Monday, July 25, 2016

Marine Veteran-Firefighter Lost Home While Fighting Fire at Camp Pendleton

FIREFIGHTER LOSES HOME IN SAND FIRE WHILE BATTLING CAMP PENDLETON FIRE
ABC 7 News
By ABC7.com staff
Sunday, July 24, 2016

SANTA CLARITA, Calif. (KABC) -- A firefighter with the U.S. Forest Service learned his home was burned to the ground by the Sand Fire while he was battling a blaze at Camp Pendleton.

Sergio Toscano was sent to Camp Pendleton in San Diego County to battle the Roblar Fire, which broke out Thursday evening.

While Toscano was battling the Roblar Fire, he received word that the Sand Fire was nearing his home on Little Tujunga Canyon Road in Santa Clarita.

"We were assigned to a fire at Camp Pendleton, the Roblar Fire, I was getting text and phone calls from back home updating me on the fire that was going on back home," Toscano told ABC7.

After learning his home had been destroyed, Toscano was pulled from the Roblar Fire and assigned the Sand Fire.
read more here

Sunday, July 24, 2016

Female Pilot Flying Again After Losing Leg

Female Air Force pilot amputee returns to the skies
Air Force Times
Oriana Pawlyk
July 23, 2016

Capt. Christy Wise frantically waved her headlamp flashlight to alert a boat jetting toward her to turn away. But Wise, a HC-130J rescue squadron pilot, quickly realizing it was too late, dove as far down to save herself. When she surfaced, she knew the boat’s propeller had severed her right leg.

Capt. Christy Wise, 71st Rescue Squadron. (Photo: Courtesy photo)
Almost a year later, Wise — who thought it would be the end of her pilot career — is back in the cockpit, and flew her first mission Friday at Moody Air Force Base, Georgia, where she is stationed. She is the first female Air Force amputee to return to flight, the service said.

“I have been blown away with the amount of support I’ve had to ... achieve my goals,” Wise told Air Force Times on July 21.

On April 11, 2015, she and her boyfriend were paddleboarding in a cove near Shalimar, Florida. “When I surfaced I immediately thought, ‘Dang it, I should have had a brighter flashlight’,” Wise said. But she later learned it was a hit-and-run accident as the boat did not stop or slow down.
read more here

Do Not Pay the Price of Service With Your Life

About a week ago I got into a conversation with a young veteran about suicide. There have been numerous reports of veterans calling the Suicide Hotline and not getting the help they needed when they needed it. I asked her why they do not just call 911 and ask for help.  She said they do not want to get stuck with the bill.

Stunning I know but it very well may play a part in veteran in crisis not wanting to add more burden on their shoulders.

While Enhanced Eligibility for VA Healthcare has extended free care for combat veterans up to 5 years, too many veteran do not use it.  


Who's Eligible?
Veterans, including activated Reservists and members of the National Guard, are eligible if they served on active duty in a theater of combat operations after November 11, 1998, and have been discharged under other than dishonorable conditions.

  • Eligible combat Veterans will have free medical care and medications for any condition that may be related to their service in theater.
  • Immediate benefits of health care coverage.
  • No enrollment fee, monthly premiums or deductibles.
  • Low or no out-of-pocket costs.  During the five-year post discharge timeframe, there may be small medical care or prescription drug copayments for medical care for any condition not related to combat theater.   See our Copayment page for more information. (Copayment page)
  • Once enrolled, the Veteran will remain enrolled.
  • Enrollment with VA satisfies the health care law’s requirement to have health care coverage. 
  • Medical care rated among the best in the United States.
  • More than 1,700 places available to get health care.
  • VA health care can be used along with Medicare and any other health insurance coverage.

And this part is something else to pay attention to.

Copays
Veterans who qualify under this special eligibility are not subject to copays for conditions potentially related to their combat service. However, unless otherwise exempted, combat Veterans must either disclose their prior year gross household income OR decline to provide their financial information and agree to make applicable copays for care or services VA determines are clearly unrelated to their military service.
If you know a veteran in crisis and they cannot get help from the Crisis line, have them call 911 and ask for fire rescue. I have talked to firefighters and police officers about this.  If you call for police, what happens is a veteran in crisis can find themselves under more stress when they see a police officer yet when a firefighter shows up, there is less stress.

Most of the time police officers will go with the department just in case but are there just in case things get out of control.

Keep in mind that a lot of police officers and firefighters are also veterans. They get it! As for the bill, let the VA sort that out afterwards.  

If you are among the veteran with less than honorable discharges CALL 911 and save your life so you can fight to have the discharge changed.  There are about 140,000 of you that happened to adding to the veterans from previous wars having their discharges changed. Do not pay the cost of service with your life!

Australian Army Captain Suicide Between Canada and New York

Behind a mask of despair
Townsville Bulletin
July 23, 2016

Since 2000, data suggests nearly three times as many active Australian soldiers and nearly five times as many veterans have committed suicide as have died in Afghanistan. But before Paul, almost none had been nationally recognised.
ON the second-last day of 2013, a stranger arrived in Saranac Lake, a 5400-person mountain town 112km shy of the Canadian border.

Set amid the patchwork of forest preserves and villages, Saranac Lake is the “Capital of the Adirondacks”, a one-time best small town of New York, and the place where I’m from.

He was a 31-year-old infantry captain in the Australian Army who had been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder after returning from Afghanistan two years before. He arrived on the one bus that comes each day: an Adirondack Trailways coach that chugs slowly uphill from Albany.

To get to Albany, he’d travelled more than 17,000km. He was good looking – wholesome and tidy, with intelligent eyes. He’d been a battle captain in Afghanistan’s Oruzgan province, near Kandahar, working as part of Mentoring Task Force 3 with about 700 other Townsville soldiers. But he had a medical review coming up and, his family would later tell the police, he feared he might be discharged.

On New Year’s Eve, he bought a shovel and a blanket at the shopping plaza and set off on foot towards Lake Placid.
read more here

Grim Outcome With DOD First Quarter Suicide Report

Department of Defense released the first quarter of 2016 suicide report. In the first three months of 2016 there have been 110 reported suicides.

In the first quarter of 2016, the military services reported the following:


 58 deaths by suicide in the Active Component
 18 deaths by suicide in the Reserves
 34 deaths by suicide in the National Guard
2012 
Active 321
Reserve 204
National Guard 132
2013
Active 255
Reserve 220
National Guard 134
2014
Active 273
Reserve 170
National Guard 91
2015
Active 266
Reserve 212
National Guard 124

All adds up to what they are doing is not working and they keep dying because no one is held accountable for failure to help them heal!