Man Gives Car To Woman Who Lost All Hope After Marine Son Killed Himself: 'I Know What It's Like' Inside Edition
by Deborah Hastings
August 1, 2016
Her son, a Marine who served overseas, committed suicide one year ago, Nunez told Newberry. He had PTSD and shot himself, leaving behind two young children. The woman, who is in her 60s, “was talking about killing herself,” Newberry said. “She said, ‘I don’t have any friends.”
Now you have a friend, Newberry told her. “I’m going to come out here every day and talk to you.”
He had been noticing her every day for the past few weeks — a tiny woman walking past his auto shop, burdened by bags of groceries or totes bulging with belongings.
She works as a janitor at a high school just one street over from Richard Newberry’s tire and auto store in St. Petersburg, Florida.
On Friday, as Newberry was inside doing paperwork, the woman “stopped and looked in at me and I could tell she was upset,” Newberry told InsideEdition.com Monday.
So he walked outside and began to speak to Ernestina Nunez, asking why she seemed so distraught.
read more here
Marine Veteran Accused in Shooting Death Struggled after Military Tour The Leader-Telegram
by Julian Emerson
Aug 02, 2016
Fiore, Blechinger and Knetter said their friend was adversely impacted by the explosion of a military vehicle during his last tour of duty that killed his best friend and others her served with. The blast resulted in hearing loss and a concussion for Helmbrecht. But the emotional damage went deeper, they said.
Family and friends of the suspect in the fatal shooting of his 36-year-old neighbor Saturday morning said the tragedy likely could have been prevented had he received help with mental health problems that had worsened significantly in recent months.
Police arrested Shane M. Helmbrecht, 44, after they say he shot and killed Jenny Ward at her home at 105 Simon Court on Eau Claire's north side near Mount Simon Park. On Monday Eau Claire County Judge Jon Theisen set a $1 million bond for Helmbrecht, who told police he ingested methamphetamine the day before shooting Ward and has no mental health issues.
"This wasn't Shane," an emotional Tammy Fiore, a friend of Helmbrecht's, said of the shooting. "It was his mental illness ... People tried to get (Helmbrecht) help. They tried lots of times. But none of those efforts worked, and this is the result."
Friends said Helmbrecht, 44, a decorated military veteran, served tours of duty in Operation Desert Storm and later in Iraq and Afghanistan, where he cleared roadside bombs with the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force. He was once a fun-loving, humorous, caring friend who was a talented musician and carpenter, his friends said. He went out of his way to help others in need, they said, and had a big personality and a zest for life. read more here
Back from being unplugged on mini vacation. I spent the weekend in New England with family and it was wonderful. Back in the real world of politics more unusual than the pitiful garbage being slung on both sides, the only things I cannot hold back on are politicians claiming the trouble with the VA is someone else's fault and a candidate going after a grieving Gold Star Mom. Donald Trump has a habit of using veterans. We're all used to that since most politicians do it. The thing that got me was when he said that he loves war yet got deferments to stay out of Vietnam. He didn't love it so much back then when his own life would be put in danger.
It also seems that he cannot even let his pride go for a family who lost their son in combat while saving the lives of others.
Showing a characteristic refusal to back down from a fight, Trump took the almost unthinkable step of publicly escalating a feud with the parents of fallen US solider, Capt. Humayun Khan, who blasted Trump at last week's Democratic convention as unfit for the presidency.
Trump doesn't back down from a fight when it is about him but what kind of a message did this send to those putting their lives on the line everyday for the sake of others if he cannot even put his pride on the line? Yet he wants to be Commander-in-Chief or does he want to be dictator? The thing that keeps getting missed is that there we had a hero leader, loving his men so much he was prepared to do whatever he had to do so that they could survive. It didn't matter to him what faith they practiced because they had faith in him and each other. It did not matter to him how they voted because they were putting each other first. Too bad it didn't matter to Trump enough to let this Dad say what he wanted to say and let it go simply out of respect for the son who gave his life. He could not even let this Mom's silence go without saying something about her. How much do you want to bet that the story would have dropped off the news cycle in a day or so had he simply shown true leadership instead of hot headed ego? The other thing is there seems to still be a line of politicians hoping folks forget they have been in charge of the way veterans have been treated all along and the mess is actually their fault because they didn't bother to fix any of it. Read the history of the VA and see what I mean. (And on a side note, anyone screaming when this hero was talking is an idiot. We heard enough of that when Vietnam veterans came home. If you cannot at least respect someone like Groberg, who can you respect besides yourself?)
"Donald Trump consistently smears the character of Muslims," said Khan, whose Army captain son, Humayun Khan, died when he ran to halt a vehicle carrying a suicide bomber, likely saving the lives of troops on guard duty he had told to take cover and those at a mess hall nearby.
UPDATE Two Portland Police officers came knocking Monday afternoon, along with the stolen bike they found only 3 blocks away. Vietnam Veteran, double-amputee's custom hand bike stolen from driveway
KATU by Cory Marshall
August 1st 2016
PORTLAND, Ore. (KATU) - The search is on for a Vietnam Veteran's custom hand bike that was stolen late Saturday afternoon from his driveway in Southeast Portland.
The theft happened sometime in a 1.5-hour window as Brian Willson went inside to get lunch.
"(I) came out before 4 p.m. to do another errand and it was gone. I just had to sit down for a second and think, okay, what am I going to do now?" Willson, told KATU News.
Willson is a double-amputee and relies on the hand bike (pictured above in a photo by Jonathan Maus of bikeportland.org) to get around. To really understand the importance of the cycle, you have to go back about 30-years to a peaceful protest gone awry. read more here
To Readers of Wounded Times Taking some time off to unplug. After almost 9 years publishing Wounded Times, this will make a total of 2 weeks off in all that time. No posts until August 2.
