Category: VA

Thomas Mantell, Jr. was killed in a stateside crash while piloting a P-51 Mustang for the Kentucky Air National Guard near Franklin, Kentucky on Jan. 7, 1948. The events surrounding the crash remain unclear. At the time, Mantell was said to be in pursuit of an unidentified flying object. Accounts of the incident varied, with…

The Waco VA Regional Office partnered with North Texas VA in Garland, Texas, for a PACT Act Summer VetFest. The event offered toxic exposure screenings (TES), face-to-face appointments with VBA compensation specialists, battlefield acupuncture, CPR training and whole health education. The 8-hour event, attended by 750 North Texas Veterans, family members and caregivers, screened 280…

Women Veterans in eastern Oklahoma can now receive mammography screenings at VA thanks to the first VA mammography unit to open in Oklahoma. Mammography is an X-ray exam of breast tissue and the best breast cancer screening tool available. The new unit produces state-of-the-art images called mammograms, which help diagnose breast cancer as well as…

Jacob Schwartz began his Alaska VA youth volunteer journey over eight years ago. It was his father, nurse Mark Schwartz, a 30-year Alaska VA employee, who told him about the many ways he could volunteer. Over the course of those eight years, he accumulated over 800 volunteer hours and a few accolades. In 2018, the…

In describing the diversity of our facilities in Puerto Rico, Jorge Santiago, a Whole Health coach at the San Juan VA Medical Center, explained, “We have a Latino community, we have a Black community that work here, [and] we have a community of age 50-plus workers that need to feel their rights are being considered.”…

Henry Lamar Hunt was born on Dec. 13, 1932, in Lakeland, Florida, and was a graduate of Kathleen High School. He felt the call to minster and attended Southeastern Bible College during the Korean War. He later admitted, “I felt a little bad that my buddies went off to war and I went to school,”…

Just as an illness can stubbornly resurface, threatening to undo the progress made with one’s health, too many Veterans face a similarly harrowing recurrence: the return to homelessness. These Veterans now find themselves fighting a different battle on the very streets they once fought to protect. On July’s episode of the Ending Veteran Homelessness podcast…

Ira Lindsey Bad Bear, also known by his Crow name Seven Eggs, was born on Sep. 8, 1947, in Crow Agency, Montana. Lindsey was a member of the Whistling Water Clan. He graduated from Hardin High School in 1968 and was drafted into the U.S. Army the following year. Upon deploying to Vietnam, he served…

Teams from Veteran-led organizations are in Maui assisting in relief operations on the fire-stricken Hawaiian island. Project DYNAMO and Team Rubicon are among the Veteran-led organizations with crews on site in neighborhoods devastated by the deadliest wildfire in the U.S. in more than a century. In Maui, blazes consumed the historic tourist town of Lahaina,…

Bernard Oliver Scott was born on August 17, 1917, the second of six children, in Richmond’s Church Hill neighborhood, a community with a vibrant African American heritage. His father, Joseph Scott, worked in a tobacco factory and his mother Sadie was a chambermaid at a local hotel. In 1936, Scott left Richmond to enlist in…

Every summer, hundreds of thousands of riders from across the country gather in Sturgis, South Dakota. The annual Sturgis Motorcycle Rally offers 10 days of riding, entertainment and festivities. Fort Meade VA calls Sturgis home and joined in on this year’s rally to highlight the PACT Act. This was the 83rd Annual Sturgis Motorcycle Rally.…

Joseph B. Avilés Sr. was born on Feb. 3, 1897, in Puerto Rico, when the island was still a Spanish colony. Following the Treaty of Paris, he moved to Staten Island, New York. He joined the U.S. Navy in 1915 and served seven years, eventually obtaining the rank of chief gunner’s mate. While serving in…