Tag: veterans

Years after they fought in Afghanistan, US troops watch as their children deploy to the same war

 Nineteen years ago on Wednesday, a generation of Americans deployed to Afghanistan to root out the terrorists behind the 9/11 attacks, believing that by fighting in the country more than 7,400 miles away, they would spare their children the need to do so too.

But as the U.S. war in Afghanistan begins its 20th year, some of those same service members have watched as their sons and daughters have deployed to continue the fight.

“When we started this, people asked why I was going, and my response was, ‘So my sons don’t have to fight this war,’” said Master Sgt. Trevor deBoer, who has deployed to Afghanistan three times with the 20th Special Forces Group since 2002.

Nearly two decades later, deBoer’s son, Spc. Payton Sluss, also served in Afghanistan — including at Forward Operating Base Fenty, north of the city of Jalalabad, where deBoer had served.

“My feet were walking the same land you were,” Sluss said to his father in a joint phone interview with Stars and Stripes.

The war, and Afghanistan itself, were very different when Sluss arrived in 2018. The U.S. had shifted its focus from eliminating 9/11 masterminds al-Qaida, who had been given safe haven by the ruling Taliban, to rebuilding the country and training Afghan forces. At the same time, the Taliban regained strength and launched an insurgency against the American-led coalition.

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‘The patient can shoot themselves I do not care’: VA watchdog exposes what preceded veteran’s suicide

The Veterans Administration inspector general has delivered a report detailing the facts that led to a veteran shooting and killing himself six days after seeking help in a D.C. VA facility.

The report, which was released Tuesday, outlined the poor communication and judgment of several mental health and emergency room staff. Worse, however, it showed a callous lack of concern by one of the ER’s attending doctors, the Washington Post reported.

“[The patient] can go shoot [themself]. I do not care,” the physician shouted, dismissing the vet’s symptoms. He then told police to eject the veteran, deciding that he was “malingering” and “ranting.”

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Disabled Veteran Sentenced to 5 Years for Using Legal Medical Marijuana to Treat War Injury

Due to the archaic cannabis laws in the Land of the Free, a disabled veteran was sentenced to 5 years in prison for possessing medical marijuana that he had a prescription for in one state but got caught with in another state.

Sean Worsley, 33, who is a disabled veteran who has PTSD and a traumatic brain injury from his time in Iraq, will now spend the next five years in a cage for using a plant to heal himself.

While Sean was traveling with his wife Eboni to visit family in Mississippi and North Carolina, they stopped for gas in Alabama when they were in between their destinations. While they were parked at the gas station, a police officer spotted them and decided that the music coming from the Worsley’s car was too loud. He also seemed upset that Sean was playing “air guitar.”

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