Vietnam Vet Vendor Still Sleeping In Hot Dog Cart After Mayor Bloomberg Breaks Promise
Dan Rossi Still Ticketed After Being Told Not To Worry About Keeping Spot
August 1, 2012
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) — Mayor Michael Bloomberg may have to eat his words after a broken promise to a disabled Vietnam vet who runs a hotdog cart.
Last month, Hizzoner vowed to help Dan Rossi keep his spot selling hotdogs in front of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, but the only thing that has resulted since has been a flurry of tickets.
When asked about the situation on July 19, Bloomberg told CBS 2′s Marcia Kramer that “[Rossi's] rights should be protected and he should not worry about it.”
“We’re talking to him. I’m personally not going to make the bed, but he doesn’t have to worry about it and we’re going to take care of it,” Bloomberg added at the time.
However, Mayor Bloomberg definitely has not taken care of it.
When the mayor first addressed the issue, Rossi had been sleeping in his cart every night for five weeks, trying to protect his prime location in front of the MET because the city refused to enforce his legal right to the spot as a disabled Vietnam veteran.
read more here
Thursday, August 2, 2012
Wounded Times is now part of Point Man International Ministries
It has been a blessing to be included in this group considering that I am not a veteran. My husband is a Vietnam veteran. It is because of him that I have spent the last 30 years trying to make a difference in the lives of our veterans and their families. It is because of this work Dana Morgan, President of Point Man encouraged me to be a part of this group that began working on the spiritual connection to combat and PTSD in 1984.
We can talk all we want about helping our veteran but as you've read on this blog in the last five years, we are far from really doing it. This battle is far from over. Point Man International Ministries DBA Point Man of Winter Park is now tax exempt with the State of Florida, CH36936. I obtained the IRS tax exempt last year but since I was still attending classes at Valencia College for Digital Media, it didn't make much sense to do the paperwork for Florida since I was not spending much money and didn't have time to seek donations. This step was taken a couple of months ago and as of this morning, the determination letter arrived in my mail box.
This is why the header image has suddenly changed.
What difference does this make to my readers?
None. I'll still be posting on everything I've been doing for the last 5 years. I will not seek government funding to allow me to be able to post what is really going on. I will not endorse any politician or political position that is not for veterans. If a politician does something for veterans or against them you will know it. I could have taken the easy way out years ago and just did what was popular but that wouldn't have helped anyone.What does change?
I have the ability to seek donations to cover the expenses of traveling, public speaking, consultations and filming events. Up until now it has all been out of pocket and right now my pockets are empty. There is no way I can afford to find a location to hold meetings locally without financial support to be able to at least supply coffee and donuts while having a place to talk. I need donations to buy materials for veterans to understand how to heal from a spiritual basis. I also need local groups to help me with networking so that I have Yoga instructors to send them to along with any other group offering help to our veterans.This is not about to be anything that needs huge donations to operate. As a matter of fact, while spiritual healing is priceless, it is not expensive. I just cannot afford to do it on my own anymore.
If you can make a donation, please do in any amount possible. If you want a copy of my book, you can donate to receive a pdf of it. Hard copies of it are not available yet since it does cost money to print them. Just make sure when you want a copy, put "book" in the subject on the Pay Pal donation.
You can also mail donations to
Point Man of Winter Park
PO Box 196992
Winter Springs FL 32719-6992
Military mental health crisis exposed with Camp Liberty killings
Military mental health crisis exposed with Camp Liberty killings
By ELLIOT BLAIR SMITH
Bloomberg News
Published: August 2, 2012
Sergeant John Russell lay awake, wondering what his wife would do if he killed himself.
He was so messed up that his first lieutenant removed the firing pin from his M16 assault rifle. Six weeks from the end of his fifth combat-zone tour, and five years from retiring on a 20-year Army pension, he suspected he wouldn’t see any of it.
Before dawn, shaking and stuttering, Russell walked through the still desert outside Baghdad to the quarters of Captain Peter Keough, the 54th Engineer Battalion’s chaplain. Keough listened, and hastily made the sergeant’s fourth appointment in four days at an Army mental-health clinic.
“I believe he is deteriorating,” Keough e-mailed an Army psychiatrist. “He doesn’t trust anyone.” Russell, the chaplain wrote, “believes he is better off dead.”
It was 10:07 a.m. on May 11, 2009. The battalion, military police and combat stress specialists had three hours and 34 minutes to avert tragedy. Instead, after lost opportunities and miscalculations, the blue-eyed sergeant from Texas used a stolen gun to kill three enlisted men and two officers in the deadliest case of soldier-on-soldier violence in the war zone. His victims’ bodies are buried across the U.S., from Arlington National Cemetery to the Texas panhandle.
Russell slipped through the safety net constructed to catch troubled soldiers. More and more are falling. The armed services’ mental-health epidemic has deepened since the Camp Liberty killings. In June, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta ordered a Pentagon review of every diagnosis from 2001 on. read more here
5 US soldiers shot at Camp Liberty in Iraq
By ELLIOT BLAIR SMITH
Bloomberg News
Published: August 2, 2012
Sergeant John Russell lay awake, wondering what his wife would do if he killed himself.
He was so messed up that his first lieutenant removed the firing pin from his M16 assault rifle. Six weeks from the end of his fifth combat-zone tour, and five years from retiring on a 20-year Army pension, he suspected he wouldn’t see any of it.
Before dawn, shaking and stuttering, Russell walked through the still desert outside Baghdad to the quarters of Captain Peter Keough, the 54th Engineer Battalion’s chaplain. Keough listened, and hastily made the sergeant’s fourth appointment in four days at an Army mental-health clinic.
“I believe he is deteriorating,” Keough e-mailed an Army psychiatrist. “He doesn’t trust anyone.” Russell, the chaplain wrote, “believes he is better off dead.”
It was 10:07 a.m. on May 11, 2009. The battalion, military police and combat stress specialists had three hours and 34 minutes to avert tragedy. Instead, after lost opportunities and miscalculations, the blue-eyed sergeant from Texas used a stolen gun to kill three enlisted men and two officers in the deadliest case of soldier-on-soldier violence in the war zone. His victims’ bodies are buried across the U.S., from Arlington National Cemetery to the Texas panhandle.
Russell slipped through the safety net constructed to catch troubled soldiers. More and more are falling. The armed services’ mental-health epidemic has deepened since the Camp Liberty killings. In June, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta ordered a Pentagon review of every diagnosis from 2001 on. read more here
5 US soldiers shot at Camp Liberty in Iraq
Defense contractors rally against budget cuts
Defense contractors rally against budget cuts
By Kevin Wang
Medill News Service
Posted : Wednesday Aug 1, 2012
With automatic, across-the-board federal budget cuts slated to begin next January, defense industry leaders warned of deep wounds to America’s backbone if Congress fails to act to avoid the roughly $1 trillion in reductions.
At a rally Monday in Crystal City, Va., some Northern Virginia-based defense contractors said the mandatory cuts, which will take effect if Congress doesn’t craft an alternative budget-cutting package, would cost millions of American jobs and ripple across the entire economy.
More than 200 people, many employed by the contractors, attended the 1½-hour event.
Wes Bush, CEO of the leading unmanned aircraft manufacturer Northrop Grumman Corp., said sequestration could hurt both the nation’s defense and non-defense sectors by causing massive layoffs, including in such fields as air traffic controllers and government inspectors.
According to a recent study by the Aerospace Industries Association, which represents major U.S. aerospace and defense companies, sequestration could cost more than 2.1 million jobs nationwide and increase the unemployment rate by up to 1.5 percent.
read more here
By Kevin Wang
Medill News Service
Posted : Wednesday Aug 1, 2012
With automatic, across-the-board federal budget cuts slated to begin next January, defense industry leaders warned of deep wounds to America’s backbone if Congress fails to act to avoid the roughly $1 trillion in reductions.
At a rally Monday in Crystal City, Va., some Northern Virginia-based defense contractors said the mandatory cuts, which will take effect if Congress doesn’t craft an alternative budget-cutting package, would cost millions of American jobs and ripple across the entire economy.
More than 200 people, many employed by the contractors, attended the 1½-hour event.
Wes Bush, CEO of the leading unmanned aircraft manufacturer Northrop Grumman Corp., said sequestration could hurt both the nation’s defense and non-defense sectors by causing massive layoffs, including in such fields as air traffic controllers and government inspectors.
According to a recent study by the Aerospace Industries Association, which represents major U.S. aerospace and defense companies, sequestration could cost more than 2.1 million jobs nationwide and increase the unemployment rate by up to 1.5 percent.
read more here
1 gold, several defeats for military Olympians
1 gold, several defeats for military Olympians
Staff report
Army Times
Posted : Tuesday Jul 31, 2012
A fast-fingered 23-year-old Sgt. Vincent Hancock shattered multiple Olympic records while staking his claim for gold at the London Games on Tuesday even as other military athletes suffered through the agony of defeat.
The Fort Benning, Ga.-based Army Marksmanship Unit skeet shooter drilled 123 out of 125 targets in his record-setting qualifier and then a perfect 25 in the finals for another record and his spot at the top of the podium.
His score of 148 broke the Olympic skeet record of 145 he set en route to his first Olympic gold at the 2008 Games in Beijing.
Hancock’s win also marks the first time an Olympic skeet shooter has nailed back-to-back gold medals.
read more here
Staff report
Army Times
Posted : Tuesday Jul 31, 2012
A fast-fingered 23-year-old Sgt. Vincent Hancock shattered multiple Olympic records while staking his claim for gold at the London Games on Tuesday even as other military athletes suffered through the agony of defeat.
The Fort Benning, Ga.-based Army Marksmanship Unit skeet shooter drilled 123 out of 125 targets in his record-setting qualifier and then a perfect 25 in the finals for another record and his spot at the top of the podium.
His score of 148 broke the Olympic skeet record of 145 he set en route to his first Olympic gold at the 2008 Games in Beijing.
Hancock’s win also marks the first time an Olympic skeet shooter has nailed back-to-back gold medals.
read more here
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