Florida Air Force Fire Chief accused of stealing $133,000 intended for charity

Air Force Fire Chief accused of stealing $133,000 intended for charity and using it for vacations
Washington Post
By Thomas Gibbons-Neff
September 9, 2016

A Wisconsin district court has indicted the chief of the U.S. Air Force Fire Service, accusing him of stealing more than $130,000 intended for charities and using those funds to pay for vacations, gambling and paying off credit card debt.

James E. Podolske Jr., 59, of Panama City, Fla., faces up to 25 years in prison and $500,000 in fines on two counts of fraud, U.S. Attorney Gregory J. Haanstad of the Eastern District of Wisconsin announced Thursday in a Department of Justice news release. According to the release, Podolske used his position in the Air Force to defraud about 25 businesses’ funds that were meant to go to charity.

He is also accused of disclosing proposal information to give a defense contracting company a competitive advantage. The Justice Department did not name the company in the news release.

Between 2009 and 2013, Podolske organized charity banquets and a golf outings in association with an annual conference put on by the International Association of Fire Chiefs.
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A Strategy to Save Lives

Reminder, prevention and resilience training started a decade ago. No evidence it worked, yet the DOD and Congress kept funding what failed.

Let’s save lives: Here’s a strategy of compassion, concern and intervention to stop suicide
FOX News
By Jeremiah J. Johnston
Published September 10, 2016

Perhaps the most underreported phenomena are the amount of clergy suicides (that is, pastors, priests, and others serving in ministry).

More U.S. citizens kill themselves than kill one another each year. That's stark evidence that proves we are all far more dangerous to ourselves than we are to other people.

Globally, one person dies every forty seconds by his or her own hand. The CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics recently released a study documenting the surge in suicide rates in the United States – increasing at an epidemic level from 1999 - 2014 to a nearly thirty-year high of 42,773 completed suicides in 2014.

The stereotype exists that young people, alone, are the highest risk age group prone to suicide (suicide is the second leading cause of death for ages 15-24). Yet from 1999 - 2014 suicide rates increased for both males and females, and all ages between ages 10 to 74.

Suicide prevention is a top priority (to the tune of over $50 million dollars in research and prevention methods) in the military as suicides in all service branches – 4,839 – outpaced the deaths of Americans fighting in Iraq (4,496) during the same period between 2003 - 2014.
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Impact of Veteran Suicides

The impact of veteran suicide: Veterans share their thoughts on an important issue
Veterans share their thoughts on an important issue
Stillwater News Press
By David Bitton
September 10, 2016

Since 2001, veteran suicide increased by 32 percent, civilian suicide is up 23 percent and is now the 10th leading cause of death for Americans, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

David Bitton Stillwater News Press

Cyle Briggs, 29 of Stillwater, served seven years with the Marine Corps Reserve in
Broken Arrow before transitioning to the Air Force Reserve at Tinker Air Force Base
where he currently serves.

Too often veterans come home from war only to face new battles.

“Deployments are simple,” said Cyle Briggs, 29, who served in Iraq in 2008-2009 as an infantryman with the Marine Corps Reserve out of Broken Arrow. “You wake up, go on a mission, come back, work out, go to bed and do it again. Civilian life is hard. There’s bills and finding a job so I can feed my family.”

Mental health issues like post-traumatic stress disorder have led many military personnel to commit suicide.

Briggs himself – who served in the Marine Corps Reserve from 2007-14 before transitioning to his current assignment as an Air Force reservist at Tinker Air Force Base – suffers from PTSD.

“In the Marine Corps, you are taught to suck it up and push bad thoughts to the side,” said Briggs, who has tattoos up and down his arms. “If you want to talk to anyone, you are weak.”

His marriage fell apart during his deployment.

“I went through a terrible depression after my deployment,” the Stillwater resident said. “My wife (now ex-wife) left me and got pregnant by another man. 

I had nothing to come home to. Another issue I know veterans coming home from deployment struggle with is the issue that you will never be as great as you were when you were deployed.”
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Suicide Awareness Pushes Reason To Give Up To

Talking About Someone Choosing to Die Not Giving Them Reason to Live
Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
September 11, 2016 

"Hell was something Amanda was not afraid of. She had lived there for years." Kathie Costos from Residual War

The only thing I am sorry for is that too many have died instead of healing. As for hurting the feelings of all these awareness talkers, I have no sympathy left for them. None! 

What did they think would be accomplished by talking about the anguish that belongs to someone else? Did it give them a voice to ask for help before they did it? Did it help soothe their heartache? Did it offer them any hope that tomorrow would be any better than their last day was?

Coming Soon to Amazon

"If misery loves company, then triumph demands an audience."
Brian Moore

Letting the suffering know there are many more opting for suicide supports their own contemplation of resolving their agony. How about we change the conversation and talk about not just reasons to live but how to heal?

"The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing." Walt Disney

Time to stop what failed and change the conversation. Suicide Awareness did no good at all for those who suffer.  It did a great deal for the spreaders of it in terms of publicity for profit but evidence has shown nothing positive came out of it.

What does work is when a veteran talks to other veterans and offers hope they can defeat PTSD just like they did and then tell the others how they did it.

What works is when veterans find the support they long for to replace the loneliness they exist with every day.

What works is when veterans show up just because they know one of their own is hurting.

What really works best is pointing out the simple fact that when a nation has veterans taking their own lives after surviving combat in higher numbers after everyone has been doing a hell of a lot of talking, it is time to changed the message! 

Residual: an internal aftereffect of experience or activity that influences later behavior

Residual War (fiction mystery) is about the battles fought inside and the private hell Amanda lived with for 6 years.  She did what she was compelled to do. No time to think about the consequences, she took quick action to save lives. Lives she blamed for shattering too many others including herself.

All she could see was what bad came out of all of it.  Forced to transfer to a Fort where she couldn't get into any more trouble before she was eligible for full retirement, Amanda descended into a deeper hell all tied to that one day in Afghanistan.

After three days she resurrected hope for forty others and was shown that for all the misery she thought she spread, there were many miracles unfolding at the same time but she was just too busy grieving to see any of them.  

Heroic actions by those who do not see themselves as heroes because living without taking action would be worse than dying doing it. They did not want sympathy. They wanted to heal enough to live with their memories.  Killing those memories would have been like their friends dying all over again.

Veterans left homeless at the mercy of vultures because the military decided they had entered into service with a pre-existing mental illness and booted them out with "personality disorders" instead of help. Leaving them with nothing, they became lab rats no one cared about. That is until Amanda refused to let it happen.

Judgement is part of all of this because humans tend to judge what they see instead of looking deeper, at least long enough to understand how someone would devolve into a complete total mess.

Peer support is part of all this because when no one understands what it is like to be them they feel like outcasts. 

44 "he is a leprous man. He is unclean. The priest shall surely pronounce him unclean; his sore is on his head." Leviticus 13

But they were not unclean. They were remarkable humans doing whatever they could, whatever they were compelled to do in order to save the lives of others. They suffered for it, were blamed for what they did out of suffering and no one noticed it was all tied to the simple fact they faced it all with no thought for themselves.

Ya, I know.  That's the part everyone keeps leaving out of all this "awareness" talk.  How do they think they anyone can reach a veteran playing on their own needs without letting them know they will be helping others after they heal?

4 "Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted. 5 But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed." Isaiah 53

Each one of us has touched the lives of others. Either we helped them, encouraged them or we destroyed them. Does talking about veterans committing suicide help them or harm them? It surely does not help them by giving any hope to heal.  It does not encourage them to see why they are suffering any more than it comforts them by the fact they are not destined to remain suffering as they are.  When do we tell them they can heal if we take up so much time pushing the rumor of a number?

Today is September 11, the day that started many wars but finished none. Soon after 9-11 I was talking with others involved with PTSD and we saw what was coming after this nation was attacked. That is because we were paying attention to the generations of veterans we already had with us for decades.

RESIDUAL WAR is about the younger generation learning from the older generation that this is a war that does not end but does not have to defeat your life.

"Hell was something Amanda was not afraid of. She had lived there for years." Almost forgot.  Amanda is a military chaplain.

Brian Rossell Was Found in Lake Wausau

UPDATE
Loved ones gather to remember veteran Brian Rossell
By WSAW Staff
Oct 01, 2016

WAUSAU, Wis. (WSAW) -- Loved ones of fallen veteran Brian Rossell looked for comfort and healing as they gathered to remember him at the DC Everest Park in Wausau Saturday afternoon.

Rossell's body was found in Lake Wausau in September.

His family says he was dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder.

Members of the American Legion and the veterans support group, Souls of Honor gathered to show support.
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Wisconsin Veteran heartbroken after Police Discover Fellow Vet's Body
CBS News 58
By Christie Green
Updated: Sep 09, 2016

29-year-old Brian Rossell was found in Lake Wausau Thursday afternoon. Police said evidence shows he took his own life. A person bird watching located his body which was found 150 feet from shore near the Eagles Cub landing. An autopsy will be conducted Friday.

WAUSAU, Wis. (WSAW) -- Though the exact circumstances of Brian Rossell's death remain uncertain, veterans in our area mourn the loss of a man they consider a brother.

Martin Glenn wants all veterans to know they're not alone. "I'm just numb right now," he said.

He returned home Thursday after dedicating three days and nights to searching for Rossell.

"The look on the mom's face when it came over the radio. Like that's just heartbreaking," he said, describing the moments after he heard Rossell's body was found in Lake Wausau.

His heart heavy for a veteran whom he did not know, but whose pain he did.

"Dad gets sad, dad gets angry and dad gets upset certain times of the year because he misses his friend." That's how Glenn explains his post-traumatic stress disorder to his four-year-old.
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