Inspirational Five Year Old Cares For Homeless Veterans

5-Year-Old Makes Care Bags For Homeless Baltimore Veterans

CBS Baltimmore
By Mike Schuh
August 3, 2017

“Almost everybody in our family is a veteran,” he says. Including his grandfather, Alfred Blackstone.

BALTIMORE (WJZ) — In the age of social media, it’s easier than ever to be exposed the world’s problems, even if it’s not an issue that affects you directly.

That’s what happened to 5-year-old Tyler Stallings.

“Well, I saw a YouTube video, and I thought it wasn’t right,” he says. That video was about veteran homelessness.

On any given night in the U.S., it is estimated that some 200,000 veterans call the streets home.

Those facts got Tyler thinking, which is why when WJZ’s Mike Schuh visited him, Tyler was strapped into a seat in the back of his mom’s car navigating rush hour traffic in downtown Baltimore.

“We are headed to the Community Resource and Referral Center,” says his mom, Andrea Blackstone.

It’s a place most 5-year-olds will never see, where homeless vets can get help from the VA.

Tyler and Andrea were loaded up with bags and backpacks filled with the stuff homeless veterans need to survive on the streets.
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Florida Disabled Vietnam Veteran and Family Need Help Now

Disabled veteran, family say movers ‘showed up' with no notice to evict them from St. Cloud home

WTFV 9 NEWS

A veteran’s advocate stopped by the home  and has put Malave, who is a Vietnam veteran with severe nerve damage, into a program to help find his family a new home.

ST. CLOUD, Fla. - For four years, Robert Malave says he has rented his home in St. Cloud without a problem.

That changed Thursday when movers and a realtor showed up, tore the locks off and started throwing his family’s belongings on the front lawn, Malave said.

“They savagely came in here, like we were being robbed, just throwing stuff,” Malave’s daughter Stephanie said.

The property had recently gone into foreclosure and the new owner was trying to evict the family without the 30-day notice required by Florida law, Malave said.

His wife rushed home from work when she heard what was happening and had to be taken to the hospital after she collapsed from the stress, Malave said.

“All I was thinking about was them, my daughters and my granddaughter, and now my wife is lying in the hospital,” he said, crying. “I don’t even know how she’s doing right now.”

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Agent Orange List May Grow by 14 More Diseases

The VA ties 14 diseases to Agent Orange. It will decide whether to add more by Nov. 1

The News Tribune
BY TOM PHILPOTT
Military Update
AUGUST 03, 2017

VA Secretary David J. Shulkin will decide “on or before” Nov. 1 whether to add to the list of medical conditions the Department of Veteran Affairs presumes are associated to Agent Orange or other herbicides sprayed during the Vietnam War, a department spokesman said Tuesday in response to our inquiry.

Any ailments Shulkin might add to VA’s list of 14 “presumptive diseases” linked to herbicide exposure would make many more thousands of Vietnam War veterans eligible for VA disability compensation and health care.

Ailments under review as possible adds to the presumptive diseases list include bladder cancer, hypothyroidism and Parkinson-like symptoms without diagnosis of that particular disease. But hypertension (high blood pressure) and stroke also might be embraced, or ignored, as part of the current review.

The process was sparked by the Institute of Medicine’s 10th and final review of medical literature on health effects of herbicide exposure in Vietnam. The 1,100-page report concluded in March 2016 that recent scientific research strengthened the association between herbicide exposure and bladder cancer, hypothyroidism and Parkinson-like symptoms. Specifically, the institute, or IOM, found “limited or suggestive” evidence of an association to herbicide versus its previous finding of “inadequate or insufficient” evidence of an association.

The IOM report also reaffirmed from earlier reviews “limited or suggestive evidence” of an association between herbicide sprayed in Vietnam and hypertension and strokes. That same level of evidence was used in 2010 by then-VA Secretary Eric Shinseki to add ischemic heart disease and Parkinson’s disease to the Agent Orange presumptive list. Shinseki had stronger evidence, an IOM finding of “positive association” to herbicide for chronic lymphocytic leukemia, which he also added to the list that year.
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Florida Veterans At 1.55 Million

Senate OKs seven new VA medical facilities for Florida

Miami Herald

Daniel Chang

August 2, 2017

Florida’s veteran population ranks third in the nation, with an estimated 1.55 million vets in 2015, including 715,000 who were enrolled in the VA Healthcare System, according to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

Florida veterans will have more medical centers at which to receive mental health and outpatient services after the U.S. Senate late Tuesday unanimously approved legislation authorizing seven new major VA medical facilities in the state.

The new Florida VA facilities will be in Daytona Beach, Jacksonville, Ocala, Tampa, Lakeland and two in Gainesville, according to a written statement from U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Florida, who co-sponsored legislation authorizing the new facilities.

“We have a duty to care for the brave men and women who have served in our nation’s military,” Nelson said. “Getting these seven new VA clinics opened here in Florida will make it easier for some of our veterans to access the care that they need.”

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Texas Veteran of WWII and Korea Receive Awards At Age 90!

90-year-old WWII, Korean War veteran awarded 8 medals during ceremony in San Antonio

News 4 San Antonio 
by SBG San Antonio 
August 2nd 2017

WWII, Korean War veteran Petty Officer Raul de la Garza awarded eight medals during ceremony in San Antonio (SBG San Antonio)

SAN ANTONIO — A 90-year-old man who served in World War II and the Korean War was honored during a ceremony in San Antonio Wednesday. 

Petty Officer De La Garza was awarded eight awards during the ceremony: the Navy Combat Action Ribbon, the China Service Medal, the American Campaign Medal, the Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal with Three Bronze Service Stars, the Navy Occupation Service Medal with an Asia clasp, the World War II Victory Medal, the Honorable Service Lapel Button for World War II, and the Navy Honorable Discharge Button. 
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