Entveteransday 103015 flipbook

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VETERANS DAY

VETERANS DAY

Page A2 The Enterprise Saturday, October 31, 2015

Saturday, October 31, 2015 The Enterprise Page A3

Veterans DayNovember 11, 2015

On Veterans Day, we honor

the brave men and women

who have sacrificed to

protect our families.

True American Heroes.

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Operation Warrior Refuge helps veterans heal . . Page 4

O’Connor earned Purple Heart in Iraq . . . . . Page 6

Guy served in skies over South Vietnam . . . . Page 8

Operation: Tohidu helps wounded warriors recover Page 9

Kittrell fi nds strength through other patients . Page 10

Woman remembers life and service of her dad, who was the

last U.S. World War I Navy veteran. . . . . Page 12

Getscher fi nds new life after war . . . . . . . Page 15

Local events honoring veterans . . . . . . .Page 21

Veterans museum gives new life to old school . .Page 28

We live and play in a wonderful part of the world. And in our neighborhoods, there are individuals who serve our towns, communities and country every day, not for the glory or recognition, but because they care.

Veterans, fi refi ghters, police offi cers, paramedics and others do so much in our communities. Too often, their efforts go unrecognized or we don’t show our appre-ciation for their sacrifi ces.

Sure, from time to time you will see posts on social media of people thanking one of these individuals for a specifi c event. We felt we should do more for these individu-als.

As we were chatting about Veterans Day and our story ideas, it became apparent that we wanted to enhance our spotlight on these local individuals in a greater way than we have in the past.

With this special bonus publication, we begin our Tributes Program, with the fi rst

focus being on veterans and Veterans Day.In St. Mary’s County, a portion of the

proceeds from this special publication will go toward Operation Warrior Refuge, an equine-assisted psychotherapy program for veterans experiencing post-traumatic stress disorder. That program, people who work in it, and people who are helped by it, is one of the feature stories in this special publication.

The Tributes Program will continue throughout the year as national holidays approach for fi refi ghters, fi rst responders and others.

We are excited to launch this new pro-gram and to do our part to thank these lo-cal heroes. We ask that you help us make sure we don’t miss anyone in our commu-nity who deserves that thank you from the community for their service.

David FikePresident, APG of Chesapeake Media

Offering tribute to those who give so much

CONTENTS


22685 Three Notch Road, Suite BCalifornia, MD 20619301-866-0330

By JESSE YEATMAN

[email protected]

Army veteran Sarah Wil-liams has found solace in horses.

Two years ago she and others formed Operation Warrior Refuge, an equine-assisted pyschotherapy program for veterans ex-periencing post-traumatic stress disorder.

“I just had an idea that horses can help people with PTSD,” Sarah Williams said.

Equine therapy is an al-ternative to traditional ther-apy, where a person talks to trained professional. In-stead, a client will visit with a horse under the watchful eye of a therapist as a way to address emotional is-sues.

Like so many things in life, it fi rst takes just recog-nizing that there is an issue, and that help is needed. Veterans, and sometimes even their family, may not immediately realize he or she may have PTSD and need help.

Sarah and her husband, Justin, both Army veter-ans, found it hard returning home after combat in Iraq.

The couple, who served together before they wed, would become anxious when leaving their home.

Through Operation War-rior Refuge, an equine therapy support group in St. Mary’s County, they

said they’ve both found new battle buddies to help them continue their transition to civilian life.

After veterans return home from war, they have to fi gure out their new roles now that they are no longer

in combat. There aren’t al-ways immediate orders to follow, so decisions have to be made on their own.

The Operation Warrior Refuge sessions, which are held at Greenwell State Park and offered free of

charge, do not teach horse-manship, nor do they in-clude riding lessons. All of the work is done “on the ground” by simply interact-ing with the horses, Devine said.

It is based on the Equine

Assisted Growth and Learn-ing Association therapy model. Veterans must even-tually open up with their emotions, causing the hors-

Equine group provides refuge for warriors

PHOTO BY REID SILVERMAN

Operation Warrior Refuge staff Julie Devine, right, and Jamie Spohn lead horses at Greenwell State Park.

To � nd out moreOperation Warrior Refuge will be holding Powwows for active-duty military, veterans, reserv-ists and fi rst responders on Thursday evenings at Fleet Reserve Associa-tion Branch 93, located at 21707 Three Notch Road (about ¼-mile south of Gate 2) in Lex-ington Park on Nov. 12 and Dec. 10 at 6 p.m.To assist with or make a donation to Operation Wounded Warrior, call 301-880-0531 or visit www.operationwarrior-refuge.org.

See REFUGEPage A18



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John O’Connor knew he wanted to be-come a police officer when he graduated from high school. He also knew he didn’t want to wait until he was 21 years old.

Many in his family were in the New York Police Department, so after graduating from La Salle Military Academy on Long Island, O’Connor “literally woke up one morning, talked to my parents and said, ‘I’m going to join the Army,’” he said. He wanted to join the Army Military Police.

In his time between 2000 and 2007, he ended up serving in Kosovo and Iraq, where he was wounded in combat. He is now a St. Mary’s County republican com-missioner, one of three U.S. service branch veterans on the board.

As an Army MP, “I didn’t know at the time we were the force of choice. We are deployed all the time. If there is something that’s going on, we’re the ones that are go-ing to go. Our mission is one of the greatest in the United States Army when it comes down to demand and operational tempo,” O’Connor, 34, said.

And for the lure of an extra $150 a month, O’Connor joined the Army Airborne School after basic training and was stationed at Fort Bragg, N.C., in the 21st MP Company Airborne.

They were deployed to Kosovo, a for-mer territory of Serbia, for six months for a peacetime mission, checking villages for weapons and insurgents. “It was a good

mission. I enjoyed it,” O’Connor said.

It was there back at the base where O’Connor was playing foos-ball as the television played in the background. He thought he was seeing a movie at first when a plane had crashed into an office tower, but it was the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City on Sept. 11, 2001.

“It was soldiers running around everywhere. The siren went off and we were in full battle mode at that point. The threat of imminent attack was definitely there. It went from a peacetime army into a war-time army in a matter of minutes,” O’Connor said.

President George W. Bush then sent forces into Afghanistan and Iraq.

“We trained for war, we’re all ex-cited,” O’Connor said. He was de-ployed to Iraq in 2003, first arriving in Kuwait, Iraq’s neighbor to the south. There they trained for chem-ical warfare in the intense heat.

Attached to the 101st Airborne, O’Connor’s MP unit went in for the initial take over of Iraq, in charge of protecting convoys. “Less than 24 hours in country, I was engaged in a near and far lin-ear ambush,” in a convoy moving 15 miles per hour, where enemy fire was coming in from near and far on both of their sides.

In a convoy under fire, “you never stop.

You always drive through,” he said, other-wise it will be destroyed.

O’Connor was on the machine gun. “It’s a little bit of a shock to be engaged for the first time … in a firefight,” he said. But the training takes over and “I just pulled

the trigger” of the M249 squad automatic weapon.

He was shooting left. He was shooting

O’Connor received Purple Heart in war in Iraq

See O’CONNOr Page A20

PHOTO COURTESY OF JOHN O’CONNOR

John O’Connor, center, poses for a picture with two Iraqi police officers who were committed to rebuilding the country: Sgt. Amir Namous, left, and Lt. Musad Nasir. Namous was later executed by enemy Iraqis.


We salute ourmen andwomen in uniformwhohave served and are currently serving

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By JASON BABCOCK

[email protected]

American fi lms on the Vietnam War typi-cally dramatize the experience of Army sol-diers and Marines on the ground, hacking through the dense jungle searching for an elusive and deadly enemy.

Randy Guy (R), president of the St. Mary’s County commissioners, served in Vietnam, but was literally above the fray — as an Air Force loadmaster delivering every kind of supply imaginable to U.S. forces. But his job was also to bring back the U.S. dead and wounded.

Guy, now 68, was drafted at fi rst into the Army, but was able to join the Air Force, where he went on to serve for 26 years.

While serving in Vietnam, Guy was an airman fi rst class with the 772nd tactical airlift squadron, fl ying aboard Hercules C-130s. He was awarded three air medals, though he didn’t know about them until later.

Guy fi rst went into the service in January 1966, and served in Vietnam from Febru-ary 1967 to March 1968.

His squadron was based at Mactan Isle Airfi eld in the Philippines. “There was nothing there. No electricity, no infrastruc-

ture,” Guy said, but the Air Force built an airstrip there in 1966.

From that airstrip, the C-130s would fl y supplies in and out over South Vietnam.

“We would fl y all over the entire country, where ever there was a runway where you could land a C-130 … carrying war-making supplies, food, troops and at the same time picking up the dead and wounded, every-thing you could fi t into an airplane,” Guy said.

They airdropped supplies during the Tet offensive in January 1968, when the North Vietnamese Army made a surprise attack on South Vietnam. “We were fl ying con-stantly at that time,” Guy said.

At Khe Sanh and six hills around it, “We were airdropping there daily for almost 30 days because the runway got blown up,” he said. “We were fl ying in there at least two missions a day” as the base was cut off from supplies.

“Our plane, we never took any seri-ous hits. There were planes that got shot down,” he said. In the C-130s, “we were low and slow, we weren’t no fi ghter plane. We were low speed.”

The C-130s would only momentarily be on the ground — just long enough to offl oad and pick up men and materials. Otherwise, they would be an easy target.

Guy served in the skies over South Vietnam

C-130s delivered men and material

STAFF PHOTO BY JASON BABCOCK

Randy Guy (R), president of the St. Mary’s County commissioners, shows the air medals he earned during his service in the Air Force in the Vietnam War from 1967 to 1968.

See VIETNAMPage A26


The Staff at CHEVYSwishes to thank all Veterans

past and present for their servicein the defense of our country.

By GRETCHEN PHILLIPS

[email protected]

When it comes to traumatic events expe-rienced while on deployment with the mili-tary, retired U.S. Marine gunnery Sgt. Dan-iel Hammer said the excellent training the military provides gets the service member through it. It’s coming home and no longer being in that environment that becomes dif-ficult.

“We don’t do a good job at training our-selves to feel better,” Hammer of Lusby said.

That’s where Operation: Tohidu comes in.Sponsored by Melwood and located at its

recreation center in Nanjemoy, Operation: Tohidu address the needs of veterans and active duty service members formally diag-nosed with or self-reporting with post-trau-matic stress, traumatic brain injury, anxiety, depression or substance abuse resulting from deployment-related trauma, according to information provided by Melwood.

Melwood, a nonprofit organization that pro-vides jobs and opportunities for people with dif fering abilities, funds Operation:Tohidu, including all expenses for participants.

“I’ve been overwhelmed by their generos-ity, their love and their compassion,” said Mary Neal Vieten, clinical psychologist

Operation:Tohidu addresses post traumatic stress Retreat program runs outside medical model

SUBMITTED PHOTO

Operation:Tohidu program director Mary Neal Vieten, left, a clinical psychologist and a commander in the U.S. Navy Reserves, stands with former participant and current mentor Daniel Hammer, a retired Marine gunnery sergeant.

See TOHIDUPage A23


Past • Present • Future

We salutethe men and women who

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By JOHN WHARTON

[email protected]

De’Shawn Kittrell bonded with fellow service mem-bers in a setting where none would have chosen to be. But that’s where they be-came the source of strength for each other amid traumat-ic change in their lives, after Kittrell suffered a severe injury three years ago while serving with the U.S. Army in Afghanistan.

Kittrell lost his right leg below the knee on Sept. 27, 2012, when an improvised explosive device detonated as the 19-year-old Great Mills High School graduate was taking part, as a U.S. Army private fi rst class, in a pursuit of Taliban combat-ants. After initial treatment in Afghanistan and Germa-ny, Kittrell arrived at Walter Reed National Medical Cen-ter in Washington, D.C.

Now 22, Kittrell moved back to his family’s home in Great Mills last October, and now has an apartment of his own as he works with children in an after-school program at Park Hall El-ementary School, and helps out as he did years ago on Friday afternoons at Carver Elementary School, as a mentor and assistant physi-cal education teacher.

“I try to have a conversa-

tion with them, to lead them on the right path,” Kittrell said.

His own path after the war-time injury includes memo-ries of his initial reaction when it happened.

“I wasn’t scared. I was more angry than anything,” he said, “because I knew what had happened. I want-ed to be out doing my job, and I couldn’t do that any longer, not at that moment.”

During his two years at Walter Reed, Kittrell em-barked on a regimen of get-ting used to the prosthetic he was fi tted with a month after his arrival.

“From then on, it’s just been practice, walking up stairs [and] trying to keep my balance, like in the real world,” he said, and he also received a second prosthet-ic, a “swing-blade” design of carbon-fi ber material with a shoe sole. “Once I got to running,” he said, “it’s been up and up.”

And Kittrell traveled far to put his new right legs to good use.

“They had me going on trips, [twice] to Colorado to go skiing, and to Florida and Chicago to do marathons, to keep me active, basically,” he said.

During that fi rst year of physical therapy, Kittrell would visit new friends in

Bethesda who had moved “off post” after their inpa-tient treatment.

“The guys who have been there longer can tell you what you’re going to go through [and] what to ex-pect,” he said, and the spec-trum of severity of injuries.

“They called mine a ‘pa-per cut,’ because there were guys who lost all their limbs,” he said. “At fi rst I thought ‘wow, that is crazy.’ Obviously, it was all in good humor.”

Visitors to the hospital during Kittrell’s stay in-cluded President Barack Obama, and players with the Miami Heat basketball team after they won the NBA championship.

“That’s my favorite basket-ball team,” he said. “When they came to see us, that was the greatest thing.”

Kittrell has been pub-licly recognized at a South-ern Maryland Blue Crabs baseball game in Waldorf, and also has taken part in Wounded Warrior recogni-tion events. He said his in-teraction with people quickly moves on from any initial perception of him as solely a soldier who has lost a leg, to a more personal level of

Wounded soldier bonded with fellow patients in recovery

STAFF PHOTO BY JOHN WHARTON

DeAsia Kittrell, left, marvels at the progress of her brother, De’Shawn Kittrell, during his recovery from a severe injury in Afghanistan.

See KITTRELLPage A26


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[email protected]

When Lloyd Brown was 16 years old, he was working in his father’s general store in Chadwick, Mo., where pluck-ing chickens was among his assigned duties. This was a time when a lot of young men were enlisting in the mili-tary. “Most all the young men were enlisting and I went along with the crowd,” he said later.

It was the spring of 1918, a year after the United States entered World War I. Brown wanted to get out of Lutie, the small Missouri town where he lived. So he enlisted in the U.S. Navy. He lied about his age, telling the recruiters he was born on Oct. 7, 1899. In fact, he was born on that date in 1901.

By 2007, Brown’s true age was 105, and before he died on March 29 of that year at St. Mary’s Hospital, he was the last surviving U.S. Navy veteran of World War I, according to the Veterans Administration.

During that war he served as an ap-prentice seaman aboard the USS New Hampshire, a coal powered battleship that was escorting U.S. convoys carry-ing troops across the Atlantic on their way to the front lines in Europe while

guarding against German submarine attacks. “I can remember being a look-out,” Brown told an Enterprise report-er many years later. “Submarine watch was way up on the mast. You had to have good eyes to sight a periscope in those waters.

“Once I reported a strange object in the water,” he said in that interview in 2000. “But it turned out to be a wood-en crate. Better a wooden crate than a periscope.”

World War II ended on Nov. 11, 1918, a day that later was called Armistice Day and since 1954 has been celebrat-ed in the United States as Veterans Day. Brown was discharged on Oct. 6, 1919.

Fast forward to the 1990s, and Brown and his wife, Sadie, were living in Charlotte Hall, near their daughter, Nancy Espina.

During the seven decades in be-tween, Brown served another hitch in the Navy, from 1921 to 1925. The Navy still thought he was two years older than he really was, but by now, his daughter pointed out recently, he weighed 171 pounds and was 6 feet tall. During his wartime service, which began and ended before he turned 18, he stood 5-feet-8½ inches

tall and weighed 145 pounds.During his second enlistment,

Brown was trained as a musician and assigned to play cello in the 10-piece admiral’s orchestra aboard the fl ag-ship USS Seattle, and traveled to Ha-waii, Panama and Australia.

After leaving the Navy for a second time, Brown began a career as a fi re-fi ghter with Engine 16 in Washington, D.C. In the mid-1940s, he transferred to the then-new Washington National Airport, where he served as a fi re-fi ghter and crash recovery team mem-ber.

In the 1970s, Brown retired and he and his wife retired to Florida, but then in the 1990s resettled in St. Mary’s County, nearer to family.

It was in Southern Maryland that Brown’s long-ago service during World War I brought him new atten-tion. It began with a tribute ceremo-ny by American Legion Post 238 in Hughesville on April 15, 2000. By then he was 98 years old.

That sparked a series of interviews by journalists and historians, and eventually the discovery that he was

Navy’s last World War I veteran called St. Mary’s homeBrown lived near daughter in Charlotte Hall until his death at 105

SUBMITTED PHOTO

Lloyd Brown shows a copy of a Navy recruiting poster in 2005 in Charlotte Hall.

See BROWNPage A24


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It’s taken a few years, but Cpl. Thomas Caleb Getscher is finding normalcy in life after war.

Getscher, who grew up in Chaptico, was injured June 18, 2011, when he stepped on an improvised explosive device in Afghanistan. His legs and his left arm below his elbow were amputated to prevent infection from spreading through his body. Doctors also determined that Getscher had suffered a traumatic brain injury.

He had been in the Marine Corps for about a year, and was three months into a deployment in Afghani-stan’s Helmand province. He was just 20 years old.

“Everybody’s got their own defini-tion of a hero,” Getscher said. When asked if he considers himself a hero, he shrugs.

“The doctor that brought me back is a hero,” he said.

Getscher came home to face nu-merous surgeries and seemingly end-less hours of rehabilitation. He had a loving and supporting family beside him, but things were still tough.

For months things were really dif-ficult for him, he said, as he grappled with both the physical changes he experienced and the thoughts that things would never be the same again.

“I was a little bit angry,” he said.But as the months turned to years,

he began to refocus on what he had, including his family.

“I’m an emotional guy, and I don’t show it a lot,” he said, adding that he tends to keep his feelings bottled up. Eventually, though, he started talk-ing, especially to his wife, about those pent-up emotions, and he began to feel better.

The two married one year to the day after his injury in Afghanistan.

“His alive day is also our anniver-sary,” Emily said.

Their daughter, Camily, who is now 5, helped Caleb get better, too. She was a year old when he was injured, so she really only knows her father as he is now.

The young girl would visit Caleb when he was in the hospital and crawl up in the bed with him, wanting to play, Emily said. Like most kids, she was relentless.

“She pushed me not to be a selfish dude,” Caleb said. And her smile and laughter was contagious.

Camily, who takes after her father in a lot of ways, according to Em-ily — likes to play video games with her father, as well as catch and other games.

“I like to play hide and seek. That’s my favorite thing to do with my dad-dy,” Camily said.

Last year Caleb completed what was needed to earn a promotion from lance corporal to corporal, a personal goal he had set for him-self after the injury. At that time he and his family also determined it was time to move out of the hos-pital in Bethesda where he had spent most of his life since he was injured in the war.

“There is no [set] timeline for these types of things,” Emily said of her husband’s recovery.

Caleb received an honorable discharge for medical reasons, and the couple bought a house in Gaithersburg last year. Soon after they added another new member to their family — a German shep-herd named Sampson.

Caleb said he doesn’t think much about the day he lost his limbs. Sometimes he and his friend will make jokes about it, and he often has to answer ques-tions when he’s in public (some-thing he’s become more comfort-able with over time).

“I leave it in the past,” he said of his time at war.

Now, he enjoys cooking at home, something he didn’t do be-fore.

Finding life after war

See GETSchEr Page A26

STAFF PHOTO BY JESSE YEATMAN

Cpl. Caleb Getscher says his wife, Emily Getscher, and daughter, Ca-mily, 5, have helped him improve emotionally and physically since he was injured in Afghanistan four years ago.


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es to react in their own way, she said.

Operation Warrior Refuge also makes its services available to first responders, such as police or fire-fighters or rescue squad members, who are experiencing post traumat-ic stress disorder.

Although Sarah, like so many chil-dren, had always dreamed of rid-ing and owning her own horse as a child, it wasn’t until after her tours of duty that she finally began inter-acting and with riding horses. They have a calming presence about them, she said.

During her two tours in Iraq in the same unit as Justin, Sarah served in an engineering unit and worked a variety of jobs including finding bombs and as a gunner on missions, she said.

Even after she began riding hors-es, she still struggled for several years with post-traumatic stress dis-order. Sarah said she eventually be-gan to seek help in earnest.

Her and her husband moved to St. Mary’s from Georgia a few years ago, in part so Justin could land a job at Patuxent River Naval Air Sta-tion, but also because of the horse-friendly nature of St. Mary’s County.

However, the pair found it hard to meet and connect with other vet-erans, and things got worse. Sarah said at one point she called a crisis hotline when her PTSD took hold.

She was given an appointment with a councilor via a video moni-tor at the Charlotte Hall Veterans Home, help that she said was far less than ideal.

She eventually joined in with Di-ane McKissick, who did work with equine therapy. McKissick, who has since left Operation Warrior Refuge, Sarah and Julie Devine, who in addition to being a certified therapist is also a horse specialist, realized there was a real need for therapy for veterans in the area and started the organization.

The overriding objective of the therapy is to transition the veterans “back to normalcy” of civilian life, Sarah said.

The group recently hosted a train-ing and demonstration on how equine therapy can work, and rep-resentatives from Patuxent River Naval Air Station, including Capt. Heidi Fleming, the commanding of-ficer, attended.

“She seems to be really motivated to help veterans,” Williams said.

Justin served six years in the Army, including time in Kuwait be-fore the wars and two tours in Iraq.

Justin, who was never a “horse person,” said during an interview last year that his first time with the equine therapy was uncomfortable, to say the least. It did get better, and after a couple sessions he began to see the benefit, the former sergeant said.

“Every time I come it’s like look-ing at yourself,” the former ser-geant said of the emotional interac-tions with the horses. The sessions

start out difficult, but by the time he leaves he is glad to have been there, Justin said.

Operation Warrior Refuge holds a variety of fundraising events, but still struggles with getting word out to veterans about the help they can provide. They gained official non-profit status late last year.

Maryland Public Television filmed a therapy session that was featured in the show “Maryland Farm & Harvest.”

The organization recently part-nered with e-Trepid, an information technology company, that is helping with services including fundraising.

“They felt like this was a really good nonprofit to support,” Devine said.

The owner, Tom Blanford, is a Navy veteran who is chairing the new board of directors set up for Operation Warrior Refuge.

The group also recently brought in Jamie Spohn, a licensed psychol-ogist and clinical neropsychologist, as the program’s clinical director.

Through combat or traumatic events many soldiers develop invis-ible wounds. Often expressed as anxiety, depression, family trouble and hopelessness, society may not recognize these as a component of daily life for veterans, according to the group.

Devine said that on average 22 veterans kill themselves every day, either by drug overdoses or by weapons. The mental health system is lacking, and through Operation Warrior Refuge, which has also linked to the program Combat 22, the women hope to reduce the loss of 22 individuals every day.

Sarah has another battle buddy she keeps with her at all times — her Labrador retriever, Buddy.

The service dog helps in a differ-ent way from the horses, she said. Buddy does react to her emotions, but he’ll try to comfort her if she’s in need. With the horses, she said, “you have to give them something.”

RefugeFrom

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Justin Williams interacts with horses at Greenwell State Park, where his wife, Sarah Williams, oversees the equine-assisted therapy program Operation Warrior Refuge


Jamie Spohn, a licensed psychologist, is Operation Warrior Refuge’s new clinical director.


Julie Devine, a certified therapist and horse specialist, readies an area for a Operation Warrior Refuge session at Greenwell State Park.


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right. Bullet casings rained down below him into the vehicle. The barrel of the gun got so hot, O’Connor said, he had to switch it out during the combat.

“I can hear the rounds hitting the shield,” in front of him, he said. Bullets zipped past his head. “You could hear the rounds go by. It’s such a distinct sound,” O’Connor said.

“I know that I took out a decent amount of enemy forces there because the shooting stopped,” he said.

There were no American casualties in the fi refi ght, even though they were shot at with rocket-propelled grenades.

“So that was our baptism under fi re for Iraq. That kind of set the tempo for our unit, for our company, of what we were going to be involved in,” he said.

In the city of Mosul there was house-to-house fi ghting and hidden improvised ex-plosive devices. The MPs took over the Iraqi police and their jails. “We were engaged in a lot of fi re fi ghts during that time. It was a tough deployment. We had a lot of guys hit with IEDs. It was defi nitely combat at its height,” O’Connor said.

“The problem with Iraq is there is no front line. You’re surrounded by it. It was the unknowing of who your friends were, who your enemies were,” he said. They found themselves fi ghting members of the Iraqi police at night.

Understandably, O’Connor fi nds it diffi cult to talk about the Iraqi children they had to engage in combat. “It was horrible … 13-, 14-, 15-year-olds with AK-47s that were shooting at us,” he said. He still lives with the orders he gave his men to engage those young peo-ple. “I might not have pulled the trigger in every single situation, but I know damn well sure that I did because I gave the orders. It’s the tough calls that you have to make. It’s not easy to live with. It’s tough,” he said.

But he didn’t lose anybody in his squad.On a mission, O’Connor was shot in the

chest, which broke the right side of his ribcage, as he was getting ready to en-ter a building. “I felt the impact. I took a few steps forward and I feel down. I just couldn’t breathe,” he said.

His friend, Shawn Winn, pulled him to safety and he was sent to a mobile hospital for a few days. He was awarded the Purple Heart for that injury.

O’Connor left Iraq in early 2005.There were more than 4,800 U.S. and

coalition casualties in the war in Iraq, ac-cording to CNN, and the country is still destabilized today.

“The shame of it all is looking back and the current state of what our government has done in Iraq, by the lack of forward ef-fort with ISIS,” O’Connor said. “You look at everything that you did and the lives that were lost and the pain and suffering that you’re going through now for nothing — absolutely nothing. It’s horrible.

“It’s almost like, ‘why did we even do this?’ We literally invaded the country, established a new government, lost thou-sands of American lives in the process only for a few years later for our government do nothing … have ISIS take over and have all the work lost and for what? Nothing. And it angers me,” he said.

“I personally blame this president. His lack of action is just a disgrace to all the soldiers that lost their lives,” he said.

But his fi nal thought on the war in Iraq is: “It wasn’t a miserable time. I was doing my job,” the sergeant said.

Randy Guy (R), president of the St. Mary’s County commissioners, is a Viet-nam War veteran, serving in the Air Force as a loadmaster. He and O’Connor some-times fi nd themselves talking about their military experiences.

Guy said O’Connor’s service was “pretty heroic compared to what I did.”

Very few people enter the military and even fewer enter into combat, Guy said. O’Connor is “very well recovered from what he went through,” Guy said.

“He’s a very intelligent man. He’s done a good job as commissioner,” Guy said.

O’CONNORFrom

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PHOTO COURTESY OF JOHN O’CONNOR

Army MP John O’Connor sits behind the wheel of a Humvee in Iraq, where he served on an extended deployment.


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The Town of La Plata will host the annual Salute to Vet-erans Parade at 1 p.m. Nov. 8. The parade will make its way to Town Hall along Charles Street and La Grange Avenue. For more information, go to www.townoflaplata.org.

Calvert Library Prince Frederick will host an eve-ning to celebrate military families from 7-8:30 p.m. Nov. 10. Maryland Department of Veterans Affairs Secretary George W. Owings III will bring greetings and represen-tatives from military organiza-tions will be distribute infor-mation and answer questions about resources available to veterans. Librarians who are veterans themselves will share online resources. Ser-vice-oriented entertainment will be provided by Vince and Vincent Turner, also known as “Spam and Bubba.” For more information, call Joan Kilmon at 410-257-2411.

Veterans are thanked for their service with a spe-cial presentation of “D-Day: Normandy 1944” at 5:30 p.m. Nov. 11 in the Digital Dome Theater/Planetarium at the James E. Richmond Science Center. The event is open to the public, and veterans are free. The center is located at 5305 Piney Church Road, Waldorf. For tickets or more information, call 301-934-7464 or go to www.ccboe.com/sci-encecenter.

The Town of Indian Head and American Le-gion Post 233 will host a free community event to hon-or our local military with a Veterans Day ceremony and buffet luncheon at 11 a.m. Nov. 11 indoors at the Indian Head Village Green Pavilion. The public is welcome. For more information, call 240-375-4061 or email [email protected].

The American Legion Stallings-Williams Post 206 will host its annual Veterans Day ceremony at 1 p.m. Nov. 11 at Veterans Park in Chesapeake Beach. Attend to thank a veteran for their courage and dedication and to honor the veterans in our communities. All are welcome to attend an open house with refreshments immediately after the cer-emony at the Legion Post at 3330 Chesapeake Beach Road, Chesapeake Beach. For more information, go to alpost206.org.

Leonardtown will host its annual Veterans Day Parade from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Nov. 11. Enjoy march-ing bands, military units, bagpipers, dancers, horses, scouts and antique cars and participate in a wreath-laying ceremony honoring our mili-tary. Spectators may park at the St. Mary’s County Fair-grounds or the St. Mary’s Governmental Center. For

more information, call 301-475-9791 or go to leonard-town.somd.com/events/index.htm.

The Southern Charles County Memorial VFW Post 10081 & Auxiliary will host a Veterans Day Me-morial Service Open House in honor of all veterans and their families at 11 a.m. Nov. 11 at the Maryland Veterans Memorial Museum at Pa-triot Park, 11000 Crain High-way, Newburg. The public is welcome to attend. Refresh-ments will be served follow-ing the ceremony. For more information, go to mdvets.webs.com.

Veterans Day obser-vances in the Helen com-munity will begin at 2 p.m. on Wednesday, Nov. 11, featuring patriotic music, speeches and the laying of wreaths at the Helen vet-erans memorial. The 30th annual Veterans Day ob-servance program in Helen continues its tradition as a community-oriented and patriotic tribute in honor of those who have served in the armed forces of the Unit-ed States. All veterans and active-duty military are en-couraged to attend and join the ranks of fellow veterans to be recognized for their service and duty to country. The formal ceremony will be followed by music, food and beverages.

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and program director For Operation:Tohidu.

The program focuses on confidence building, out-door activities and group discussion in a relaxed environment using proven techniques for the self-management of symptoms, stressors and responses, according to information provided by Melwood.

Vieten said the program runs entirely outside the medical model.

Hammer, vice president of the Stracon Group in California, participated in the first retreat in Novem-ber of 2014 as both a par-ticipant and a mentor. He was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder in 2005, and had worked with Vieten’s methods in the past, and not just in a retreat setting. Hammer saw multiple deployments in his military career, tak-ing him to locations such as Somalia, Kuwait and Iraq. He said symptoms didn’t show up for many years and he can’t point to a specific incident that caused them. Hammer said he opted early on not

to be heavily medicated. For a long time he said he was dealing with ob-stacles on his own and not wanting to talk about his deployment experiences. He said until someone has done it, there is no way to explain.

“What made [Operation:Tohidu] suc-cessful for me, I think, was recognizing that you’re not alone, Hammer said.

He said at Operation:Tohidu par tici-pants get together with other veterans and share their experiences and share where they are at the time, understanding that at the end of the day “they’re going through the same thing that you are.”

Vieten said the program is run on a mentor model and rather than clinicians coming in, the retreats have veterans and active duty who are further along in their journey serving as mentors.

“To me, Operation: To-hidu is amazing. If I can help one police of ficer or one vet then I’ve done my job,” said St. Mary’s Coun-ty Commissioner John O’Connor (R), an Iraq War veteran.

During group sessions, Vieten said participants

aren’t talking with people who don’t understand.

“Everyone’s been there. Everyone understands. It’s a cool feeling,” she said.

Vieten, a commander with the U.S. Navy Re-serves, said being a psy-chologist allows her to run the program, but she feels what’s more important to participants is that she, too, is a veteran. Vieten completed two deploy-ments while on active duty.

Hammer said it’s im-por tant that the retreat is made up of veterans and active-duty ser vice members.

“They are among their peers and their brothers and sisters, and they are able to express things that they couldn’t express other places,” Hammer said. “It’s an environment where we encourage that so we can take care of each other.”

Hammer said a lot of ser-vicemen and women get turned to medication but they aren’t dealing with what happened. “They don’t understand that they are having a normal reac-tion to an abnormal event.”

He said participants get that education at Tohidu.

Once a person gets that education, he said “You do

feel better. You realize that you’re not some dif ferent person because you are re-acting to this combat event or this significant trauma.”

He said it doesn’t mean they are not going to have physical problems or com-bat wounds that require medicine and things, “but when it comes to their mental state, they can rely on each other.”

More Vietnam veterans are coming to the retreats, learning about it from oth-er Vietnam vets who have gone through.

“The intergenerational bonding, that’s occurring is absolutely fantastic,” she said.

She said the younger vets enjoy hearing from Vietnam veterans and they like to help the younger service members.

“Melwood is allowing the veterans to help them-selves help each other,” Vieten said.

Vieten said post traumat-ic stress exists, but does not believe it’s a disorder.

“They saw children killed, they saw people starving, they saw all kinds of terrible things happening and it’s trau-matizing. This isn’t mental illness. When traumatic things like that happen you’re supposed to be

traumatized, that’s what makes you human,” she said.

She said the concept is that post traumatic stress isn’t disabling and some-one who has it is not sick. A person can come back from a deployment trau-matized but “a person does not get deployed fully fit for duty and come back mentally ill.”

She said because it is a problem and not an ill-ness, “it’s not best to deal with it from the medical model.”

Part of the retreat, Vieten said involves de-constructing that model, breaking it all down and explaining the failures of the labeling system, the medication model and the idea that PTSF is a medi-cal problem.

Vieten said the expecta-tion with Operation:Tohidu is that participants are go-ing to successfully nego-tiate the post traumatic stress and reintegrate into the community,

During the week-long program, she said, partici-pants become subject mat-ter experts on occupation-al stress and learn of ways to manage stress through methods that are low risk with high benefits such as exercise, nutrition and

neurofeedback.Experiential learning

includes rope climbing, equine therapy and other physical challenges and group sessions deal with specific aspects of post traumatic stress including anxiety, anger manage-ment and grief. The re-treat also includes guest speakers in the evenings.

Hammer said Vieten takes a nontraditional and holistic approach with the program.

Participants spend the week living the way they should to manage stress and by the end are equipped with tools to help them go out into the community and meet their goals, Vieten said.

She said the program provides them with infor-mation to make their own decisions and success is measured by if they met whatever individual goals they had such as going back to work, saving their marriage or finding a rea-son to live.

Hammer said there was no miraculous healing at the retreat but more of an understanding.

“It won’t go away,” he said of the post traumatic stress. “What happens is you learn the new normal … and then you manage it.”

TOHIDUFrom

Page A9


the last surviving U.S. sailor who had served in World War I. His wife had died by then, and those inter-views, broadcast on television and printed in newspapers around the world, sparked an avalanche of mail from throughout the country and sometimes Europe, asking him to sign photos or index cards, or sim-ply thanking him for his service.

Espina, who has a fat manila fold-er filed with this correspondence, said that her father kept saying he didn’t understand why people were interested in him, but “he was a little lonely and liked the attention.”

A 2005 interview with Brown is in-cluded in the Library of Congress’ Veterans History Project, available at www.loc.gov/vets/.

In his later years, Brown used a golf cart to go to the end of his drive-way to pick up his mail, his daugh-ter said, and occasionally used it to sneak across Route 5 to the Rite Aid nearby to buy candy to satisfy the

sweet tooth he had developed.Brown was healthy and remained

in his own home until just weeks before his death in 2007. He was buried at St. Mary’s Queen of Peace Cemetery in Helen with full mili-tary honors presided over by Rear Adm. Terence E. McKnight.

Espina’s home in Charlotte Hall contains photos and mementos from her father’s military service and long life. “This was his pipe and hanky,” she said as she took them from a hutch in her dining room and held the cloth to her nose. “It smells like him.”

BrownFrom

Page A12

STAFF PHOTO BY RICK BOYD

Nancy Espina looks at photos of her father, Lloyd Brown, at her Charlotte Hall home.

SUBMITTED PHOTO

Seaman Lloyd Brown aboard the USS New Hampshire in 1918. Before his death in 2007 at age 105, he was the last surviving Navy veteran of World War I.

SUBMITTED PHOTO

This composite photo shows Lloyd Brown and the USS New Hampshire, which Brown served on in World War I.


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“We’ve got some wonderful, positive things going on,” Emily said.

A grant through Patuxent Habitat for Hu-manity, along with donations, in 2012 reno-vated his parents’ home in Chaptico to make it easier for someone in a wheelchair or us-ing prosthetic limbs to get around. An addi-tion was also built onto the home, offering ample room for Getscher to move around.

Caleb has chosen not use any prosthetics. He prefers to use an automatic wheelchair,

and is able to function fine with just his one hand.

The couple recently were able to get a new van that is outfitted with special driv-ing controls that Caleb will be able to use. However, because of an issue with certain paperwork, he has been unable to get a new driver’s license even after passing his per-mit test, Emily said.

This summer they were able to purchase land outside of Leonardtown, and plan to break ground on a new house soon. Em-ily said the Tunnel to Towers Foundation, which assists in fundraising for catastrophi-cally injured first responders and military.

“I feel good,” Caleb said reflectively.

GetscherFrom

Page A15

contact.“It goes [deeper], to who

I am,” he said, “the person I am.”

Just as in active duty, the re-habilitative setting includes a rank structure, including team leaders and squad leaders.

“It’s more of a brotherhood, because we went through the same stuff,” Kittrell said. “We’re able to relate. I’s a strong bond.”

New arrivals at the hospital generally are paired with pa-tients who have been there longer, he said, to help the people who have just been in-jured develop a sense of hope for the future. But in his case, he said, “I always really had high hopes.”

DeAsia Kittrell came home

from her military service in South Korea a week after her brother was injured, stayed about two weeks in a hotel near Walter Reed, and then lived with him in a two-bed-room suite at the hospital for a year.

“When I first came back, it was a shock to see him with-out a limb,” she said. “I felt terrible for him. They told me, ‘Don’t feel sorry for him, because that will make him feel worse.’”

As time went on, she said, “He was becoming more and more independent.”

De’Shawn Kittrell was discharged from the Army last October with the rank of corporal, took up his paid position at Park Hall and re-sumed his volunteer work at Carver, where new children now are in the classrooms. “Most of them don’t even know I was injured,” he said.

“I find it soothing to do this. I have time to enjoy life for a little while.”

He got a 2011 Ford Mus-tang while he was in the hos-pital. “I’ve been doing extra stuff to it,” he said. “I want to work on cars,” beginning with plans to study at a tech-nical institute in Pennsylva-nia.

As he moves on with his life, Kittrell said he has little trouble with post-traumatic stress disorder.

“I have mild PTSD,” he said. “It doesn’t really reveal itself, unless something gets me a little mad. It takes a lot to get me mad.”

Tamara Kittrell, his mother, said seeing her son running for the first time after his in-jury was a major milestone.

“I was so proud and happy,” she said.

KIttreLLFrom

Page A10

“Most of the time you were so busy you didn’t know where you at half the time. I couldn’t tell you all the places we did land,” Guy said. “We were on the ground minutes at a time.”

Looking back at the war, he said: “Not a good time, but very exciting, too, at the same time. There’s just no way to ex-press it. Some guys don’t want to talk about it. It’s just some-thing in life that happens.”

The worst of his memories in Vietnam were “picking up the dead and wounded. That was the worst part about any-thing. I’ll never forget,” he said.

“You tried to do your job, you don’t think nothing about it,” he said. And everyone carried body bags on them. “That was life in the war zone,” he said. “You never re-alized how many people were dying.”

More than 58,000 U.S. servicemen died in the Viet-nam War. In the year Guy was there from 1967 to 1968, some 25,000 U.S. service-

men were killed.“That never struck me at

the time. We looked at it as a war. Things were blowing up. People were fighting. Shoot-ing. There’s dead. There’s wounded. You just did your job. You didn’t stop. You move, move, move,” he said.

And it was that same routine for 20 to 25 days a month — flying in and flying out, drop-ping off and picking up.

By the time Guy was serv-ing in Vietnam, American protests against the war were already widespread. Service-men knew about the dissent back home, but at the age of 19 or 20, “you didn’t think much about that. I didn’t understand the full political ramifications when we were there,” Guy said.

When he came back to the states and continued his career in the Air Force, the dissent at home continued. “I don’t feel bad about what I did. That was my job. I was trained to do this. Military guys were trained to go to war. That’s just the way it was,” he said.

But people in St. Mary’s County welcomed him back home with open arms. “I felt really supported,” he said.

“My military experience was just tremendous. I really

enjoyed it. It was a good ex-perience. I still miss it after all these years,” he said.

At the St. Mary’s County commissioners table, Guy and Commissioner John O’Connor (R) find themselves sharing tells from their past lives in the military. O’Connor served in the Army in the Iraq War. “Every Tuesday, Randy and I talk a little bit about our service,” O’Connor said.

With their military back-ground, “we’re going to work together regardless of differences. It’s all about ac-complishing the mission,” O’Connor said.

South Vietnam was eventu-ally overtaken by North Viet-nam and in 1975, Saigon fell to the communist forces. There was iconic footage of South Vietnamese evacuating from the top of the American em-bassy and helicopters being pushed off the sides of Ameri-can aircraft carriers.

Guy’s reaction at the time was “extreme disappoint-ment,” he said. “I felt sorry for all of the young men that died and the tens of thousands that were wounded and crippled. It’s just heartbreaking that so many young men never got to see the rest of their lives,” he said.

VIetnamFrom

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The building and grounds have come a long way since 2010 when Norman Saun-ders led a visitor around the site of what would become the Maryland Veterans Me-morial Museum at Patriot Park in Newburg.

It would be housed in the old Glasva School in New-burg — a building that start-ed as a high school, before transitioning into an elemen-tary then getting a new life of sorts when the Charles County Sheriff’s Office set up there for a while.

After years of being empty, vandalized and neglected, the old school was going to find new life when a group of veterans charged ahead with plans for a museum that would honor their own.

The idea found footing in 2002 when a group of vet-erans, led by the late Col. Donald Wade, a member of the Charles County Board of Education and a Vietnam vet-eran, started meeting to dis-

cuss ideas and lay out their plans.

“It was really Donald Wade’s inspiration that was the reason for the museum getting started,” said Larry Abell, the president of the museum.

Wade once told Abell that he had a vision while in the midst of a battlefield — wouldn’t it be wonderful to find a way to honor veterans who were returning home?

The initial concept was to limit the exhibits to highlight Charles County veterans.

Soon though, it became clear the scope had to be broadened.

“It’s impossible not to tell the story of America,” Abell said. “The museum has evolved from what we be-gan with. It was just going to be Charles County history, but we found we needed to tell Maryland’s history and found out we also needed to tell U.S. history.”

Board members donated their collections — uniforms, memorabilia, photos — to the museum with exhibits

overseen by Bill Hester, a cu-rator for the Veterans Admin-istration.

Some exhibits have pieces on loan, but “the vast major-ity is the stuff that’s been do-nated,” Saunders said.

The Vietnam exhibit is ro-bust because “people are still alive,” he said. “Stuff didn’t get thrown away.”

Cleaning out attics, clearing out basements — if families come across military memo-rabilia and they don’t want to keep it, the museum will find a place for it, Saunders said.

“You don’t have to give it to us,” he said. “You can just loan it to us. If you have stuff, don’t throw it away.”

The museum will take in just about anything. In a back room bookcases are brim-ming with heaps of model airplanes.

Organizers might not know what they’re going to do with them right now, but they’ll think of something.

Matthew Rohde, an Eagle Scout with Boy Scout Troop 1321, donated a diorama depicting a scene from the

Revolutionary War.Pieces of uniforms hang on

the walls — “We have a lot of uniforms,” Saunders said. “People tend to keep those.”

Each room is dedicated to a different war or conflict. There are displays outlining the contributions women and minorities have made to the military over the years — even during times when they weren’t allowed to.

Abell said the board of di-rectors is keen to include the contributions of those whose service may have not been

highlighted in the past.“People who didn’t neces-

sarily put on a uniform but who have served their county just as well,” he said. “Some gave their lives.”

The museum doesn’t just want “stuff,” the members want the stories too.

“Not just Maryland sto-ries, if we have an interest-ing story, we share it,” Abell said. “We want to reach out to people and encourage them to share their stories.”

One of Abell’s favorite so far is the history of William

Cathay, a Buffalo soldier who served in the Civil War for two years. When Cathay was hospitalized, a doctor discov-ered Cathay was a woman — Cathay Williams.

The tales are captivating a younger audience too. School groups take tours and some students like those at Walter J. Mitchell Elemen-tary School in La Plata and Chesapeake Public Charter School in St. Mary’s County

If you build it ... Some said a museum wouldn’t happen,

but they didn’t know the will of veterans

Staff photo by Rob pERRy

Maryland Veterans Memorial Museum at Patriot Park is housed in the old Glasva School in Newburg. A team of dedicated volunteers have helped make the museum what it is today.

See MuSeuM Page A30


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have embarked on service learning projects at the mu-seum.

“Kids want to get involved to help create exhibits,” Abell said. “We’re hoping to grow and expand and reach out to the children in the education system.”

“This is where you fi nd out what you’re neighbors and relatives have contributed to the country,” said Jim Aanes-tad, a U.S. Navy veteran who

started attending meetings at the museum about a year ago.

By visiting the museum, students are adding a layer to what they may learn in text-books.

“They can actually see and feel the history,” Abell said.

Building a homeThe building was in such

rough shape that some doubted the museum was going to be more than just a dream of a few.

“There were bets that it would never occur,” said Abell, an architect who be-came involved around 2008, helping out with designing a

new roof and other projects.But the naysayers didn’t

know that the veterans back-ing the project adopted the motto of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers during World War II — “The diffi cult we do immediately. The impossible takes a little longer.”

Five years ago, the grounds were overgrown, shield-ing the building from view. Saunders, a Vietnam veteran, brought his tractor up and mowed down the fi elds, in-cluding one in the back that members can envision host-ing reenactments.

The renovations and work is through the efforts of vet-

erans, Abell said. Some can be counted on to put in 40, 60 hours a week if they are needed.

“It’s a labor of love but more … it’s a sense of responsibility for those of us that returned in one piece,” said Abell, a U.S. Navy veteran in the civil engineer corps who served in Vietnam. “We have a re-sponsibility to tell the story of those who weren’t so lucky.”

Held on the second Wednesday each month, the gatherings include a business meeting and a guest speaker, both portions of the meeting are open to the public.

“The museum is ascending

rapidly,” Abell said. By next year, it will have exhibits for each war from Revolutionary to modern day.

“It’s pretty phenomenal what these veterans who have worked there have been able to do,” he said.

Abell, a Maryland represen-tative on the Washington Ro-chambeau Trail, recently at-tended a national conference in Yorktown, Va. The trail is one that George Washington took from Maine to Yorktown to win the Revolutionary War. French troops went right by the site where the museum sits today. The museum will be included in the Washing-

ton-Rochambeau Revolution-ary Route National Historic Trail put together by the U.S. Parks Service. The trail highlights the more than 680 miles of land and water Wash-ington and Rochambeau used to get to and from the Siege of Yorktown, a pivotal event in the Revolutionary War.

Abell and the museum’s board of directors are work-ing on ways — at a state and national level — to commem-orate the 100th anniversary of World War I and are gearing up for a Nov. 21 fundraiser, Night at the Museum.

“Exciting, isn’t it?” Abell asked.

MUSEUMFrom

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STAFF PHOTO BY ROB PERRY

Larry Abell, the president of Maryland Veterans Memorial Museum, loaned a tea set made from mortar shells that his company gave him when he was preparing to leave Vietnam. It is on display at the museum.

STAFF PHOTO BY ROB PERRY

Norman Saunders, a Vietnam veteran and member of the board of directors of the Maryland Veterans Museum at Patriot Park, talks about Maryland’s contribution to the Revolutionary War and how it got its nickname, the Old Line State.


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