Former Marine asks for help to repair fellow veteran's dilapidated home
WMTW ABC 8 News
Victoria Ottomanelli
July 23, 2018
A former Marine asked the community of Fort Smith, Arkansas, to help out a Vietnam veteran in need of a new home.
James "Skip" Hampton has been living in his home in Fort Smith since 1962, but has no physical or financial means to fix the bathroom plagued by mold, install central air conditioning or fix any other issues that make it difficult for him to enjoy a good quality of life in his own home.
Alejandro Cardenas, a former Marine and fellow veteran, found out what Hampton was going through while he was on the job restoring houses. After seeing the state of Hampton's house, Cardenas immediately wanted to do something about it but knew he couldn't do it alone.
When he asked people to donate supplies and volunteer to help work on Hampton's house, hundreds of messages began pouring in from people inside and outside of the local community alike. The original plan was to just fix the bathroom, but with the help of everyone involved, the volunteer team decided to remodel the entire house.
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Family searches for answers after Army vet with PTSD vanishes
FOX 19 News
By Amber Jayanth, Reporter
July 24th 2018
Since his absence, the family lost their home and Isabella now has to work to help support her mother and other four children.
GREENFIELD, OH (FOX19)
A Greenfield Army veteran has been missing for nearly three months.
Now, his family is desperate for answers and hopes to bring him home.
The family tells us Harold Willis, who goes by the name Henry, lives in Greenfield but works in Hillsboro.
He never made it home May 3.
Melissa Willis just gave birth to her daughter Journey 10 days ago, but there wasn't much of a celebration because her husband and Journey's father and remains missing.
"He would have definitely been there," she said. "He never missed a birthday, never missed a holiday, He was always there. Always provided. He was a really good man."
Her husband of 18 years never would have missed the birth of their child.
Now, each day that he is gone breaks her heart a little bit more.
His oldest daughter, Isabella Willis, said he was last seen leaving his construction job in Hillsboro.
"He said he was coming home from a friend's house and he never made it home that night and he never picked up his check," she said.
Since his absence, the family lost their home and Isabella now has to work to help support her mother and other four children.
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Four fricken decades of PTSD and this is the best we got?
Combat PTSD Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
July 24, 2018
It is very hard to not be in a very bad mood today. We went out for dinner and I had a huge glass of wine. No margarita tonight since I have to get up at 3:45 for work. Hangovers are always bad but way, way too bad at that time.
I came home, feeling a bit more positive than I was before the wine and a great steak dinner at Texas Roadhouse (one of our favorites) until I saw more emails with the same theme we should have eliminated years ago.
The going trend is the stigma of PTSD is alive and well, while far too many are not.
I read this out of Canada and wondered if it was too early to go to bed.
Family angry top general rejected stigma as factor in RMC student's suicide on The Canadian Press, JULY 24, 2018
In an interview with The Canadian Press, Kelertas said the version provided to his family specifically identified stigma as a key factor in what happened to Harrison, who died only weeks before he was scheduled to graduate from RMC.
OTTAWA — The father of a Royal Military College student who took his own life says the family is upset that Canada's top general rejected a board of inquiry's finding that stigma around seeking mental-health support was a contributing factor in the death.
Richard Kelertas says Gen. Jonathan Vance's response suggests there is a "disconnect" between senior officers and other Forces members, including RMC students, who remain fearful of what could happen to their careers if they ask for help. (click link for more)
The truth is, it is not just Canada, or the UK, or Australia, or the USA. It is everywhere, because common sense has left the military behind in every nation.
Anyone still approving of, pushing the theory of, or using it for whatever reason they have, are complete total imbeciles!
Psychology. (no longer in technical use; now considered offensive) a person of the second order in a former and discarded classification of mental retardation, above the level of idiocy, having a mental age of seven or eight years and an intelligence quotient of 25 to 50.
If you find it offensive, then you must be among those who refuse to learn anything after 4 fricken decades of some of the best minds clarifying it!
We know that anyone who survives a life threatening event can get hit by PTSD.
How common is PTSD?
An estimated 7.8 percent of Americans will experience PTSD at some point in their lives, with women (10.4%) twice as likely as men (5%) to develop PTSD. About 3.6 percent of U.S. adults aged 18 to 54 (5.2 million people) have PTSD during the course of a given year. This represents a small portion of those who have experienced at least one traumatic event; 60.7% of men and 51.2% of women reported at least one traumatic event. The traumatic events most often associated with PTSD for men are rape, combat exposure, childhood neglect, and childhood physical abuse. The most traumatic events for women are rape, sexual molestation, physical attack, being threatened with a weapon, and childhood physical abuse.
About 30 percent of the men and women who have spent time in war zones experience PTSD. An additional 20 to 25 percent have had partial PTSD at some point in their lives. More than half of all male Vietnam veterans and almost half of all female Vietnam veterans have experienced “clinically serious stress reaction symptoms.” PTSD has also been detected among veterans of other wars. Estimates of PTSD from the Gulf War are as high as 10%. Estimates from the war in Afghanistan are between 6 and 11%. Current estimates of PTSD in military personnel who served in Iraq range from 12% to 20%.
If there is a "stigma" then it is for all those people. If there is a stigma for anyone who willingly puts their lives on the line subjecting themselves beyond what average people go through, then it is not backed up by any thinking-rational human!
If anyone is prevented from asking for help to heal as a survivor, especially those who make facing events a career choice, then the leaders at the top are in fact responsible for it!
If they think so less of their own people, we need to wonder what they think of us. Considering they come to rescue us but won't bother to rescue their own people, they must really think we do not deserve help either.
If you have not guessed already, I think I need another glass of wine! This has been one pathetic day and it isn't even Monday! It just feels like it!
A reporter with the Sun Herald out of North Carolina had chosen a headline that should fall under "fake news" but what can we expect?
20 veterans kill themselves every day. Suicide prevention is now VA’s No. 1 priority. by Matt Goad. I couldn't help it! I couldn't stop myself, not that I really wanted to. The thing is, are we really trying to save their lives or push a "feel better" story? I sent him an email but I bet he'll be like the others and just ignore it.
Did you bother to actually research any of this? You used the slogan from the VA but did not know it was 20 a day back in 1999 when there were over 5 million more veterans living at the time? Did you know that the first suicide prevention bill was passed in 2007?
The DOD and the VA have been saying a hell of a lot of things but the end results is, veterans are still ending their lives because coming home is still harder than combat!
OMG! Will you guys ever take this seriously?
Ya I know, shame on me for bothering to contact yet another reporter who did not do any basic research on this story.
Suicide prevention is now the VA’s highest priority among the nation’s 20 million veterans, 2 million of them women, according to a VA National Suicide Data Report released last month.
And maybe if reporters had paid attention when our generations was suffering the same way, then maybe we wouldn't be talking about what failed our veterans.
Just so you understand that ripping off people while claiming to be helping veterans is hurting them far beyond the ones who get caught. It is people like me who end up walking away because they cannot afford to operate anymore.
It is embarrassing to file my forms for Florida, since the IRS does not need a bottom line when you make basically nothing. Florida needs financial statements. Last year I lost over $3,000. I took in a whopping $120 for work I do 45 hours a week, with three books, over 300 videos and God knows how many posts done last year.
Most of my work is done on the phone, actually talking to veterans and families, or online. Most of the money I lost was for the cell phone.
OK, so, now maybe you get a better understanding how these people make millions for using veterans instead of helping them, and the ones actually helping, end up giving up.
We end up trapped behind the flood of fools screaming about veterans committing suicide, taking in millions and having fun pulling stunts while veterans lose hope.
They cannot find us on Facebook or other social media sites because everyone is sharing the rumor while ignoring the end result.
Anyway, had to get that off my chest. I have a full time job so, I can afford to do what I do. That is why it is so repulsive when people make it their full time job to rip off people by using veterans.
Fake veterans charity collected millions in donations from Ohioans
Springfield News Sun
By Max Filby - Staff Writer
July 23, 2018
One local nonprofit that has been impacted by misleading veterans charities is the Miami Valley Military Museum on the grounds of the VA Medical Center in Dayton.
WWII artifacts, including a Japanese helmet, lower right, at the Miami Valley Military History Museum located in Building 120 on the Dayton Veterans Administration campus. TY GREENLEES / STAFF
A government watchdog and six state attorneys general are taking aim at fake veterans charities, including one that collected more than $11 million from Ohioans from 2014 to 2016.
A Florida-based nonprofit called “Help The Vets” was recently found to have spent less than five percent of donations on charity, with the other 95 percent going to the group’s founder and paid fundraisers, according to the Ohio Attorney General’s Office.
Now, the fraudulent charity is one of several that finds itself in the crosshairs of the Federal Trade Commission and the state attorneys general of Ohio, Florida, California, Maryland, Minnesota and Oregon. The FTC and the six attorneys general have launched a campaign called “Operation Donate with Honor” to combat giving to charities falsely claiming to be helping veterans and members of the military.
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