Category: Veterans

By Clancy Sigal / Alternet

Except for mourning family members and Boy Scouts loyally placing tiny flags on veterans’ gravestones, hardly anyone knows anything about Memorial Day except that it’s a day off. It’s the saddest of the military holidays, invented after the Civil War, supposed to help us honor, or at least pause to remember, all the American dead from all our wars. That’s a lot of men and some women to remember going back, well, how far?

Big and small, we’ve “done” about 70 wars starting with the mid-18th century so-called French and Indian wars where George Washington was bloodied and when we got our first taste of industrially massacring Native Americans, mainly Ojibwas and Algonquins who sided with the French against our British masters.

Ocean Beach has lost another of its citizens who helped others over the years. Michael Charter passed away on January 23rd, he was 69. A longtime community volunteer for OB, who helped the homeless and veterans, died from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease at Vibra Hospital of San Diego.

After serving in Vietnam for almost 2 years once he was drafted in 1967, and receiving a Purple Heart, he returned to civilian life and dealt with post-traumatic stress disorder and alcoholism. He was able to earn a bachelor’s degree in business management from Cal State Long Beach. He married twice and was divorced twice. In that time, his family had moved to Point Loma. Michael had two daughters and a son from the marriages. Charter became a contractor who helped remodel homes and restaurants.

Phoenix and Salt Lake City have ended chronic homelessness among veterans. Why can’t San Diego follow their example?

By John Lawrence / San Diego Free Press

Phoenix has become the first city to end homelessness among veterans. The Obama administration had set a goal of ending homelessness among veterans by 2015, but Phoenix reached that mark a year early. After housing the last 56 veterans a week before Christmas, Phoenix announced that it had eradicated chronic homelessness among veterans in that city.

Phoenix and Salt Lake City had been involved in a frierndly competition to see which city could end chronic homelessness among veterans first. Phoenix won, but Salt Lake was not far behind.

Yesterday afternoon I received a call from Doug Ledbetter, the Director at Ft. Rosecrans Cemetery asking me if I had been up to see the progress taking place at the cemetery in the past few days.

Last night, and again this morning, I received five calls from readers asking me the same question. This is a quick summary of what I found when I drove to the cemetery at 10:30am on Tuesday, November 26, 2013.

It is 95% better than what I saw the last time I visited my husband.

Board Requires Corporate Applicant to Return in 90 Days With Information on Planned Alcohol Sales to Neighborhood

By Stephanie Denton / Special to the OB Rag

The monthly OB Planning Board meeting – Wednesday, Nov. 6th – brought out dozens of locals and it was standing-room only in the meeting room of the OB Rec Center as the Board’s agenda included topics which have caused a stir.

CVS Pharmacy’s Alcohol Permit Application

The hottest topic of the evening was the alcohol permit application by CVS Pharmacy which plans to move into the former Apple Tree Market on 4949 Santa Monica Avenue. After a presentation by the CVS rep and after numerous speakers asked the Board to deny the application, the Board decided to delay their decision and give CVS 90 days in which to present more information regarding alcohol and the neighborhood.

by Judi Curry / October 23, 2013

It appears that progress is being made at the cemetery. Slowly, in the areas I checked out, but some of the areas of the cemetery that were behind green fences are now sporting beautiful green grass. This is at the most northern part of the cemetery on the east side of the road and snaking down to the bay-side where there are benches to sit on while looking over the San Diego Bay and listening to the cry of the seals.

There was evidence of men working on cleaning the monuments; men were moving the flat markers from the “curb” to the headstones; grading was taking place close to the road on the inside of the eastern part of the cemetery and sod is due to be laid beginning next week.

It’s happened. The final design for the new Ocean Beach Veterans’ Memorial Plaza has been publicly unveiled.

Over the last week and a half, presentations of the new design have been made in front of both the Ocean Beach Mainstreet Association and the OB Community Development Corporation (OBCDC) – the project’s sponsoring organization. And both groups gave green lights to the project that will replace the current memorial, one that has been worn down literally by salt air, sand, ocean water, foot traffic – not to mention marshmallows – .

Yet it may be years before the new memorial project itself is completely constructed.

The OB Veterans’ Plaza has also been in the news for months (for instance San Diego Newsroom ) because of a connection with the developer Sunroad and accusations of ‘pay to play’ monies given to the City, that former Mayor Filner wanted to go to the memorial. (It was mentioned in last weeks San Diego Reader cover story entitled “Did Sunroad pay to play?” )

Once built, the new plaza will have a final design that resulted from a process that involved two community workshops earlier this year and the creative input of the design consultant, and will be located next to the current reserved parking lot south of the main lifeguard station, butting up to Abbott Street. It will have a mosaic walkway from Abbott Street to a gathering plaza next to the sand, and includes four granite walls with the names of the honored vets. A crosswalk at Newport Avenue and Abbott Street is also being considered as part of the design.

Finally – some answers about Ft. Rosecrans – Sorta – from Doug Ledbetter

By Judi Curry

It has been three weeks since the new Director of Ft. Rosecrans Cemetery – has moved into his “lodge”. (When I asked him where I should meet him he told me “at the lodge.” Took me a minute to realize he meant the “private quarters.”)

He is in a wonderful position, because he had the courage to not answer all of my questions with a “I don’t know because I wasn’t here” but said he’d find out. Here is my interview with him from Thursday, August 29th, 2013 at 9:00am.

Let me tell you something about Doug Ledbetter first. He enlisted in the Air Force upon high school graduation and hails from Dayton, Ohio. He never attended college and is where he is because of passion and hard work.

Update on Point Loma national cemetery – Thursday, August 15th, 2013

It is five days short of one year since I wrote my first article about the deplorable conditions at the Ft. Rosecrans national cemetery.

Over the past year, I have made numerous trips to the cemetery – my husband is interred there – and have been depressed, angry, sickened, etc. by what I have seen. Today I decided to go back and look for the improvements everyone has been talking about.

I am sorry to say that there are virtually no improvements in the section that Bob is resting in. (In fact, knowing Bob, he is probably very angry at what he sees when he looks out his door.)

Rather than just tell you about it – as I have done in the past – I have taken some pictures that will give you an idea of how our servicemen and servicewomen are being treated.

Editor: Just recently, the VA announced that a new director will be taking over the Ft Rosecrans – and Miramar – cemeteries in mid-August. Douglas Ledbetter, an Air Force vet and former director of the national cemeteries in Illinois and Nebraska (more on Ledbetter at the end of this post). Apparently, the Ft Rosecrans cemetery has been a revolving door for short-time directors over the years. Peter Young – the former director – was on board less than a year. And the director before him served only one year.

We don’t know if this is due to the Widder Curry taking on this issue of the conditions at the Ft. Rosecrans Cemetery or not, but here is here latest report of her most visit.

After celebrating one of the widows of my support group birthday, we thought it would be nice to drive up to Ft. Rosecrans to visit our husbands and see what, if any progress, was being made at the cemetery.

Since August of 2012, I have been writing articles about the deplorable condition of the cemetery. Last month Turko (KUSI) did a report on the cemetery and, although it was pointing out how long it has taken for anything constructive to be accomplished, he felt that a “turn around” was taking place. Maybe. And maybe not.

Since I appeared briefly on the program – I thought that maybe getting Turko involved really would make a difference. The footage that was aired – Memorial Day, for example – was not the current conditions of the cemetery. Today was worse.

By Judi Curry

I have written several articles about the deplorable conditions at Ft. Rosecrans. See here, here, and here.

Michael Turko of KUSI News did a story a week or so ago and I sent him the articles that I wrote. One of the real discrepancies in his report and mine was that he was told the problem began occurring in November of 2012. My first article was written in August, 2012 and it was already a problem.

This article has several messages I would like to discuss. Last year I wrote about the deplorable condition of Ft. Rosecrans. Just a few weeks ago I was quoted by the “editordude” in an article regarding the condition of Ft. Rosecrans during the Memorial Day holiday.

To briefly recap that quote, several of the women from my widow support group went up to Ft. Rosecrans to visit our husbands. Even though we know they are not “there” – talking to them is no different than when they were with us – they don’t listen and they didn’t respond. However, whereas we used to be able to sit under a tree on the green grass and have a picnic, the green grass and the trees are gone.