Larry A. Polzin Elected DAV National Commander
Associated Press
Posted August 7, 2012
LAS VEGAS
(BUSINESS WIRE)
Aug 7, 2012
Larry A. Polzin, a service-connected Vietnam-era veteran, was elected DAV’s National Commander at the organization’s 91 st National Convention in Las Vegas.
“As National Sr. Vice Commander, Polzin showed solid leadership skills and a strong vision for the organization,” said Arthur H. Wilson, DAV’s National Adjutant and CEO.
“We look forward to advancing the organization and achieving our strategic goals under his leadership.”
Polzin joined the U.S. Marine Corps following high school graduation in eastern Colorado. After boot camp, he was assigned to the 1 st Marine Division, 1 st Engineer Battalion, Camp Pendleton, Calif. He continued to serve until his medical discharge in 1966.
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Wednesday, August 8, 2012
'Ride for Heroes' to reach Pendleton on Friday
MILITARY: 'Ride for Heroes' to reach Pendleton on Friday
By MARK WALKER
North County Times
Four recumbent tricycle riders who departed St. Augustine, Fla., in early June for fundraising trip for the Oceanside-based Injured Marine Semper Fi Fund are scheduled to arrive at Camp Pendleton on Friday afternoon.
Three of the participants in the "Ride for Heroes" are former Marines, including a double amputee Afghanistan veteran.
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By MARK WALKER
North County Times
Four recumbent tricycle riders who departed St. Augustine, Fla., in early June for fundraising trip for the Oceanside-based Injured Marine Semper Fi Fund are scheduled to arrive at Camp Pendleton on Friday afternoon.
Three of the participants in the "Ride for Heroes" are former Marines, including a double amputee Afghanistan veteran.
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Officer wounded in temple shooting was a Marine
Officer wounded in temple shooting a skilled veteran
By Meg Jones of the Journal Sentinel
Unable to speak, Oak Creek police Lt. Brian Murphy held up his hand for Chief John Edwards to hold.
He mouthed one word: "Sorry."
"He was stable. He was alert. He acknowledged me. He smiled, brought up his hand, (he) wanted me to grab his hand. Kind of mouthed to me he was sorry," said an emotional Edwards.
After taking a few moments to compose himself, Edwards said in an interview Tuesday at the Oak Creek police station, "It's been a long couple days."
Murphy, 51, sped to the temple Sunday morning after people inside called 911 to report hear ing gunshots. Before Murphy could get inside the temple, Wade Michael Page, 40, opened fire, hitting the officer eight or nine times. Another Oak Creek police officer, Sam Lenda, shot and killed Page after the assailant refused to drop his weapon and surrender.
Six people who had gone to the temple to participate in a Sunday service were slain by Page; three others were wounded in addition to Murphy.
Murphy grew up in New York City - a fact readily apparent to anyone who hears him talk. Despite more than two decades in Wisconsin, Murphy has not lost his accent.
Before he became a cop, he was a U.S. Marine deployed overseas. He was later assigned to the United Nations in New York as part of the U.N. security detail, protecting dignitaries.
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By Meg Jones of the Journal Sentinel
Unable to speak, Oak Creek police Lt. Brian Murphy held up his hand for Chief John Edwards to hold.
He mouthed one word: "Sorry."
Edwards visited Murphy on Monday night at Froedtert Hospital - a day after the 21-year Oak Creek police veteran was shot numerous times while responding to the massacre at the Sikh temple in Oak Creek.
Oak Creek Police DepartmentOak Creek Police Lt. Brian Murphy, who was wounded in the Sikh Temple shooting.
"He was stable. He was alert. He acknowledged me. He smiled, brought up his hand, (he) wanted me to grab his hand. Kind of mouthed to me he was sorry," said an emotional Edwards.
After taking a few moments to compose himself, Edwards said in an interview Tuesday at the Oak Creek police station, "It's been a long couple days."
Murphy, 51, sped to the temple Sunday morning after people inside called 911 to report hear ing gunshots. Before Murphy could get inside the temple, Wade Michael Page, 40, opened fire, hitting the officer eight or nine times. Another Oak Creek police officer, Sam Lenda, shot and killed Page after the assailant refused to drop his weapon and surrender.
Six people who had gone to the temple to participate in a Sunday service were slain by Page; three others were wounded in addition to Murphy.
Murphy grew up in New York City - a fact readily apparent to anyone who hears him talk. Despite more than two decades in Wisconsin, Murphy has not lost his accent.
Before he became a cop, he was a U.S. Marine deployed overseas. He was later assigned to the United Nations in New York as part of the U.N. security detail, protecting dignitaries.
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Vietnam Vet charged after confrontation, going to VA hospital
Twin Lake man charged in assault-rifle confrontation to be transferred to V.A. hospital in Battle Creek
Published: Tuesday, August 07, 2012
By Lisha Arino
MUSKEGON, MI – Michael Robin Kirlis, the 60-year-old Twin Lake man who was allegedly involved in an armed and drunken confrontation with police and rescue workers is in the process of being transferred to the VA hospital in Battle Creek.
Kirlis waived his preliminary examination before 60th District Court Judge Michael J. Nolan on Aug. 7. The case will be sent to Circuit Court.
Kirlis, who said he was a Vietnam Veteran with post-traumatic stress disorder and on 100 percent disability, will be transferred to a Veterans Administration hospital in Battle Creek after receiving confirmation that the hospital would accept him as a patient. This is a condition allowed by the arraigning judge on July 24 in lieu of jail or paying a $50,000 bond.
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Published: Tuesday, August 07, 2012
By Lisha Arino
MUSKEGON, MI – Michael Robin Kirlis, the 60-year-old Twin Lake man who was allegedly involved in an armed and drunken confrontation with police and rescue workers is in the process of being transferred to the VA hospital in Battle Creek.
Kirlis waived his preliminary examination before 60th District Court Judge Michael J. Nolan on Aug. 7. The case will be sent to Circuit Court.
Kirlis, who said he was a Vietnam Veteran with post-traumatic stress disorder and on 100 percent disability, will be transferred to a Veterans Administration hospital in Battle Creek after receiving confirmation that the hospital would accept him as a patient. This is a condition allowed by the arraigning judge on July 24 in lieu of jail or paying a $50,000 bond.
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Psychiatrist fueling "dangerous" combat veteran notion
Psychiatrist fueling "dangerous" combat veteran notion
by Chaplain Kathie
Wounded Times Blog
August 8, 2012
TIME has some explaining to do when they allow something like this.
This just fuels the fear factor of "dangerous soldiers" with no facts to support an outrageous claim.
It is stunning to read about what some "professionals" have to say. Most of the time, you end up wondering why they bothered to write it in the first place. TIME Battleland had an article by Elspeth Cameron Ritchie on the Camp Liberty shootings that are back in the news again. Clearly avoiding addressing the issue of why a soldier would go for help then end up feeling it necessary to use a weapon would have been a better, more helpful angle to write about but she turned around and talked about how hard it is for psychiatrists.
She wrote how violence against psychiatrists are way too common. Ok. How many times has it happened in over 10 years of combat? How about the reverse when a psychiatrist decided to kill as many as possible at Fort Hood? Ritchie is implying that this is a huge problem and it is disgraceful.
Deployed military need tailored mental health care but it seems that has been reported over and over again, yet, no one was doing anything about actually delivering on it.
The other claim Ritchie made was sickening. Trying to spin it back to being about domestic issues and not redeployments insults the integrity of the troops.
I wonder how many of those "more than once" times it resulted in the soldier resolving his "issues" at the end of a gun pointed at his own head? The percentages are staring Ritchie right in the face. There are not 18 psychiatrist a day being attacked or shot by veterans, but they are committing suicide. There are not reports of 18 veterans killing their spouse everyday but they committing suicide. There are not hundreds of veterans committing crimes a month but there are that many trying to kill themselves. I track these reports across the country and the fact is simple. Combat veterans are more of a danger to themselves than anyone else. When you have 18 veterans a day (that they know about) killing themselves and an average of 1 active duty serviceman/woman taking their own lives topped off with the other reports of attempted suicides, that screams psychologist don't have a clue about what they need to do yet Ritchie wants us to feel sorry for them and blame and fear the soldiers. Does Ritchie get paid to write this crap fueling the "dangerous" soldier line to make headlines?
Ritchie got my attention with this headline but as soon as I read the first paragraph, I was at the boiling point.
This is something else Ritchie doesn't take responsibility for.
by Chaplain Kathie
Wounded Times Blog
August 8, 2012
TIME has some explaining to do when they allow something like this.
This just fuels the fear factor of "dangerous soldiers" with no facts to support an outrageous claim.
It is stunning to read about what some "professionals" have to say. Most of the time, you end up wondering why they bothered to write it in the first place. TIME Battleland had an article by Elspeth Cameron Ritchie on the Camp Liberty shootings that are back in the news again. Clearly avoiding addressing the issue of why a soldier would go for help then end up feeling it necessary to use a weapon would have been a better, more helpful angle to write about but she turned around and talked about how hard it is for psychiatrists.
She wrote how violence against psychiatrists are way too common. Ok. How many times has it happened in over 10 years of combat? How about the reverse when a psychiatrist decided to kill as many as possible at Fort Hood? Ritchie is implying that this is a huge problem and it is disgraceful.
Deployed military need tailored mental health care but it seems that has been reported over and over again, yet, no one was doing anything about actually delivering on it.
In 2009 this was released.
Officials have said that troops are under tremendous and unprecedented stress because of repeated and long tours of duty due to the simultaneous wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The other claim Ritchie made was sickening. Trying to spin it back to being about domestic issues and not redeployments insults the integrity of the troops.
“You know,” I recall saying more than once, “if I sent everyone home whose wife was having an affair, we wouldn’t have a division here.”
I wonder how many of those "more than once" times it resulted in the soldier resolving his "issues" at the end of a gun pointed at his own head? The percentages are staring Ritchie right in the face. There are not 18 psychiatrist a day being attacked or shot by veterans, but they are committing suicide. There are not reports of 18 veterans killing their spouse everyday but they committing suicide. There are not hundreds of veterans committing crimes a month but there are that many trying to kill themselves. I track these reports across the country and the fact is simple. Combat veterans are more of a danger to themselves than anyone else. When you have 18 veterans a day (that they know about) killing themselves and an average of 1 active duty serviceman/woman taking their own lives topped off with the other reports of attempted suicides, that screams psychologist don't have a clue about what they need to do yet Ritchie wants us to feel sorry for them and blame and fear the soldiers. Does Ritchie get paid to write this crap fueling the "dangerous" soldier line to make headlines?
Ritchie got my attention with this headline but as soon as I read the first paragraph, I was at the boiling point.
Military Psychiatrists at War: True Life and Death Decisions
By ELSPETH CAMERON RITCHIE
TIME Battleland
August 7, 2012
Elliott Smith’s recent sad and gripping article for Bloomberg on the 2009 killings at Iraq‘s Camp Liberty certainly re-ignited my own anxieties. It brought me back to when I was an active-duty Army psychiatrist in Korea, Somalia, and Iraq:
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.
Such violence against psychiatrists by their patients is tragically way too common.
So are mass shootings by individuals who appear to have major psychiatric problems.
For psychiatrists in the military who are deployed in the war zone, the additional scary challenge is that their world is full of men and women with weapons.
Don’t get me wrong. Of course, these are Soldiers, Marines and other service members who are there fighting for their country. They generally strive to do their very best to do the right thing.
But Soldiers occasionally get “Dear John” letters from home. Or get mad at their commander. And are brought to their combat stress control shop or division psychiatry unit for an evaluation.
As an Army mental health provider, you are always being asked to make judgments of a Soldier’s risk to self or others.
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This is something else Ritchie doesn't take responsibility for.
Col (Ret) Elspeth Cameron Ritchie, served as Army's top mental health advisor during a period where suicide rates doubled. Recently retired, now Ritchie frequently writes about and speaks on military mental health issues. She is one of many who have recently reported the Services are likely underreporting suicide data among members of Reserve and Guard components.
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