Volume 6, 49 ©SS ©SS2014 2014 Volume 6, No. 49
RIDAY, 21,2014 2014 FFRIDAY , NNOVEMBER OVEMBER 21,
PART Sgt.Issac IssacSims Sims left the war in Iraq, it didn’t leave PART 1: 1: Army Sgt. left the war in Iraq, butbut it didn’t leave him.him. PART PTSD,Sims Simstries tries unsuccessfully help from PART 2: 2: Reeling from PTSD, unsuccessfully to to getget help from thethe VA.VA. PART Simsand andpolice policeleads leadstotohis hisfatal fatalshooting. shooting. PART 3: 3: A standoff between Sims PART police to to defuse defuseconfrontations confrontations with with troubled troubled vets. vets. PART 4: 4: A program trains police ONLINE: READ READ MORE MOREAT AT STRIPES.COM/GO/CASUALTIES STRIPES.COM/GO/CASUALTIES ONLINE:
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HE LEFT THE WAR WITHOUT THE WAR LEAVING HIM BY M ARTIN KUZ
T
Stars and Stripes
KANSAS CITY, Mo. he tattered brown house on Lawndale Avenue bears the scars of a distant war that Issac Sims survived until he returned home. Slivers of glass from broken windows lie beneath walls pocked with bullet holes. In a corner of the garage, a faint stain on the concrete floor has turned the color of rust, time darkening the blood that emptied from his body. Sims was killed here May 25, Memorial Day weekend, a year after his discharge from the Army and thousands of miles from Iraq. He endured two tours there only to die at age 26 in his parents’ home on Kansas City’s decaying east side. The fatal shots were fired not by insurgents but by police. PA R T 1 The distinction may have THIS SERIES CONTINUES eluded his damaged mind. FOR THE NEXT 3 WEEKS. During his second tour in 2010, Sims sustained a mild traumatic brain injury while riding in an armored vehicle that struck a roadside bomb. The former sergeant moved back to Kansas City from his unit’s base in Alaska in April last year, and struggling with migraines, insomnia, anxiety and depression, he visited the city’s Veterans Affairs Medical Center. His symptoms suggested post-traumatic stress disorder. His erratic behavior made clear to Patricia and
The traumatic brain injury Sgt. Issac Sims sustained in 2010 preceded a string of setbacks that led to his commanders barring him from deploying to Afghanistan in 2012. “That crushed him,” his mother recalled. “He was in disbelief.” PHOTOS BY MARTIN KUZ /Stars and Stripes Shawn Sims that their son had left the war without the war leaving him. He swerved through traffic when driving to avoid bombs that he imagined were buried in the road. Walking the tree line near their property, he searched for enemy fighting positions and threw punches at phantom militants. He sometimes rushed into the house and announced, “You know I just saved your lives, don’t you?” “He thought he was back in Iraq,” Patricia said, sitting in the couple’s living room, where dozens of photos on the walls and shelves trace her son’s life from newborn to soldier. A triangular wood case holds the folded American flag she received at his funeral. “It was hard to understand who he was. He wasn’t Issac.”
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When confrontations between cops and veterans turn deadly
T
he fatal shooting of Issac Sims by Kansas City police on May 25 is one in a series of recent confrontations between military veterans and law enforcement to end in bloodshed. Many of the incidents have involved Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans with mental disorders linked to their service, and in some cases officers have been attacked. The violent outcomes have prompted questions about delays in mental health care at Veterans Affairs hospitals and the tactics used by police for handling veterans in crisis. July 15, 2014: Justin Davis was shot and killed by three police officers while holding a rifle as he sat in a car at a city park outside Memphis, Tenn. Police said Davis, who served two tours in Iraq with the Kentucky Army National Guard, made suicidal statements and pointed his rifle at officers. Family members said the 24-year-old veteran suffered from combat trauma and had sought care at a VA hospital shortly before the shooting. July 4, 2014: An officer gunned down Icarus Randolph outside his home in Wichita, Kan., after police responded to calls from family members who reported he had mental health problems. Police claimed the former Marine, who deployed to Iraq in 2009, wielded a knife as he approached officers when one opened fire. Family members reported that Randolph, 26, struggled with post-traumatic stress disorder, and they called 911 on the day of the shooting to ask for help in transporting him to a hospital for treatment. May 21, 2014: Cody Young was fatally shot after barricading himself in his apartment and firing one shotgun round at police in Tulsa, Okla. The Afghanistan War veteran, who deployed with the Oklahoma National Guard in 2011, had apparently suffered a flashback while watching a war movie and fired several rounds into a parked vehicle before police responded. Young, 25, sustained a traumatic brain injury during his tour, and though VA clinicians prescribed
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medications for his depression and PTSD, his symptoms had failed to improve. March 21, 2014: Brian McLeod was killed by a sheriff’s deputy who responded to reports of a fight at his apartment in Tacoma, Wash. Authorities claimed the Army veteran, who deployed to Afghanistan in 2009, refused orders to lower his shotgun after pointing it at the deputy, who opened fire. Friends and family members said McLeod, 25, had wrestled with depression and combat trauma after his unit lost 21 soldiers during its tour, and alcohol and marijuana were found in his system following his death. Feb. 11, 2014: In a case of “suicide by cop,” six sheriff’s deputies shot and killed Jed Zillmer when he brandished a gun following a high-speed chase in Spokane, Wash. The Afghanistan War veteran, who received a Purple Heart after he was shot in the foot in a firefight in 2011, had called 911 and told dispatchers he wanted police to kill him. Zillmer, 23, had been plagued by combat trauma, and the Army had recently denied his claim for supplemental disability benefits. Sept. 5, 2013: Denis Reynoso was fatally shot in his home in a Boston suburb after a confrontation with police officers who responded to reports of a man “behaving irrationally.” The Iraq War veteran, who deployed with the Army National Guard in 2007, grabbed one officer’s gun and fired at him and a second officer, missing both, before a third patrolman shot Reynoso. The father of two children, Reynoso, 29, had been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. March 4, 2013: Two officers shot and killed Santiago Cisneros after he fired at them on the top level of a parking garage in Portland, Ore. Police said the Army veteran, who served in Iraq in 2003, ambushed the officers, shooting multiple shotgun rounds at them. Cisneros, 32, had attempted suicide soon after his tour, and he was later hospitalized for six months and prescribed medications to cope with PTSD and depression. — Martin Kuz
Sims pleaded guilty to domestic assault on April 30 this year after an altercation with his estranged wife. A municipal court judge ordered him to enter a VA treatment program as part of his probation. He sought to enroll multiple times in his final weeks. His last attempt was May 23. An intake worker told him a bed might be available in 30 days. Forty-eight hours later, he was dead. Upset after arguing with his father that Sunday morning, Sims fired five or six rounds from an AK-47 outside the house. Shawn called 911 and asked that police take his son to the VA. Officers claimed they heard shots from inside the home after arriving. They cleared residents from the area and surrounded the property. Efforts to persuade Sims to surrender ended when the former soldier, standing in the garage’s back doorway, pointed the rifle at members of the police tactical team. One or more of them opened fire.
A constant shadow The circumstances leading to that moment raise a pair of related concerns about the treatment of veterans with PTSD. Sims’ futile attempts to gain access to VA care mirror the experience of former servicemembers across the country, while the standoff parallels a series of shootings between police and veterans in recent years. Demand for mental health care from the VA has surged as an estimated 20 to 30 percent of the 2.6 million troops who served in Iraq and Afghanistan cope with post-traumatic stress disorder. Delays in treatment may explain, in part, why their
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arrest rate more than doubles that of other veterans of the two wars. Researchers from the University of North Carolina and the VA found in a 2012 study that, among Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans with PTSD and “high irritability,” 23 percent had committed crimes. The figure fell to 9 percent for those without combat trauma. A follow-up study published earlier this year showed that 36 percent of veterans with PTSD and alcohol problems had engaged in an act of “severe violence” in the previous year, compared with 5 percent of those without the conditions. Most former servicemembers plagued by mental trauma do not commit crimes, and only a small fraction of encounters between law enforcement and troubled veterans turn violent. But Sims’ death and similar confrontations, some in which officers have been shot, expose how delays in VA care increase the potential for risk and magnify the need for specialized police training to handle veterans in crisis. “When we help vets sooner, we don’t put police in these situations where they don’t know what’s going on inside the vet’s head,” Ardie Bland said. The municipal judge, who runs Kansas City’s veterans treatment court, sent Sims to the VA for counseling. “Was he in the middle of a flashback that day? Maybe he wasn’t seeing police officers. Maybe he was seeing Iraqis.” In a broad sense, his unraveling lays bare the difficulty of deciphering the most extreme, self-destructive actions of veterans with combat trauma and provokes questions about the line between individual responsibility and the nation’s obligation to its returning
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‘I’m never leaving’ A photo of Issac Sims on the day of his basic-training graduation shows him wearing his green service uniform and holding up his hands in mock surrender. He is 19, a young man, but in that moment he looks a decade younger, blue eyes shining with a boy’s glee above a Christmas morning smile. Patricia and Shawn traveled to Georgia for the ceremony at Fort Benning. It was summer 2007, and in the weeks since their son finished high school, his body and mind had awakened. His lean, 5-foot-3 frame had begun to thicken with muscle. His imagination bloomed with the possibilities of his future. He reveled in his new identity. “This is my tribe — I’m one of them,” he told his parents. “I’m never leaving.” The Army pulled him away from Kansas City yet provided the stability and sense of belonging he craved. Issac and his younger sister, Shawnda, had spent their earliest years growing up in campgrounds and trailer courts from New Mexico and Texas to Missouri and Maine. Patricia reared them as Shawn chased electrician jobs. Issac, shy and curious, bonded closely with her, a constant in his life amid the blur of towns and schools and classmates. She recalled watching a Fourth of July fireworks display while floating on an air mattress with the kids on a lake outside Dallas. “That sounds like the biggest Jeff Foxworthy joke in the world,” she said, laughing. “But we had fun.” SEE PAGE 4
At graduation from basic training in 2007, Issac Sims said of the Army: “This is my tribe ... I’m never leaving.”
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troops. More intimately, for Patricia and Shawn, his absence is a constant shadow. The couple has retained an attorney as they consider filing a wrongful-death lawsuit. They believe that, after war stole his mind, a federal agency sentenced him to die and the local police executed him. “We were begging the VA, ‘Please just get Issac into treatment,’ ” Patricia said. “They didn’t, and then he was slaughtered by the cops. Is that how we honor the soldiers who defend our country?”
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Around the time the children reached middle school, Patricia insisted that the family stop roaming, and they moved into the house on Lawndale Avenue. By his mid-teens, Issac, bored with school, preferred talking with military recruiters to listening to teachers at Lincoln College Prep. He wanted to emulate his father’s Army career. Shawn volunteered during the Vietnam War and served as an infantryman and helicopter gunner for most of three years. Framed citations for his two Bronze Stars and four Purple Hearts hang in the living room. The certificates omit mention of his hearing and vision loss caused by a grenade blast, the bullet wound in his foot that left him with a limp, the lingering posttraumatic stress disorder. “When I got out of the war, I went a year and didn’t talk to anybody,” Shawn said. At 65, he is thin and weathered, and more than four decades after his final flight out of Vietnam, nightmares carry him back. “I still don’t trust people.” Even so, he supported Issac’s decision to enlist, and attending his son’s graduation from boot camp roused happier memories of military camaraderie and kinship. “When he got in the Army, it kind of helped Shawn,” Patricia said. She is 54, with the bright smile she passed on to her son, a smile that dims in brown eyes ringed with grief. “He reminded his dad of some of the good things.”
Lost to himself Sims deployed to Iraq in January 2008 as a gunner with the 82nd Airborne Division and returned for a second tour late the next year. Superiors lauded him as an exemplary soldier; peers valued his good cheer. Across the miles, he kept in touch with his family through emails, Facebook chats and occasional phone calls. In December 2009, Sims sent them a holiday video greeting from a base in Ramadi, 80 miles west of Baghdad. At one point, he stumbled over his words, and in his sheepish smile Patricia and Shawn glimpsed a reassuring inno-
cence. He appeared whole. Some weeks later, they noticed a change. Their son’s emails were shorter. He shared less on the phone. They guessed he was fatigued; he promised them nothing was wrong. The couple learned the truth only after his tour ended in summer 2010. A bomb had exploded beneath the armored truck in which Sims had been riding as his platoon’s convoy rolled through a village outside Ramadi. He suffered a concussion and ruptured eardrum that forced him out of the patrol rotation for several days. He denied there were lasting effects. Patricia doubted him. She saw in his eyes what she had perceived from afar. “Issac wasn’t so happy-golucky anymore,” she said. “It was like he’d aged a bunch of years in a few months.” His traumatic brain injury preceded a string of setbacks over the next three years that culminated in his discharge from the Army. The most damaging incident to his career occurred after he transferred to the 25th Infantry Division, based at Fort Richardson in Alaska. Shortly before his unit deployed to Afghanistan in 2012, Sims received a drunkendriving citation on base and scuffled with a military policeman. His commanders ordered him to stay behind. “That crushed him,” Patricia said. “He was in disbelief.” His personal problems festered. Sims had met and impulsively wed a Cambodian woman a decade his elder while on leave in Thailand in 2009, and the couple seldom knew peace. In fall 2012, three men attacked him outside a bar, apparently after an earlier argument, and beat him unconscious. His job performance declined. In April last year, nudged by superiors, he mustered out to avert a dishonor-
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M ARTIN KUZ /Stars and Stripes
Patricia Sims noticed a change in her son, Issac, after he suffered a traumatic brain injury while deployed to Iraq with the Army in 2010 when the armored truck he was riding in struck a roadside bomb. “It was like he’d aged a bunch of years in a few months,” she said.
able discharge. Sims and his wife moved into a two-story house that his parents had bought across the street from their own. He came back to Kansas City six years after he enlisted, stripped of his Army dreams and the order of military life. He had left behind his closest friends and guiding purpose. He was lost to himself.
Above: Issac Sims, left, wanted to emulate the military career of his father, Shawn, who received two Bronze Stars and four Purple Hearts for his service in Vietnam. Above left: Issac Sims, front, deployed twice to Iraq with the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division.
kuz.martin@stripes.com Twitter: @MartinKuz
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MILITARY
Airman becomes third to earn a second Silver Star “Pinned down in the center of the platoon’s formation, Sergeant Case recognized they needed to employ close air support. With machine gun rounds impacting the ground and trees within two feet of him, Sergeant Case remained exposed to enemy fire so he could locate the enemy position.” BY CHRIS CARROLL
A
Stars and Stripes
WASHINGTON s bullets cracked around his head, Air Force Master Sgt. Thomas Case stayed cool and directed pinpoint airstrikes on Taliban positions less than a stone’s throw away. And with two foreign fighters coming at the commander of the Army unit to which Case was assigned as a joint terminal attack controller, he shielded the officer with his body and took them down with his rifle. For his heroism fulfilling both the air and ground aspects of the JTAC’s job during a battle on July 16 and 17, 2009, Case on Nov. 13 became just the third airman to be awarded a second Silver Star medal. Case, who’s now part of the 18th Air Support Operations Group at Fort Bragg, N.C., received the honor in a ceremony at Pope Field. As a staff sergeant in 2004, he was awarded his first Silver Star for an operation during the 2003 invasion of Iraq to seize and hold the Haditha Dam. During the course of several days, controlling up to 14 aircraft simultaneously, Case was responsible for more than 300 enemy casualties and the destruction of dozens of enemy tanks, scores of artillery pieces and even a few enemy boats. The 2009 battle in the Khost province of Afghanistan, for which he earned his second Silver Star, was an entirely different affair. “It’s apples and oranges,” he said. “You go from fighting a conventional military force to fighting an insurgency.” It was a nighttime operation deep in the Khost-Gardez Pass in eastern Afghanistan. A platoon of Rangers, accompanied by Case, climbed out of helicopters a few miles from a
Courtesy of the U.S. Air Force
Master Sgt. Tommy Case, a U.S. Air Force tactical air control party member, coordinates aerial command-and-control support as part of a joint task force deployed to Afghanistan in 2010 supporting Operation Enduring Freedom. group of mountain camps where they hoped to capture or kill a specific Taliban combatant, as well as to disrupt insurgent activities in the area. They began a tough climb toward the objective, but went off course and soon came under heavy fire from a machine gun in a fighting position just 15 yards away. “The enemy had the high ground,” Case said. “We didn’t have a lot of time or room to maneuver.” According to the Air Force narrative of the incident, “Pinned down in the center of the platoon’s formation, Sergeant Case recognized they needed to employ close air support. With machine gun rounds impacting the ground and trees within two feet of him, Sergeant Case remained exposed to enemy fire so he
could locate the enemy position.” But then Case realized he couldn’t call in an airstrike from a AC-130 gunship orbiting overhead because his communications were down after wires on his radio had been damaged. “Bullets were flying around. I’d love to be the guy able to say a round had sliced through his wires,” he said. “The truth is, it actually got hung up. It was the deciduous forest there.” He was able to partially piece his equipment back together amid the onslaught, and finally directed the gunship’s crew to destroy the enemy position with fire from its 25 mm cannon. Case said he had few qualms about directing an airstrike so close to the platoon’s position. “The ground force commander
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asked me what the hell I was doing,” he said. “I just said, ‘Sir, that’s the best crew up there.’ It was just incredible to see them put their bullets where they were supposed to go.” After directing two dangerously close airstrikes, Case saw through his night-vision goggles that two insurgents were bounding down the hill toward him and the Army officer commanding the mission. Instinctively, his fighting sense switched from air to ground. “As they closed within fifteen meters of their position, Sergeant Case literally placed himself between the enemy personnel and the ground force commander in order to protect him from their gunfire,” according to the Air Force narrative of the battle. “Employing his M-4 rifle and directing the ground force commander to take cover, he then killed both insurgents, both of whom turned out to be highly trained foreign fighters.” Case continued shooting and continued directing airstrikes, and within about half an hour, he estimates, the Taliban in the area were dead or on the run, and the Rangers began securing control of the mountainous terrain around them. Years later, Case and the Ranger commander, Capt. Carmen Bucci, maintain a strong bond. Bucci attended the medal ceremony Nov. 13. Firing his weapon in a ground engagement was nothing new for Case, but in retrospect, he said the dangerously close airstrikes he’d been forced to call in were unusual, and the tremendous noise of the big rounds slamming into the slope some 50 feet away is something that has stuck with him. “With the proficiency of that crew, I’d do the same thing again,” he said. “I certainly hope I don’t have to, but I would.” carroll.chris@stripes.com Twitter: @ChrisCarroll_
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Save a seat at the Thanksgiving table
PACIFIC
Intel officer reassigned A following investigation Pacific Fleet official removed over classified information disclosure BY ERIK SLAVIN Stars and Stripes
YOKOSUKA NAVAL BASE, Japan — A senior Pacific Fleet official known for his blunt assessment of China has been reassigned following an investigation into mishandling of classified information. Capt. James Fanell, formerly the Hawaii-based command’s top intelligence officer, is now working as an aide at fleet headquarters, Navy spokesman Capt. Darryn James said Nov. 13. James declined to provide specifics on Fanell’s removal, citing privacy concerns. A defense official who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the record said Fanell was removed because he had inappropriately disclosed classified information. The Pacific Fleet investigation also raised concerns of a negative climate in Fanell’s office, the defense official said. Fanell’s views first gained attention in 2013 at the U.S. Naval Institute West conference, during which he stated that the Chinese PLA Navy’s expansion was focused on sinking an opposing fleet and
DAVID KOLMEL /Courtesy of the U.S. Navy
CAP T. JAM E S FANE LL ADDRE SSE S THE AUDIE NCE AT A CE RE M ONY AT U.S. PACIFIC FLE E T HE ADQUARTE RS IN 2013 TO COM M E M ORATE THE 71ST ANNIVE RSARY OF THE BATTLE OF MIDW AY. FANE LL W AS RE ASSIGNE D OVE R THE RE P ORTE D M ISHANDLING OF CLASSIFIE D INFORM ATION . was largely about countering the U.S. Navy. At the same conference this year, Fanell’s assessment that China is gathering the capability to fight Japan in a “short, sharp war” made it to Fox News, The New York Times and several international news outlets. Fanell’s previous outspoken views on China led to speculation that he was removed because of them — a claim Pacific Fleet officials strongly denied Nov. 13. “Capt. Fanell’s internal reassignment on Oct. 31 was in no way related to his views on China,” James said. “Any reporting that implies such speculation is not only inaccurate, it is wholly misleading and irresponsible. It is not true.”
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The Navy typically releases decisions about removals only when commanding officers, executive officers and command master chief petty officers are involved or when a crime has been committed. “This policy protects their privacy and shields them from unwarranted public scrutiny,” James said. Since Fanell filled none of those positions, the Navy made no official announcement. Other media reports and speculation over the nature of the removal led Pacific Fleet officials to respond Nov. 13, James said. Fanell declined a Stars and Stripes request for comment through a Navy spokesman. slavin.erik@stripes.com Twitter:@eslavin_stripes
This publication is a compilation of stories from Stars and Stripes, the editorially independent newspaper authorized by the Department of Defense for members of the military community. The contents of Stars and Stripes are unofficial, and are not to be considered as the official views of, or endorsed by, the U.S. government, including the Defense Department or the military services. The U.S. Edition of Stars and Stripes is published jointly by Stars and Stripes and this newspaper. The appearance of advertising in this publication, including inserts or supplements, does not constitute endorsement by the DOD or Stars and Stripes of the products or services advertised. Products or services advertised in this publication shall be made available for purchase, use, or patronage without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, marital status, physical handicap, political affiliation, or any other nonmerit factor of the purchaser, user, or patron.
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t Thanksgiving the to gather all the feathers from feast is on the table, our extended relatives, and we but in a military famjoined our family across the ily, the focus is often miles, in thanking God for the on the chairs. Some of us will blessings of the whole family.” have empty chairs, because of Military families readily deployment or distance from add extra chairs and invite family members. Some will friends at the holidays, but have extra chairs around the then there are those empty table to make room for friends chairs. Judy Davis, author of and neighbors to join the cel“Right Side Up: Find Your Way ebration. When Military Life Turns You With empty chairs or extra Upside Down,” said her family chairs, we keep our traditions incorporates absent family alive by recalling the stories members in their Thanksgivthat remind us to be grateful. ing conversations. Some military spouses shared “We always go around and their reasons for thankfulness share two things we have and the ways they express it. been most grateful for,” she “My family jokes that my said. “If someone is missing husband has one of the hard— deployed or unable to attend est-working guardian angels on — we share why we are gratethe planet,” said Randi Cairns, ful for them this year.” founder of Homefront Hearts, Lori Volkman, who blogs at a nonprofit that supports New wittylittlesecret.com, rememJersey National Guard famibers absent SPOUSE CALLS military lies. “He was supposed to be at a meeting in the World Trade members in Center on 9/11, but wasn’t another way. because he was honoring a On Veterans commitment to my children. Day, VolkStill that day changed what his man and her military service looked like. family put In an instant he went from up a tradiweekend warrior to full-time tional “white soldier.” table,” with Another time, Cairns’ hussymbolic eleband survived ments honorTerri Barnes when his veing missing hicle ran over Join the conversation with Terri at veterans, and an improvised stripes.com/go/spousecalls they leave it explosive up through device in ThanksgivAfghanistan. ing. Among the elements is an “He should have been blown empty chair for those who are out of the vehicle, and yet not with their families. somehow, miraculously, the “We talk about what each strap of his weapon caught on element stands for at dinner,” something that kept him safe Volkman said. “It’s especially — or at least as safe as you can great for non-family members be in the midst of an exploor guests who don’t know milision.” tary tradition to hear my kids Holly Scherer, co-author of explain what it all means.” “1001 Things to Love About Cairns and her family will Military Life,” combined gratihave one of those empty chairs tude with connection while again this year. Her husband stationed overseas with small is deployed, but she still finds children. She started with a reasons for gratitude. drawing of a turkey without “I am very incredibly mindfeathers, and taped it to her ful of how quickly you can dining room wall. lose what matters most and “We mailed a feather to each how immensely blessed I am relative with their name on it that my husband is still here,” and asked them to write one or said Cairns. “Well, not here two things they were thankful this Thanksgiving, but I know for on their feather and send it his empty chair still holds the back,” Scherer said. “When we promise of him sitting in it received the feather, we placed next year. And I pray for him it on our turkey. On Thanksgiv- and those charged with his ing Day, when we sat around safety — both the soldiers by the table and shared our his side and the angels playing gratitude, the kids were able backup.”
What constitutes the bulwark of our own liberty and independence? It is not our frowning battlements, our bristling sea coasts, the guns of our war steamers, or the strength of our gallant and disciplined army. These are not our reliance against the resumption of tyranny in our fair land. All of them may be turned against our liberties, without making us stronger or weaker for the struggle. Our reliance is in the love of liberty which God has planted in our bosoms. --A. Lincoln September 11, 1858 Speech at Edwardsville
Our defense is in the preservation of the spirit which prizes liberty as the heritage of all men, in all lands, everywhere. Destroy this spirit, and you have planted the seeds of despotism around your own doors.
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