Deadly military plane crash on Savannah, Georgia, road - live updates
CBS News
May 2, 2018
SAVANNAH, Ga. -- An Air National Guard C-130 cargo plane on a training mission crashed Wednesday along a road near a Georgia airport, killing at least five National Guard members from Puerto Rico, authorities said. Black smoke rose into the sky from a section of the plane that appeared to have crashed into a median on the road.
Firefighters later put out the blaze.
Capt. Jeff Bezore, a spokesman for the Georgia Air National Guard's 165th Air Wing, said the crash killed at least five people. He said he couldn't say how many people in total were on the plane when it crashed around 11:30 a.m.
Bezore said in a statement that the identities of those on the plane would be released upon notification of their next of kin.
The Air Force said the plane belonged to the 156th Air Wing out of Puerto Rico, and Puerto Rico National Guard Spokesman Maj. Paul Dahlen told The Associated Press that all those aboard were Puerto Ricans who had recently left the U.S. territory for a mission on the U.S. mainland.
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VA payments to wrongly charged veterans begin; Up to 1.3 million veterans eligible
Cherokee Tribune and Ledger News
Thomas Hartwell
May 1, 2018
According to Jim Lindenmayer, director of the Cherokee County Homeless Veterans Program and American Legion 9th District service officer, at least 750,000 veterans who received emergency care from non-VA medical centers and were billed through Medicare Part A or other insurance programs are eligible for reimbursement. He said there may be up to 1.3 million veterans affected by the Staab case going back several years.
BALL GROUND – After a three-judge panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims ruled unanimously last year that the Department of Veterans Affairs wrongly charged VA-enrolled veterans millions in emergency medical bills, the government entity has begun to pay partial claims. Local veteran advocates say there are many Cherokee veterans who could be eligible for reimbursement.
The VA lost its fight in the Staab vs. Shulkin case (originally filed as Staab vs. McDonald) in April 2016. Air Force veteran Richard Staab served from 1952-1956 and was forced to use non-VA emergency care in 2010 when he had a heart attack and underwent open heart surgery. Medicare covered a portion of his $48,000 bill, but the VA medical center in St. Cloud, Minnesota denied his request for the reimbursement of the remainder. Staab filed a notice of disagreement in May 2012.
Until January the appeals court decision benefitted only Staab, but the VA has since revised a rule that allows payment of hundreds of thousands of claims like Staab’s.
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Airman intervenes after Reddit post, saves life of suicidal Air Force member
STARS AND STRIPES
By CHAD GARLAND
Published: May 1, 2018
In Georgia, the airman’s spouse and command thanked Woomer and Collins for intervening. Had they not stepped in, officials said, the airman could have left behind a spouse and two children under the age of 10.
Telephone number of the Veteran's Crisis Line is shown on this tag. The intervention of a rookie Office of Special Investigations officer on Reddit last week may have saved an airman's life.
PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY ZACHARY HADA/U.S. AIR FORCE
Online commenters worried about privacy might not like the idea of special agents among readers in online forums, but last week an Office of Special Investigations rookie on Reddit may have saved a fellow airman’s life after noticing signs of distress in a message board frequented by airmen.
On the social media site’s section for the Air Force, Senior Airman Charles Woomer noticed a subtle cry for help among posts complaining about LeaveWeb and inquiring about making the transition to the Guard and Reserve. Others did, too, according to an OSI statement issued Friday, but Woomer took action.
A poster asked how his group life insurance policy would pay out if “something” happened before he separated from the military. The person — he would turn out to be a suicidal husband and father — wanted to make sure his family would be comfortable.
Woomer, a special agent with the Air Force Office of Special Investigations Detachment 322 at Fairchild Air Force Base, Wash., was one of several “Redditors” who noticed a worrisome tone in the post. He notified his leadership, and with guidance from Senior Airman Justin Collins, he contacted officials with Reddit and Google to identify the original poster.
“These people literally saved my life this week,” wrote the user, who goes by the handle psychopete. “Today I scheduled myself for therapy and I’m active in an online support group at least until my first session. I won the battle and I’m prepped for war. I’m gonna make it.”
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See tearful moment Florida officer signs off for retirement after 30 years
ABC News
By KARMA ALLEN
Apr 30, 2018
The cameras were rolling over the weekend as a veteran Florida police officer broke into tears while finishing the last patrol before his retirement.
Officer Andre Jenkins, a 30-year veteran with the Sarasota Police Department in central Florida, got emotional on Saturday as he sent the last "10-7," out of service message, of his long career in law enforcement, according to video released by the department.
“This will be my last transmission on the radio,” Jenkins says, while sitting in the driver’s seat of a police cruiser. “I’d like to thank all my SPD family for the last 30 years of being by my side.
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First, weapons are not allowed on VA property. Do not try to take them with you. The veteran in the following report pulled out a knife and a security guard shot him.
The biggest thing to take away from this report is for all the "help" out there, it is mostly too little, too late, because no one cared enough to make sure veterans did not find coming home, harder than combat.
None of this is new and that is the most depressing part of all. Anyone in Congress have an answer for what they failed to do, or are they still too busy talking about sending our veterans into the same mess everyone else has to settle for?
This is what mental health is like for civilians in crisis.
A viral video from Baltimore is drawing attention to a crisis that's unfolding in emergency rooms across the country: Surging numbers of patients with psychiatric conditions aren't receiving the care they need.
On a cold night in January, a man walking by a downtown Baltimore hospital saw something that shocked him. He started recording the incident on his phone.
Imamu Baraka's video, which has been viewed more than 3 million times, shows security guards walking away from a bus stop next to the emergency room of University of Maryland Medical Center Midtown Campus.
And now what happened to the veteran who sits in jail.
Father of Army vet shot at Oregon VA clinic feels betrayed
ASSOCIATED PRESS SALEM, Ore.
By ANDREW SELSKY
Apr 30, 2018
Brent Brooks, who served with Negrete in the 10th Mountain Division, said he was a "really driven, goal-oriented" soldier. Their unit maintained Kiowa helicopters and sometimes came under mortar fire. In Afghanistan, their second deployment, a mortar round tore apart a wooden shack 20 yards (meters) from their own, wounding all the soldiers inside, Brooks said.
In this undated photo provided by Alyss Negrete, she poses with her with husband, Gilbert "Matt" Negrete and their children, from left, Aubree, Mya and Camren. Negrete, an Army veteran who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, is in jail awaiting trial for attempted assault and other crimes after he allegedly pulled a knife during an altercation with veteran clinic staffers in January 2018, in White City, Ore. (Courtesy of Alyss Negrete via AP)
The father of a veteran with post-traumatic stress disorder who was shot at a government clinic in Oregon blames Veterans Affairs for letting down his son.
Gilbert "Matt" Negrete, who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, is in jail in the former timber town of Medford, charged with attempted assault and other crimes after he allegedly displayed a knife during a confrontation at the VA clinic in nearby White City on Jan. 25. A VA guard shot him in the chest.
"First they shoot him, now they're gonna try to put him away," his father, Gilbert Negrete, told The Associated Press in a Facebook message. "You would think they would have some concern about us. My son needs help not prison."
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