According to a story in the Fayetteville Observer, 83-year-old retired Army CSM Pete Morakon will be honored by being inducted into the US Army Operational Tester Hall of Fame.
CSM Morakon retired from the Army in 1980 after a career in the 82nd and SF and later went to work as a civilian at the Airborne and Special Operations Test Board serving for a total of over 50 years.
Read the full story here.
James Creek Subdivision is a gated community based in Harker’s Island, North Carolina focused on providing lots and homes for retired members of the US military and their families. Located just 28 miles from Cherry Point USMC Air Station, the community is in close proximity to a Commissary, Base Exchange, and hospital. James Creek Subdivision has their own in-house VA certified builder which allows them to modify homes to account for any disability such as the inclusion of ramps, escalating chairs, and handicap accessible bathroom accommodations. James Creek Subdivision also has a wealth of activities including boat slips on the Atlantic Ocean, local firing ranges, deep sea fishing, and golf.
For more information, visit www.bledevelopment.com or call 919-810-4929.
Earlier today, during the Warrior Expo setup day, Chief Steve Bronson and Axl Rose, his Dutch Shepard Pitbull presented Wounded Warrior Brad Lang with his new service animal, Diego, on behalf of the EOD Warrior Foundation.
A Wounded Warrior, Brad Lang retired from the Marine Corps as an EOD SSgt after receiving graves wounds on July 24th, 2011 in the Sangin River Valley in Helmland Province. He recovered and nowadays, Brad keeps his head in the game by running Stumpy’s Custom Guns, Inc. in Swansboro, NC along with Johnny Morris who also lost a leg as a Marine EOD NCO. They named the shop “Stumpies” because they’ve got one good leg between the two of them. They also employ other Wounded Warriors.
Diego is a two year old Belgian Malanois. He’s undergone seven months of training for his new assignment as Brad’s service dog. Steve Bronson has really brought Diego a long way over that time.
This is a reunion for Brad and Diego. They last saw each other during SHOT Show in January. Brad had Diego initially for about four months and then he turned him over to BMC Bronson (USN, Ret) to train him as a service dog. Diego has been learning how to recover Brad’s chair, assist with handicapped doors and crosswalks as well as regular doors. Most of all, Diego will be someone to, in Brad’s own words, “watch my Six.”
EOD Warrior Foundation has paid for the entire training process. Everything from food to vet bills to training. They even purchased a Jog-a-Dog treadmill for Diego so that he can work off his excess energy. I spoke with EOD Warrior Foundation Founder and Chairman of the Board BMCM Ken Falke (EOD) (USN, Ret). He said, “We’re honored to be able to sponsor Diego’s training in order to make a difference in Brad’s life. We’re also grateful to Chief Bronson for his time and patience training Diego.”
Diego and Brad have one more challenge to surmount. Diego will be taking a public access test to assess his abilities to work with Brad in a public setting. Based on what I saw today, they’ll do just fine.
This is great news for SoCal Veterans and their local communities.
Vets Corps USA has expended from sewing and assembly to silk screening and graphics development, and soon to paper printing. Vets Corps USA is a non-profit program that provides vocational training for veterans who are patients from the Veterans Administration hospitals in Los Angeles. Previously, the program was known as VIPER (Veterans Industry Program for Employment Reintegration) sewing and assembling medical kits for deploying military units and Green Vets LA sewing cloth shopping bags as part of an effort to clean the environment. We decided to re-flag at Vets Corps when we expanded into graphics.
Our expansion was made possible by a grant from the prestigious Annenberg Foundation providing a t-shirt silk screen press and an offset printing press as well as grant money to cover supplies and veteran labor. We have also acquired an embroidery set.
The Vets Corps team is excited by this addition as previously, we focused our work therapy efforts around manual labor (sewing and assembly), and the addition of the printing equipment allows us to add art therapy and creative graphics therapy into our program to print on t-shirts and bags produced in our sewing program. To round out the effort, Vets Corps has developed a leadership program for military trained personnel to apply their leadership skills to the industrial environment.
Watch for our inaugural run of t-shirts, the proceeds of which go to the veterans themselves and to buy equipment for the program. We plan to offer silk screening and printing to companies wanting to purchase services from veterans. Our offset press offering will include business cards, catalogues, flyers, books and calendars.
