Jasper family mourns loss of Vietnam War Vet from chemical warfare
KBMT
Juan Rodriguez
April 8, 2017
JASPER - The chemical attack in Syria hits too close to home for one Jasper family.
The Chenyworth’s are preparing to say goodbye to their beloved husband and father, who died after decades of fighting the deadly Agent Orange chemical.
“I would love to hear him call me one more time, I spent my first time alone last night,” says Connie Chenyworth, wife of the Vietnam Veteran Roy Chenyworth.
Tears flowing down at a flower shop, a Jasper family mourning the loss of their beloved hero.
“It's so hard, I just miss him,” Connie explains.
77-year-old Roy Chenyworth was a Vietnam Veteran, he passed away due to health complications after being exposed to the warfare chemical while overseas.
Agent Orange is a powerful mixture of chemicals used by the United States military to eliminate forest cover for troops, as well as crops used to feed them.
“Very hazardous to all the services man then were there, they have a lot of Vietnam Veterans with this even if they weren’t in direct contact or exposed,” says Stacy Hartstine, oldest daughter of the Cheney’s.
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VIDEO: Vietnam veteran fires shot at thieves breaking into American Legion Post
FOX 8 News Cleveland
BY JACK SHEA
APRIL 6, 2017
The burglars had a good working knowledge of the building and thought they were cutting the wires to the security system, but it turns out the new system is wireless.
WAYNE COUNTY, Ohio -- A couple of burglars pick the wrong place to break into.
A Wayne County sheriff's deputy, responding to an alarm early Wednesday morning at The American Legion Post outside Wooster, meets 76-year-old Don Bertsch, a Vietnam veteran, who is the financial officer for the post.
The two men search the building and eventually work their way up to the second floor where Bertsch, who has a conceal carry permit, encounters two men inside an office they have broken into.
"Came face to face with a guy in a ski mask and he hollered at me 'don't shoot' and tried to push the door shut and I could see another individual in there with them and I pulled my gun out," Bertsch said.
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Marine veteran helps other vets with PTSD through his charities
NBC 26 News
Marisa DeCandido
Apr 6, 2017
WHITE LAKE, Wis. - A Marine veteran in Wisconsin is helping vets across the country overcome their PTSD through his multiple charities.
Karl Klimes owns Moo-Lon Labe Home for Veterans and Semper Fi farms.
Part of his work involves breeding German Shepherds, donating them to military veterans with PTSD. Right now, he has four puppies he's looking to donate to veterans in need of a service dog. One of those dogs is already heading to a veteran in Georgia.
Klimes said his service dog has helped him through his own struggles after deployment.
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Veterans Administration wastes money by leaving equipment at abandoned hospital
Cleveland 19 News
Posted by Paul Orlousky, Reporter
Friday, April 7th 2017
Troubling to safety officials is an alarm sounding, no one ever to respond. A clock still ticking, and oddly in several locations lights still on. It gets worse.
BRECKSVILLE, OH (WOIO)
A Cleveland 19 investigation by reporter Paul Orlousky has found that thousands of usable items were left behind when the Brecksville Veterans Hospital
was closed in 2011. A group of urban explorers tried doors at the Brecksville VA Hospital and got inside. We found an internet link to their exploits. They did not act at our direction or with our knowledge, and their entrance was illegal. Still, what they recorded is extraordinary.
Wheel chairs weren't taken to the expanded Stokes VA Hospital. The abandoned basketball court houses desk chairs, lobby chairs, you name it, some in pristine condition. On the video, one of the explorers is heard saying "How many hospitals can you say have a movie theater, a bowling alley, a church." It is no exaggeration.
There is a six lane bowling alley. By today’s standards, possibly dated equipment, but wouldn't some commercial lane want the parts of the Brunswick pin setters. Elsewhere, bowling balls simply left, along with shoes in every size. What appears to be a multi denominational chapel sits abandoned. The stained glass pristine. The pews the same. In the theatre, there are the audience seats and much more. The projection equipment was left in place. An audio board left in place. And stage lighting that any school would love left hanging in place above a stage never to be used again. There is a perfectly good pool table, abandoned in a recreation room. Bingo signs and equipment also left there. Expensive cafeteria fixtures sit idle. Same with the barbershop, another restaurant, and even the morgue refrigeration and autopsy equipment.
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Cleveland 19 News Cleveland, OH
Residual War Horrors and Neglected Heroes
Residual War
Kathie Costos
April 8, 2017
On Combat PTSD Wounded Times there are over 27,000 articles spanning nearly 10 years of news and government reports on what our heroes have to go through for our sake. They tell of the price men and women pay for doing what they believe in doing.
Oh, sure, we can boil it all down to being a patriot and doing it because freedom isn't free, but then you'd have to get into the reasons behind sending them into combat. The purest reason they have to risk their lives, is also what cuts them the deepest. They risk their lives for those they are with.
War is often a wrong choice made by those who do not have to go. But those who go make the choice to be willing to die for the sake of their combat family members. Yes, family.
Think of what you'd do for your own family and then maybe you'll be able to understand how devoted they are to each other. That bond adds to what they face afterwards. That bond is what makes being out of combat more dangerous than being in it for them.
In combat, the concern of the threat of death is not about their own lives. It is about the others. After combat, when it is about what the risk did to them, they run out of reasons to stay alive for.
"Life is like a movie, write your own ending. Keep believing, keep pretending." Jim Henson
Residual War is out of my own brain but it is based on real accounts from heroes trying to recover from what we asked them to do. Wow, bet that hit you like a sledgehammer.
I envisioned a world where wounded soldiers were sent into a healing unit instead of being cast out of the military after it all cut too deeply into their soul. Fort Christmas was a place where they would stop risking their lives and start simply risking their pride, asking for help and getting it.
The accounts of what placed them in jeopardy are based on what has happened to many different generations of soldiers and woven into a tale of what can happen...or should I say, what should happen.
It should have happened to someone like Tech. Sgt Steven Bellino in the following report, but it didn't.
Audio recordings, military records, an Air Force psychiatric evaluation, and a timeline Bellino made of key events in his life — most provided to the San Antonio Express-News by his family — show Bellino dealt with steadily worsening symptoms of post traumatic stress disorder as he struggled to change careers after a stellar record throughout multiple Army deployments and CIA contract work in Afghanistan and Iraq.
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