General says "suicide is the toughest enemy I ever faced"

Army leaders hear concerns from troops
Posted: Jul 27, 2012
KCTV
By DeAnn Smith, Digital
By Sandra Olivas, Reporter

FORT RILEY, KS (KCTV)
Top leaders in the U.S. Army on Friday met with soldiers at Fort Riley to hear their concerns.

Reporters were not allowed to videotape the Army leaders meeting with the soldiers and the military declined to provide any video taped by its own photographers, saying they wanted to ensure the discussions were open and honest.

Army Gen. Lloyd J. Austin III, the Army chief of staff and who previously oversaw the armed forces in Iraq, said the war in Afghanistan is the top priority.

"We want to finish that mission successfully, but equally important and mutually supporting mission is the health of our force," Austin said.

Austin and others toured this week six Army posts, including Fort Riley. The focus is ways to improve the lives of soldiers and their families. The focus is the solders' physical and mental well being.


"I have been deployed to Iraq three times and once to Afghanistan and been in good fights with tough enemies," Austin said. "And I will tell you: suicide is the toughest enemy I ever faced."
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PTSD The Final Battle After War

"America I gave my best to you." is part of the song American Anthem from Ken Burns The War. I never really understood this growing up because I was surrounded by veterans. My Dad was a Korean War veteran and my uncles were WWII veterans. To me, they were normal. When my friends told me their family members didn't serve, I thought they were the odd ones. As I got older, I knew I had it backwards.

Still I didn't have a true sense of what came back with the men and women sent to fight in combat until I met a Vietnam veteran. We've been together for 30 years and it is because of him I know that when it comes to the population of America, we are odd but when you consider 8% of the population can call themselves veterans, we are not so odd among them.

What shall be our legacy?
What will our children say?
Let them say of me
I was one who believed
In sharing the blessings
I received
Let me know in my heart
When my days are through
America
America
I gave my best to you

When it comes to Combat PTSD, we are not odd at all. The heart/soul/spirit of a man/woman, so committed to another human they would die for them, is magnificent. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. which is the most courageous love there is. Felt so deeply by so many that it is also the thing that burdens them the most. It is what causes the cut so deeply within them they cannot heal it without help.

Battles fought together acts of conscience fought alone, these are the seeds from which America has grown.

If there was ever an anthem for Combat PTSD, this should be it.

Marine sentenced to death on spy charge in Iran

Family of ex- Marine sentenced to death on spy charge in Iran receiving little news of case
By Associated Press
Published: July 27

FLINT, Mich. — The family of an ex-U.S. Marine sentenced to death for spying in Iran said Friday that members have received little information about his case months after a new trial was reportedly ordered.

Amir Hekmati was accused of working for the CIA and sentenced to death in January, the first American to receive a death penalty since the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran. His family and the U.S. government have denied the allegations.
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Wisconsin National Guard Sergeant not guilty reason of insanity

Iraq veteran not guilty reason of insanity
Article by: BILL McAULIFFE
Star Tribune
Updated: July 27, 2012

A two-time Iraq war veteran who was denied admission to the Minneapolis Veterans Affairs Medical Center hours before going on a car-jacking spree and jumping in front of highway traffic has been found not guilty by reason of insanity by a Dakota County judge.

Blake Uddin, 31, a Wisconsin National Guard sergeant who worked on communications equipment during two deployments to Iraq, was found guilty of three counts of attempted robbery and one count of theft for the string of incidents last Aug. 23.

But District Court Judge David Knutson, who heard the case instead of a jury, also ruled that Uddin was so mentally disturbed at the time that he didn't know what he was doing, or that it was wrong.
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Sequestration could mean another 100K-troop cut

Sequestration could mean another 100K-troop cut
By Rick Maze
Staff writer
Posted : Thursday Jul 26, 2012

The possibility that sequestration could lead to an additional reduction of 100,000 active-duty troops has been seized upon by a key House Republican as the newest reason why the Defense Department needs special protection from across-the-board cuts.

The estimate of personnel cuts came from Defense Secretary Leon Panetta on Wednesday during a hearing about military transition programs, in response to a question from Rep. Buck McKeon, R-Calif., about the impact of sequestration on the unemployment rate for veterans.

McKeon’s office is widely circulating the statement as a sign of the potential damage posed by the automatic, across-the-board federal spending cuts known as sequestration that could happen in January.

“It would obviously add another 100,000 that would have to be reduced, and the impact of that on top of the reductions that are currently going to take place would place a huge burden on the systems to be able to respond to that,” Panetta said. “I think it would be near-impossible to try to do the kind of work that we are trying to do and make it work effectively.”

It was McKeon, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, who first suggested the possibility of the 100,000-troop cut. “We know that there’s high unemployment among our veterans, our young veterans, and we know that, with the $487 billion cut in defense, we will have 100,000 leaving the military. We will have another 100,000 if the sequestration takes effect,” he said.
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Charges sought in Wisconsin veterans cemetery trash dump

Charges sought in veterans cemetery trash dump
By Scott Bauer
The Associated Press
Posted : Friday Jul 27, 2012

MADISON, Wis. — The state Department of Justice has been asked to bring charges against a former maintenance supervisor at a veterans cemetery for allegedly using the grounds as his private dump, burying everything from lawnmower blades to refrigerators.

The Department of Natural Resources on Thursday referred the case to the DOJ for alleged violations at the Southern Wisconsin Veterans Memorial Cemetery outside of Union Grove. The cemetery has been designed as a national shrine.

The Associated Press is not naming the former worker because he has not been formally charged. The worker resigned in November, three months after loads of garbage were removed from the cemetery.
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