Tag: Marines

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Not All Heroes are on the Front Lines. A Marine Saved a Life in California

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My last post a shared some sad stories about heroes who gave their all in WWII. Today I am wanting to share a more uplifting story about a hero that wasn’t on the front lines.

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A Marine’s quick thinking meant the difference between life and death for a motorist on an isolated desert road in California last year.

Capt. Stephen Alexander, the executive officer for the Marines’ recruiting station in Dallas, was driving through Elora, California on his way to the Marine Corps ball to celebrate the service’s 245th birthday when a vehicle going the other way lost control and flipped onto its side.

“Once the vehicle came to a final stop, I pulled over immediately,” Alexander said in a press release. The Marine was awarded a Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medal in a ceremony in Texas on Dec. 11.

“There was a vehicle in front of me that also pulled over with [3rd Battalion, 4th Marine Regiment] Marines,” said Alexander, who at the time of the incident was a first lieutenant with 3/4 stationed in California. “I’d never met them before; they were from a different company. We all ran over to the vehicle; at this point the vehicle was on its side and the driver was at the bottom and not coherent.”

The driver was unconscious and critically injured, and the Marines could not open any of the car doors due to the vehicle damage from the crash. Undeterred, one Marine broke through the back window while Alexander smashed through the windshield so that he could start applying trauma care.

“Once they smashed in the window I hopped in and started treating as many injuries as I could find,” Alexander said. “Every once and a while the driver would come back to consciousness and say he couldn’t breathe.”

There was no cell service in that part of the desert, and the nearest ranger station was about an hour away. The Marines would have to make do until help arrived. Alexander found that the driver’s leg was partially severed, so he used belts as tourniquets to stop the bleeding before another Marine provided an actual tourniquet.

“We came to Vegas with our dress blues, not tourniquets or our emergency field kits,” Alexander said. “Had the other Marines not been there, there’s no way I could have acquired the things needed to treat him. I would have tried my best, but there’s not a whole lot I could have done once I got in the vehicle had they not continued to provide whatever resources they could find.”

After about an hour, park rangers arrived, followed by a nurse who took over treatment for the driver. The nurse found that the driver also had a punctured lung which was causing his shortness in breath. After about two hours, a helicopter arrived to take the driver, but it couldn’t find a place to land. Luckily, an ambulance came by, at about the same time and Alexander moved the driver into it so he could get to a hospital.

A former infantry officer, Alexander had been trained for this sort of situation. But in the end, he said no amount of training can fully prepare you for the real thing.

“I think reacting to something like that, you either do or you don’t,” said Alexander. “There’s no Marines Hymn playing in the background as you run across the road; you just do something.”

Alexander himself suffered a traumatic brain injury which could have killed him just four months prior to the car accident. He never expected he would wind up treating a driver suffering the same injuries, he said in the release. Though he never found out what happened to the driver, the quick actions of Alexander and the other Marines deserve praise.

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There are many of these kind of stories I will be sharing in the future. But, my next post will be all about my new book, Signs of Hope for the Military: In an Out of the Trenches of Life.”

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How are you doing my friend? The rush of Christmas and the pandemic that doesn’t allows us to see family, and it can pull us down like a huge magnate.

Hope everything is going great for you, but if it isn’t, remember over 10,370 fellow veterans follow this site, and they all have your back.

However, if it is getting too overwhelming, GET HELP!

Here is a toll free number to call 24/7. They have highly qualified counselors there to help you. They will not hang up until they know you are OK.

Don’t take on anything alone in this not so friendly world.

1-800-273-8255 Option # 1

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Remember:

You are never alone.

You are never forsaken.

You are never unloved.

And above all…never, ever, give up!

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Do Not forget Our Military Who are Deployed. They Are Without Close Family

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It is Thanksgiving. I am searching for things to be thankful for. This year it is hard. So many negative things happening around us.

I will whine a little more here and then show some reasons we should be thankful.

The rioting, the pandemic, and the messed up election, would cause anyone to complain. What can we find to be thankful for?? I have found it by searching and doing research:

  1. We are thankful we live in a free nation. That is because of our brothers and sisters who are deployed today as we speak. They are in Iraq, Afghanistan, and all over the world. There are away from their loved ones. They can’t hug their families. However, they are proud of what they are doing and I say God bless them.
  2. What follows is an actual story about Marines saving a woman’s life. They jumped into action and moved quickly.
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Whenever an emergency arises, people in danger have no better friends than motivated Marines.

Such was the case when a woman on a scooter was struck by a car recently near Marine Barracks Washington, D.C.

With the woman pinned under the car, Marines with Guard Company quickly had to come up with a plan to free her.

Cpl. Denny Bohne and Staff Sgt. Jeffrey Belko quickly realized that they needed to find a way to raise the car so that the woman could be pulled to safety.

Bohne said he and another Marine opened the car’s trunk and found a jack.

“As soon as I grabbed the tire iron, I started jacking the car up from the rear, and Staff Sgt. Belko proceeds to run over to a civilian’s car, grab their jack from their vehicle, and then start jacking up the front of the car,” Bohne said.

Their actions significantly cut down the time it took for emergency responders to pull the woman from underneath the car and start treating her, said Washington, D.C., firefighter Lt. Leo Ruiz, of Engine 18.

“Honestly: If they hadn’t done what they had done, it could have delayed care for that patient,” Ruiz said.

With the help of the Marines and others on the scene, the woman survived.

Belko noted that a lot of people came together to make sure the woman was freed and treated as quickly as possible.

“Marines run to the sound of the guns, so it didn’t surprise me at all that the Marines were there,” Belko said.

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Here is another update of ne equipment the military is getting for the future:




After years in development, soldiers are officially putting the Army’s next-generation short-range air defense system through its paces ahead of its eventual delivery and fielding in Germany.
Soldiers from the 5th Battalion, 4th Air Defense Artillery Regiment out of Ansbach, Germany traveled to the White Sands Missile Range to conduct training and operational testing of the Army’s Initial Maneuver Short Range Air Defense (IM-SHORAD) system, the service announced last week.

The IM-SHORAD system consists primarily of a Stryker-mounted 360-degree Avenger air defense turret loaded up with Stinger and AGM-114 Longbow Hellfire missiles (the latter of which are traditionally used in air-to-surface roles), an XM914 30mm cannon, and a 7.62mm machine gun.

The 5-4 ADA will be the first unit to receive the IM-SHORAD system in Germany to replace its aging Humvee-mounted Avenger systems, a move that comes amid the U.S. military’s resurgence in Cold War-style tactics in Europe in the aftermath of the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014Top of Form
Bottom of Form”There’s a lot of equipment on this machine that will change a lot of aspects for the Air Defense Artillery,” Spc. Andy Mendoza, an air and missile defense crewmember with the 5-4 ADA, said in a statement. 
The operational training and testing come just weeks after General Dynamics Land Systems announced that the Army had awarded the defense contractor a $1.2 billion contract award to produce, test, and deliver 28 Stryker IM-SHORAD Strykers to the service.

The Army had previously selected an IM-SHORAD solution engineered by Leonardo DRS back in June 2018.
The service plans on eventually spreading 144 systems across four battalions by as soon as fiscal year 2023. According to Army budget documents, the service plans on spending an additional $1.575 billion through 2025 on acquiring a total of 180 IM-SHORAD Stryker vehicles.

The IM-SHORAD system “provides the Army improved capabilities for defense of maneuver formations and other tactical echelons from low altitude air attack and surveillance,” according to the service’s fiscal year 2021 budget documents. 

At the moment, however, the IM-SHORAD is “not quite ready for full production,” hence the soldier testing by the 5-4 ADA, according to the Army statement.

Soldiers “need to get their hands on the system, learn to use it, and then use it just as they would, including trying new things, making mistakes, and otherwise doing the sort of thing that the system designers may not have prepared for,” per the Army.

“Everything might look good on paper, on the board, but until we get through the testing and putting it through its paces, understanding what it’s actually capable of, we won’t know if we’re producing the right system for the Soldier,” Steven Powell, acquisition logistics lead with the IM-SHORAD Program Office, said in a statement.

Sorry the small print here. This old soldier can not figure out how to enlarge.
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I would be unforgiven if I didn’t check into how everything is for you. How are things going for you? Is the world turning too fast? You are not alone. There are over 10,160 fellow veterans here and they all have your back.

BUT! If it is too overwhelming for you GET HELP!

Here is a toll free number for you to call 24/7 and the help is free.. There are highly qualified counselors there to help you, and they will not hang up until they know you are OK.

1-800-273-8255 Option # 1
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Remember:

You are never alone.

You are never forsaken.

You are never unloved.

And above all….never, ever, give up!
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It is the National Suicide Month. Get Help if you Need it

I have been out because of computer problems. My last post was over ten days ago. Sorry that I wasn’t there for you during that time.

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If you like what you see, please subscribe at the top of this page where it says, “subscribe.” When you do all future posts will come directly to your inbox. Also, if you know some else who could benefit for the site, please let them know about it. You may be saving a life. Your comments will not be seen by other people, just me, and I will connect with you to see if you are OK to share it.

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I have told you this before, but I live near the dreaded city of Portland, Oregon. There have been over 90 straight days that rioting has taken place. Buildings are being burnt down, and many of them are owned by black people.

President Trump has again said he will send help if asked. The very weak mayor of Portland, isn’t interested. He actually admitted yesterday that the rioting must stop. He is saying that after 90+ days of terror??

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September is National Suicide Prevention month. This, of course, is dear to my heart. I have too many friends who have lost loved ones.

The suicides are extremely high in the military. Every day over 22 brothers and sisters take their own lives. That is very sad. They aren’t reaching out for help when they need it.

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We are celebrating 75 years since the end of the WWII war. There were many personale who lost their lives defending our country. Here are just a few numbers:

  1. Army- 11,727
  2. Navy- 6,266 (1,518 in one day at Pearl Harbor)
  3. Marines- 16, 025

This is just a parcial of the total. There were pilots, and other airforce groups who died.

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Here are some actual thoughts about the end of the war, of some who fought:

“I was quite happy when the war was over. I knew I would get home.”

John Stokes, Navy armed guard, SS Louis Weule, Manila, Philippines.

“I was on the scope of the deck, and we were about 200 yards off the Missouri. I watched MacArthur and all the Japanese sign the papers. I was so glad to see it was over.

W.Rex Kocher Navy fire control 2nd class, USS Wedderburn Tokyo Bay, escorting the USS Missouri.

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How are you doing my friend? Are you struggling? Have there been too many bad days?

You certainly are not alone. There are over 9,000 fellow brothers and sisters on this site who have your back. Don’t spend another minute suffering.

If it too overwhelming for you right now, GET HELP!! The majority of suicides in the military are because the person never even seeked help. Do not be one of the people. Below is a toll free number for you to call for help. There are highly trained counselors there to help you:

1-800-273-8255

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If you like what you see, please subscribe at the top of this page where it says, “subscribe.” When you do all future posts will come directly to your inbox. Also, if you know some else who could benefit for the site, please let them know about it. You may be saving a life. Your comments will not be seen by other people, just me, and I will connect with you to see if you are OK to share it.

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Remember:

You are never alone.

You are never forsaken.

You are never unloved.

And above all…never, ever, give up!