Free Republic

ete Buttigieg told "Axios on HBO" that although he wasn't diagnosed with PTSD after returning from Afghanistan after a 7-month deployment in 2014, "there's a level of depression ... that I went through when I came back." Why it matters: This is a new window into Buttigieg's unusual experience of serving as a 32-year-old, then returning to resume his job as mayor of South Bend, Indiana....... Buttigieg told me the feeling lasted about a year, and that he never felt he needed medical treatment.

If neither Mexico nor Congress is going to fund President Donald Trump's border wall, then Brian Kolfage has a more expedient plan: GoFundMe.

This week’s edition of Saturday Night Live’s Weekend Update served as a sequel of sorts to last week’s episode. Pete Davidson followed up on his insult of newly-elected Congressman Dan Crenshaw by bringing the politician on to the show to get his revenge and share a serious message about respecting veterans. Crenshaw, a Republican politician and military veteran who lost his eye in Afghanistan in 2012, had been targeted by Davidson as part of SNL’s midterms preview. Davidson mocked the politician’s injury, saying he looked like a “hitman in a porno.” Davidson had quickly added, “I’m sorry, I know he...

Brian Mast is a veteran who lost both his legs to an IED in Afghanistan. In 2016, we endorsed him when he ran for the House. Happily, he won, and now represents Florida’s 18th District. Now, a Floridian who is active in the Democratic Party is under arrest for threatening to kill Mast’s children: Laurence Wayne Key, a volunteer for the Democratic Party of Martin County, Florida, has been arrested after he allegedly made a call to Rep. Brian Mast’s (R-Fla.) Washington, D.C. office and threatened to kill his kids over the situation at the border. “I’m going to find...

President Donald Trump is considering an Army veteran who is a Republican member of Congress for the position of Veterans Affairs secretary, part of a lengthening search for a nominee following the abrupt firing of David Shulkin in March. A White House official on Thursday said Rep. Brian Mast of Florida, who was elected to the House in 2016, was among the list of candidates for the job heading an agency of 360,000 employees serving 9 million veterans. The White House official would not say if Mast is the leading candidate for the VA position. The official spoke on condition...

BALTIMORE, MD (WCMH) - On Monday, surgeons at The Johns Hopkins Hospital announced they have performed the world’s first total penis and scrotum transplant. The team of nine plastic surgeons and two urological surgeons performed the 14-hour surgery on March 26. Their patient? An veteran who was injured in Afghanistan. Doctors used the entire penis and scrotum (minus the testicles) from a deceased donor.

A US Army veteran who served two tours in Afghanistan has been deported to Mexico, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement said. The deportation follows an earlier decision by US authorities to deny Miguel Perez's citizenship application because of a felony drug conviction, despite his service and the PTSD he says it caused. Perez, 39, was escorted across the US-Mexico border from Texas and handed over to Mexican authorities Friday, ICE said in a statement.

I picked up a guy a week or two ago who was in his mid 30s that looked a little scruffy, covered in tats and a very wild and woolly beard. He wanted to go to a low-budget, no-name, mom-and-pop motel a few miles away. He looked a little sketchy, but I noticed that he had the eagle and anchor Marine Corps emblem tattooed on his forearm, and I said, “Marine Corps, huh?”He said, “Yes Sir, two tours in Afghanistan.” As I have said before, I always thank a member of our military whenever I encounter them, and I...

A softball camp coached by wounded warriors teaches kids—who are also amputees—confidence, perseverance and, of course, softball. A softball camp coached by wounded warriors teaches kids—who are also amputees—confidence, perseverance and, of course, softball. WASHINGTON — It’s a kids’ softball camp where the coaches are wounded warriors and the children face similar challenges. But this camp is about so much more than just softball. This is the fifth year the Wounded Warrior Amputee Softball Team has held a softball camp for children ages 8 to 12 who are amputees. This year, 20 kids from across the country attended the...

I want you to read this tweet, sent after today’s MOAB drop and written by an American patriot and a man I’m privileged to know, Johnny (Joey) Jones: "I lost my legs because my gov't was afraid to use the tools they had and saw me as expendable. I wish I'd had this admin." "We begged to use bombs on the minefield ghost town I lost my legs clearing." ... By the way, I quote these tweets not to spark any anger against the man Jones is addressing, Daniel Riley (who’s also a vet and amputee; he lost his legs...

A warrant office in the United States Special Forces has died from injuries sustained in a vehicle accident while serving in Africa, according to official sources. WO1 Shawn Thomas of 1st Battalion, 3rd Special Forces Group died on February 2, according to US Army Special Operations Command spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Robert Bockholt. According to the Army Times, officials could not specify details of the accident, but said that SF troopers were conducting advising operations to counter Boko Haram in Niger and that the investigation is ongoing. “Our deepest condolences go out to Warrant Officer Thomas’ family, friends and colleagues,” 3rd...

Sens. Tom Cotton and Chuck Schumer reportedly got into an angry confrontation on the Senate floor Friday over Senate Democrats delaying the confirmation of Rep. Mike Pompeo for CIA director, The Weekly Standard reports. Cotton was reportedly irate with Schumer’s delay of the confirmation vote and loudly accosted him on the Senate floor. Schumer retorted that the Senate had never confirmed a CIA director on Inauguration Day, adding that Senate Republicans also did not do so for former President Barack Obama. He continued that Cotton would have known this precedent if he had been in the Senate eight years previously....

“It feels like a slap in the face,” Oklahoma veteran trying to change law that requires repaying severanceService members are often given severance when the military downsizes and closes bases, but now in some cases years later the government is taking that money back. Under federal law, until veterans pay back their involuntary separation pay, they can have their VA disability withheld. Tim Foster, an Oklahoma veteran, is trying to change that by changing the law. “It feels like a slap in the face. It really does,” he said. Foster started his military career at 23. The marine served for...

A North Carolina judge sentenced a Green Beret veteran to spend a night in jail. But when he remembered his own story and all he had gone through, he couldn't just let him spend the night alone. Judge Lou Olivera, a Gulf War veteran, is a district court judge over the Veterans Treatment Court in Cumberland County, North Carolina. He had to sentence Green Beret Joe Serna to one night in jail for a probation violation. Serna, a recipient of three Purple Hearts, is retired from the military and is having a hard time adjusting back to life after experiencing...

"As reported by one of his bunkmates in Afghanistan, Johnson suffered a particular shame. “We all knew he was a pervert cuz he got caught stealing girls’ panties,” the bunkmate later said in a Facebook post. Johnson’s military lawyer, Bradford Glendening, says that a female corporal mentioned Victoria’s Secret underthings when she filed a sexual harassment complaint against his client." Yet: "By April of 2015, the Army had surprised even his lawyer by dropping the charges. Johnson received an honorable discharge and remained a member of the ready reserve. He apparently resumed attending the Academy of Combat Warrior Arts on...

When Charlotte veteran Allen Thornwell lowered his employer’s American flag to half-staff on Memorial Day, he says he did not think to ask permission or consider the possibility that he had done anything wrong. Instead, the 29-year-old former Marine, who served in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, says he was thinking about his country, the meaning of the holiday and his best friend, Geoff, another Marine who killed himself two years ago after returning stateside. On Tuesday, Thornwell was fired. A manager at the placement service that arranged the vet’s job at Time Warner Cable in Charlotte told him...

HOUSTON (KTRK) -- A source close to the investigation has identified the suspect in Sunday's west Houston mass shooting as a 25-year-old veteran from California. Dionisio Garza III is from San Bernardino County and served in Afghanistan. He was discharged from active duty in 2014, and doesn't appear to have a criminal history. Police came back to the scene of the deadly mass shooting in west Houston today to collect evidence after our abc13 Eyewitness News team discovered personal papers, documents, bullets and a military bag. Our team brought that evidence to a police officer's attention and it was taken...

A candidate for West Virginia state senate was brutally attacked over the weekend when a man wielding brass knuckles blind-sided him at a cookout, police say. Retired Major Richard Ojeda, an Iraq and Afghanistan veteran who's challenging the incumbent Democrat, was attending the political function in the town of Logan when a man reportedly asked him for a bumper sticker. When Ojeda knelt to attach the sticker to the man's car, police say the suspect struck the candidate as many as nine times with brass knuckles, knocking him out. According to West Virginia State Troopers, the suspect--who's been identified as...

Green Beret Discharged for Body-Slamming Alleged Child Rapist Breaks Silence, Provides New — and Graphic — Details on Why He Felt Compelled to Act Sep. 28, 2015 12:54pm Kaitlyn Schallhorn The Green Beret who is set to be involuntarily discharged in early November has finally spoken out about the situation that caused his punishment in the first place — his intervening on behalf of an Afghan boy who was being repeatedly raped. “Kicking me out of the Army is morally wrong and the entire country knows it,” Sgt. 1st Class Charles Martland said in his first public statement, which was...

After the sixth suicide in his old battalion, Manny Bojorquez sank onto his bed. With a half-empty bottle of Jim Beam beside him and a pistol in his hand, he began to cry. He had gone to Afghanistan at 19 as a machine-gunner in the Marine Corps. In the 18 months since leaving the military, he had grown long hair and a bushy mustache. It was 2012. He was working part time in a store selling baseball caps and going to community college while living with his parents in the suburbs of Phoenix. He rarely mentioned the war to friends...