Free Republic

When a veteran started offering traditional remarks at a military flag-folding ceremony, several uniformed airmen assaulted him, dragging him out of the room because his remarks mentioned God. Now First Liberty Institute lawyers representing retired Senior Master Sergeant Oscar Rodriguez are demanding that the U.S. Air Force apologize and punish those responsible or face a federal civil-rights lawsuit.

My patient, nearing death, made a moving request: baptism. He’d get the full dunk. Five days earlier, we had admitted Bennie, a Vietnam veteran, to the intensive care unit of our VA hospital in Nashville, Tenn. Frail and wrinkled, he had a look of utter confusion and a furrowed brow that would pluck the heartstrings of even the most calloused physician. Decades spent in Southern tobacco fields left him looking old enough to remember Hoover’s presidency. Double pneumonia and too much sedation made him delirious.

A veteran's service dog was killed by an alligator at the Port LaBelle Marina. Robert Lineberger is epileptic and depended on his medical alert dog, Precious, for more than six years. Lineberger recently moved into the marina about a month ago, where he lives on his sailboat. He stepped onto the dock and never saw what was coming. "It was pitch black, and I really didn't hear anything until I rounded the corner, and then I heard like claws," he said. Precious started guarding her owner as he was being threatened by a 13-foot alligator on the dock. "My service...

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (WBTV) – Charlotte resident Janice Allison refuses to abide by the bathroom principles laid out in North Carolina’s House Bill 2. A military veteran and transgender woman herself, she made her stance on the law clear at last week’s Charlotte City Council meeting. HB2 overturned a non-discrimination local ordinance passed by the Charlotte City Council to expand protections to the LGBT community, including a clause to allow people to choose the bathroom or locker room of their gender identification. Allison was born a man, but identifies as a woman. To make a statement, she took a photo of...

Concealed carry permit holder Byron Wilson drew his handgun and engaged a mass shooter in Texas on Sunday, possibly saving lives at great risk to his own. An Army veteran* of multiple tours in Afghanistan opened fire in Houston on Sunday, killing two people wounding and wounding six more before being killed by responding SWAT officers. What many news outlets seem to be glossing over in their reporting of attack is that the veteran’s attack, carried out with an AR-15 variant, showed that the weapon was anything but “high-powered.” Six of the eight people shot with the most common rifle...

Ret. Major General Antonio Taguba, known for authoring a report on the abuse that occurred at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, has now come to the defense of a Filipino World War II veteran who is still seeking recognition and equity pay for his service to the U.S. during the war. Celestino Almeda, who will turn 99 years old this June, still fights with the spirit he had as a 1941 member of the Philippine Commonwealth Army under control of the U.S. Army. And while his service and documents have been enough to earn him U.S. citizenship and even VA...

When Joey Vanoni returned to the United States from Afghanistan in 2013, he went to work putting his dream of owning a pizza business into action. A Navy veteran and current reservist, Vanoni launched Pizza di Joey, his veteran owned and operated business, in August 2014, serving New York-style brick oven pizza out of a food truck in Maryland’s Anne Arundel and Baltimore Counties. Vanoni knows good pizza. He was born and raised in New Jersey and began making pizza at a pizzeria when he was in high school. The reservist has lived in many cities across the country, all...

In Memory of a Fallen Comrade I write this in memory of one we left behind, MSG William B. Hunt, U.S. Army Special Forces, MIA, November 5, 1966. It is an account of the sacrifice he made to his country, to his comrades, and to the Vietnamese people. In November 1966, SSG Hunt and I served together at Special Forces ODA Camps under Detachment B-32, 5th Special Forces Group, Tay Ninh Province, in the Republic of Vietnam. Hunt was with ODA-322 at Camp Suoi DA, and I was assigned to ODA-323 at Camp Trai Bi. Our camps were about 30...

Comas. Ha ha. There’s a funny topic. In the news recently was the story of a man named Jake Booth, who is a 35-year-old Army veteran living in Florida. He had suffered a heart attack as a result of a bad case of pneumonia and was put into a medically-induced coma. He woke from the coma on April 3, after a full 48 days of lying unconscious in a hospital bed. As he slowly opened his eyes, he saw his closest friends and family members sitting anxiously by his side, waiting for him to speak his first words. You would...

Full title :Heartwarming moment World War II veteran, 94, is reunited with man he saved from Nazi concentration camp in 1945 A 94-year-old World War II veteran was reunited with one of the prisoners he helped liberate from the Dachau concentration camp. Retired U.S. Army corporal Sid Shafner said he was among the first Allied troops to reach the Nazi camp in April 1945, and that he is the last surviving member of his unit. His tearful reunion with Marcel Levy, 90, who was a teenager when he was liberated, came during a recent tour of Europe and Israel. 'You...

A candidate for West Virginia state senate was brutally attacked over the weekend when a man wielding brass knuckles blind-sided him at a cookout, police say. Retired Major Richard Ojeda, an Iraq and Afghanistan veteran who's challenging the incumbent Democrat, was attending the political function in the town of Logan when a man reportedly asked him for a bumper sticker. When Ojeda knelt to attach the sticker to the man's car, police say the suspect struck the candidate as many as nine times with brass knuckles, knocking him out. According to West Virginia State Troopers, the suspect--who's been identified as...

Thanks to the Gary Sinise Foundation, retired Army Master Sgt. Cedric King and his wife and family have a new home. As reported on WSB-TV in Atlanta and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Sgt. King was on his third deployment in Afghanistan in 2012 when stepped on a pressure plate improvised explosive device (IED) and lost both legs. "The house I live in right now, you have to understand, I bought it before I went to Afghanistan," King told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. "I never thought in a million years that house would not be enough ... I always thought it would be...

It’s absolutely heartbreaking that a disabled veteran walking with a cane, after being shot serving our country is FORCED to walk to an event to hear a presidential candidate speak in America. He fought for our nation, and this is the respect he gets from these thugs? Shutting down free speech in America is NOT okay. In a normal world, our president would be holding a press conference to tell people they will be held accountable for their actions. Unfortunately, many Americans believe it is more likely our “President” is helping to organize these events behind the scenes with the...

Kyle Odom is an honorably discharged Marine, a Dean's List graduate from the University of Idaho and a man driven to kill a Coeur d'Alene pastor based on his belief that his life had been ruined “by an intelligent species of amphibian-humanoid from Mars.” In multiple documents in a thumb drive mailed to KXLY Monday and received Tuesday, Odom laid out his manifesto that a race of ancient Martians, with subterranean bases on Earth and under the surface of the Moon, had subverted all levels of the US and Israeli governments, ranging from top ranking members of the US Senate...

When two suspects tried robbing a Maryland CVS on Friday, Army veteran Joe Morici sprang into action. And it cost him his job. Morici, who served seven years in the Army, including a stint in Afghanistan, was fired from his management job at a Beltsville CVS because he intervened and tried to catch the men, FOX5 reported. But Morici said his reactions were purely based on instinct when two men tried robbing the CVS pharmacy during his shift. He quickly told cashiers to call 911 and helped an elderly man out of the store before locking the doors, preventing the...

Marine veteran banned from his daughter's school after objecting to Islam lesson and now looks set to miss her graduation A Marine veteran who was barred from his daughter's school after objecting to a lesson about Islam wants the ban overturned in time to attend her graduation. John Wood and his wife Melissa have filed a civil rights complaint against La Plata High School in Maryland, claiming the district forced their 16-year-old daughter to take classes that promote Islam over Christianity and Judaism. The lawsuit also says Wood was barred from the school after complaining about the curriculum. Wood now...

When word spread that WWII/Korean War vet had no one to mourn him, that changed quickly He died an American hero, but with no family to mourn him. On Tuesday, however, Sergeant First Class Sidney Dean Cochran was buried with full military honors, surrounded by hundreds of strangers who came to pay their respects to the World War II veteran. Thanks to a social media campaign that began with a post on funeral director Ryan Jensen’s wife’s Facebook page, word quickly spread about the service.

One year later, as I reflect upon my service to Israel, I am so proud as an American to say that I have stood alongside both the defenders of the United States and the defenders of Israel. As a result of this military service, I have learned a great deal about myself, our two countries, and why we are — as I learned to say in Hebrew — brothers. The first thing that struck me as I donned the dark green uniform of the Israeli Defense Forces, and for the first time since my own injury while serving in the...

Matthew DeRemer, 31, was riding his motorcycle in Largo, Florida when he was struck by a drunk driver, Fox 13 News reports. DeRemer was pronounced dead at the scene. Hours before he passed, DeRemer wrote a Facebook post reflecting on obstacles he overcame in 2015 and appearing hopeful for 2016.Matthew DeRemer · 1,476 followers · December 31, 2015 at 6:06am · Last day of 2015!!!! For me I'll be meditating through all I do, on this entire year. I've lost, I've gained, family is closer and tougher than ever before, loved ones lost, and new friends found. There has been...

In a hopeful sign for 60,000 military widows and widowers who lost spouses to service-connected illnesses or injuries, a key House subcommittee is taking a fresh look at how Congress might allow a further easing the “SBP-DIC offset” to provide heartier and fairer survivor benefit packages. Rep. Joe Heck (R-Nev.), chairman of the House armed services subcommittee on military personnel, isn’t promising yet specific relief from the offset, which surviving spouses prefer to call the military widows’ tax. But Heck and colleagues did gather anew complaints about the offset during a special December hearing, and vowed to look for ways...