PTSD On Trial: Matthew Desha and Road Rage

Investigator | Solon gunman shouted: "They killed my father"
WKYC
Phil Trexler and Tom Meyer
September 14, 2016

Matthew Ryan Desha (Photo: SPD)

SOLON: - After Matthew Ryan Desha emptied his AR-15 rifle on random motorists in Solon, police say he offered a curious defense.

“They killed my father,” he shouted.

Desha, 29, then recounted his mental health history to officers. Post-traumatic stress, drug abuse.

Friends say he often stopped taking his medication. He also often stopped seeking counseling.

No one had killed his father.

Desha, however, is accused of killing Deborah Pearl, whose car he crashed into on Solon Road after speeding through a red light Aug. 27.

Immediately after the crash, reports show Desha began firing his AR-15 semi-automatic rifle. He fired at Pearl’s car before she was able to get out, reports show.

He also shot toward four different drivers, all of whom had stopped at the crash.

Reports show two men managed to subdue Desha until officers arrived. Desha, dressed in a USMC T-shirt, had used every bullet he had.

Another man recorded the images on his cell phone. The video, which shows Desha firing his weapon, was turned over to police.

Desha, a Marine veteran, served two tours in Iraq.
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Canada: Mom Received Penny After Soldier Son Committed Suicide, Now Vindicated

Mom who was sent 1 cent after soldier son’s suicide getting Memorial Cross
The Star
Colin Perkel
The Canadian Press
September 14, 2016

The government had already sparked outrage after it sent Stark a cheque for 1 cent in “release pay” for her dead son in February 2014 — prompting then-defence minister Rob Nicholson to apologize for what he called “insensitive bureaucratic screw-up.”

Soldier Justin Stark, 22, killed himself after serving a 7-month deployment in Afghanistan. The Memorial Cross shows the military finally recognizes his death as service-related.

Justin Stark's mother, Denise Stark, says she is stunned and overjoyed to know the family's fight over whether her son's death was service-related is over.
(COLIN PERKEL / THE CANADIAN PRESS)

The mother of a Canadian soldier who killed himself after serving in Afghanistan will finally be honoured with a Memorial Cross this weekend, ending a long battle to have the military recognize his death as service-related.
In an interview ahead of the ceremony, Denise Stark said she was both stunned and overjoyed when told the family’s fight over the death of her son, Cpl. Justin Stark, was over.

“I just sat there and cried — tears of joy and what not, a whole mix of emotions,” Stark said of the call that came earlier this year. “The next day, I went down to the cemetery, so I could tell Justin the good news.”

Stark, 22, a reservist with the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders of Canada, served a seven-month deployment in Afghanistan. In October 2011, 10 months after his return to Canada, he killed himself at the John Weir Foote Armouries in Hamilton.

A board of inquiry concluded more than two years ago that his tour in Afghanistan did not cause post-traumatic stress disorder — PTSD — which contributed to his suicide and his mother and family would not be honoured with the Memorial Cross — frequently called the Silver Cross.
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Veteran Drafted For WWII, Almost Lost Home to Foreclosure at 91

Heslam: Vets step in to save house of fellow soldier
Boston Herald
Jessica Heslam
September 14, 2016

“We were outraged,” said Dennis Moschella, a Vietnam veteran and president of VAV. “Guys like Mr. Bazin should be living free. He shouldn’t have a bill in the world. And all these young military people coming up should have health care forever.”

Credit: Patrick Whittemore ‘THERE’S NO PLACE LIKE HOME’: Army veteran Herman Bazin, who served in World War II, had his house in foreclosure before a veterans’ organization stepped in to help.

Herman Bazin served his country above and beyond the call of duty. The Army drafted the Lawrence teen during World War II right after he graduated from high school. He rode a tank in the Battle of the Bulge and saw the atrocities of the Dachau concentration camp after it was liberated.

A few months ago, Bazin, now 91, nearly lost his beloved house after he got behind on mortgage payments and went into foreclosure. Numerous veterans’ organizations couldn’t help because he didn’t meet their “criteria” and the VA offered to move him into a housing complex, but Bazin wanted to stay put.

“It’s my little nest. It’s home. It’s my security,” Bazin told me during a recent visit to his Lawrence house. “Everybody likes their independence. I go to bed when I feel like it.”

Veterans Assisting Veterans stepped in and gave Bazin the $5,000 he needed to get his house temporarily out of 
foreclosure.
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Vietnam Helicopter Survived Being Shot Down 4 Times, Vandalized in Kansas City

Helicopter shot down 4 times in Vietnam vandalized in Kansas City
BY FOX 4 NEWSROOM
SEPTEMBER 13, 2016

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A 50-year-old helicopter that flew 3,500 hours of combat in Vietnam and was shot down four times, will need to be repaired before it can be used again at special events.

According to Arnold Swift, a Vietnam veteran who helps take the helicopter to various events, they were preparing to take the helicopter to the atrium in Overland Park for an event.

“The tow truck got here and realized that they had busted out the chin bubble, the side window and the back window and vandalized stuff inside the helicopter,” said Swift.

“It didn’t make any sense because all they got away with was a flight uniform, a Vietnam era flight uniform and a pair of combat boots and one other boot,” he said. “It doesn’t make sense because we’ve got mock-up weapons and everything in there that weren’t even touched.”
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Dying Wish of Vietnam Veteran, Fix the VA

Vietnam veteran's dying wish: Improve VA healthcare
Hawaii News Now
By Mileka Lincoln, Reporter
September 14th 2016

Hall was one of more than 4,300 veterans receiving VA care on the Big Island, where there are only four VA doctors.

KALAPANA, BIG ISLAND (HawaiiNewsNow) - Sixty-eight-year-old Roy Hall was holding his wife Edy's hand when he passed away on Saturday.

The combat-wounded Vietnam veteran and forever Marine died exactly one month after he was diagnosed with lung cancer at a Hilo emergency room.

Hall was a long-time U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs patient who claims his VA doctor missed the diagnosis -- and by the time someone else caught it, it was terminal.

Hall was one of more than 4,300 veterans receiving VA care on the Big Island, where there are only four VA doctors.

"I wish I would've gotten killed in Vietnam," Hall said, from his death bed. "Then I wouldn't have to go through this. I f***ing hate it."

In Hall's final days, it was his dying wish to share his story with others in hopes it could lead to improved health care for all service members.

His wife Edy, a veteran herself who served in the Air Force and beat both breast and colon cancer, calls it her husband's final mission.

In August 2014, Roy says he went to the Hilo VA primary care clinic seeking treatment for debilitating back pain.

Over the next two and a half years, Roy and Edy Hall say his physician repeatedly prescribed him pain pills and referred him to his VA psychiatrist for management of his PTSD.

"Eight months ago he started slowing down," Edy Hall said. "The pain was getting worse and worse. He didn't want to go back to the doctor because he kept telling him it was his PTSD or he was surfing too much, instead of even doing just an x-ray. Then he started losing weight like crazy. And then he even said, 'I think I have cancer.'"
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