Double Amputee Knows No Limits For Life Ahead

‘I was the one screaming’ 
Northwest Florida Daily News 
By Heather Osbourne 
Posted Jul 4, 2017

“I’ve had veterans come up to me and say, ‘Because of you, I didn’t go home and eat a bullet,’ ” Dague said. “It doesn’t matter who you are, that resonates with you.”

Mary Dague talk about the blast which took both her arms when she was serving as an Navy EOD technician in Iraq in 2007. At right is Dague's husband James Cribbett. Devon Ravine/Daily News

Purple Heart recipient and double-arm amputee Mary Dague said a person’s life can drastically change in the time it takes for a bomb to detonate.

Purple Heart recipient Mary Dague said a person’s life can drastically change in the time it takes for a bomb to detonate. The 32-year-old with rainbow hair and a spunky personality spoke from experience as she recently sat in her Niceville home — and played video games with her toes.

Dague, a former Navy Explosive Ordinance technician, is a double-arm amputee. For the past 10 years, she has dedicated her life to helping combat wounded veterans’ suicidal thoughts and depression by using a combined method of dark humor and her own personal testament.
read more here and great video interview too!

Marine Veteran Left in Road After Hit and Run

Waco: Car involved in hit-and-run that injured Marine veteran found
KWTX News
By John Carroll
Posted: Jul 03, 2017

WACO, Texas (KWTX) A Marine veteran who was seriously injured when a car whose driver did not stop hit his Harley Davidson motorcycle says he’s been told the vehicle involved in the hit-and-run has been found.

“The police believe that they have the vehicle in custody, so I think we're headed down the right road for an arrest,” Boone Barott, 45, of Riesel, said Monday.

“I’m still disappointed that nobody has come forward.”

Barott, the vice president of the Elm Mott American Legion 121 riding group, is recovering at home after suffering a broken pelvis and severe cuts and bruises in the June 25 hit-and-run on the Interstate 35 access road near the Texas Department of Transportation Office in Waco.
read more here

Vietnam Veteran Saluted Lonely Hearse Carrying Veteran

Fairfield man salutes solitary veteran on way to cemetery
Daily Republic
By Todd R. Hansen
July 04, 2017


“And I don’t know what made me do what I did next. But I was thinking he was a veteran and alone, and that’s just wrong,” Cobb said.

Vietnam veteran Mike Cobb.

(Aaron Rosenblatt/Daily Republic)

DIXON — For U.S. military veterans, especially for those who served in combat, patriotic markers are not just dates on the calendar.

In fact, Vietnam veteran Mike Cobb, who served in the U.S. Army infantry, much of his time as a tunnel rat, is not likely to be seen at any of the special holiday services.

“I’m not ready to go to those things. There are a couple of friends from Fairfield who died (in Vietnam). I’m not ready,” said Cobb, who was in country in 1969-70.

So a week after Memorial Day, and less than a month before the Fourth of July, Cobb found himself honoring someone who had served his country on a day that had no commemorative significance.

Cobb was returning from Sacramento on June 7 and came upon a solitary hearse on Interstate 80.

“As I passed it, I noticed a coffin with a flag on it, so I knew it was a veteran,” said Cobb, 67, a Texas native who has lived most of his life in Fairfield. “But there was no procession behind it . . . and (the hearse) was going about 65 mph, and that’s just not a funeral.”

So Cobb sped up ahead of the hearse and pulled off at Midway Road, and waited. And when the hearse pulled off, too, stopping at the stop sign, Cobb drew to attention and saluted the veteran en route to his final resting place.

Cobb said the hearse driver sat there for 10 minutes or so before driving on.
read more here

Helping DAV Gives Veteran Reason to Get Up--All Summer Long

Vietnam Veteran spending summer raising $100,000 for disabled Nevada veterans
NBC 4 News
by Ryan Kern
July 4th 2017

"I have a reason to get up," says Greenwood. "I know, somewhere out there, there's a veteran who needs my assistance, that needs my help and I want to be there when the time comes."

RENO, Nev. (News 4 Fox 11) — A local Vietnam veteran spends his summers sitting outside in the hot sun, raising tens of thousands of dollars for disabled Nevada veterans and various veteran organizations across the region.

"Almost 20 years ago, somebody helped me out," says Veteran Frank Greenwood. "Ever since I have been paying it forward."

Frank Greenwood spends eight hours a day, seven days a week for three months out of the year selling raffle tickets in front of the Sportsman's Warehouse in Reno.

Several weapons and a Polaris UTV are available to the winning ticket holders come the end of August.

Greenwood, working with the Disabled American Veterans Reno Chapter #1, has a goal of selling $1,000 worth of raffle tickets a day, leading to a $100,000 total this summer.

read more here

Veteran Says "I think for years I didn’t really want to come back"

Some combat veterans are drawn to risk. Here's how to keep them alive and free.
USA Today
Patrick Mondaca, Opinion contributor
July 3, 2017

I was discharged from the Army in 2004 following my deployment to Iraq, and the way back has been long. I think for years I didn’t really want to come back. The military gave me a sense of belonging and purpose and normalcy that I lacked in civilian life. And I didn’t find those things again until I went to Darfur with a humanitarian group in 2007.

There need not be more senseless veteran deaths or captivities in war-torn countries. The time has come to think outside the traditional.

Austin Tice was a former Marine Corps captain and veteran of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan who left for Syria prior to completing his final year of Georgetown Law School. Tice was captured by unknown armed actors in Syria while working as a freelance journalist in August 2012. He remains in captivity to this day.

Peter Kassig, a former Army Ranger and veteran of the Iraq War, was captured in Syria in 2013 and executed a year later by ISIS militants. Kassig had founded the nongovernmental organization Special Emergency Response and Assistance to help aid refugees in Syria and Lebanon in 2012.

I’ve often wondered what compels veterans like Tice and Kassig to take such risks in their post-war lives. T.E. Lawrence (of Arabia) spoke of his own fondness for risk-taking in a letter to a friend just 15 days before dying in a motorcycle wreck. “In speed we hurl ourselves beyond the body,” he wrote. “Our bodies cannot scale the heavens except in a fume of petrol. Bones, blood, flesh, all pressed inward together.”

read more here