May, Gage Hampton came to the rescue of a toddler who was trapped in a car that had crashed through a store window.

On Friday, he graduated from Buncombe County's Veterans Treatment Court. The Army veteran has overcome PTSD and been sober for nearly three years.

During Friday's ceremony, he was presented with a Quilt of Valor.

"All my support network is here. It's just a real blessing to have this ceremony and to graduate from veterans treatment court," Hampton said. "I got the feeling of redemption, you know, to be in this situation and it's just a blessing, it really is."

Hampton did combat duty in Afghanistan while he was in the Army. He said the experience taught him the meaning of self-sacrifice.
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Hurricane Michael puts VA appeals on fast track

VA prioritizing all pending Veterans benefits appeals claims for victims of hurricanes Florence and Michael

From the Department of Veterans Affairs
WASHINGTON — Veterans impacted by recent hurricanes Florence and Michael will now have their pending appeals claims for benefits prioritized by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), department officials announced.

VA’s Board of Veterans’ Appeals has determined that the significant effects of hurricanes Florence and Michael were sufficient cause for the Board to advance the appeals for counties in Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia determined to be disaster areas by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

“Accelerating the decision process on pending appeals claims for those Veterans and their families affected by hurricanes Florence and Michael is the right thing to do,” said VA Secretary Robert Wilkie.

By regulation, the Board may advance appeals on its docket by a motion of the chairman if sufficient cause is shown. All Veterans and other appellants with an appeal currently pending before the Board whose addresses of record are in one of the affected counties will have their appeal automatically advanced on the Board’s docket. 

No action from Veterans or appellants are needed if their addresses are current. Visit the list of counties affected by hurricanes Florence and Michael at this link: https://www.bva.va.gov/.

The advancement on docket (AOD) for these two storms is expected to last for six months from the date of the events. Therefore, Florence counties will be AODed from Oct. 1, 2018, to March 31, 2019; and counties affected by Hurricane Michael will be AODed from Nov. 1, 2018, to April 30, 2019. The Board will reassess AOD for these two storms once the six-month periods end.

The Board’s mission is to conduct hearings and decide appeals in a timely manner. For more information about VA’s Board of Veterans’ Appeals, visit www.bva.va.gov/.

VA Pensions On Chopping Block

VA amends regulations on VA pension and other needs-based programs

From the Department of Veterans Affairs

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) recently amended its regulations governing entitlements to VA pension and Parents’ Dependency and Indemnity Compensation, which are need-based programs.

“The amended regulations bring consistency to the pension process and ensure benefits are available for Veterans and survivors with financial need,” said VA Secretary Robert Wilkie. “They will help maintain the integrity of and provide clarity to our needs-based pension program.”

VA’s pension program provides monthly benefit payments to eligible wartime Veterans and their survivors with financial need.

The pension regulations, which were updated Oct. 18, cover the following:

Establish a clear net-worth limit for income and assets for Veterans to qualify for pension,
Establish a 36-month look-back period to review asset transfers at less than fair market value that reduce net worth and create pension entitlement,
Establish up to a five-year penalty period to be calculated based on the portion of the covered assets that would have made net worth excessive, and
Updates medical expense definitions for consistency with VA internal guidelines.
The changes are intended to ensure VA only pays benefits to those Veterans with a genuine need.

Group teaching female soldiers that war has not broken them

When Female Veterans Return Home

Marie Claire
Jim Rendon
October 29, 2018

While civilian and military men commit suicide at higher rates than their female counterparts, according to a 2016 VA report, in 2014, the difference between soldiers and civilians was greater for women in all age groups. For young women it is particularly alarming: In 2014, female veterans between 18 and 29 years old killed themselves at six times the rate of civilian women of the same age. Researchers don’t know exactly why so many female veterans are committing suicide, but they have found that survivors of military sexual trauma have a higher rate of suicide than others, and about 20 percent of female soldiers have been victims of such abuse, according to the VA. The study also found that female veterans were more likely than civilian women to kill themselves using a firearm—the most lethal method of suicide.

More than 380,000 women have served in Iraq and Afghanistan, and about 1 in 5 of them return with post-traumatic stress disorder. One unorthodox veterans’ retreat is teaching female soldiers that war has not broken them. In fact, their anguish may be key to their transformation.

First Lieutenant Brie Zeiger tried to stifle her fear as the C-130 transport plane she was riding in began its descent toward Forward Operating Base Salerno in a hostile region of Afghanistan. The base was attacked so often that the soldiers nicknamed it “Rocket City.” Just three months earlier, in June 2012, insurgents had detonated a truck bomb and invaded the base, killing two Americans. As the plane approached the runway, Zeiger heard an odd sound, like pellets smacking a metal target at a fairground shooting game. This was normal, the crew told her, just incoming fire from the Taliban.

Zeiger, then 26, was a nurse in a small surgical unit there. At night, the faintest whir of helicopter blades would jolt her from bed; wounded were on the way. She loved the challenge of the work, the rush of making life-or-death decisions. “I felt like I was doing exactly what I was meant to do,” she says. But in time, she was numbed by the relentless stream of injured soldiers. One soldier arrived riddled with shrapnel from an improvised explosive device. The medical team tried to keep him alive by pumping air in and out of his lungs. Zeiger remembers looking into his eyes, digging through his bloody clothes to find his dog tags, then watching the 23-year-old pass away. “There is something about seeing a soldier die that changes you,” she says.
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Sailor stopped to help driver, then was shot to death

Navy sailor in San Diego shot by driver he stopped to help

WTKR 3 News
NICK BOYKIN
OCTOBER 27, 2018

The victim was identified as 21-year-old Curtis Adams of San Diego. Adams was on active duty with the Navy at the time of his murder, said Lt. Dupree.

SAN DIEGO — An active-duty Navy service member was killed after pulling over to help what he thought was a stranded motorist early Saturday, said police, according to FOX 5 in San Diego.

The San Diego Police Department received a call around 2:20 a.m. about a shooting that occurred at southbound Interstate 15 at the northbound Interstate 5 ramp. The caller stated her boyfriend was shot, said San Diego Police Lt. Anthony Dupree.

Investigators learned the victim and his girlfriend pulled over to help what they thought was a stranded motorist. When the victim got out of the car, he was shot immediately.

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Veteran called crisis line, shot and killed by police

Veteran called crisis hotline, pointed gun at police, was killed by officer, Houston police say

Click 2 Houston News
Megan Kennedy
Brittany Taylor
October 27, 2018

Carroll had served in the military for four or five years and suffered from PTSD, his father-in-law told KPRC. Carroll leaves behind a 16-month-old child. 

HOUSTON - A man was shot and later died after pointing a gun at Houston police officers, the department said.

The suspect, identified by family members as a veteran, had initially called a veterans' crisis hotline for assistance, the family said. The man told the crisis hotline that he had cut himself and was armed with a gun. Houston police confirmed the department received the routed 911 call from a U.S. Department of Veteran's Affairs Crisis hotline.

The man has been identified as 30-year-old Christopher Carroll.

After receiving the 911 call, investigators responded to the man's home on Eagle Creek Drive around 12:45 a.m. Saturday.

When they arrived, they located a family member attempting to calm Carroll down, said Matt Slinkard, an assistant executive chief with the special operations command with the Houston Police Department. Family members of Carroll told police he suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder and was currently experiencing a crisis.
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What actually defines us, are actions like this!

Evil shall not define us

Combat PTSD Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
October 28, 2018

Most of today, I have been listening to the news reports about the massacre in Pittsburgh. Yesterday I had let a comment on Google+ that the people had gone to pray and worship and someone went to kill them because they did.

It was shocking, but we have had many times such as this. It is easier to think of all the bad that came out of the murder's hatred.

CNN just reported on the mass murder in Pittsburgh.These are the victims of the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting but when we think of how one person hated so much, we may tend to think that actions based on hatred have become what defines us.

What actually defines us, are actions like this!

People hold candles outside the Tree of Life Synagogue after a shooting there left 11 people dead in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh on October 27, 2018.

Maybe the thing that scares us the most, is, we know the next time it could be anyone deciding to take out their misery on others. Maybe it is because we also know, it could happen anywhere, at anytime.

Easy to have our thoughts go in that direction. It is easy to want to stay in the safety of our homes, behind locked doors. Easy to shop online instead of going out in public. Easy to keep our kids home and teach them there, instead of sending them to school. Easy to communicate with strangers on our cell phones, than to sit and talk, eye to eye, as if they deserved your full attention.

It has become easy to justify being offended by the least little thing, as if everyone else should bow down and let them have their own way. Being offended has become a full time cause, feeding into those who hate instead of finding what binds us by what we communicate.

What is hard, is not what is done by evil acts. That is always something easy for them to do. What defines us is, what we do in response.

When we refuse to stop worshiping, as we choose, that defines us.

When we refuse to stop going shopping and being out with others, that defines us.

When we refuse to settle for what is, because we are constantly thinking of what could be, that defines us.

When we refuse to let an act of pure hate take one moment of love from our hearts, that defines us too.

When we see someone in need and refuse to walk away, that defines us. 

When we see someone being abused and refuse to think it is their problem and not ours, that defines us.

When we stand against what some of our friends think is OK, and we refuse to remain silent, that defines us.


We have witnessed many, far too many, acts committed by hatred to have forgotten how time and time again, we respond with love and compassion for the victims, support for the survivors and gratefulness for the First Responders. We also do it with a tremendous amount of courage. 

One person acts out of hate, hundreds respond with compassion.

That is what we will be defined by!

Four Police Officers among the wounded in Pittsburgh

Pittsburgh synagogue mass shooting claims 11 lives; 4 officers among multiple wounded: Officials

"First responders prevented the shooting from becoming a worse tragedy, and the injured have been taken to three area hospitals with level one trauma centers. Without their courage, this tragedy would have been far worse." Alleghany Public Safety Director Wendell Hissrich

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'Darkest day in Pittsburgh's history': Officials discuss new details in Squirrel Hill massacre

Pittsburgh Post Gazette Shelly Bradbury and Ashley Murray October 28,2018 Law enforcement officers, prosecutors and others discussed the latest details of Saturday’s mass shooting at Tree of Life Congregation in Squirrel Hill at a Sunday morning press conference.

The 11 people killed inside a Squirrel Hill synagogue Saturday included a husband and wife and two brothers, authorities said Sunday. 

The victims, who ranged in age from 54 to 97, were identified as: Joyce Fienberg, 75, of Oakland

Richard Gottfried, 65, of Ross

Rose Mallinger, 97, of Squirrel Hill

Jerry Rabinowitz, 66, of Edgewood

brothers Cecil Rosenthal, 59, of Squirrel Hill, and David Rosenthal, 54, of Squirrel Hill

married couple Bernice Simon, 84, and Sylvan Simon, 86, of Wilkinsburg

Daniel Stein, 71, of Squirrel Hill

Melvin Wax, 88, of Squirrel Hill

Irving Younger, 69, of Mt. Washington. 

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Widow fights for one of 2 million veterans not counted!

Widow’s fight: A 40-year-old suicide, a ‘bad paper’ discharge and marijuana

Herald Tribune
Bill Cox
October 28, 2018

A week before Christmas, Peter hanged himself from a tree in the woods near Walpole, Massachusetts. (1978)

Joanne Mills has been fighting to upgrade her husband’s 1971 ‘undesirable’ discharge from the Navy, which stemmed from a $10 bag of marijuana.

SARASOTA — Joanne Mills was all of 19, never had a boyfriend, when he sold her two pairs of shoes at the Thom McAn store in a Boston mall. “He had the most beautiful piercing blue eyes I’ve ever seen,” she recalls. She went home with buyer’s remorse — too expensive. She returned one pair hours later; the blue-eyed heartthrob was still working his shift. He asked her something like, do you ever go to the beach?

It was the summer of 1971, and Peter MacRoberts, 21, had a sky-blue two-door Ford Fairlane with a black ragtop. They went everywhere, day trips to Cape Cod, rock concerts, Frank Zappa, The Eagles, Chicago. He was a sports nut, loved to play baseball, cheer the Bosox at Fenway Park, and recite batting averages, ERAs.

But Peter was broken, and the full extent of it never became clear until much later. Even when she walked in on his unlocked apartment when they were still dating, and found him alone, electrical cord wrapped around his neck, racked with shame and despair — even then, Joanne underestimated its magnitude.

“I blocked out so much. I thought it was because we had broken up,” Joanne remembers. “But I never pursued it. I was just a kid. He made me promise I would never leave him.”
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Keep this in mind the next time you hear about how many veterans committed suicide today. None of these veterans would be included in on any reported number, but families remember their names!

"In 2016, the Veterans Legal Clinic at Harvard Law School produced a study called “Underserved: How the VA Wrongfully Excludes Veterans with Bad Paper.” It found that since the Vietnam War, nearly 2 million veterans have been dispatched with general or less than honorable discharges. Such “bad paper” can inhibit or deny completely their access to VA services."

It is even higher now! 

Veterans in other news October 28, 2018

Motorcycle shop provides custom bike for local disabled veteran

KTVL 10 News
by Jennevieve Fong
October 27th 2018

MEDFORD, Ore. — Central Point veteran Jed Morgan is finding meaning through motorcycles. As a double amputee, Morgan is not letting his disability stop him from taking a ride.

Morgan served in Afghanistan and was hit with an improvised explosive device in 2012, damaging his right hand and forcing surgeons to amputate both his legs.

With the help of Thunderstruck Custom Bike, he was fitted for a custom-fit motorcycle on Saturday, which will allow him to drive with his prosthetics.

“They help us in so many ways we can’t even imagine, so if we can give freedom or anything back to a veteran...some piece of mind...a little bit of mobility whatever it may be...we’re all into doing it," shop owner Mark Daley said.

Organized by Combat Hero Bike Build, the motorcycle will be given to Morgan for free as a thank you for his service. Daley said a custom bike like this ranges from $20,000 to $30,000.
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Elgin funeral director goes above and beyond for Vietnam War veteran

Daily Herald
Doug T. Graham
October 25, 2018

Daniel Symonds, pictured here on tour in the Middle East, is a member of the Army Reserve and an Elgin funeral home director. courtesy of Joy Symonds

Daniel Symonds' unique opportunity to help a fellow veteran came last year when he received a phone call from Kane County Coroner Rob Russell.

The body of a homeless man, who had served in the Vietnam War, had been brought to the coroner's office. The man's background made a funded military funeral impossible: He had gone AWOL and was charged and convicted.

"He came home and he just walked away one day," said Symonds, who has been a funeral director for 23 years and a member of the army reserves for 16 years. "He was done."

The man, whose name Symonds declined to disclose, was eventually pardoned, along with many other AWOL Vietnam veterans, by President Gerald Ford. But the man had lost his military benefits.

"I knew absolutely I had to help him, even if I have to reach into my pocket," Symonds said. "The whole leave-no-man-behind-thing is important to me."
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Discussing the impacts of Agent Orange

BY FOX 17 NEWS
October 27, 2018

“I’ve got a charcoal foot now because of it which went crooked. I had open heart surgery a little less than two years ago because of it,” said Jeron Hendricks, a Vietnam War Veteran.

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — A chemical sprayed on troops by the US military during the Vietnam War is continuing to impact the lives of veterans and their families. One Michigan Vietnam veteran is teaming up with the group Vietnam Veterans of America to do something about it.

Philip Smith conducts meetings like this one Saturday in Grand Rapids throughout Michigan to warn veterans about a silent killer many of them are unaware of Agent Orange.

Smith serves as the director for Vietnam Veterans of America.

“When Admiral Zumwalt was alive and he was the Admiral of the Navy.” “’He says don’t spray that stuff ‘well guess what we did and the ultimate factor is the disease that came down with it afterward,” he said.
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Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Dorchester damaged by vandal

Boston Globe
By Katie Camero GLOBE CORRESPONDENT
OCTOBER 26, 2018

The Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Dorchester was vandalized this week, and State Police are searching for those responsible for the defacement, which left the stone memorial damaged and an American flag cut in half.

State Police said a woman passing the memorial, a neighborhood landmark on Morrissey Boulevard, on Thursday noticed the damage and alerted State Police.

Bricks had been thrown at the memorial, leaving marks on the stone, an American flag was cut up, and a Massachusetts flag was taken off its pole and found near trees with trash littered on top of it, State Police said Friday in a statement.

A POW/MIA flag was also missing from the memorial, and vegetation in the area was uprooted, said State Police Lieutenant Tom Ryan.
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