Vietnam Veterans Shares Long Forgotten War Pictures from Cu Chi

Army veteran opens window on Vietnam War with long-forgotten photographs, on display in Lancaster County 
Lancaster Online 
By MICHAEL LONG 
Staff Editor and Writer 
7 hrs ago

The flight to Vietnam took 17 hours.

Newly minted as a U.S. Army infantryman, 24-year-old Charlie Haughey sat on a commercial airliner headed to Bien Hoa Air Base, where he would spend two weeks doing hard labor in the hot sun. The labor was to prepare him for the fresh hell that awaited him with the 25th Infantry Division in the jungles and rice paddies outside the wire at Cu Chi Base Camp.

War in Vietnam had claimed the lives of more than 11,000 American soldiers in 1967, and 1968 was shaping up to be the deadliest on record there.

read more here and see more stunning pictures

Veterans Get Burned Again By Court After Burn Pits

Court Deals Major Blow to Veterans Suing Over Burn Pits

Special to McClatchy Washington Bureau
By Patricia Kime
5 Aug 2017

"My husband is DEAD because of burn pits," Dina McKenna, whose husband, former Army Sgt. William McKenna, died in 2010 from a rare form of T-cell lymphoma after serving in Iraq, told McClatchy in an email. "I want someone to be held accountable."

A senior airman tosses unserviceable uniform items into a burn pit at Balad Air Base, Iraq, in March 2008. (US Air Force photo/Julianne Showalter)

A federal judge has dismissed a major lawsuit against a defense contractor by veterans and their family members, over burn pit operations in Iraq and Afghanistan that plaintiffs said caused them chronic and sometimes deadly respiratory diseases and cancer.

In the decision, U.S. District Court Judge Roger W. Titus wrote that the company, KBR, could not be held liable for what was essentially a military decision to use burn pits for waste disposal. Titus said holding the Pentagon responsible was outside of his jurisdiction.

"The extensive evidence ... demonstrates that the mission-critical, risk-based decisions surrounding the use and operation of open burn pits ... were made by the military as a matter of military wartime judgment," Titus wrote in an 81-page opinion.

The dismissal -- the second by Titus in the case -- deals a major blow to the more than 700 veterans, family members and former KBR employees who brought the suit.

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Accident Claimed Life of 20 Year Old Camp Pendleton Marine

Camp Pendleton Marine Killed in Accident On Base

Military.com

August 6, 2017

Camp Pendleton, Calif. - Lance Cpl. Cody J. Haley, assigned to the 1st Marine Division, was gravely injured in an accident Aug. 4 at Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton.

Haley, from Hardin, Iowa, was 20 years old.

Emergency medical personnel pronounced the Marine deceased at the site of the accident. Officials are investigating the circumstances surrounding the incident at this time.

read more here

Australia: Police Commission Says Cops Need Better Support for PTSD

Outgoing WA Police Commissioner says mentally injured cops need better support

ABC News Australia
By David Weber
August 11, 2017

"I think the second thing is being able to maintain contact with those people, and I think that part of the solution here will be the advent of workers compensation and redress for the people who haven't received it."

The WA Police Commissioner has admitted the service has not been good at identifying officers' mental health issues, and said he regrets not getting a workers compensation scheme up and running for victims in the state before leaving his post.

The union has long fought for a compensation scheme to cover medically-retired officers, who are currently dealt with under loss of confidence provisions.

Karl O'Callaghan said it had taken too long to publicly acknowledge the impact of mental health problems.

"We have not been good at acknowledging the role that mental health plays in an officer's ability to continue work," he said.

"One of the pieces of feedback we got from a lot of officers is they felt that once they weren't able to continue, that they were not part of the family.

"They were not kept in contact [with] and people didn't actually care about them.

"We could've done more to help those police officers feel like they still belonged and manage their movement out of the organisation into civilian life."

Commissioner O'Callaghan said a compensation scheme would also go some way towards assisting people forced to retire because their mental health was injured on the job.
read more here

Amputee Marine Getting Purple Truck

War hero to get gift of purple pickup
After losing legs, he helps children
Arkansas Online
By Hunter Field
This article was published today at 3:02 a.m.

FAYETTEVILLE -- Marshall Kennedy, a Marine who lost his legs when a bomb exploded beneath him six years ago in Afghanistan, cringes when he says the word "hero."

PHOTO BY SPECIAL TO THE DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE

Marshall Kennedy lost his legs when a bomb exploded six years ago in Afghanistan.

But on Wednesday afternoon, he's having to say that word over and over again inside a Fayetteville coffee shop. He's explaining the Human Exploitation Rescue Operative Child-Rescue Corps program, H.E.R.O. for short, of which he became a part after leaving the Marines.

Each time, he pauses and squirms in his seat.

"I didn't do anything special," he said, explaining his aversion to the word when talking about himself. "I just did my job. That was it."

Kennedy, 32, of Farmington will receive a hero's welcome at War Memorial Stadium in Little Rock on Saturday when the Military Order of the Purple Heart, a service organization for combat-wounded veterans, plans to give him a specially equipped Ford Raptor truck.

It's the second year the national organization has searched the country for a Purple Heart recipient to receive the modified purple truck, and the first year an Arkansan was selected. read more here