Dog owner killed after argument over letting dog run around

Dog owner called police after shooting neighbor: 'He doesn't look well. Send the ambulances!'
Detroit Free Press
By L.L. Brasier
Staff Writer
April 16, 2014

The 911 call came in shortly before 10 p.m. that cold snowy night last December.

“Somebody help!” the man shouted to the operator. “There’s been a shooting. Send them quick. Call them quick...he’s on the ground.”

The man making the call, Charles Simkins, 28, had just shot his neighbor, Edwin Criswell, 45, in the leg, following a dispute over Simkins’ dog, which had been running their Walled Lake neighborhood.

Criswell eventually bled to death on his front porch.

The seven-minute tape was played in open court this afternoon, as Simkins, dressed in orange jail garb and shackled at the waist, sat and listened at the defense table.

The preliminary examination, before Novi District Judge Dennis Powers, will resume next Wednesday to determine whether there is enough evidence to send Simkins, an Iraq war vet, to trial. He is charged with open murder.

Criswell complained about the dog, and the two began to fight, Simkins hitting Criswell, and knocking him to the ground.
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Florida Marine Shot After Trying to Help Strangers

Military veteran shot in the face when helping others
First Coast News
Michelle Quesada
April 14, 2014

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- A local military veteran is recovering from a gunshot wound to the face after he was shot while trying to help others.

Ralph Tackett, 49, spent hours in surgery Monday.

"They got the bullet out, he's got three plates in his jaw, three titanium plates and he's going to need more surgeries," said Sandy Tackett, the victim's wife.

According to a Jacksonville Sheriff's Office police report, Tackett heard a car crash outside his home on Fort Caroline Road Saturday morning. He got in his car to drive out and help when he saw the crashed Silver Pontiac Grand Prix and three men walking towards him, waiving him down.

"They asked him for a tire, he said 'a tire? I think you need more than a tire,'" said Richard Tackett, the victim's son.

The report states that's when one of the suspects shot him in the left lower jaw.

"They didn't ask for the car, didn't ask him to get out or anything they just shot him," said Sandy.
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Another Marine's car was stolen.

Marine Lance Cpl. Cory Coumbes dies in car crash

Marine Lance Cpl. Cory Coumbes dies in car crash
The Desert Sun
Brett Kelman and Colin Atagi
April 15, 2014

Another Twentynine Palms Marine is injured in a separate crash on Highway 62.

A High Desert Marine was killed in a car crash in Twentynine Palms early Saturday. One day later, another crash in the neighboring city of Joshua Tree left a military policeman severely injured and fatally wounded his wife.

Lance Cpl. Cory Coumbes, 24, a rifleman stationed at the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center in Twentynine Palms, was killed in a two-car collision at the intersection of Lear Avenue and Two Mile Road about 3 a.m. Saturday. Coumbes was a passenger in a Kia Soul hit broadside by a Honda Fit that ran a stop sign, said Cindy Bachman, public information officer for the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department.

The following day, another car crash, this time along Highway 62 in Joshua Tree, left five people hospitalized, including Angela G. Matthews, 25, who died Tuesday afternoon from her injuries.

Her husband Marine Lance Cpl. Christopher Matthews, a 28-year-old military policeman stationed in Twentynine Palms was wounded in the crash as was the couple's 1-year-old daughter.

One week prior to that crash, a third Marine, Cpl. Elmer VanHoorebeke Jr., died in a motorcycle collision in Joshua Tree National Park.

All three crashes occurred within three weeks of an extensive, three-day Desert Sun series on the untimely deaths of local Marines.
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Vietnam Veteran made headline but other interest didn't

The fact the man charges in killing people is a Vietnam veteran made the headline but the fact he is a White Supremacist didn't? Read the story and see which one would have more to do with what he is accused of doing.

Murder Charges Against Vietnam War Veteran Filed in Shootings at Kansas Jewish Sites
Murder charges filed in shootings at Kansas Jewish sites
NTD
2014-04-15

WASHINGTON, April 16, 2014 (AFP)

US prosecutors filed a death penalty murder charge Tuesday against a white supremacist accused of fatally shooting three people at Jewish sites in Kansas over the weekend.

Frazier Glenn Cross, 73, also known as F. Glenn Miller, was charged with one count of capital murder for the deaths of a 69-year-old physician and his teenaged grandson outside the Jewish Community Center of Greater Kansas City.

He also faced one count of first-degree premeditated murder for the death of a 53-year-old woman at the nearby Village Shalom retirement community where she was paying a weekly visit to her mother.

Riding in a wheelchair and wearing a dark sleeveless outfit, Cross made his first court appearance later via video link from a county jail, where he was being held in lieu of $10 million bail.

With his arms crossed, and a copy of the charges in his clinched hand, he accepted a court-appointed defense lawyer, saying he had no money to pay for his own attorney.

Magistrate Judge Dan Vokins told Cross to return on April 24 for a scheduling conference.

Sunday's bloodshed -- on the eve of the Jewish holiday of Passover -- occurred in the Kansas City suburb of Overland Park. All three victims were Christian.
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J. R. Martinez all smiles with donation to Operation Finally Home

Dancing with the Stars Champ, Iraq War Vet J.R. Martinez and Operation Finally Home Moved by Wall Street Rocks' Donation to Help Wounded and Disabled Vets
Latin Post
By Melissa Castellanos
April 16, 2014

Dancing with the Stars Season 13 champion, U.S. Army veteran, actor, motivational speaker and best-selling author J.R. Martinez receives a $50,000 check from Wall Street Walks on behalf of Operation Finally Home.
(Photo : Sunny Norton)

Former Iraq War veteran-turned actor and Dancing with the Stars Season 13 champion, J.R. Martinez has wowed audiences with his slick dance moves alongside Karina Smirnoff, acting roles on ABC's All My Children, Lifetime's Army Wives to the nationally syndicated drama series, SAF3.

He's even nabbed the cover of People Magazine, been featured in their Sexiest Man Alive issue and one of the magazine's 25 Most Intriguing People of 2011.

But there's so much more to him than the spotlight he's received in Hollywood.

Like the Dancing with the Star's mirror ball trophy, there are flickers of light that have reflected off his onscreen success, transcending into incredible opportunities that help fellow wounded and disabled vets and burn victims like himself, who are in desperate need of financial and emotional support.
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Soldier found dead in Capitol Forest

Soldier found dead in Capitol Forest has uncle missing in Oso slide
The Olympian
BY JEREMY PAWLOSKI
Staff writer
April 15, 2014

Thurston County search and rescue crews have found the body of a JBLM soldier who went missing in Capitol Forest Sunday night.

Chris Dombroski, 20, was found dead about 10 a.m. Tuesday, in an area of Capitol Peak near where his motorcycle had been found just hours earlier.

"It's not suspicious," Thurston County Sheriff's Lt. Greg Elwin said of the soldier's death. Elwin added that the evidence at the scene suggests Dombroski suffered a "traumatic, non-accidental death," but he would not elaborate further.

"There's no indication anyone else did this," Elwin added.

The investigation into Dombroski's death will be turned over to the Grays Harbor County Sheriff's Office, because his body was found in Grays Harbor County, Elwin added.

The coroner in Grays Harbor County will conduct an autopsy.

Dombroski has an uncle and an aunt who are missing in the Oso mudslide, an Everett Herald reporter confirmed Tuesday.
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Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Salem empty?

Salem VA’s new mental health center still empty
The Roanoke Times
By Laurence Hammack
April 15, 2014

Nearly half a year after the planned opening of a new psychiatric building at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Salem, the facility still sits empty.

It could be July or August before the 38-bed inpatient treatment center is occupied, according to VA officials who said the delay comes as they await delivery of furnishings for the newly completed building.

The $9.5 million building was scheduled to open in the fall of 2013, and a ribbon-cutting ceremony was held on Nov. 20.

Since then, some of the specialized furnishings needed for patient safety “have required more time in production than was originally anticipated,” Salem VA spokeswoman Marian McConnell wrote in an email Tuesday.

Details on the types of furnishings involved were not available.

Only about a third of the ordered items have been delivered so far. Once the furnishings arrive, workers must install wiring for a system that will provide communication between patients in secure rooms and a nursing station.
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Afghanistan Veteran Marine Amputee Taking on Mt. Everest

Boise veteran, wounded in Afghanistan, climbing Mt. Everest
KTVB.COM
by Brady Moore
Posted on April 15, 2014

Credit: The Heroes Project

BOISE -- More than 7,000 miles away from the City of Trees, U.S. Marine Corps Staff Sergeant and Boise native Charlie Linville is making the climb of his life.

In January 2011 Staff Sgt. Linville was conducting an IED sweep in Afghanistan when he was hit by an explosive device. That blast caused head trauma and devastating injuries to his right foot and hand.

Two years later, despite multiple attempts at rehabilitation, his right leg was amputated below the knee. But now, he's climbing 29,029 feet to the summit of Mt. Everest.
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UPDATE

If you think this is not dangerous,,,,,,
At Least 13 Sherpas Dead as Avalanche Sweeps Mount Everest

An avalanche swept down a slope of Mount Everest on Friday along a route used to ascend the world's highest peak, killing at least 13 people in the mountain's deadliest disaster.

NBC News confirmed that all of the dead were Sherpa guides.

The guides had gone early in the morning to fix the ropes for hundreds of climbers when the avalanche hit them just below Camp 2 around 6:30 a.m. local time, Nepal Tourism Ministry official Krishna Lamsal told The Associated Press.
click link for more on avalanche

Marine vet not caught in Everest avalanche

Medal of Honor Earned by Radio Operator for Saving Lives in Afghanistan

Former Army Sgt. Kyle J. White to receive Medal of Honor
Stars and Stripes
By Jon Harper
Published: April 15, 2014

Staff Sgt. Conrad Begaye awards Spc. Kyle White the Combat Infantryman Badge during a ceremony in Nuristan Province, Afghanistan, Nov. 6, 2007.
PHOTO COURTESY OF KYLE WHITE

WASHINGTON — Former Army Sgt. Kyle J. White will be awarded the Medal of Honor at a White House ceremony on May 13, 2014, the White House announced late Tuesday afternoon.

White, 27, will receive the nation's highest military award for his actions during a dismounted movement in mountainous terrain in Aranas, Afghanistan, on Nov. 9, 2007.

White was serving as a Platoon Radio Telephone Operator assigned to C Company, 2nd Battalion (Airborne), 503rd Infantry Regiment, 173rd Airborne Brigade, when his team of U.S. and Afghan National Army soldiers were set up and ambushed by a much larger and more heavily armed Taliban force after a meeting with Afghan villagers.

"There was one shot, you know, down into the valley, and then it was two shots, and then it was full-automatic fire and RPGs ... it was coming from multiple directions," White later recalled, according to an Army news release.

White, a native of Seattle, separated from the Army on July 8, 2011, and used his G.I. Bill to attend the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. He now works as an investment analyst in Charlotte.

White, whose father was a Special Forces Soldier during the Vietnam era, will be the seventh living recipient to be awarded the Medal of Honor for actions in Iraq or Afghanistan. He and his family will join President Barack Obama at the White House for the presentation ceremony.
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Warrior Soul Mates Learn Healing at Tampa VA

Emotions are not the problem and this point was stressed over and over again. Holding it in and not releasing it is bad and that is the truth. How can you find room to be happy if bad feelings fill you up? Feeling is good but when it is brought on by something bad, it takes hold and until you overcome it. Think it is impossible? It isn't.

Too often veterans feel as if they are trapped in the pain but that is just because they don't see PTSD truthfully. The truth is, PTSD was caused by something bad that happened. It changes the way they think, the way they feel and the way they react. The truth is also that they can change again. Yep, change again. Not a secret. No trick.

If they stop wanting to fit back in again with people who never experienced what they did, then they are in for a huge disappointment. They can't understand that their experiences put them into a different reality. The clincher is, no one has the same experiences and it isn't a contest. One member of a unit may need more help than others and one may be able to give more care than anyone else. One may be a total jerk on the surface but his history could have been a lifetime of rotten events and he just needs someone to show they care. Who knows? Who can be the judge?

The problem is they do judge. They judge themselves harder than anyone else. They want to go back to the way they were before and when they can't they think it is their fault. They believe the BS that their suffering has to be about what is wrong with them. They may think everyone else they were with was just stronger than they were but PTSD has nothing to do with how mentally strong someone is. It has more to do with how strong their ability to feel is. Yes, you read that right. The stronger they can feel good things, the stronger they feel bad things.

As for loving them, well, what you may love the most about them is also what can cause them the most pain.

If you love a veteran then think of it this way.

1 Corinthians 13:4-8
New International Version (NIV)
4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. 8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.

If you make it more about helping them through the dark days and less about how they make you feel. When you understand that none of it is coming from a mean place but is coming from a hurting place inside of them, the more you are able to not take it personally and help them heal.

Veterans, Caregivers Learn to Be Healing to Each Other in Innovative Warrior to Soul Mate Programs
Fatherhood Channel
by ROB HENTHORN
APRIL 15, 2014

“There is significantly greater understanding, an enhanced ability to resolve conflict in a positive way, really talk to and hear one another, and have new ways of nurturing a close intimate, and respectful relationship with each other, which then affects the entire household in a positive way.”

Chaplain Barbara Nollie
James A. Haley Veterans’ Hospital
Tampa, Florida

by ROBERT HENTHORN
FATHERHOODCHANNEL.COM

The Department of Veterans Affairs is continuing to expand innovative efforts to help Veterans strengthen relationships with spouses, significant others and caregivers through relationship skills training many have found helpful to reducing symptoms of stress, boosting relationship happiness and resiliency

First lady Michelle Obama last week called on Americans to match the sacrifice of the military families with support for them. “We have to keep asking ourselves, what more can we do,” she said at a joint meeting with Jill Biden, former Senator Elizabeth Dole and former first lady Rosalyn Carter.

Nearly 5.5 million Americans are caring for service members and Veterans, including 1.1 million who are caring for someone who served after Sept. 11, 2001. Many of those Veterans and service members are impacted by traumatic stress, which can take a heavy toll on relationships.

A study from the National Center for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder found, “People diagnosed with PTSD are three to six times more likely to divorce than those without PTSD.” Drs. Candice Monson and Casey Taft reported that a PTSD diagnosis was associated with a 400 percent increase in the likelihood of marital distress. Earlier this year, Jennifer Price, PhD, and Susan Stevens, PsyD reported on research that found ”Veterans’ PTSD symptoms can negatively impact family relationships and that family relationships may exacerbate or ameliorate a veteran’s PTSD.”
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How to Go from Anger, Fear and Sadness to Relief and Love

Job seekers interview for toughest job in the world

First I have not lost my mind posting this video. There is a reason for it. Watch the video first then go to the bottom for the answer.

World's Toughest Job - #worldstoughestjob

Here's a pretty cool project from Mullen for a client we won't immediately reveal, lest we spoil the surprise.
The Boston agency posted this job listing online for a "director of operations" position at a company called Rehtom Inc. The requirements sounded nothing short of brutal:

• Standing up almost all the time
• Constantly exerting yourself
• Working from 135 to unlimited hours per week
• Degrees in medicine, finance and culinary arts necessary
• No vacations
• The work load goes up on Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's and other holidays
• No time to sleep
• Salary = $0 go here for more

What is even harder, a Mom in the Military! God Bless All Of You!!

Boston Iraq Veteran-Fallen Firefighter Was Ready To Run Marathon

Fallen firefighter was set to run Boston Marathon
Michael Kennedy's dad taking loss 'one second at a time'
WCVB News
By Jack Harper
Apr 14, 2014

BOSTON —The father of a Boston firefighter killed in a fire in March is remembering his son, who ran to help the victims of last year's Boston Marathon and was training to run this year's race.

A funeral was held for Firefighter Mike Kennedy, who was one of two firefighters killed while battling a fire in Boston.

Wearing a fundraising shirt carrying his son's nickname, Dork, Paul Kennedy said he remembers wonderful times with his only son, including Mike's first Boston Marathon.

"I was close to the finish, and I saw him chugging along and waved. He saw me and stopped. I was in front of the Lenox Hotel. He turned and gave me a hug," he said.
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Brad Pitt to Star as General Stanley McChrystal

Brad Pitt to Star as General Stanley McChrystal in Afghanistan War Film The Operators
E News
by BRUNA NESSIF
Apr. 14, 2014

Dmac/FAMEFLYNET PICTURES

Brad Pitt is locking in yet another war flick on his list of films.

Angelina Jolie's handsome significant other is going to star as Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the former commanding general of international and U.S. forces in Afghanistan, in the upcoming movie The Operators, according to The Los Angeles Times.

The military drama will be written and directed by Australian director David Michod, who was behind the indie film Animal Kingdom a few ago, and will be based off of journalist Michael Hastings‘ 2012 book The Operators: The Wild and Terrifying Inside Story of America's War in Afghanistan.

McChrystal made headlines when he was fired in 2010 after making some controversial remarks in a Rolling Stone profile by the late Michael Hastings, in which General McChrystal and his staff criticized administration officials, the president and his advisers.
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Veteran says he picked up paper and a pen, not his gun

With suicides way up, Treasure Valley group works to aid veterans
Figures show that more than 20 former military members take their lives each day, a number that Warrior Pointe hopes to drastically reduce.
Idaho Statesman
BY ANNA WEBB
April 13, 2014

In the summer of 2012, U.S. Army veteran Reed Pacheco had his suicide all planned out.

He has four children. He didn't want to kill himself in the same house where they live. Finding an alternate place wouldn't be hard, he figured.

"We're in the land of open space and wilderness," Pacheco said.

Something else happened instead.

"I truly believe it was God," he said.

He picked up paper and a pen, not his gun. He wrote down a list of problems veterans face when they come home from military service.

"We call them our demons," he said. "Insomnia, drinking, broken relationships, remorse, guilt, unemployment, navigating the VA, suicide."

He picked up the phone and called his friends - fellow veterans.
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Apr 11, 2014
Reed Pacheco and Joshua Petersen, two members of Warrior Pointe, talk about the Treasure Valley group's efforts to curb veterans' feelings of isolation.