Chicago-area soldier killed in Texas hit-run

Chicago-area soldier killed in Texas hit-run
November 3, 2008
A soldier from the Chicago area was struck and killed by a car over the weekend near his U.S. Army base in El Paso, Texas, officials said today.

Spec. Joseph Binion, 23, was assigned to the 11th Air Defense Artillery Brigade, and was stationed at Ft. Bliss, Texas, in El Paso, according to Ft. Bliss officials. His hometown was not immediately available.
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Ex-Navy Officer Charged With Lying About Injuries on 9-11 at Pentagon

Ex-Navy Officer Charged With Lying About Injuries


By Del Quentin Wilber
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, November 3, 2008; 4:32 PM

A retired Navy commander who was awarded the Purple Heart for his actions after the 2001 terrorist attack on the Pentagon has been charged with lying about his injuries to collect more than $330,000 from a victims' fund.

Charles E. Coughlin, 49, of Severna Park pleaded not guilty today to federal charges of mail fraud, theft of public money and filing fraudulent claims in connection with a scheme that helped him purchase cars and a $1 million house, prosecutors said.

A grand jury indicted Coughlin and his wife, Sabrina, 46, on Friday. Sabrina Coughlin pleaded not guilty today to mail fraud at the federal courthouse in Washington.

They were released on personal bond after a brief appearance this afternoon before U.S. District Magistrate Judge Alan Kay in federal court in the District. They declined to comment after the hearing.

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Benning soldier discharged in trainee beating

Benning soldier discharged in trainee beating

By Russ Bynum - The Associated Press
Posted : Monday Nov 3, 2008 14:54:46 EST

SAVANNAH, Ga. — Fort Benning officials say a soldier who assaulted a Jewish trainee in September has been kicked out of the Army.

Fort Benning spokesman Bob Purtiman said Monday the accused soldier received an administrative discharge in the beating of Pvt. Michael Handman.

Handman was assaulted in September days after he complained of religious harassment in his basic training unit.
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http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/11/ap_jewish_soldier_110308/

Parents want soldier’s death re-examined

“As his parents, we can’t understand how he survives Iraq then gets killed in Texas,” Tammy Garren said. “We can’t understand how he was safer in Iraq than he was in Harker Heights.”

Parents want soldier’s death re-examined

The Associated Press
Posted : Monday Nov 3, 2008 17:39:57 EST

KILLEEN, Texas — The parents of an Army soldier who was run over at a sports bar near Fort Hood, Texas, don’t believe his death was accidental and want the case reopened.

“We feel that there wasn’t justice for Michael,” said Jerry Garren of Staatsburg, N.Y., father of Spc. Michael Anthony Garren, 20, who had served in Iraq.

After investigating the June 1 incident, Harker Heights police presented a criminally negligent homicide case to the Bell County District Attorney’s Office. Initial police reports indicated some people were arguing in a parking lot when a man threatened them, got in his truck and then knocked Garren down and ran over him.

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http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/11/ap_soldier_death_110308/

Kidnappers kill Mexican 5 year old child with acid injection

Kidnappers kill Mexican child with acid injection
Nov. 3, 2008 02:23 PM
Associated Press
MEXICO CITY - Kidnappers killed a 5-year-old boy by injecting him with acid after his family sought police help — a new low even for Mexico's brutal kidnapping gangs.

Mexico City Attorney General Miguel Mancera said Monday that assailants injected the acid into the boy's heart and buried him on a hill outside the capital — a death that showed the plague of kidnappings for ransom afflicts the working class as well as the wealthy.

A kidnapper seized the child at a street market in the gritty borough of Iztapalapa on Oct. 26 and the boy was killed three days later, Mancera's office said in a statement.
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Police mourn off-duty death of officer

Police mourn off-duty death of officer
by Michael Ferraresi - Nov. 3, 2008 05:01 PM
The Arizona Republic


As police mourned fallen officer Shane Figueroa last week, they also reflected on the recent off-duty passing of another officer who worked in northeast Phoenix.

Jim Stenholm, a Desert Horizon Precinct officer with 13 years' experience, died at his home in Anthem on Oct. 24. He was 37 years old.

Stenholm's death hit Phoenix police nearly the same weekend Figueroa suffered fatal injuries after a suspected drunk driver collided with his patrol car as he responded to an emergency call in south Phoenix.


Stenholm's death leaves a void on a northeast Phoenix neighborhood enforcement unit, nicknamed the 'X-ray squad,' organized as a rapid-response team for areas north of Bell Road.

The 100 Club of Arizona, a local non-profit group that raises money to support law enforcement officers and their families, reported Stenholm's death on its Web site recently.

The cause of Stenholm's death has not been confirmed.
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With Daddy Home From War, A Thankful Family Adapts

With Daddy Home From War, A Thankful Family Adapts
By RINKER BUCK | The Hartford Courant
November 3, 2008

LEDYARD — - Zoë Hoekman is a spunky and adorable 5-year-old who, all of a sudden now, joyfully skips off alone to Sunday school and charges out of the minivan when her mother drops her off at a friend's house for a play date.

In the lives of most girls, happy, spontaneous moments like these would barely be noticed.

But for Zoë, whose father, Navy Lt. Cmdr. Keith Hoekman, spent 15 months in Afghanistan last year, skipping off alone to Sunday school and charging out of the minivan at a friend's house represent considerable progress.

A March profile in The Courant described the difficulties that Zoë's mother, Lori Hoekman, experienced raising three young children (and pregnant with a fourth) while her husband was deployed in a remote part of Afghanistan. That article described how Zoë had endured particularly tender pangs while her father was away, clinging to the legs of men and refusing to let her mother out of her sight when she played with friends.

"After Keith left for Afghanistan, Zoë realized that she had already lost one parent, and she wasn't about to lose another," Lori Hoekman said. "Something as simple as a play date with a friend, or going to Sunday school, she just couldn't face alone."

But Keith Hoekman, 33, a Navy nurse practitioner who ran medical clinics for Afghan villagers in the remote Ghazni province, returned to a joyful reunion with his family at Bradley International Airport on March 25. During the seven months since his return, the family has welcomed a new addition; their fourth child, Titus Leander, was born Sept. 6. (Lori conceived while Keith was home during a brief Christmas break last year.) And they have enjoyed many other touching returns to normalcy.
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Non-combat death in Iraq reported

DoD Identifies Army Casualty


The Department of Defense announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Pfc. Bradley S. Coleman, 24, of Martinsville, Va., died Oct. 29 at Qayyarah Airfield, Iraq, of injuries sustained from a non-combat related incident. He was assigned to the 51st Transportation Company, 21st Theater Sustainment Command, Mannheim, Germany.

The incident is under investigation.

http://icasualties.org/oif/

Palin: Do Democrats think 'terrorists have become good guys'?

Dear Gov. Palin,
You have said some pretty terrible things during your campaign, because you fail to notice that you are not the top of the ticket, McCain is, but this is really the lowest a person can sink.



Maybe you don't care that while our troops are in Iraq and Afghanistan, billions of dollars has gone unaccounted for. Any idea what that kind of money could do for the wounded veterans standing in line to have their wounds treated or for the families who have to travel to be with them while giving up their jobs to do it? Ever once think of what that kind of money could have done to protect the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan with the proper equipment?

Billions more have gone to Halliburton, KBR and other defense contractors with no accountability. If you had bothered to read the reports out of the GAO, you'd know that. So much for watching out for tax payers money or the troops.

I happen to be a Democrat and unlike you, I have taken all of this very seriously. Most Americans have and we're really tired of people like you calling us terrorist supporters when we are trying to get answers out of politicians like you. We're tired of being called anti-military when we care about the lives sent, the reason they are sent, the plans they have to live with and what happens while they're gone just as much as we care about what happens to them when they come home. See, Sarah, we don't just care about the people in our own family, we care about all of them. That's the difference between Democratic elected and what the Republicans have become. They used to care as well. There was a time when the Republicans cared about the troops as much as they cared about the defense contractors, but those days are long gone. They all had the information and the time and the power to take care of all these wounded troops, but they didn't. They had a chance to take care of the tax payers who have to pay for all of this, but they didn't. The only people they wanted to take care of were the rich and corporations.

What are you going to say when the old news about General Petraeus and Secretary of Defense Gates want to talk with the Taliban? Are you going to call them terrorists too? Anti-military? Anti-American?

The cut in military spending is not cutting the military or their equipment or anything they need. It's cutting the wasted billions and holding contractors accountable. It's to stop spending money in Iraq when Iraqis have billions in surplus but have not problem bleeding our economy dry. It's about taking that money and investing it right here for our own people for a change. Too bad you and your supporters don't seem to care about any of this.

Palin: Do Democrats think 'terrorists have become good guys'?
Nick Juliano
Published: Monday November 3, 2008


With time running out, Sarah Palin has delivered what might be the most incendiary line of the entire presidential campaign.

Not content to just disagree with her opponents on policy, the Republican vice presidential nominee has accused Democrats of outright sympathizing with terrorists.

"What do they think? Do they think the terrorists have all the sudden become the good guys and changed their minds?" she asked a crowd in Jefferson City, Mo. "No, the terrorists still seek to destroy America and her allies and all that it is that we stand for: freedom, tolerance, and equality. The terrorists have not changed their minds."
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http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Palin_Do_Dems_think_terrorists_are_1103.html

Police: Spring ISD junior slain for dating suspect's sister

Police: Spring ISD junior slain for dating suspect's sister
By MIKE GLENN Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle
Nov. 3, 2008, 12:00PM
Two high school seniors from Houston have been charged with murder in the death of a schoolmate, who Montgomery County authorities say was killed because he was dating one suspect's 14-year-old sister.

Edgar Arturo Sazo, 17, and Edson H. Olvera Garza, 18, are being held without bail in the Montgomery County Jail.

Both are seniors at Westfield High School in the Spring school district, said sheriff's Lt. Bill Bucks.

They have given statements about the death of Eugene Posana Villaruel, 17, a junior at Westfield, Bucks said.

His body was found about 8:30 a.m. Sunday by a jogger, who spotted it in a wooded area near the 28000 block of Ascot Farms. He had been stabbed numerous times in the head and upper body, Bucks said.

Villaruel apparently was killed somewhere nearby before his body was dumped at the spot, investigators believe.
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http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/6091520.html

Obama's Nev. campaign director dies at 44

Family: Obama's Nev. campaign director dies at 44
By KAREN MATTHEWS, Associated Press Writer

Monday, November 3, 2008


A family spokesman says the Nevada campaign director for Barack Obama's campaign and a former top aide to New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has died at 44.

Family spokesman Basil Smikle said Monday that Terence Tolbert died of a heart attack Sunday in Las Vegas.
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Killings in homeless camp stun relatives

Killings in homeless camp stun relatives
By Louis Sahagun 1:01 p.m

Relatives of one of five people found shot to death Sunday gather to pray at the crime scene. Although the site was considered a homeless campsite, authorities say not all the victims were homeless.

By Louis Sahagun
2:14 PM PST, November 3, 2008
As investigators continued today to search for clues into the fatal shootings of five people at a homeless campsite in Long Beach, relatives of one of the victims gathered at the secluded site to light candles and pray.

"It's sad, real sad," said Fauamoa Palaita, a relative of one of the victims, Vanessa Malaepule. "I feel hurt. We can't believe it."

At a news conference today, authorities released the names of Malaepule, 34, of Long Beach, and of Lorenzo Perez Villacana, 44. The names of the other victims were being withheld pending notification of next of kin. They were described as a man of Middle Eastern descent in his 40s, a white male in his 50s and a Latino female in her 20s.

Los Angels County coroner Assistant Chief Ed Winter said that autopsies would be conducted Tuesday but that it appeared that all five "died of multiple gunshot wounds."

Obama's grandmother dies hours before election

Obama's grandmother dies hours before election
Barack Obama's grandmother, Madelyn Dunham, has died following a bout with cancer, Obama and his sister said today. She was 86. Obama, who spoke about his grandmother often on the stump, left the campaign trail for two days in late October to visit Dunham in Hawaii. developing story

Retired Gen. Bernard W. Rogers, Former Army chief of staff dies

Former Army chief of staff dies

By Jim Tice - Staff writer
Posted : Monday Nov 3, 2008 14:46:31 EST

Retired Gen. Bernard W. Rogers, one of the most accomplished senior Army leaders of the post-World War II era, died Oct. 27 at Falls Church, Va.

Rogers, 87, began his military career as an enlisted soldier with the Kansas National Guard. He subsequently was commissioned at the U.S. Military Academy in 1943 after serving as the first captain of the Corps of Cadets.

A Rhodes Scholar and graduate of the Command and General Staff College and Army War College, Rogers retired in 1987 after serving two four-year tours as the supreme allied commander, Europe, and command-in-chief, U.S. European Command.

Previous to his service in Europe, Rogers oversaw the creation of a 24-division force as Army chief of staff, and was a prime mover in establishing the National Training Center at Fort Irwin, Calif.

Previous to his tour as chief of staff, Rogers commanded Army Forces Command, and previous to that was Army personnel chief just as the all-volunteer force was being established.

Rogers was a veteran of combat, having served in Korea as a battalion commander with the 9th Infantry, and as an assistant division commander of the 1st Infantry Division during Vietnam, where he earned the Distinguished Service Cross, Silver Star, three Distinguished Flying Crosses, the Bronze Star for Valor and 36 Air Medals with “V” device.
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http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/11/army_rogers_110308w/

McCain draws just 1,000 at Tampa event

McCain draws just 1,000 at Tampa event
RAW STORY
Published: Monday November 3, 2008


Only 1,000 people showed up to see Sen. John McCain at a Tampa rally Monday -- leaving even Fox News scratching their heads.

"Kicking off the last day of the election in Tampa, Florida, John McCain was welcomed by a roughly 1,000 voters," penned Huffington Post's Sam Stein. "Compare that to the 15,000 people that President Bush drew to a rally in Tampa on the eve of the 2004 election. 'What's up with that?' wrote Adam Smith at the St. Petersburg Times."
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If you can stand in line for tickets, you can stand in line to vote

If you can stand in line for tickets to a movie, you can stand in line to vote.

If you can stand in line for tickets to a sports event, you can stand in line to vote.

If you can stand in line for a concert, you can stand in line to vote.

If you can stand in line waiting to get on a ride at an amusement park, you can stand in line to vote.

There are plenty of excuse to not vote but when you think about it, we all too often prove that when we really want to do something, we are willing to do what it takes to do it. Think of black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, and all the times you got up at 4:00 am to get to the mall for the best sales. Black Friday became a family tradition all across America. So why isn't it that we make it a family tradition to vote?

I've heard some people complain when they call in talk radio stations about the long wait. We can't do anything about the wait time this year. The turn out is amazing and there are not very many states prepared for it ahead of time. This is for the direction of this country and all our days to come. We saw what happened when people didn't do whatever it took to go vote 4 years ago. We saw what happened when people were turned away and didn't get the chance to vote. Don't let that happen this time. It's too important. No excuses will ever take away the damage done because you didn't vote.

Good-bye Travis Air Force Base, Hello Vietnam

Winning hearts and minds in Vietnam


By Martin Bell



In my 46 years of experience in journalism, I have often found that the most remarkable material surfaces by accident.

So it is with the Saigon Songs, recordings made in the Vietnam War, which have never been broadcast before.

They are among the most moving mementoes of war I have ever heard.

Their edge is sharpened, it seems to me, by a special relevance to the wars of today.

The Saigon Songs date from the Americans' hearts and minds campaign, between 1965 and 1967, as they poured their ground troops into Vietnam in support of the South Vietnamese government.

Hearts and minds

The campaign was run by Maj Gen Ed Lansdale of the US Army, who by all accounts was a most remarkable man.

His weapons were not guns but words and music, through which he hoped to persuade the people in the villages to resist the North Vietnamese communists and the home-grown insurgents, the Viet Cong.



Maj Gen Lansdale gathered round him a group of singers and performers including Pham Duy, the most noted Vietnamese folk singer of the time, and Hershel Gober, a young lieutenant from Arkansas who was as handy with a guitar as he was with a rifle, and was serving with Vietnamese forces in the Mekong Delta.
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7698055.stm

Chief Master Sgt. Richard Etchberger, was awarded the Medal of Honor

Memorial for Vietnam War heroes may get upgrade
Spot left for Medal of Honor marking could get use soon
By Michael Hoffman Air Force Times • and John Andrew Prime jprime@gannett.com • November 2, 2008 2:00 am


A recently rededicated memorial to overlooked heroes of the Indochina War could get a significant overhaul soon.

A marker at the 8th Air Force Museum honoring the sacrifice of 19 airmen who served with the Barksdale-based 1st Combat Evaluation Group, also known as Combat Skyspot, soon could bear a symbol denoting that one of the lost airmen, Chief Master Sgt. Richard Etchberger, was awarded the Medal of Honor, the nation's highest award for bravery.

Etchberger lost his life saving three fellow service members fighting off waves of North Vietnamese commandos advancing on a top-secret U.S. radar station in the Laotian mountains in March 1968, but those details were omitted.

Instead, Pentagon officials told Cory Etchberger, then 9, that his father died in a helicopter accident. But he knew something was wrong when he and his family were secretly whisked into the Pentagon to accept the Air Force Cross his father was awarded posthumously.

But the United States wasn't openly fighting a war outside the Vietnams at that time, and so an act of bravery that clearly merited the Medal of Honor was downgraded, and efforts over the year to restore the request for the highest honor ran into bureaucratic roadblocks, including a statutory deadline on how long after an event a request can be made.

But last month, the House and Senate passed, and President George W. Bush signed, a Defense bill that waived the militations in this instance. Air Force Secretary Michael Donley has recommended Etchberger's Air Force Cross be upgraded to the Medal of Honor. Now it is up to Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Bush to approve a renomination for the medal, first recommended in 1968 but denied by then-President Lyndon B. Johnson, said Col. Gerald H. Clayton, then the commander of 1043rd Radar Evaluation Squadron, Detachment 1.
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PTSD Virtual Reality Therapy:Fraudulent High-Priced Boondoggle

Nov-02-2008 18:59
PTSD Virtual Reality Therapy:
Fraudulent High-Priced Boondoggle
Dr. Phil Leveque Salem-News.com
Phillip Leveque has spent his life as a Combat Infantryman, Physician Pharmacologist and Toxicologist.
(MOLALLA, Ore.) - I was abjectly stunned and stupefied when I first read of Virtual Reality Therapy for PTSD Veteran victims. What it first suggested to me was that the VA Psychologists (and Social Workers) didn’t have the slightest comprehension of who and what they were presumed to be treating.

In the first place, the terms surrounding the definition of PTSD are ambiguities and arcane with battle fatigue, shellshock, homesickness, “miss their mothers”, war neurosis, psychoneurosis, sexual repression, battle anxiety, eight balls and malingerer terms. There are probably a few other terms but most require explanation.

Battle fatigue is inexact.

By definition, Infantry soldiers are always exhausted. They work our butts off with little sleep to make us TOUGH. "Terror fatigue" or "horror fatigue" is more appropriate. If your buddy at your side is blown apart you may feel horror and terror that the next shot is for you.

"Shellshock" is concussion from mortar or artillery. Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) is probably the current term. Psychoneurosis was invented in World War Two and is a general inclusive term. Dr. Freud said all neurosis were from sexual repression. (He never was in a barrage).

"Battle anxiety" – hell yes – who wants to get wounded or killed? Eight balls and malingerers? Some people just didn’t want to be in the service, especially most of the Army Infantry – 8 million of us draftees.

The Draft Boards rejected about 15 percent. Basic training rejected about 7 percent. Good, I wouldn’t want those guys near me in battle.

Ok, lets get to PTSD.

These Shrinkologists seem to think this is a specific entity. IT IS NOT. PTSD is on a Bell Curve like IQ’s – Intelligence Quotients – with a standard deviation of about 3. Some guys pee their pants in basic training. These are the most sensitive or grade ONE.

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The elusiveness of PTSD diagnoses argues for more flexibility, not less.

Service issue: The elusiveness of PTSD diagnoses argues for more flexibility, not less.

If ex-Sgt. Frank Wheeler has Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, his less-than-honorable discharge from the Army won’t make him better.

That’s one reason officials at Womack Army Medical Center should take another look at Wheeler’s case, outlined in an Oct. 26 news story by Observer reporter Michael N. Graff.

They might also usefully revisit the idea of ignoring diagnoses by off-post providers. If the hospital had Wheeler pegged right the first time, his troubles will continue or even worsen until the condition and the diagnosis catch up with him and Womack gets a shiner for its handling of a decorated war veteran.

Another reason is an e-mail in which the hospital’s ranking officer overturned the PTSD profile issued by a Womack behavioral health psychologist. That action came five days after Wheeler was arrested for a violent incident involving his wife.

Whether it was intended that way or not, the e-mail came across as boastful. The colonel who wrote it said a miscoded diagnosis enabled her to stop his transfer to the Warrior Transition Battalion, where he would have enjoyed “not working and being heralded as a War Hero.”
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http://www.fayobserver.com/article?id=309280