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 This is just one of way to many stories that just break my heart.

 PINEHURST, N.C. - Officers had been to the white ranch house at 560 W. Longleaf many times before over the past year to respond to a "barricade situation." Each had ended uneventfully, with Joseph Dwyer coming out or telling police in a calm voice through the window that he was OK.

But this time was different.

The Iraq War veteran had called a taxi service to take him to the emergency room. But when the driver arrived, Dwyer shouted that he was too weak to get up and open the door.

The officers asked Dwyer for permission to kick it in.

"Go ahead!" he yelled.

They found Dwyer lying on his back, his clothes soiled with urine and feces. Scattered on the floor around him were dozens of spent cans of Dust-Off, a refrigerant-based aerosol normally used to clean electrical equipment.

Dwyer told police Lt. Mike Wilson he'd been "huffing" the aerosol.

"Help me, please!" the former Army medic begged Wilson. "I'm dying. Help me. I can't breathe."

Unable to stand or even sit up, Dwyer was hoisted onto a stretcher. As paramedics prepared to load him into an ambulance, an officer noticed Dwyer's eyes had glassed over and were fixed.

A half hour later, he was dead.

When Dionne Knapp learned of her friend's June 28 death, her first reaction was to be angry at Dwyer. How could he leave his wife and daughter like this? Didn't he know he had friends who cared about him, who wanted to help?

But as time passed, Knapp's anger turned toward the Army.

A photograph taken in the first days of the war had made the medic from New York's Long Island a symbol of the United States' good intentions in the Middle East . When he returned home, he was hailed as a hero.

But for most of the past five years, the 31-year-old soldier had writhed in a private hell, shooting at imaginary enemies and dodging nonexistent roadside bombs, sleeping in a closet bunker and trying desperately to huff away the "demons" in his head. When his personal problems became public, efforts were made to help him, but nothing seemed to work.

This broken, frightened man had once been the embodiment of American might and compassion. If the military couldn't save him, Knapp thought, what hope was there for the thousands suffering in anonymity?



http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/military_the_enemy_within

 Lets let the generals decide when and where we go militarily. There will always be these types of disturbing stories, that doesn't belittle them, but just like anything else, history decides our fate, not today.

I just thought I would throw this in because I'm proud of my family. Dennis is my Cousin and we were raised a couple blocks apart. Richard his son and my name sake are in this story.


It’s A Grind Coffee House, a Long Beach original, is sending large supplies of coffee to troops from the area serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, including Richard Lander, from Lakewood, shown with comrades Jorgee Ferree of West Covina, left, and Charles Boniface of San Luis Obispo, who work around the Baghdad airport.

America, or much of it, runs on coffee.

Alexander King called it the "basic need of the human heart in nearly every great crisis." This story will prove the wisdom of the late author's words.

No one knows about the public's reliance on coffee better than Marty Cox and his wife, Louise Montgomery. It has been 10 years since they opened their It's a Grind coffee shop on Spring Street and Los Coyotes.

What followed has been an entrepreneurial classic. Located now in 12 states, It's a Grind is about to open its 50th store. More than 50 additional stores are under development.

The latest Grind locale, believe it or not? It's Baghdad Airport in Iraq.

No, it's not a full-fledged franchise. Actually, it is something even better.

Wars and wars

Meet Dennis Lander. If his name sounds familiar, it may be because it has appeared in this column before.

I've written about how, as kids, Lander and his buddies at Lakewood's Del Valle Park played on a relic from the Korean War, a Douglas F4D Night Fighter jet. And I've written how Lander and those buddies later went off to their own war in Vietnam.

Some did not return, and years later Lander wrote a poem called "The Boys of Del Valle Park." It pays tribute to his lost playmates of yore and is inscribed in bronze at the park today.

You can mark America's generations by the wars they fight. For Lander's son, Richard, the war is the one in Iraq. He serves with the Air Force's 447th Expeditionary Firefighters, providing fire protection and an emergency medical response team for the area around the Baghdad Airport.

Says Dennis, "Richard e-mailed me from Iraq and told me that coffee and soda were about the extent of the beverage menu at their tent city, which is called Camp Sather, (and is) located on the perimeter of the airport."

Traditional G.I. coffee was the brew. And Dennis, having survived on "traditional G.I. coffee" while in the Air Force wondered if he could not do better for his son. What, for example, could be better than the coffee he drinks at his favorite hangout the It's a Grind on Woodruff Avenue in Lakewood?

Lander called Cox. Would the company be willing to send some coffee to Iraq?

“Sure.”

"We sent a couple months" supply," says Cox, downplaying his contribution. He also included an It's a Grind sign that is now displayed outside the tent.

Says Lander, "What he and his employees actually did was grind and package enough coffee to last four months, and they made the commitment to supply the camp in the future."

When pumped, Cox also notes that the company has sent coffee to U.S. troops in Afghanistan. "It went to one of our customers who was fighting there. I sent a few hundred pounds."

Asked why he sent it, Cox says simply, "It felt good."

He has contributed as well to the tsunami relief effort.

Says Lander, "I just wanted to let you know about the generosity of one of Long Beach's home-grown companies. And I think that companies who step up to the plate should be recognized for doing what they can for our troops."

I think Lander is absolutely right.

http://www.itsagrind.com/main.php?page=about&sub_page=4&detail=19


Edit: link to the poem  "The Boys of Del Valle Park."


http://members.tripod.com/milfamlighthouse-ivil/id25.html

the reason we should leave iraq isn't cus of things like this, it isn't because of the condition we left their country, it isn't even becuase we shouldn't be in iraq in the first place. The reason we should leave iraq is because both the government and the people want us out. the Iraq prime minister was quoted saying he wants the us out. Of course the people want us out. As long as we are still in there we are only making the situation worse and helping to spawn more terrorists by killing the parents and aunts and uncles of children who will grow to hate the us. What we need to do if anything is reinforce our boys in Afghanistan and find osama bin laden.

None of the wars that we fought in were our wars really. Mostly we stuck our nose in. Ok so we supplied the UK and pissed hitler off soe he bombed a few of our ships, so we busted his ass for it. And then That T'd off Japan, so they busted up Pearl Harbor, so we messed up their faces too. But as to the rest of the skirmeshes we decided to help pretty much, And if you look back if others had not been watching our backs where would we be? Its called do for others.And what makes us what we are pretty much, never afraid of a scrap. Or to get our pretty hands dirty. We are unique as any country goes. Its just what we do.

 

We humiliated Japan and they had no other recourse. We wanted them to do something so we could get into the war on a grand scale!