Founder of Oklahoma’s Vietnam Veterans Memorial dies two days before Christmas
KOCO 5 News
Paul Folger
December 29, 2017
“He realized there was no place for Vietnam veterans to feel welcome,” Mullings’ son, Jamey McCLaine Mullings, said.
OKLAHOMA CITY —
It was a sad day for Vietnam veterans in Oklahoma. The founder and creator of the Vietnam Veteran's Wall has died.
Family and friends said goodbye Thursday to James Michael Mullings, remembering him for the honor he gave to our heroes who served.
The Vietnam Veterans Memorial sits just beyond our state capitol. It was created by Mullings, who served in Vietnam himself. The 71-year-old died just two days before Christmas, which was also his birthday. But the legacy of this wall is one everyone can visit.
“He felt very, very called to provide a memorial here because most Oklahomans might not have the opportunity to go to Washington D.C.” Teese Mullings, James Mullings’ wife, said.
Mullings worked with leaders from Washington and our state and came up with the memorial because he knew Vietnam veterans needed the place.
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Air Force Medical Technician Saves Airborne Heart Attack Victim
Department of Defense
By Air Force Staff Sgt. Franklin R. Ramos, 51st Fighter Wing
Dec. 29, 2017
OSAN AIR BASE, South Korea
After visiting family in Santa Ana, California, Air Force Staff Sgt. Cassidy McCurdy, an independent duty medical technician with the 51st Medical Group here, was heading back to his base on a connecting flight from San Francisco to Seattle, when things took an unexpected turn.
Independent Medical Duty Technician Air Force Staff Sgt. Cassidy McCurdy, an independent medical duty technician with the 51st Medical Group, poses for a photo at Osan Air Base, South Korea, Dec. 21, 2017. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Franklin R. Ramos
“I was taking a nap and there was some commotion going on in the back [of the aircraft],” McCurdy recalled. “Then the [flight attendants] asked if there was a doctor or emergency medical technician onboard.”
McCurdy sprung to action to assess the situation.
“I got up and there was a woman in cardiac arrest,” McCurdy said. “There were no other medics around [at the moment] and she didn’t have a pulse, so I started to do chest compressions. I just completely reacted and did everything I’ve been trained to do through the emergency medicine protocols that we do. It was the first time I had to 100-percent rely on myself to know what to do [in a cardiac arrest situation].”
It took around two minutes of cardiopulmonary resuscitation for the victim to gain consciousness.
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Iraq Veteran Betrayed by Church Over PTSD?
Combat PTSD Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
December 29, 2017
Most of my life has been dedicated to veterans and PTSD. For over 3 decades, every true expert on PTSD has said that spiritual healing is vital, especially when the person afflicted by it, came with their job.
It takes a very special person with a strong emotional core to not just do their jobs, but even think they should do them in the first place.
They are pulled to do them. Knowing all the hardships, as well as the risks, did not stop them from putting their lives on the line for someone else.
That is how much life mattered to them. Rev. Robert Repenning knows what that is like. He also served as an Army Chaplain in Iraq. He spoke about God's love and he showed the compassion of Christ as well as what courage is like on behalf of the Church. Too bad the Catholic Church did not notice faith was spread by people just like him when Jesus sent out the 12 others.
"As you go, proclaim this message: ‘The kingdom of heaven has come near.’ Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons. Freely you have received; freely give." Matthew 10:7-8
At least that is the way I thought it was supposed to be. How can the church, or any house of worship claim they care when they refuse to send someone who not only understands what our veterans are going through, but lives with it, walks the walk and still has the same connection to God?
Why is it they were so ready to turn their backs on this veteran when so many others should be welcomed into the healing power of God's love?
I am with Point Man International Ministries because they believe as I do. They go out and minister to those in need of healing, just as Christ said it should be done.
To think that this message has been sent out to all those who put their lives on the line for the sake of others, proving the greatest level of love their is, a betrayal of the mission they took an oath to fulfill.
The topper in all of this is, he is fighting to stay in the church and continue to minister to Catholics instead of walking away to go to another denomination that will not just welcome him, but value the help and hope he can offer so many veterans.
Unassigned priest with PTSD finds 'peace amidst the storms'
Poughkeepsie Journal
Nina Schultzman
December 29, 2017
"The faith talks about mercy. The faith talks about compassion. The faith talks abut the sanctity of every human person. What is the Archdiocese saying by treating someone with a disability this way? They are not living up to the gospels." Rev. Robert Repenning
Meanwhile, "if I defend myself, they say I'm attacking the archdiocese," Repenning added.
For the past 18 months, the Rev. Robert Repenning has had no church to call home, no parish to serve.
"In a spiritual sense, it's devastating not to have an assignment," said Repenning, a longtime local Roman Catholic priest and former Army chaplain, who served in the Iraq War. "I want to be in a parish."
Repenning, 45, says the archdiocese has discriminated against him as a disabled veteran because of the alleged severity of his Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
His contract at Holy Trinity in Poughkeepsie, which he led for a six-year term that ended on July 1, 2016, was not renewed.
Cardinal Timothy Dolan has told Repenning that he has a "grave lack of any self-awareness... that you may have deep problems," according to correspondence Repenning shared with the Journal.
It's a “moral obligation, and a fraternal desire” of Dolan's to ensure Repenning is healthy, and “to do this, we need a professional assessment best done in a residential setting," the cardinal wrote in a 2016 letter to Repenning.
Repenning has said he did not agree to seek treatment at an archdiocese-approved facility and that he's already been receiving medical care at the Castle Point branch of the Veterans Affairs Hudson Valley Health Care System.
Since his leave began, Repenning said he's had psychological and physical tests completed, and his doctors have no concerns.
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Some survivors are offered help, some deal alone with pain of military suicide
Tampa Bay Times
Howard Altman
Times staff writer
December 28, 2017
A retired deputy with the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office, she spent 15 years on the crisis negotiation team, talking people out of taking their own lives. But there was nothing she could do for her son.
Compounding the tragedy, she said, is that she was left to deal with it on her own. There was no help from the Marines. No casualty assistance officer. No honor guard. Nothing.
Nearly 500 troops killed themselves last year and the numbers are on pace to far exceed that in 2017. Thousands of former service members, about 20 a day in 2014, also take their own lives.
Suicide has hit home this year for some two dozen military families across Tampa Bay, including those left behind by a soldier from Tampa and by a Marine veteran — still carrying the scars of battle — from Indian Rocks.
The two men had their service in common, but the military stepped in to help ease the grief for only one of the families, pushing the other to join a cause: that no survivors of a military suicide should walk alone.
A Facebook post from Army Pfc. Matthew Forstrom left his parents horrified and helpless.
"... this isn’t anyone’s fault but my own," Forstrom wrote in a 341-word suicide note that appeared at 5:05 p.m. Dec. 4. "I only wish I had done it sooner."
Relatives of Army Pfc. Matthew Forstrom console each other near his flag draped coffin as it arrives at Tampa International Airport on Dec. 5. An Army Honor Guard received Forstrom's body during a plane-side service. [LUIS SANTANA | Times]
The words set in motion ripples of action, from the 24-year-old soldier’s base in Fort Bliss, Texas, to his home town of Tampa. The Army and local law enforcement launched a massive search effort. His mother, Pamela Andrews, who was alerted to the post by a relative, sent her son an urgent text message.
You better call me back right now.
He did, Andrews said, and the two spoke briefly.
"He just wanted to ask for my forgiveness. He was going to take one more thing from me."
For 12 agonizing hours, Andrews and Forstrom’s father, Ronald Forstrom, who was on a business trip to Indiana, waited for news.
But the Army and first responders couldn’t find their son in time.
And so on a Friday night earlier this month, relatives and friends of Forstrom’s gathered in the cellphone lot at Tampa International Airport to wait for an escort onto the tarmac so they could watch a flag-drapped coffin come off American Airlines Flight 2623.
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Homeless advocates worry about cold after man's death at bus stop
WLWT 5 News
Richard Chiles
December 27, 2017
CINCINNATI
As police confirmed the death of a homeless man at the Government Square transit center, advocates for the area's homeless population mobilized in anger and determination.
Maslow's Army, a nonprofit who worked closely with the man, identified him at Ken Martin. Although the cause of death hasn't been officially confirmed, the cold seems to have likely been a factor.
"It is heartbreaking. That's one of the reasons we are here is to prevent that from happening.
So it is always heartbreaking when someone doesn't take advantage of the space that we have to offer here and chooses to be out on the street and in the cold."
Homeless Marine veteran Tim Stockton looks at the Government Square death as a harsh reality of the bitter cold.
"This could have been me," Stockton said. "You don't leave nobody out on the streets."
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