18yrs. Later RIP Navy Pilot Michael "Scott" Speicher

Remembering Navy Pilot Michael "Scott" Speicher

Speicher's Best Friend Says Homecoming is 'Bittersweet'

Buddy Harris says, "We got Scott." The remains of Captain Scott Speicher are back home nearly two decades after he left for the Persian Gulf War.

Harris was Speicher's best friend. He is now married to Speicher's widow, Joanne.

Harris spoke to the media for about 15 minutes outside of the NAS JAX chapel where Speicher's remains were taken. He would not take questions from reporters, but said it was a heartbreaking day for his wife and children.

"This is the ultimate definition of bittersweet," said Harris.....Rest Here

JACKSONVILLE, FL -- The city, friends and military across the city gave a final salute this morning to Captain Scott Speicher.

The remains of the Navy pilot left the All Saints Chapel at NAS Jacksonville at 9 this morning, after military personnel paid their respects.

There was a steady stream of people through the chapel well into the night and again this morning.

The public salute to the fallen hero began at 9 a.m. when the procession left NAS Jacksonville for the Jacksonville Veterans Memorial Wall downtown.

"The wall, to me, is the altar of freedom in Jacksonville," said Dan McCarthy, the former Military Affairs liaison for the City of Jacksonville. "It is where we come to remember the bravery of the men and women who serve our country. We were here not long ago for Memorial Day. We were here for Purple Heart Day. Now, today we come for Captain Speicher."...............Link to Rest Here and More

Organizer of 'Letters for Speicher' Campaign Remembers Fallen Hero

Jon Kern, a teacher at Mandarin Middle School, waited 18 years to hear what really happened to Navy Captain Michael "Scott" Speicher.

During the wait, he made it his personal mission to keep the memory of the missing hometown hero alive.

Kern created the Letters for Speicher Campaign, which ultimately led to a book in memory of the Jacksonville Captain missing since 1991.................

Speicher at His Final Resting Place

The city, friends and military across the city gave a final salute this morning to Captain Scott Speicher.

The remains of the Navy pilot left the All Saints Chapel at NAS Jacksonville at 9 this morning, after military personnel paid their respects.

There was a steady stream of people through the chapel well into the night and again this morning.

The public salute to the fallen hero began at 9 a.m. when the procession left NAS Jacksonville for the Jacksonville Veterans Memorial Wall downtown..........

Coming Home

NPR: WBUR's Here and Now

The bodies of five British service men are driven though Wootton Bassett, England, Friday, July, 10, 2009. (AP)

How should we honor the military personnel killed in Iraq and Afghanistan? In the US, their bodies are returned to Dover Air Force Base. President Obama has lifted the ban on media coverage, if the families of the fallen approve. Those ceremonies are quiet and often attended by just a few people. But in Britain, thousands of people are turning out in the village of Wootton Bassett to greet the dead soldiers. We speak to USA Today reporter Rick Hampson, who recently wrote about the return of two Americans – Army privates Aaron Fairburn and Justin Casillas. We also speak to Allison Bucknell, a member of the local town council in Wootton Bassett, England.

You can listen in to this Discussion: Link brings up the player

Coming Home with Honor! Ending 18yr Ban, 4.05.09

First Photos of Fallen Soldier Ends 18-Year Ban
Air Force Allows Media to Cover Arrival of Airman Killed in Afghanistan

For the first time since the Obama administration reversed an 18-year-old ban on news coverage of returning fallen soldiers, the military allowed media to cover the arrival tonight of an airman killed in Afghanistan.

The arrival of remains of Staff Sgt. Phillip A. Myers, a 30-year-old supporting Operation Enduring Freedom, at Dover Air Force Base at 11 p.m. today marked the first time that the transfer of any of the nearly 5,000 U.S. troops who have died in Iraq and Afghanistan was open to the media. >>>>>More

Coming Home: Military Families Cope with Change

Tune in to PBS on April 1st at 8 p.m.

Tune in to PBS on April 1, 2009 at 8 p.m. to join Queen Latifah, John Mayer, and your Sesame Street friends for “Coming Home: Military Families Cope With Change.” This family television special tells the stories of military families coping with the challenges and impact of combat-related injuries—both visible (such as the loss of a limb) and invisible (such as post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury). Join these families as they recount their heroic struggles and discover the remarkable resiliency that sets them on the path to finding a “new normal.” With help from Elmo, Rosita, and the Sesame Street friends, "Coming Home" gives voice to children as they play a central role in the family's adjustment process, and encourages them to be what they are: kids. The program also features coping strategies and powerful real stories aimed to help these families and others find ways to be there for each other.

Coming Home: The 'Stars and Stripes' Series

Series Overview with Links to the Series Reports Over several months in 2008, Stars and Stripes reporters and photographers traveled to Iraq, Kuwait and Fort Drum, N.Y., chronicling the lives of the “Triple Deuce” — the 2nd Battalion, 22nd Infantry Regiment, 1st Brigade, 10th Mountain Division — both soldiers and their families.

As with most deployed units, there was triumph and tragedy. The unit presided over a calming of their area in northern Iraq, but it endured a horrific truck bomb attack that took the life of one of their own and badly wounded others.

Soldiers in the field pressed on.

When they came home, life was not the same. Children had grown and changed. To their babies, they were strangers. Wives had learned to manage with-out them, even while they yearned for their return.

Today and for the next four days, Stripes will tell the story of men sent to war and the people who supported them from thousands of miles away — the longing, the sorrow, the joy of reuniting and the apprehension at what lay ahead.

Stripes’ Nancy Montgomery will continue to follow the men of Triple Deuce and their families as they adjust to a life informed by war.

Day 1: Series overview

The men of Triple Deuce: ‘Closer than brothers’ in the Army family

Day 2: A truck bomb shatters the calm and bonds the brothers anew:

A moment that changed everything

Master sergeant, wife adjust to new roles and the effects of the bombing

Day 3: Three couples describe how they kept their unions strong during the Triple Deuce’s 14 months in Iraq and after the unit came home:

The Bartells

The Holmeses

The Lees

Day 4: The heartache and hope of life after war:

A family broken by war

For the first time, they're one big family

Day 5: The lawyer turns protester, and the medic becomes a dad:

"The smartest guy in Company B"

When home is as scary as war

Series conclusion

This is, and always has been, a Non Issue

Those who Serve the Country Serve the Whole Country and Thus Should Be Given the 'Honor' and 'Respect' Due Them when Returned to this soil after Dying during that Service!!

There are some groups of people who welcome home the returning soldiers in airports and other transportation points.

We organize rallies for the families and communities on the return of locally based Units of the Reserves, National Guard, and on Army and Marine bases.

We have returning men and women soldiers surprising their young children, and school classmates, and we readily show these surprise homecomings while we watch them with the same tears of joy as the kids.

Some will give a "Welcome Home" and a Handshake when meeting soldiers wherever.

Yet we seem to think that there is supposed to be some sort of Debate about 'Honoring with Due Respect' those who return to this country in Flag Drapped Coffins when they are killed Serving The Whole Country, as their Coffins are brought in Quietly and In The Dark of our Media and Citizens. Than the Country, far in the future, Debates wether Memorials should be built and what they should look like.

We should Honor our Fallen as to their Total Sacrifice of their Service, however right or wrong the policies causing their deaths!

Coffins’ Arrival From War Becomes an Issue Again

Those two aspects of the review may well yield opposing perspectives. Britain and Canada, two important allies in the war in Afghanistan, allow far more news media access to the repatriation process — the return of a fallen soldier to his or her country — than does the United States.

The new review has revived an old debate. Supporters of the ban say it protects families’ privacy and keeps the deaths from becoming politicized; critics say the government is trying to sanitize the wars and reduce public awareness of their human cost.

As Of February 22nd, 2009, There Are 91 Pages w/5 'Silent Honor Rolls' Each, Number Of KIA's Varies With Each 'Silent Honor Roll';
Many now have numbers in the teens and twenties
In Honor - In Memory


This Is Not nor Should Be Debatable, it Should Be Policy!!

"That young man never should have come into the Army" 4th in Series "Coming Home"

The above subject title is the forth addition in a week long series at Salon.com by Mark Benjamin and Michael de Yoanna on the returned Soldiers from Iraq and Afghanistan called "Coming Home". It's the open window into what happens to some after serving in man's hell on earth, Wars and Occupations of Choice!

This is the fourth installment in a weeklong investigative series called "Coming Home." You can look at Kenneth Eastridge's MySpace page here, and read the story of Robert Marko here. Marko was sent to Iraq despite psychological problems and is now awaiting trial for murder in Colorado. You can also read the introduction to the series, and the first, second and third installments, which appeared Monday, Tuesday and Thursday.

This installment in this important series begins with this:

Kenneth Eastridge is being held at Kit Carson Correctional Facility in Burlington, Colo.

Feb. 13, 2009 | FORT CARSON, Colo. -- Late on the night of March 11, 2006, Kenneth Eastridge got in a fight with his girlfriend. It ended with his arrest for a felony.

The Kentucky native, an Army soldier stationed at Fort Carson, between deployments in Iraq, had fallen asleep after drinking when his girlfriend began to pound on his apartment door. She wanted inside, and she wanted to talk.

Eastridge responded with a string of obscenities and then flung the door open. He pointed a loaded pistol at his girlfriend. She looked at him like he was crazy, then turned and ran. Eastridge didn't fire. He stood motionless, stunned by his own reaction.

For those following this series, or any of the many that have started to surface, and the many more series or just singular reports that will be coming, long into the future, keep in mind the people you won't hear or read about. Not just the soldiers sent into these conflicts and occupations but those who live in these countries that are destroyed and occupied. Think of what they are going through, have gone through, and will be going through. The ones that choose to fight against any invaders, the ones trying to survive the invasions and than the occupations, the children growing up in the conditions created, the ones that survive! They are as human as those sent, no different, and go through the same reactions to, mentally and physically, what they knew of life is no more, they exist in a new reality not the one they were taught existed but one most don't experience!

This first page, of the forth installment leads into the second page, "They'll say, 'What makes the grass grow?' and we would say, 'Blood! Blood! Blood!'", and than on to a third, "The Army released him without assessing his mental condition"

He's also not receiving treatment for his PTSD in prison. He worries that if he sees a psychologist, it could delay his release date if ongoing problems are found: "Right now I just want to get out as fast as possible."

Can he find ways to prevent his life from spiraling out of control again? "I can't really say that I can," he says.

The following report is attached to the forth in the series, link is above as well.

"He hears sounds which seem to be voices"

The Army knew Cpl. Robert Marko might have psychological problems, but sent him to Iraq anyway. He is now awaiting trial for murder in Colorado.

Feb. 13, 2009 | When Judilianna Lawrence missed school, her mother called the police. Then she checked her daughter's MySpace account. Within hours, sheriff's deputies were asking questions of Robert Hull Marko, a Fort Carson, Colo., Army soldier who fought in Iraq.

Lawrence's mother had discovered correspondence indicating that her daughter and Marko had planned to meet, and Marko piqued investigators' interest when he initially denied he knew Lawrence. His story kept changing during a chilly weekend in October 2008. Eventually, Marko admitted he knew the 19-year-old special education student, saying he was with her in the rugged terrain somewhere around Pikes Peak, west of Colorado Springs, Colo. He said he left her there.

By Monday, Oct. 13, on Marko's 21st birthday, he finally led deputies to a wooded area. There, investigators searched for and found Lawrence's body, her throat slashed. She had also been raped, investigators say.

This is very disturbing in just what it says at the beginning, the Army knew this soldier might have psychological problems, yet they not only didn't try to help him or find out more they sent him into the occupation, another body needed!

We've all read about those who didn't have problems, were dedicated to their choice of serving the country, were trained than sent into the theaters. Some, after serving their tours, many extended with little dwell time, were sent back showing signs already of what the stress and experience of the preceding tours had caused. Sent back now with drugs issued by their military branches to coup with their trauma, instead of delving deeper and getting the treatment they needed, compounding the already suffering!

We will be living with the devastating remnants of these last years for many years to come, just from the mental stress of combat and occupation, all of those we've sent have now had their lives changed forever, as have those we've occupied. Will we as societies once again ignore that which is right in front of us, as we have before? Will we find better understanding of what extreme trauma can do to many who experience it, be it in combat and occupation or the many traumatic events many go through in their lives, that change the way our minds relate to these?

“I Was Off to Represent For My Fathers…”:

I would like for any reading this to travel over and read

Field Producer Robin On Veterans and the Petition Delivery, a very moving, and short read, of her travels with the Homeless Veterans to
the FOX media New York city studios.

A sample below:

As we were organizing Thursday's petition delivery to the FOX building in New York, we put a call out for field producers to help cover the event. Robin Laverne Wilson answered that call, and we’re so glad she did. The following is her account of what happened yesterday, as well as her thoughts on the struggles veterans face and her personal connection to this issue. If you are interested in joining our army of field producers raising hell across the land, go here.

Robin starts her narrative with this:

I put on my brown military thermals, my chocolate chip cammies, my black bandana and my black boots. I was off to represent for my father, my uncle, their army buddies and all the people in my life that I knew and didn't know who had served this country and in some way, often the same way, got the shaft from it.

I grabbed my gear and went into friendly warrior mode to help these vets broadcast their story. And believe me -- their stories are AMAZING.

Which leads in to short descriptions of just two of the Veterans met on that day.

This:

My father served 20 years, including Korea and Vietnam.

leads into what her father went through during life after his 20 year Service To Country and Two Theaters of Conflict Operations.

And what they ran up against

The Freedom of Speech they fought for entitles me to wield my camera and document the truth, from my worldview. But the News Corporation security detail insisted that we stay behind their property line.

At the FOX studios.

Go over and read what Robin Laverne has to say, I don't think you'll be sorry you did, you'll also be able to view the Video of the Homeless Veterans attempting to deliver the petition to the loudmouth 'chickenhawk', with a podium to spew his venom from, getting very wealthy in return!

And sadly many who watch and listen to him are connected in one way or another to others who have Served This Country, either directly or through their family trees, and Don't Speak Out but wave their flags and use wordspeak catch phrases, while hanging onto each venomous word attack he wages against others!!

Back, but not at home

The Boston Globe printed the following on Veterans Day 11-11-07. The subject above is the title the link below is the sub-title of a moving article

Battered returning vets struggle with transition

The Globe followed, "New England's Own", for a year after their return. The article and three video's are the results of what these Marines have experianced since returning.

For us 'Nam Vets it's like looking into a mirror of the present, showing the past, we've been here before.

This Country has Once Again Failed to hold it's Side of the Contracts Signed, to serve and defend this Nation, by those who join it's Military Forces!

Maybe it's because, like 'Nam, those serving aren't Defending but Occupying another small country thousands of miles away, than again maybe not, for it seems the other 99%plus just plain don't want to Sacrifice a Damn Thing, while giving lip service and slogans, as others fight their their Wars of Choice so they can cheer like it's a Sporting Event or Video Game!



The parents of Eric Valdepenas, one of "New England's Own" killed in Iraq, visited his grave in East Providence, R.I.

The 878 men who came home have struggled to come to terms with the fact that 11 did not; that 68 others, like Murray, suffered combat wounds; and that many more were hit with injuries less visible but with long-term effects, like bomb-blast concussions.

It is as if they all shared in those losses, and, in a real sense, most did. A Globe survey of more than 130 members of the battalion found that nearly 60 percent report one or more symptoms of war trauma - anger, depression, nightmares, hypervigilance - even if they have not been diagnosed with the disorder.

Many hasten to add that they are doing just fine, picking up life right where they left off. It is, in the main, a proud, resilient group, not much given to complaint. Service, most say, changed them irrevocably, and for the better.

But fully half say the transition back to civilian life has been hard. Money, for some, is tight, relationships with loved ones bruised, frustration with the government veterans bureaucracy real and growing. Reserve units like theirs have, in particular, reported problems with medical screenings for brain injuries.

Below are links to the short video's that accompany the article, but you'd be better served if you took a trip to the site and read this article.

* PDF Survey of the Marine battalion

* Video | Part One Coming Home

* Video | Part Two The Roulette Wheel

* Video | Part Three Moving On

There is also a powerful consensus that while most of their neighbors appreciate their service, civilians don't quite get it. A sense of isolation grows out of that, particularly in New England, where military bases are few and hostility to the war runs high.
more stories like this

More than a few of the Marines have doubts about this war, too. But their focus is on their duty - and on getting well, or helping others to do so. In that, members of the battalion report some ringing successes but also some shameful failures as the nation delivers, unevenly, on its pledge to care for those wounded in service.

Visit the link above to read the rest, than you can return and see another coming out of Boston from 11-12-07 in the Boston NOW paper.

Mentally ill soldiers being sent back to battle
Military says PTSD must be looked at case by case

And also this one about my fellow Vets and another Veterans Day parade.

Veterans arrested at parade

Yep 15 of my fellow Veterans For Peace brothers Arrested for wanting to participate in a Veterans Day Parade!

And lets let Keith and Paul tell us about how this Country treats it's Vets.

Respecting Us Veterans on Veterans Day?


Thank You America for another memorable Veterans Day!!!!!

And I Mean That ------------------- BULLSHIT!!!!

If they were sent to fight, they are too few. If they were sent to die, they are too many!

Is 'Funding' Really For Troops?

What Happened To Funding and Oversite For Military/Veteran Care In Previous Congresses?