Vietnam veteran's suicide notes saving lives now

Veteran's suicide note leads to new outreach program in Wisconsin

TMJ 4 News
Rikki Mitchell, Photojournalist Justin Tiedemann
Nov 14, 2018

"His best friend Joe Tate...was asked to carry this message to other veterans so they don't have to suffer as he did," said Steven Heiges, who now leads the Captain John D. Mason Peer Outreach Program.

A new outreach program at the Medical College of Wisconsin was created and named after a veteran who lost his own battle with depression and PTSD.

The Captain John D. Mason Peer Outreach Program will help veterans connect with health care and mental health resources at the Veterans Affairs hospital.

Mason served in Vietnam and struggled silently with depression and PTSD. He never sought any treatment and in 2013, he committed suicide.

He left five suicide letters, one to his wife, one each for his two children, one for his best friend and one addressed to all of them.

His best friend Joe Tate decided to take that fifth letter and record himself reading it out loud. In the letter, Mason says he hopes his death will help other veterans struggling.

"Get me to the VA so they can stop someone else," Mason wrote. "Too late for me."

When Tate received these letters, he decided to approach the Medical College of Wisconsin with Mason's wishes.
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This is what happens when reporters run with "stuff that was made up"

GoFundMe campaign to help homeless vet was 'predicated on a lie,' prosecutor says

ABC News
By AARON KATERSKY 
BILL HUTCHINSON
Nov 15, 2018

The "heartwarming tale" of a New Jersey couple helping drug-addicted homeless veteran Johnny Bobbitt was "predicated on a lie," designed to dupe thousands of people into contributing to a GoFundMe campaign, a prosecutor said Thursday.

Bobbitt, and the couple, Kate McClure and Mark D'Amico, allegedly conspired to concoct a story to tug at the hearts and wallets of kindhearted individuals, Burlington County Prosecutor Scott Coffina said at a news conference Thursday. They initially sought to raise $10,000. But the wildly successful GoFundMe campaign brought in over $400,000.

But every shred of the trio's story, including the part that Bobbitt used his last $20 to help McClure out of a roadside jam when she ran out of gas, was all bogus, Coffina said.

"The entire campaign was predicated on a lie," Coffina said. "Less than an hour after the GoFundMe campaign went live McClure, in a text exchange with a friend, stated that the story about Bobbitt assisting her was fake."

In one of the texts read by Coffina, McClure allegedly wrote to a friend, "Ok, so wait, the gas part is completely made up but the guy isn't. I had to make something up to make people feel bad. So, shush about the made up stuff."
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And yet when this report from the VA came out in April, no one cared.

Analysis of a nationally representative survey of U.S. veterans in 2015 shows that veterans with a history of homelessness attempted suicide in the previous two years at a rate 5.0 times higher compared with veterans without a history of homelessness (6.9% versus 1.2%), and their rates of two-week suicidal ideation were 2.5 times higher (19.8% versus 7.4%).

Oh, sure, they go onto Facebook, find something they can use and bingo! Instant fame...and usually fortune follows.

In one of the earliest reports from NJ.com on this scam, there was this toward the end.

In the weeks since, she’s returned to the spot along I-95 where Johnny stays with cash, snacks and Wawa gift cards. Each time she’s stopped by with her boyfriend, Mark D’Amico, they’ve learned a bit more about Johnny’s story, and become humbled by his gratitude. Eventually, the Florence Township couple knew they had to do something more.“I would say, ‘I keep thinking about that guy,’” D’Amico said. And McClure was thinking about Johnny, too. 

So they launched a GoFundMe campaign, putting an ambitious $10,000 goal and hoping to rein in a few hundred dollars to book Johnny a motel for a few nights where he could clean up, and start to get back on his feet. In just over a week, the campaign has garnered more than $5,000 in donations, and continues to grow.

Associated Press picked the story up two days later on November 22, 2017.

After all, I do not believe what I see on Facebook unless I can track it back to...you guessed it, an actual news story.

Assuming that reporters actually did their jobs, asked questions and made sure what they were told was actually the truth, should have all of us questioning other things they "shared" that turned out to be far from the truth.

If you read Wounded Times, I am sure you know exactly where I am going with this. Straight to the crap about "raising awareness" on "22" veterans killing themselves and how the talkers seem to be getting a lot more attention for a rumor than the veterans they are supposed to know about.

After all, how can anyone "raise awareness" unless they have vast knowledge on the subject. You know. Taken a lot of time to understand what they are supposed to be sharing with the masses. You'd think a topic as important enough to cause them to spend so much time putting attention on, would actually do something to address the "problem" they claim matters so much. But then again, you'd have to assume they had any intention of changing the outcome.

So, social media pushed their stunts and pushups but it seems as if no one on social media bothered to ask them what their stunts would do to save a life.

No one asked them what qualified them to take on such a serious matter, or even why they deserved the money. No one asked if that number was the truth. Hey, maybe everyone just assumed that since they read about it in news reports, it had to be true.

The problem is, the people getting all the attention, and funds, for talking about the headline, did not even think it was important enough to read anything beyond the headline.

Gee, do you think they might have found the report itself important? Do you think they may have wanted to see what had been done over the previous 4 decades to discover what worked and know what failed before they took to social media and contacted the press?

Now there is an awakening going on but it is too late for far too many to apologize, unless you want to go to a cemetery, if they had enough money for a funeral. 

Next time something is worthy of your support, make sure it really is or we are going to continue to see the "awareness" folks get rich off the suffering they had no intentions of changing. 

Joint Base Lewis McChord kicked out soldiers for PTSD

Army leaders punish sick Shelton soldier in need of help

K5 News

Taylor Mirfendereski
November 14, 2018

'The Army Broke Him'

SHELTON -- Kord Ball dug out his wrinkled Army uniform from a pile of clothes inside his Shelton trailer.

And for the first time in months, the disheveled staff sergeant mustered up the energy to shave and get a haircut.

That September 2018 morning was one of Ball's last days in the U.S. Army, after a decorated 10-year military career. But the 27-year-old didn't leave the service on good terms.

Army leaders at Joint Base Lewis McChord kicked Ball out of the service for misconduct because he failed a drug test for marijuana. He received an other-than-honorable discharge, which strips away his right to access veteran benefits, including long-term health care from the Department of Veteran Affairs.

But records show the behavior that got Ball in trouble was directly related to his diagnosed anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder -- medical conditions brought on by his military service. And now, the veteran doesn't have a right to access the long-term medical benefits he needs to heal.
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Memorial dedicated to Navy SEALS of Operation Red Wing

New memorial pays tribute to fallen Navy SEALs

KDVR News
Dan Daru
November 12, 2018

Now, they are all honored by a monument. An understated, but powerful reminder of what was lost, and what was gained, "When we lost Danny, I lost Cindy through divorce and I lost my house, I lost my dog, I had to go bankrupt. I lost everything, but I gained everything in friends and family," said Danny Dietz Sr., Danny’s father.

It was called operation Red Wings. It was a dangerous and daring counter-insurgent mission in the volatile Kunar province, Afghanistan.

Three Navy SEALs were killed during the initial operation, including Littleton native Danny Dietz. It was June 28, 2005.

Today, under cold and sunny skies, friends, family, politicians and just every day people stood in the snow at Berry Park for a very special day.

In addition to the three navy SEALs killed that day, 16 other special ops soldiers were also killed providing support and attempting a rescue. All totaled, 19 brave men were lost that day.
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Son of Vietnam Veteran Sings of Suicide in Hemingway

Addressing Veteran Suicides In Song And Prose

NPR
Heard on All Things Considered
WADE GOODWYN
November 13, 2018

Dan Johnson knows something of the subject. The songwriter's relationship with suicide began when he was 10 years old. That year, 1987, Johnson's father — Terry Wayne Johnson, a Vietnam veteran, took his own life.

Earlier this year, Ft. Worth, Texas singer-songwriter Dan Johnson released a new album of songs, paired with a collection of fictional stories co-written with novelist Travis Erwin. The songs and stories include an imaginative cast of characters, from a grievously wounded veteran seeking salvation in drugs and alcohol, to an aging gun smuggler taking one last shot at love.

The album and companion book are a project of a non-profit founded by Johnson called Operation Hemingway — named after the famed author who experienced the carnage of the Spanish Civil War and who, at the age of 61, killed himself. The project is a homage not only to Johnson's own father but also to families like his who have endured the pain and grief of veteran suicide.

The concept came to Johnson during a tour of Hemingway's home in Key West. "I was there in his study. And when the rest of the tour group moved on I hung back." Johnson says he began imagining what it was like for the author near the end. "He couldn't go have any more adventures, he had become trapped in this old man's body. And I wondered what that must be like to get to the point where you don't feel like you have anything else you can give the world," he says.
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Dan Johnson "Hemingway"