Local charity needs help with PTSD obstacle course

Linas Grybinas, of Fairview Heights, has made news with his charity Climb for PTSD. Now he is taking it to the next level with the construction of a Warrior Challenge obstacle course in St. Clair County for Climb for PTSD. He needs donations of a few small items. They include: pallet banding equipment and some plastic banding to be donated for a day. Grybinas also has four metal push and pull sleds that are cut and ready to weld, but he needs a professional welder to donate some time as well. Donations will be helping first responders and others suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder get access to physical training as part of a two-week project renew program.

To help, contact Grybinas at 618-980-8318 or on his Facebook page.

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The Veterans of Foreign Wars blasted Donald Trump on Monday for his comments about Ghazala Khan, the mother of a fallen Muslim Army captain, calling the Republican nominee “out of bounds,” according to Politico.com.

“Election year or not, the VFW will not tolerate anyone berating a Gold Star family member for exercising his or her right of speech or expression,” said VFW leader Brian Duffy in a statement.

Trump said in his interview with ABC that aired Sunday that Ghazala Khan “wasn’t allowed to have anything to say” as her husband, Khizr, criticized the Republican nominee at the Democratic National Convention last week.

“There are certain sacrosanct subjects that no amount of wordsmithing can repair once crossed,” Duffy said in the statement. “Giving one’s life to nation is the greatest sacrifice, followed closely by all Gold Star families, who have a right to make their voices heard.”

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For the first time in years, the Iraqi Shiite cleric Muqtada al Sadr and his militia are unleashing fiery anti-American rhetoric and threatening to attack U.S. troops, according to Military Times.

But top U.S. military officials have downplayed his remarks, saying that for now there’s no cause for concern.

Sadr rose to prominence when his Mahdi Army battled U.S. troops after the 2003 invasion. He has quietly tolerated the comparatively small U.S. military force there now supporting the war on Islamic State extremists. But the powerful cleric became confrontational again after Defense Secretary Ash Carter announced plans on July 11 to send an additional 560 U.S. troops to Iraq, bringing the total to more than 4,600.

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Here’s a story that’s taken 46 years to come to light, but it’s a good one, as reported by the New York Times.

Unofficially, in the jungles of Laos in 1970, hundreds of North Vietnamese troops closed in on a small team of United States Army commandos. Unofficially, as men were shot down, a medic sprinted through a hail of bullets to help, hefting a man over his shoulder as he fired back with one hand. Unofficially, even when bloodied by a rocket, the medic kept going, not sleeping for days as he cared for 51 wounded soldiers.

Officially, though, American troops were not in Laos. So officially, nothing happened.

The medic, Sgt. Gary Rose, was part of the secret Studies and Observations Group, an elite division of Special Forces. After the assault, the group recommended him for the military’s highest award, the Medal of Honor. But at the time, President Richard M. Nixon was denying that American troops were even in Laos. The nomination was shelved, an example of what veterans of the group say was a pattern of medals being denied or downgraded to hide their classified exploits.

This summer that decision is poised to be reversed. After more than a decade of lobbying, Congress authorized the medal for Sergeant Rose, who now lives in Huntsville. His will be the first Medal of Honor to expressly acknowledge the heroics of a soldier on the ground in the so-called Secret War in Laos.

In the past, medal citations for the unit listed men only as “deep in enemy territory,” said Neil Thorne, a researcher and Army veteran who has drafted a number of medal applications in recent years for the group.

“The Army still doesn’t want to admit it,” Mr. Thorne said. “Even to this day, I put in Laos in a citation, the Army takes it out. It’s almost a game, but it’s not really funny. Rose is unique in that they finally left in the truth.”

This story was originally published August 1, 2016 at 12:55 PM with the headline "Local charity needs help with PTSD obstacle course."