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Bill Would Restrict Veterans’ Health Care Options Buyer and McKeon Offer Amendments to Protect Veterans and TRICARE Beneficiaries Washington, D.C. — Today, House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs Ranking Member Steve Buyer and House Armed Services Committee Ranking Member Howard P. “Buck” McKeon offered three amendments to the Pelosi healthcare bill that would protect America’s Veterans and military TRICARE beneficiaries. The healthcare legislation, which is expected to be voted on in the full House in the coming days limits veteran’s and service member’s health care choices and places veterans and military health care unnecessarily at risk by not clearly excluding military...

This duo is being raffled off to raise funds for the Healing Heroes Network, a charity that benefits injured Veterans. So buying a ticket or 10 is a chance to win these fantastic Shelbys, and support a worthy cause. The 1967 example is a verified Shelby original, number 3139 in the Shelby Registry. The 2010 GT is a one-of-a-kind special edition done up in the same Wimbledon White with Guardsman Blue stripes as the old-timer. It has been dubbed the Patriot Edition and features a host of aftermarket changes that make it more closely match its ancestor.If you'd like...

The National Commander, Clarence Hill, said this to the Hoosier Legionnaire, in the Sept/Oct 2009 issue. "For more than a century, disabled military retirees had to unfairly forfeit portions of their retirement pay to offset their disability, even though they were the only Americans required to do this. Finally, after way too long, .......

A friend of a friend in Midland, Texas is protesting the federal government's spending and push for nationalized healthcare. Thomas Flournoy, a WWII veteran, is flying his flag upside down, as a sign of distress. From KWES: One Midlander says enough is enough with the federal government. He says outragous spending and a push for Nationalized healthcare has put him over the top. Now, he's not only protesting, but sending out a sign of distress. On Tuesday, NewsWest 9 spoke with the World War II Veteran who is telling everyone to fly their flags upside down. "We've got to concentrate...

Veterans Day is coming up, but there are few vets who have a story to tell like Mario Avignone.His life was changed during World War II when he was stationed near the monastery inhabited by St. Pio of Pietrelcina. Avignone, a salt-of-the-earth Chicagoan, and two fellow soldiers befriended the stigmatic miracle worker. Since then, he expresses his devotion to the saint by sharing his experiences with others, visiting the sick, and praying with the aid of relics.After a talk Avignone gave at St. Mary of the Angels Church on the city’s North Side, the 90-year-old veteran, over a meal...

'The British serviceman who first fired on Japanese forces during World War Two has died at the age of 90. Jim Mariner was on board the gunboat HMS Peterel when he secured his place in history at about 4am on December 7, 1941. The vessel was in China's Shanghai Harbour and the crew had been issued with cutlasses and told they should be prepared to die defending the ship. It was the last commissioned Royal Navy craft on the Yangtze River and had been stripped of most of her weapons. She had a skeleton crew and was clearly in no...

CHICAGO -- If you're looking for somebody to cheer for during Sunday's marathon, Steve Baskis is your man. The 23-year-old Iraq veteran lost his sight last year when a roadside bomb exploded next to the vehicle he was driving. One of his best friends, Victor Cota, was just a few feet away from him at the time and lost his life. Instead of falling apart, though, Baskis did exactly the opposite. He needed an outlet for competitiveness and he wanted to show people that life doesn't end just because you lose your vision. After numerous surgeries to repair his injuries,...

MANCHESTER, N.H. (AP) - World War II pilot Bernerd Harding feels he has finally completed his mission—65 years after his B-24, nicknamed Georgette, was shot down over Germany. Harding, now 90, flew Friday from Laconia to Manchester aboard the Witchcraft—the last B-24 still flying.

FORT WORTH – Dan Walker, an Army war veteran who was honored for gathering and burying a U.S. flag that was burned in protest during the 1984 Republican National Convention in Dallas, has died. He was 81. Walker, who was captured by TV cameras carefully retrieving the flag remnants so they could be buried properly, died Wednesday of prostate cancer at his Fort Worth home. Walker told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram after the incident that he felt compelled to act after seeing someone try to stomp out the fire. "I didn't want someone sweeping it up with a broom and...

what a brave soldier... Lieutenant James Adamson was awarded the Military Cross after killing two insurgents during close quarter combat in Helmand's notorious "Green Zone". The 24-year-old officer, a member of the 5th battalion The Royal Regiment of Scotland, revealed that he shouted "have some of this" before shooting dead a gunman who had just emerged from a maize field. Seconds later and out of ammunition, the lieutenant leapt over a river bank and killed a second insurgent machine-gunner with a single thrust of his bayonet in the man's chest.

LAS CRUCES, N.M. -- Many Las Cruces residents are angry and feel disrespected after an East Mesa man has been flying a U.S. flag upside down underneath a flag with a swastika on it. The man responsible for flying the flags said it's not meant to disrespect anyone, but rather make a statement. Army National Guard Specialist Anthony Del Bozque said he had to go back and take a closer look at what he was looking at when driving by on Highway 70. “I wanted to go take it down, I wanted to go knock on his door and find...

Charles R. Bond Jr., a retired Air Force major general and one of the last surviving Flying Tigers, died Aug. 18 of dementia at Presbyterian Village North, an assisted living community in Dallas. He was 94. In September 1941, he left the Army Air Forces to volunteer for service in China as part of a secret program, the American Volunteer Group, nicknamed the Flying Tigers, under Gen. Claire Chenault. Made up of about 400 pilots and ground personnel and based in Burma, the Flying Tigers protected military supply routes between China and Burma and helped to get supplies to Chinese...

Take a moment to say a prayer for the passing of another WWII vet, one with the lovely name of Major Jennie Wrinn, Army Nurse Corps, 1914 - 2009. She was on Saipan in 1944 and other islands in the Pacific campaign, then with the US Army of Occupation in Germany 1945-52. Our choir sang The Battle Hyman of the Republic at her memorial service. and it was a privelidge and a pleasure to sing for her. Afterwards at the lunch there were photos of her and her nurse friends on Saipan in beanpot helmets with their arms over one...

MOORHEAD - Heather Arntson had already dialed 911 to report the car that slammed into an SUV carrying her husband, herself and their four children, including a 3-month-old baby and 20-month-old toddler. But when the car’s alleged drunken driver tried to flee the south Moorhead scene, she called 911 again – only, it was now the driver who was probably in the greatest danger. “I said, ‘The suspect’s running now, and he picked the wrong guy because my husband’s an Army Ranger,’ ” she said she told the dispatcher. Her husband, Mike Arntson, was able to chase down the driver...

Friends remember last survivor of the trenches, who died last month at the age of 111, in service at Wells cathedral... They said it many different ways, but the message was essentially the same. In most respects, Henry John "Harry" Patch was an ordinary man...But just about everyone who attended Patch's funeral service in the cathedral city of Wells today also seemed to agree that, somehow, he had become something quite extraordinary. It was not just that he became the last man to remember, first hand, the horrors of the first world war trenches, but also that he became both...

The family of CPT C. Joseph Rosbert has asked the Patriot Guard Riders (PGR) to stand in honor for this WWII Flying Tiger Ace as he is laid to his final rest on the hallowed grounds of Arlington National Cemetery (ANC) on 06 August, 2009 at approximately 1500 hours from the ANC Administration building, with services at the Columbarium. PGR will be there, standing tall silent and proud in honor of this Hero and his family, friends and comrades at arms. The mission plan follows this brief biographical sketch of our Hero. From the family: "American Volunteer Group "Flying Tigers"...

A fly-past of replica planes was held to mark the passing of Britain's oldest World War I veteran this afternoon. Hundreds of people lined the streets to pay their respects to the world's oldest man and British war hero Henry Allingham. The 113-year-old died peacefully in his sleep on July 18 at his care home St Dunstan's, near Brighton. Mr Allingham, who served in the Royal Navy and RAF, was laid to rest with full military honours at a service at St Nicholas's Church in Brighton. As this afternoon's service began, crowds broke into spontaneous applause as his Union Flag-draped...

----- , July 28, 2009 8:42 AM We're hearing a lot today about big splashy memorial services. I want a nationwide memorial service for Darrell "Shifty" Powers. Shifty volunteered for the airborne in WWII and served with Easy Company of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, part of the 101st Airborne Infantry. If you've seen Band of Brothers on HBO or the History Channel, you know Shifty. His character appears in all 10 episodes, and Shifty himself is interviewed in several of them. I met Shifty in the Philadelphia airport several years ago. I didn't know who he was at the...

Here is a video report on the death of Harry Patch, the last known British World War I veteran. Patch died today at the age of 111. He fought in the ghastly trench warfare that was the trademark of World War I fighting. Below is a video describing what it was like in the trenches . . . . . . (Watch Videos)

Harry Patch, the last British army veteran of World War I, has died at 111, the nursing home where he lived said Saturday. The Fletcher House care home in Wells, southwest England, said Patch died early Saturday. "He just quietly slipped away at 9 a.m. this morning," said care home manager Andrew Larpent. "It was how he would have wanted it, without having to be moved to hospitals but here, peacefully with his friends and carers." Prime Minister Gordon Brown said the whole country would mourn "the passing of a great man." "The noblest of all the generations has left...

LONDON, England (CNN) -- Harry Patch -- the last surviving British soldier from World War I -- died Saturday at the age of 111, Britain's Ministry of Defence said. Patch died peacefully at his care home in the southwestern English city of Wells, the ministry announced. His death came a week after fellow British World War I veteran Henry Allingham died at the age of 113. Patch was the last surviving soldier to have witnessed the horrors of trench warfare in the first World War He fought and was seriously wounded in Ypres, Belgium, in 1917 at the Battle of...

Harry Patch

The last British survivor of the World War I trenches, Harry Patch, has died at the age of 111. Mr Patch was conscripted into the Army aged 18 and fought in the Battle of Passchendaele at Ypres in 1917 in which more than 70,000 British soldiers died. He was raised in Coombe Down, near Bath, and had been living at a care home in Wells, Somerset. The oldest WWI veteran Henry Allingham, who served in the Royal Navy and the RAF, died at the age of 113 a week ago.

The Crowley County veterans affairs officer is disputing claims by military historians that he lied about being a prisoner of war. In a telephone interview Wednesday, Ronald Crumley said he is a former POW and that he will prove it at a meeting next week. "All of the allegations will be answered by two people. One is a four-star Marine general and the other is a former assistant U.S. attorney general," Crumley said. "I see how this has happened to other people and I want to take care of it now," Crumley said. Military historian Doug Sterner of Pueblo and...

CONTINGENCY OPERATING SITE MAREZ EAST, Iraq, July 23, 2009 – Army Sgt. 1st Class Hershel L. Mayfield is a Vietnam veteran with 39 years of service. But when he re-enlisted here earlier this month, his mind was on the future and the young people he serves with. Army Sgt. 1st Class Hershel Mayfield, right, receives his re-enlistment certificate from Army Capt. Irvin Morris at Contingency Operating Site Marez East, Iraq, July 7, 2009. Mayfield has served 39 years in the Army, including 37 with the 158th Maintenance Company of the Alabama Army National Guard. U.S. Army photo by Staff Sgt....

Henry Allingham, the oldest surviving serviceman from the First World War, has died at the age of 113, his care home has said. Mr Allingham served with the Royal Naval Air Service during the Great War, later transferring to the Royal Air Force and serving at Ypres.

Oldest WWI veteran dies aged 113 Henry Allingham was the last surviving founding member of the RAF Henry Allingham, the world's oldest man and one of the last surviving World War I servicemen, has died at the age of 113, his care home has said. Mr Allingham served with the Royal Naval Air Service in WWI, later transferring to the Royal Air Force at the time of its creation. Bosses at his Brighton care home said everybody was "saddened by Henry's loss and our sympathy goes to his family". Last month, Mr Allingham, born in 1896, became the world's oldest...

CLACKAMAS -- They came by ones and twos Friday, quietly slipping into the pews at New Hope Community Church. They smiled at the words honoring a man whose faith made him an inspiration and whose exploits in three wars made him a hero. And when the last mournful drone of the bagpipes faded, they said goodbye to Col. Kenneth L. Reusser of Milwaukie, the most decorated U.S. Marine Corps aviator in history. "He was the finest gentleman I've ever met," said Harley Wedel of Fairview, a fellow Korean War veteran. "I'm really going to miss him." Reusser flew an amazing...

From Commander Fitzpatrick's site... "Shifty volunteered for the airborne in WWII and served with Easy Company of the 506Th Parachute Infantry Regiment, part of the 101st Airborne Infantry. If you've seen Band of Brothers on HBO or the History Channel, you know Shifty. His character appears in all 10 episodes, and Shifty himself is interviewed in several of them. I met Shifty in the Philadelphia airport several years ago. I didn't know who he was at the time. I just saw an elderly gentleman having trouble reading his ticket. I offered to help, assured him that he was at the...

You're a 19 year old kid. You're critically wounded, and dying in the jungle in the Ia Drang Valley ,11-14-1965, LZ X-ray, Vietnam . Your infantry unit is outnumbered 8 - 1, and the enemy fire is so intense, from 100 or 200 yards away, that your own Infantry Commander has ordered the MediVac helicopters to stop coming in. You're lying there, listening to the enemy machine guns, and you know you're not getting out. Your family is 1/2 way around the world, 12,000 miles away, and you'll never see them again. As the world starts to fade in and...

HIS wife once compared him to a Datsun Sunny, suggesting he would "go forever". But on Wednesday night, following surgery in Geelong Hospital, Ted Kenna died a few days after his 90th birthday. There was little about Mr Kenna to distinguish him from the rest of his generation - except for a single moment in 1945, when he made a choice he was compelled to explain over and over for the rest of his life. Winning the Victoria Cross, the highest award for bravery, was both a privilege and burden. He had met the Queen 13 times and appeared on...

WAR veteran Ted Kenna made an outstanding contribution to the nation and will be remembered for his courage, Acting Prime Minister Julia Gillard has said. Mr Kenna, Australia's last surviving Victoria Cross winner from World War II, died yesterday, aged 90. His death was a sad day for the nation, Ms Gillard said in a joint statement with Veterans Affairs Minister Alan Griffin. "Ted Kenna was a great Australian," they said, adding his story of bravery in New Guinea in 1945 was "extraordinary". "Private Kenna made an outstanding contribution to the nation and he will be remembered for his courage."...

"Among other allegations, Ranghelli and Napper said that unembalmed bodies awaiting cremation were left to decompose in unrefrigerated areas of the funeral home and that bodies of military veterans awaiting burial at Arlington National Cemetery were stored for months on racks in the garage.

After caring for Vietnam veteran Roger Lennon for more than a dozen years, two months after his death Sarah Miller received a bill from the state of Iowa for almost $300,000 for medical care he received at a state-run veteran's home, according to a report in the Quad-City Times. "I called them and said, 'Is this a joke?'" Miller told the Quad-City Times. "Who has that kind of money? And I was with Roger every time he was signed into the Iowa Veterans Home in Marshalltown. They never said anything about billing him after he passed." Lennon was wounded in...

Editors Note - This is reposted from RangerUp (with permission) and was written by Lex McMahon, son of Ed McMahon, pictured below receiving his father's flagHow does a son say goodbye to his father? While this is a profoundly painful question to ponder, in this instance, the answer is really very simple – by honoring my father’s request to be buried and celebrated as a great Marine. To Ed’s millions of fans around the world, he was an entertainment icon who’s brilliant and colorful career spanned some 70 years and included work as a bingo caller in a traveling carnival...

So that you will know "the Rest of the Story": He wanted to be a Marine fighter pilot. The US was building up their military force, but they were not at war yet and the Navy required all its potential Navy and Marine pilots to have two years of college. So Ed started classes at Boston College. When Pearl Harbor was attacked the Army and the Navy both dropped the college requirement and Ed applied to the Marines. His primary flight training was in Dallas and then he went to Pensacola, Florida. He was carrier qualified, which means he knew...

6/30/2009 - WASHINGTON (AFNS) -- A former commanding general of the Washington, D.C., National Guard who was killed June 22 in a subway accident along with his wife was remembered in a June 29 ceremony celebrating his life and accomplishments. Retired Maj. Gen. David Wherley and his wife, Ann, a mortgage banker, both 62, were returning from Walter Reed Army Medical Center, where they were learning how to counsel servicemembers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. Their Metro train car collided with another train, killing nine people. It was a sudden event that shocked Guard members and civilians alike, and drawing...

Retired Marine Corps Col. Kenneth L. Reusser, called the most decorated Marine aviator in history and was shot down in three wars, has died at age 89. Reusser flew 253 combat missions in World War II, Korea and Vietnam and was shot down in all three, five times in all. His 59 medals included two Navy Crosses, four Purple Hearts and two Legions of Merit. In 1945, while based in Okinawa, he stripped down his F4U-4 Corsair fighter and intercepted a Japanese observation plane at a high altidude. When his guns froze, he flew his fighter into the observation plane,...

CLACKAMAS -- They came by ones and twos Friday, quietly slipping into the pews at New Hope Community Church. They smiled at the words honoring a man whose faith made him an inspiration and whose exploits in three wars made him a hero. And when the last mournful drone of the bagpipes faded, they said goodbye to Col. Kenneth L. Reusser of Milwaukie, the most decorated U.S. Marine Corps aviator in history. "He was the finest gentleman I've ever met," said Harley Wedel of Fairview, a fellow Korean War veteran. "I'm really going to miss him." Reusser flew an amazing...

Rob Finch/The Oregonian/2002U.S. Marine Corps Col. Kenneth L. Reusser (center) is joined by Marine Staff Sgt. Marvin Harper (left) and Air Force Staff Sgt. Kim Nickerson on the Freedom Train, a string of cars honoring Oregon veterans, firefighters and disaster-relief workers who flew to New York City after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. CLACKAMAS -- They came by ones and twos Friday, quietly slipping into the pews at New Hope Community Church. They smiled at the words honoring a man whose faith made him an inspiration and whose exploits in three wars made him a hero. And when the...

6/26/2009 - CANNON AIR FORCE BASE, N.M. (AFNS) -- It took the tenacity of a daughter, the insistence of a politician and the presence of 27th Special Operations Wing members here June 21 to properly recognize a World War II Soldier who sacrificed his leg in combat. In a Father's Day ceremony in Portales, N.M., Col. Stephen Clark, the 27th SOW commander, presented Herman Wallace a Bronze Star in recognition of his service during World War II. Col. Mark LaRose, the 27th Special Operations Maintenance Group commander, and Chief Master Sgt. Hector Baez, the 27th Special Operations Mission Support Group...

<p>In a 2001 interview with The Roanoke Times, Darrell "Shifty" Powers talked about some of his experiences during World War II.</p> <p>Powers, a United States Army paratrooper and sharpshooter, belonged to Easy Company, part of the legendary 101st Airborne Division. He recalled a bitterly cold day in the Ardennes when he was able to draw down on a German sniper, sighting his target by the misty cloud of the man's breath. He killed him with one shot.</p>

Bert Bank was a World War II veteran who survived the Bataan Death March, became a state legislator and founded two Tuscaloosa radio stations. Perhaps his biggest claim to fame, though, was as founder of the Alabama Football Network. Bank died Monday night at age 94.

<p>WASHINGTON (AP) — Bill collectors are exploiting a legal loophole to seize Social Security and veterans' benefits even though federal law is supposed to protect the payments from creditors.</p> <p>Lawmakers from both parties who have been pressing the Treasury Department for years to close the loophole with new regulations are growing impatient. The Obama administration is now promising action but has offered no timetable for developing the new rules.</p>

Ed McMahon passed away this morning at age 86.

Cpl. Robert Schoening was 18 when he was killed near Hill 222 south of the Kuryong River and east of the "Camel's Head" in what is now North Korea. A member of Company C, 65th Combat Engineer Battalion, 25th Infantry Division, Schoening and his comrades were among the northernmost U.S. troops as 180,000 Chinese launched a surprise attack in late November of 1950.

Britain's last Tommy, Harry Patch, has celebrated his 111th birthday - with a strawberry tea and a band of pipers. Mr Patch was a machine-gunner in the Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry and fought during the Battle of Passchendaele, in Ypres, which claimed the lives of more than 70,000 soldiers. He served in the trenches as a private from June to September 1917 when he was seriously injured by a shell explosion which killed three of his friends. The Belgian Ambassador is among those who has sent birthday wishes to Mr Patch. His actual birthday is on Wednesday June 17...

Quadriplegic former Marine Joshua Hoffman waited in a van at Michigan's Adventure, hoping to see fiancee Heather Lovell in the park for an hour or two. Her father, Rockford resident Joel Lovell, explained to park staff that Hoffman is paralyzed and cannot talk. He assumed Hoffman would be admitted free. But Lovell was told he would have to pay admission for Hoffman and the nurse tending to his medical needs. No exceptions.

Even when half your skull is missing, life goes on. For ex-soldier Erik Castillo, gravely wounded by mortar fire in Iraq in 2004, life is going better than expected. Five years have passed since he woke up drooling and paralyzed in an Army hospital with a coconut-sized hole in his cranium — an injury from which doctors said he would never fully recover. The road back to some sort of normalcy has been rife with pain and indignity. He's been stared at by strangers, coped with countless surgeries and infections, and battled rage, self-pity and depression. Through it all, he...

Florence County sheriff’s deputies have arrested two suspects, including a 16-year-old, they say were involved in a fatal shooting outside a Florence hotel room Monday morning. *snip* A native of Jackson, Mich., Chaffin landed at Iwo Jima on Feb. 19, 1945, according to a February 2008 report in The Gainesville (Fla.) Sun. He dropped out of high school in the 10th grade to join the Navy and “even the score” for the death of his two brothers, Elmer and Kenneth, in the war, according to the September newsletter of the Gator Detachment of the Marine Corps League Inc. in Gainesville,...