Free Republic

A former U.S. Army sergeant who fought in Iraq is suing the state of Michigan for denying his request to have a vanity license plate that says “infidel.” Michael Matwyuk in his lawsuit says he meant no offense by the license plate, saying he was only “reappropriating” a word used by insurgents to describe American soldiers. He said in the lawsuit that he and his fellow veterans “proudly refer to themselves as ‘infidels’ as a reminder of the bond they share as survivors of a bloody war in a hostile part of the world.”

At almost 4 months of age, little Brooks Dillard has spent more than half his short life in the hospital. For the last 8 weeks (as of 8/16/13), he has been at Seattle Children's Hospital. He has been on a ventilator the entire time, has had two major surgeries with another one in his near future. Brooks was born with a very rare congenital heart defect called Double Aortic Arch. Normally, the aorta leaves the heart and branches off to supply the arteries going to the arms and head. One of these branches then turns down to supply the lower...

Bad idea: holding up a store clerk who happens to be proficient in firearms. Worse idea: holding up a store clerk who is not only proficient in firearms, but who also happens to be an Iraq war veteran and a former prison guard and private investigator. Jon Lewis Alexander, 54, is no ordinary store clerk. He has worked several “high risk” jobs and served four tours of duty in Iraq during his 30 years in the U.S. military. And his training shows. Video surveillance from Saturday night captures the moment a would-be thief entered the Marionville, Mo., store where Alexander...

The 88-year-old World War II veteran who was beaten to death with a flashlight as he crossed a parking lot in Washington state may have died because he tried to defend himself, police said. [snip] “Our information is that the individual fought back and that may have made this, you know, a worse situation,” Spokane police Chief Frank Straub said.

The Spokane Police Department has arrested a suspect and are searching for another in the brutal beating death of 88-year-old WWII veteran Delbert Belton. Demetrius Glenn, 16, was reportedly taken into custody by police early Friday morning. He will be tried as an adult for first degree murder and robbery, KXLY-TV reports. Police are currently searching for the second suspect, identified as Kenan Adams-Kinard. Glenn reportedly has a lengthy a criminal history. He has faced charges of malicious mischief, third and fourth degree assault and driving without a license, KHQ News reports. He was also reportedly involved in a “riot...

An 88-year-old American World War II veteran has been beaten to death by two teenagers in an apparently random attack in the state of Washington. Police found Delbert Belton suffering from severe head injuries in the parking lot of a pool venue he frequented in the eastern city of Spokane. Belton, who had survived being shot in a leg during the Battle of Okinawa, was rushed to hospital but died hours later. Police claim the retired aluminium company worker was just about to enter the Eagles Lodge pool venue and play the game he loved, when two men, believed to...

Police in Washington state are searching for two young suspects who beat a World War II veteran to death in a parking lot Wednesday night. The Spokane Police Department says in a press release officers responded to reports of an assault and found the victim in his car with serious head injuries. He later died in the hospital. Authorities on Thursday released surveillance photos of the two suspects, who they describe as African-American males between the ages of 16 and 19. Friends identified the victim as 88-year-old Delbert Belton, and say he was sitting outside a lodge for the Fraternal...

A Korean War veteran who has owned a movie theater in central Kentucky for more than three decades is refusing to run “The Butler” due to the anti-Vietnam War stance of one of its lead actresses. Ike Boutwell, who opened MoviePalace and Showtime Cinemas in Elizabethtown in the 1980s, told the News-Enterprise that in all these years he has not, to his knowledge, let one movie with Jane Fonda play in his theater....

In Spokane, Washington, on Wednesday night, according to local reports, World War II veteran and Battle of Okinawa survivor Delbert Belton was beaten by two African American teenagers described as between the ages of 16 and 19. Belton passed away Thursday morning of head injuries.

WWII veteran Delbert Belton survived being wounded in action during the Battle of Okinawa only to be beaten and left for dead by two teens at the Eagles Lodge in Spokane on Wednesday evening. Belton, 89, died from the injuries he suffered in the beating Thursday morning at Sacred Heart Medical Center. . . "Shorty," as he was known by his friends at the Eagles Lodge, served in the U.S. Army in the Pacific during WWII and was shot in the leg during the Battle of Okinawa. He went on to work at Kaiser Aluminum at the company's Trentwood plant...

U.S. Army veteran Jared Goering was kicked off the North Wildwood boardwalk Thursday night because he had his service dog by his side. A North Wildwood police officer issued Jared and his wife a summons because of the dog. Goering said, “I expected to get more respect from him because of the jobs that we both have to do." "He mockingly asked if all veterans get service dogs," said Jared’s wife, Sally Goering, “his dog is medically necessary and he is a service dog." Jared and his wife Sally say the incident occurred on the 26th street North Wildwood boardwalk....

Family members are questioning the death of a 95-year-old WWII U.S. Air Corps sergeant who killed by cops at an assisted living center last month after resisting medical treatment. John Wrana died from injuries sustained in an incident, which was later ruled as a homicide by the medical examiner, by Park Forest police on July 27. Police were called to Victory Centre, according to the Chicago Tribune, when it was reported by faculty that he was being “combative,” resisting medical treatment to which he was being “involuntarily” committed to. A press release from the police department emailed to the Chicago...

They need to come up with $6,600 for their dad, uncle, husband and brother: 65-year-old Vincent Lopez. “All of us are here. We’re all family, cousins and sisters and brothers. We’re trying to do this by tomorrow. We have to do this by tomorrow at noon,” said Diana Ramirez, Lopez’s eldest daughter. That’s because the family says North Sacramento Funeral Home, which has Mr. Lopez’s body, won’t start work until they have the money. “The funeral home is asking for $6,300,” said Phyllis Rosa, Lopez’s widowed wife.

Many saluted, some cried and a few held signs. But for 70 miles, hundreds of people paid their respects to a World War II airman who died in combat in the South Pacific almost 70 years ago and was finally returned to his upstate home on Friday.

Col. Bud Day, an Air Force fighter pilot who was shot down in the Vietnam War, imprisoned with John McCain in the notorious “Hanoi Hilton,” and defiantly endured more than five years of brutality without divulging sensitive information to his captors, earning him the Medal of Honor, died Saturday in Shalimar, Fla. He was 88.

Retired Air Force Colonel Bud Day, a celebrated war hero and veteran's activist, died Saturday. He was 88. Day, a Medal of Honor recipient, was a prisoner of war in Vietnam for more than five years. He also received the Purple Heart. William Everett, regional commander for the Military Order of the Purple Heart, said Day was very giving of his free time, attending military ceremonies until his health no longer allowed him to. One of his last appearances was at his own birthday celebration Feb. 24. "Very, very sad," Everett said, of hearing about Day's death Saturday morning. "It's...

Ron Kelly, a 20-year Army veteran, recently tried to buy a .22-caliber rifle at the Wal-Mart in Tomball, Texas. He was turned away because he failed the FBI background check. He appealed the rejection, and last month he got a Justice Department letter explaining that he was legally disqualified from owning guns, after handling them in defense of his country for two decades, because of a 42-year-old marijuana conviction. As a high school student in Durham, North Carolina, he had been caught with a small amount of pot and pleaded guilty to misdemeanor possession, receiving a sentence of probation because...

<p>SHELBY TOWNSHIP, Mich. (AP) — A man was arrested in Macomb County by police responding to reports of a vehicle with a mounted machine gun driving around late at night.</p> <p>The armor-plated military-type vehicle featured a modified World War II .50-caliber machine gun.</p>

Many members of Congress hope that their names will make it into the history books. But freshman Rep. Chris Stewart (R-Utah) has already accomplished that goal, albeit outside the political arena. He has three world speed records and plenty of books to his name. Stewart is an Air Force veteran, and a former Rockwell B-1B Lancer pilot, or “bone driver.” In 1995, Stewart helped plan and execute a mission code-named “Coronet Bat,” which saw a flight of the swing-wing bombers launch from Dyess Air Force Base in Abilene, Texas, and fly nonstop around the world in 36 hours and 13...

A disabled Espanola man was injured and his home ransacked during a home invasion robbery on Espanola Road in Bunnell, authorities said Friday. The 60-year-old man, who uses a wheelchair to get around, told Flagler County sheriff’s deputies that shortly before 11 p.m. Thursday four men, one armed with an aluminum bat, entered his home, threw him on the floor and began kicking and poking him in the head with the bat, according to a news release from the Sheriff’s Office. He described his attackers as being black, between the ages of 20 and 29, wearing dark clothing, and ...