Vietnam Veteran Shocked to Receive Purple Heart After 50 Year Wait

After nearly 50 years of waiting, T-Bones help surprise metro Vietnam veteran with Purple Heart
FOX4KC
BY MEGAN BRILLEY
AUGUST 20, 2016

KANSAS CITY, Kan. -- A metro Vietnam veteran has been waiting nearly 50 years for his Purple Heart.

Milton Shelley served in Vietnam in the 60s and was injured while serving. The veteran gave up hope, but Saturday night he got the surprise of a lifetime while at a T-Bones game.

Milton Shelley waited in a line of military veterans. Then he stepped up to the mound and threw the first pitch of the game.

Shelley thought his job was done and started to walk back to his seat, when he was told to stand on home plate.

The announcer began to tell him he wasn't just there to throw the first pitch.

Milton served in Vietnam in the 60s, he was shot and injured. For nearly 50 years, Milton wondered why he didn't get a Purple Heart.

"I never thought I'd get it," Shelley said. "I tried several times. Mailing stuff in."
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Heroes Among Us, Pensacola Vietnam Veteran

Pensacola Vietnam veteran featured at Heroes Among Us event
Pensacola News Journal
Melissa Nelson Gabriel
August 23, 2016

"At the time, I didn't think about how dangerous it was. In retrospect, I feel fortunate to have come out alive," said McArthur, who credits his wife of 49 years for helping him deal with the trauma of war.

In 1998, members of The Last Patrol are reflected in the stone panels

of The Wall South as they pay tribute to their fallen comrades from the

war in Vietnam during Memorial Day observances organized by The Vietnam

Veterans Motorcycle Club of America.

(Photo: Pensacola Historical Society)

Decorated Vietnam veteran Gary McArthur doesn't come from a military family and never dreamed of joining the military as a child.

But the draft made military service a reality for McArthur, 71, and thousands of other young American men in the late 1960s.

"Back then, you were drafted as soon as your student deferment ended," said McArthur, a University of Florida graduate who joined the Army in 1968, and served as an officer in the 1st Air Cavalry Division.

The Pensacola native will share stories of his time as a "civilian soldier" during Thursday night's Heroes Among Us speaker series in downtown Pensacola.

The monthly outdoor speakers series in Pensacola's Veterans Memorial Park is sponsored by the Marine Corps League and draws on the war stories of the area's many veterans to raise money for projects that help veterans.

McArthur, a Pensacola native who served in the Army from 1968 to 1971, said he has a unique perspective because he was not a career military officer.
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Vietnam Veteran Finds Foster Family

James Island family fosters, falls in love with Vietnam veteran
Charleston Regional Business Journal
By Ashley Heffernan
August 18, 2016

“I didn’t know we were going to fall in love with him so (much) and the kids would. We thought we’d be taking care of somebody, but he’s just one of us now.” Lacresha Cromwell

Harry Vaughan enjoys watching television with the Cromwell family, especially Western films with 10-year-old Ashlyn Cromwell.

(Photo/Ashley Heffernan)

Harry Vaughan joined the military because it was his “brother duty.”

The 76-year-old, who grew up in Virginia, entered the Army in 1959 to be near his older brother. Two years in and “tired of walking,” he left the Army and joined the Navy to take care of his younger brother. They both served on the USS Valley Forge aircraft carrier, and Vaughan went on to spend a year sweeping rivers in Vietnam for mines.

After 22 years in the Navy, Vaughan transitioned to a career as a fence builder in North Charleston. But when his memory started deteriorating and doctors gave him a diagnosis of dementia, Vaughan moved into Agape Senior, an assisted living facility in North Charleston.

As of 2014, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs reported nearly 130,000 Vietnam veterans were living in South Carolina, bringing in a median personal income of $34,436. About 62% of those veterans were between the ages of 65 and 74, while 9% were 75 or older.

Long-term-care costs can quickly eat into a veteran’s income.
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PolitiFact Not So Factual on Veteran Suicides

When it comes to rating what a politician says, there is a pesky thing called actual research to see if what they claim is true or not. On this one, I rate Politifact mostly lazy.

Kamala Harris slightly off in claim about veterans suicides
Politifact
By Chris Nichols
August 23rd, 2016

"It is unconscionable that 22 veterans take their own lives each day. We must ensure that they have support to adjust to civilian life," Harris, a Democrat, said on Twitter on August 18, 2016.

The VA examined about 55 million veterans records from 1979 through 2014. It found that in 2014, the latest year for which figures are available, 7,403 veterans took their own lives, or an average of about 20 a day.
You can read the rest here

Fact one missed is that within the reports cited is an all too often missed fascinating piece of information.

1999 the VA said there were 20 veterans a day committing suicide.  That was before Afghanistan and Iraq veterans entered into they military and while there were still WWI, WWII, Korean War veterans along with a lot more Vietnam veterans, plus Gulf War veterans. 5 million veterans less to count, the VA said in 2016 there are, yep, 20 a day committing suicide.

(Past articles had 7 million less veterans but the cut off date was before this latest report)

Look at the graph from the VA.

and this is by age

This is how we reached the abysmal finding that the percentage of veteran suicides has in fact gone up. This is after a decade of raising awareness, raising funds to talk about something few actually took the time to understand and a lot of politicians doing a lot of talking about how they will change the outcome when all they have done is repeat what already failed, it looks as if nothing will change.  It won't change until reporters actually tell the truth about what has been going on.  Yet again, a pesky little thing like using a number to make it easy to remember, when history is obliterated.  Hmm, just like the number of lives that could had been saved if we actually held people accountable.

Here is the report from the VA for the 2012 figure where they had the number at "22" and link to the 2016 report where they had the number at "20"

The stunning part on that report is they use the CDC number of suicides at 41,425 but stated rate of suicide from almost every state puts the number of veterans committing suicide at double the civilian population.  Figure that one out?

Here is the link to the 2000 Census 26.4 million veterans

Here is the link to the 2015 Census with 21,369,602 veterans and as you can see the majority of the veterans are over the age of 50 with the largest group, you guess it again, Vietnam veterans.

Disabled Iraq Veteran With PTSD Faces Eviction After Being Victim of Fraud

Disabled combat veteran, family forced from home
I-TEAM uncovers real estate scheme affecting at least 25 local properties
News 4 Jax
By Lynnsey Gardner - Investigative reporter
Jodi Mohrmann - Managing Editor of special projects
Eric Wallace - Senior Producer, I-TEAM
August 22, 2016

After paying $1,100 a month in rent, they could be evicted because the company renting the house, RHMG Inc. (Residential Home Management Group, Inc.), never technically owned it but still got their money.

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. - A disabled military veteran and his family contacted the I-TEAM for help after learning they are just days away from being evicted from their Jacksonville home -- even though they have paid their rent and have a lease.

We've uncovered it is part of a statewide scheme that could impact more local families, costing them tens of thousands of dollars. We found it happening right now in Clay, Duval, Nassau and St. Johns Counties. It's so troubling and pervasive, we alerted Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, who is now involved.

Each house that gets caught up this scheme can have multiple victims -- whether you lose your money, your credit or even your house practically overnight. That's what happened to James and Tiffany McCollum's family, who could soon be homeless.

"We just want a place to lay our head at night," said James. "I wonder how many other families are out there in the same situation, staying up at night, wondering how they will feed their families, the stress of it, the fears."
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