American Flags and Illinois Flags to fly at half-staff Thursday, April 10th in Illinois in honor of US Army Sergeant Timothy Owens. Sgt. Owens was one of the victims of the shooting at Fort Hood, TX.
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#HonorOurSoldiers
American Flags and Massachusetts Flags to fly at half-staff Tuesday, April 8th in honor of Gregg Maloney. Maloney was a Police Officer with the Plymouth Police Department who died in a motorcycle crash last week while on duty.
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#MassachusettsFlags
American Flags and Texas Flags to fly at half-staff through Friday, April 4th in the State of Texas in honor of the victims of the shooting yesterday at Fort Hood, TX. At this time, there are four reported deaths and 16 wounded as part of the incident.
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North Carolina Flags to fly at half-staff Wednesday, April 2nd through Friday, April 4th in Craven County, NC in honor of Alexander Thalmann. Thalmann was a police officer with the New Bern Police Department who was killed in the line of duty.
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Maine State Flags to fly at half-staff Thursday, April 3rd in honor of Edward Walsh and Michael Kennedy. Lieutenant Edward Walsh and Firefighter Michael Kennedy were both members of the Boston Fire Department who lost their lives in the line of duty while battling a blaze on March 26th.
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#MaineFlags
A very interesting article by Jada Smith from the NY Times highlights the work being done by Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America as they try and raise awareness of issues regarding Veteran Suicides. They recently lined nearly 2,000 American Flags on the National Mall to raise awareness of their cause. The 2,000 flag represented the amount of Veteran Suicides thus far in 2014 alone (approximately 22 per day).
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#HonorOurSoldiers
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Using Flags to Focus on Veteran Suicides
From NY Times:
WASHINGTON — Volunteers in dark green hooded sweatshirts spread out across the National Mall on Thursday, planting 1,892 small American flags in the grass between the Washington Monument and the Capitol. Each flag represented a veteran who had committed suicide since Jan. 1, a figure that amounts to 22 deaths each day.
Civilians stood among the waving flags in solidarity with veterans like Michael Blazer, a former sergeant in the Army who had a friend commit suicide when he got back from Afghanistan.
“He shot himself in the same room as me and a friend of mine,” Mr. Blazer said. “I’ve been diagnosed with PTSD because of that, so a lot of these issues are what I’ve personally been dealing with. But above and beyond, I’m out here in memory of him.”
The event was part of an awareness campaign mounted by members of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, an advocacy group focused on issues affecting the nation’s newest veterans. They are in Washington this week as part of their leadership development program, Storm the Hill, and to support the introduction of legislation aimed at preventing suicides and providing more mental health resources for service members home from combat.
Event organizers said that the issues were a top priority for veterans and their families, and that they wanted to make them a priority for Congress, too.
Senator John Walsh, Democrat of Montana and the first Iraq war veteran to serve in the Senate, introduced the Suicide Prevention for America’s Veterans Act on Thursday. For Mr. Walsh, the issue is personal: A sergeant who served under him when he commanded an infantry battalion in Iraq in 2004 and 2005 committed suicide after returning home.
“We’ve waited too long to take on this action,” he said. Then, mentioning the 22 veterans who take their lives every day, he added, “That’s an epidemic that we cannot allow to continue.”
When service members leave the military, they can get five years of no-questions-asked care from Department of Veterans Affairs hospitals and facilities. One of the bill’s main goals is to extend that window to 15 years.
“For instance, in Vietnam, a lot of symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder didn’t show up anywhere until between seven and 12 years later,” said Kate O’Gorman, the political director at the veterans’ advocacy group. “We really want to make sure that care is available when someone is ready to seek it.”
The bill also calls for the military to set up a review process for troops who are discharged for behavior that could have been caused by mental health issues. Measures to help the Veterans Affairs agency recruit more psychiatrists are also included.
“It establishes student loan repayment for psychiatrists,” Ms. O’Gorman said. “When the private sector and even the Department of Defense are able to offer good student loan repayment programs and the V.A. is not, that can make it difficult for them to recruit.”
The striking display of red, white and blue caught the eye of almost everyone leaving a Metro station on the Mall on Thursday. One man wearing a hat with “Vietnam Veteran” stitched on the front took pictures. Others stopped to ask what was going on.
Roger Engetschwiler and his daughter, Katja, were visiting from Switzerland. They were headed to the Holocaust Memorial Museum and then the Lincoln Memorial when they paused to find out about the flags.
“We knew the subject when they told us that there’s a lot of suicide going on with veterans,” he said. “But I didn’t know the numbers were that high. That’s really scary.”
American Flags and New Hampshire Flags to fly at half-staff Thursday, March 27th in honor of Edward Walsh and Michael Kennedy. Lieutenant Edward Walsh and Firefighter Michael Kennedy were both members of the Boston Fire Department who lost their lives in the line of duty while battling a blaze on March 26th.
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#AmericanFlags
#NewHampshireFlags
American Flags and Massachusetts Flags to fly at half-staff Thursday, March 27th in honor of Edward Walsh and Michael Kennedy. Lieutenant Edward Walsh and Firefighter Michael Kennedy were both members of the Boston Fire Department who lost their lives in the line of duty while battling a blaze on March 26th.
#FlagsHalf-Staff
#AmericanFlags
#MassachusettsFlags
UPDATE: This half-staff order has been extended through Thursday, April 3rd.
American Flags and Arizona Flags to fly at half-staff Thursday, March 27th in the State of Arizona in honor of Thomas Quesnel. Quesnel was an arson investigator with the Tucson Fire Department who served faithfully for 25 years. Mr. Quesnel also served four years with the US Coast Guard.
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#ArizonaFlags
Pennsylvania Flags to fly at half-staff Wednesday, March 26th through Thursday, March 27th at the Capitol Complex and throughout Westmoreland County in honor of Edwin Lance Wentzel. Mr. Wentzel served with the Youngwood Volunteer Fire Department for 35 years and was killed while on duty and searching for a missing woman when he was struck by a train.
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