Dispute over cross casts light on four fallen Marines

Dispute over cross casts light on four fallen Marines
The controversial hilltop memorial at Camp Pendleton honors two enlisted men and two officers, three of whom helped erect a cross there in 2003 before going to Iraq.

By Tony Perry, Los Angeles Times
January 3, 2012

Scott Radetski, 49, a retired Navy chaplain; Sgt. Josue Magana, 32; and Staff Sgt. Justin Rettenberger, 31, work to secure a cross at Camp Pendleton on Veterans Day. A constitutional scholar says that because the crosses are only visible from Camp Pendleton they could be viewed as a memorial rather than having a religious purpose. (Rick Loomis, Los Angeles Times / November 11, 2011)

Reporting from San Diego— In the early days of the U.S. battle with the Sunni insurgency in Iraq, the four Marines from Camp Pendleton were among those troops on the front lines in Anbar province.

The two enlisted Marines would not survive those violent days in the spring of 2004: one was killed by "friendly fire" when a mortar round went awry and one was mortally wounded while hurling a grenade to repel an enemy assault, bravery for which he was posthumously awarded the Silver Star.

The two officers survived, only later to be killed in other battles in other parts of the country: one by gunfire while leading a raid in Baghdad to kill or capture a "high-value" target in 2007 and one by stepping on a buried bomb while scouting an attack position near the Syrian border in 2005.

Now the four — Lance Cpls. Robert Zurheide and Aaron Austin, and Majs. Douglas Zembiec and Ray Mendoza — are the focal point of a legal dispute about how best to honor their service and sacrifice, and that of other U.S. military personnel killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.
read more here

Marine faces 15 years behind bars for unknowingly violating gun law

Marine faces 15 years behind bars for unknowingly violating gun law
By Steven Nelson
Published: 12:28 AM 01/03/2012

Ryan Jerome was enjoying his first trip to New York City on business when the former Marine Corps gunner walked up to a security officer at the Empire State Building and asked where he should check his gun.

That was when Jerome’s nightmare began. The security officer called police and Jerome spent the next two days in jail.

The 28-year-old with no criminal history now faces a mandatory minimum sentence of three and a half years in prison. If convicted, his sentence could be as high as fifteen years.

Jerome has a valid concealed carry permit in Indiana and visited New York believing that it was legal to bring his firearm. He was traveling with $15,000 worth of jewelry that he planned to sell.

read more here

Benjamin Colton Barnes, discharged from Joint Base Lewis-McChord with PTSD

Did the military knowingly discharge a troubled veteran into the community instead of helping him? Isn't that what they've been doing all along? Some come home and commit suicide. Others come home and snap. Most come home and do the best they can with what they have to recover from where they've been. We don't read their stories in the national news because they don't cause any trouble at all. We also don't see how much they are hurting. They are just like the rest of us when it comes to their personality and character. Predicting the outcome of sending men and women into combat is something the military should have been prepared for but they thought they found the answer in the twisted "training" telling them they can train their brains to be tough enough and resilient. All this time, all this money and the outcomes are far from good.

Suspect in ranger's slaying found dead in creek
Benjamin Colton Barnes, sought in a massive manhunt in Mount Rainier National Park, apparently died from exposure barely a mile from where he had fled into the woods a day earlier.
By Seattle Times staff
Driven relentlessly through chest-deep snow by his pursuers and unprepared for bitter, freezing temperatures, the suspect in the Sunday slaying of a Mount Rainier National Park ranger died cold and wet overnight — lying half-submerged in Paradise Creek and wearing one tennis shoe, a T-shirt and jeans, barely one mile from where he had fled into the woods.

Indications are that Benjamin Colton Barnes, 24, died from exposure. His body showed no sign of injuries, and he was carrying a handgun, a magazine of ammunition and a knife, said Sgt. Ed Troyer of the Pierce County Sheriff's Department.

"The manhunt has been concluded," announced Steven Dean, FBI assistant special agent in charge, at a news conference outside the park's main gate Monday afternoon.

The FBI recovered another ammunition magazine near Barnes' body, and the sheriff's Swiftwater Rescue Team found an assault-style rifle about 50 yards upstream.

Officials said Barnes had left survival gear in his car, which he fled after firing on rangers Sunday.

Killed was 34-year-old Ranger Margaret Anderson, the mother of two young children, who was gunned down after she had set a roadblock to stop a car being pursued after failing to stop at a chain-up checkpoint. A cruiser being driven by Ranger Dan Camiccia, who was in pursuit of Barnes, also was peppered with gunfire as it approached. Camiccia was not injured.

A Pierce County SWAT unit, sent to render aid to Anderson, also came under fire, according to law-enforcement officers, delaying efforts to reach the injured park ranger. Officials say Anderson was shot while still in her vehicle and never had a chance to return fire.

What Anderson and the others couldn't have known Sunday when they attempted to stop Barnes' blue Pontiac was that he apparently had been involved in a shootout eight hours earlier at a Skyway home where four people were injured, two critically. King County sheriff's Sgt. Cindi West said Barnes and several other armed individuals were having a "show and tell" with their guns when an argument devolved into a gunfight.

The Army confirmed Monday that Barnes had been a private first class whose military service ended in the fall of 2009. He received a misconduct discharge at Fort Lewis (now Joint Base Lewis-McChord) after he was charged with DUI and improper transport of a privately owned weapon. By then, he had served two years and seven months of active duty, according to Army Human Resources Command information cited by Maj. Chris Ophardt, a spokesman for Joint Base Lewis-McChord.

Lewis-McChord connection

The slaying of a Mount Rainier National Park ranger is the latest in a series of high-profile crimes linked to soldiers or veterans who recently served at Joint Base Lewis-McChord. Others implicated in or convicted of serious crimes:
Pfc. Dakota Wolf, 19, is charged in the stabbing death of Scarlett Paxton, 19, in Kirkland on Nov. 30 while Wolf was AWOL. He has been in the Army less than a year and never deployed abroad.

Sgt. David Stewart, 38, an active-duty Army medic, led law-enforcement officers on a high-speed chase down Interstate 5 in April. Stewart killed himself and his wife, who was found in the car dead of a gunshot wound. Their 5-year-old son also was found dead in the family's home.

Ivette Gonzalez Davis, then a 24-year-old Army specialist, was sentenced to life in prison in August 2010 for shooting two fellow soldiers and kidnapping their baby.

Sgt. Sheldon Plummer, an active-duty soldier, pleaded guilty to strangling his wife in February 2010 in their Thurston County home. He received a 14-year sentence.

Hal Bernton,

Seattle Times staff reporter
read more here

Slain ranger was living her dream
When Margaret Anderson was killed Sunday at Mount Rainier, she and her husband were living their dream, finally working as park rangers in the same national park while raising a young family.
By Steve Miletich
Seattle Times staff reporter
Margaret Anderson and her husband, Eric, were living their dream, finally working as U.S. park rangers in the same national park while raising a young family, their relatives said Sunday.

"They had been looking for that for a long time, to be in the same park," Margaret Anderson's father, the Rev. Paul Kritsch, said in a telephone interview.

Kritsch, a Lutheran minister in Scotch Plains, N.J., recalled his 34-year-old daughter's life, hours after she was fatally shot while working at her law-enforcement job in Mount Rainier National Park.

"As you can well imagine, it doesn't seem real," he said of her death.

Margaret and Eric Anderson worked at Mount Rainier for about four years after meeting at a national park in Utah and then moving about the country early in their careers.

The couple's older daughter, Anna, will turn 4 on Feb. 14, Kritsch said. The younger, Katie, will turn 2 in May.
read more here

Massive manhunt for Iraq veteran after Park Ranger gunned down Monday, January 2, 2012

Military veterans create Tampa charities to help troops

Military veterans create Tampa charities to help troops
By HOWARD ALTMAN | The Tampa Tribune
Published: January 02, 2012

They were both in the Navy.

They are both named Bob.

And now they spend their days helping out those who serve by running two of Tampa Bay's biggest military charity organizations.

Bob Silah served 27 years, retiring as a captain in 1989.

An active member of the Tampa chapter of the Military Officers Association of America, he regularly kept in touch with the local military community, especially the folks at the James A. Haley Veterans Hospital.

In 2004, he got a call from a doctor there.

"They said they had more and more patients coming in and they needed help, especially with their families," said Silah, who came up with an idea to help.

He created Operation Helping Hand that May.

"Our mission was strictly to help active duty wounded and their visiting families," he said.

The mission has been tweaked only a bit since, he said. There are many service members coming to the hospital who were injured in non-combat situations as well. Silah said his organization has adapted to help those people and their families too.
read more here

Alive Day, New PTSD Video

If you had "resiliency training" here are some numbers you need to remember.

They knew sending you back into combat over and over again would increase your risk of PTSD. They turned around and came out with "Battlemind" trying to convince you that you could train your brain to be "tough" enough to just get over it. They never understood that you were already mentally tough, courageous and strong. Actually, they never really understood what causes PTSD so that left them clueless. Instead of helping, they ended up hurting you by leaving you to think PTSD was your fault because you didn't train right or you were weak.


Then there is this from 2009 showing you are not alone when it comes to "failing" the training.

Well, you are not now nor have you ever been weak. When you were deployed and lives were on the line, what did you do? Did you call in sick? Did you catch a flight back home? Or did you stay to help the men and women you served with? Did you notice the pain you had inside when someone else was in danger?

You did not allow yourself to feel the pain you carried until everyone was out of danger, until you were back home, until you couldn't trap in behind the wall any longer. How much tougher can you get than to be able to carry that kind of pain and still do it all?

The pain you feel now doesn't have to destroy you. You can heal if you get the right help. You fought for those you love in combat enough you were willing to die for them. Then fight for those you love back here enough to stay alive for them.