{"id":6977,"date":"2018-08-09T11:31:26","date_gmt":"2018-08-09T15:31:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lcpllutzlivetotell.org\/?p=6977"},"modified":"2019-08-08T12:34:17","modified_gmt":"2019-08-08T16:34:17","slug":"ull-story-at-rxvets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lutzlivetotell.org\/?p=6977","title":{"rendered":"RXforVeterans.com"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"parallax-mirror\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"parallax-slider\" src=\"https:\/\/rxforveterans.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/vetWeedBanner2.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div id=\"page\" class=\"site\">\n<div id=\"content\" class=\"site-content\">\n<div id=\"primary\" class=\"content-area\">\n<article id=\"post-8\" class=\"post-8 page type-page status-publish has-post-thumbnail hentry\">\n<div class=\"entry-content full-width\">\n<div id=\"pl-8\" class=\"panel-layout\">\n<div id=\"pg-8-0\" class=\"panel-grid panel-no-style\">\n<div id=\"pgc-8-0-0\" class=\"panel-grid-cell\">\n<div class=\"parallax-window\" data-parallax=\"scroll\" data-image-src=\"https:\/\/rxforveterans.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/vetWeedBanner2.jpg\">\u00a0View full story at <a href=\"https:\/\/rxforveterans.com\/\">rxforveterans.com<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"pg-8-1\" class=\"panel-grid panel-has-style\">\n<div id=\"story-section\" class=\"panel-row-style panel-row-style-for-8-1\">\n<div id=\"pgc-8-1-0\" class=\"panel-grid-cell\">\n<div id=\"panel-8-1-0-0\" class=\"so-panel widget widget_sow-editor panel-first-child\" data-index=\"1\">\n<div id=\"story-container\" class=\"panel-widget-style panel-widget-style-for-8-1-0-0\">\n<div class=\"so-widget-sow-editor so-widget-sow-editor-base\">\n<div class=\"siteorigin-widget-tinymce textwidget\">\n<h1>Warriors rise up<\/h1>\n<h2>Military veterans mobilize nationally for access to medicinal marijuana to relieve PTSD, pain and unseen injuries<\/h2>\n<p>By Billy Cox<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"mailto:billy.cox@heraldtribune.com\">billy.cox@heraldtribune.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p>WASHINGTON, D.C. \u2014 They are mostly young, and mostly male, dress blues and dusty camos, T-shirts and jeans, helmets, berets and baseball caps. The one behind the aviator shades, cigarette dangling loosely, could pass for a grunge-band drummer; more often, the hairstyles skew military, high-and-tight. One guy shows off a croquet mallet, another holds a puppy. That one over there is a banjo picker. Some smiles are more convincing than others.<\/p>\n<div class=\"video-container\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/youtube.com\/embed\/tUIthEfyKig?rel=0&amp;showinfo=0&amp;vq=hd720\" width=\"300\" height=\"150\" frameborder=\"0\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p>The glossy portraits are tucked into transparent plastic sleeves and connected to each other by small metal rings. Each portrait is bordered in black. The black borders contain, in white letters, names, ages, branches of service and the dates they killed themselves. They killed themselves by gunshot, hanging, drug overdose, poison, asphyxiation \u2014 whatever suited their calculations or impulse. One took a blade to arteries on both sides of his groin and bled out.<\/p>\n<p>The portraits are arranged in columns four deep and, when fully extended, they exceed the distance from home plate to first base by nearly 10 feet. First in line, far left, top row, top corner, is the 24-year-old for whom this \u201cLCpl Janos V Lutz PTS Memorial Wall\u201d is named. That black script lettering is bannered across the only non-portrait in the wall. It shows a blue sky punctuated by stratocumulus, Old Glory fluttering at the edge.<\/p>\n<p>The Memorial Wall\u2019s namesake is in uniform, crouching, looking relieved, hand resting atop the head of a Taliban donkey. According to his mother, he has just survived a firefight in Afghanistan.<\/p>\n<p>On Jan. 12, 2013, Lutz returned to the bedroom where he grew up. On his forehead, in black magic marker, he inscribed the letters \u201cDNR\u201d \u2014 do not resuscitate. He spelled it out on his laptop: \u201cI\u2019m sorry. I am happier now.\u201d He swallowed a fistful of prescription morphine pills. It was his third attempt; this time, it worked.<\/p>\n<p>The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that 45,000 Americans took their lives in 2016. Behaviorists are stumped over this epidemic, which has been ticking upward since 1999, because 54 percent of these fatalities had no history of mental health issues. But today, veterans are killing themselves at twice the civilian rate. And there is less confusion over that data.In June 2018, the Department of Veterans Affairs Suicide Report indicated that more than 75,000 Americans with military backgrounds became suicides from 2005-2015. At 20.6 deaths a day, that\u2019s nearly 20,000 more than were killed during the 16 years of war in Vietnam. Of those daily tallies, 3.8 were still in uniform. Which means that over that 10-year stretch, the Pentagon lost 13,870 active duty troops to self-inflicted wounds, nearly twice the number who\u2019ve died in combat since the 9\/11 terror attacks.<\/p>\n<p>For years, the VA\u2019s daily suicide count stood at 22. It was downgraded to 20 four years ago, before its current status at 20.6. On this sweltering Memorial Day weekend, a contingent of millennial-heavy veterans assembled at Lafayette Square is loath to trust institutional pronouncements anymore. In their chants and speeches, they stick with the number 22.<\/p>\n<p>The most conspicuous number today is 369 \u2014 that\u2019s how many photos are linked together in the Lutz Memorial Wall. All but 10 are military, the rest are first responders. Divided by 22 suicides a day, the key number rounds out to about 16. In other words, this collapsible gallery of the dead embodies roughly 16 days\u2019 worth of veterans for whom living became unbearable.<\/p>\n<p>For those who\u2019ve driven from as far away as Michigan and Florida to support this \u201cPlants Over Pills\u201d rally, Memorial Day weekend is just the latest chapter in a campaign to expose and crush the longest-running lie in American health care \u2014 the classification of marijuana as a Schedule 1 drug with zero medicinal value.<\/p>\n<p>They have pleaded with the men and women in Congress, but nothing happens. They have told them how marijuana cushions the jagged edges of flashback and affliction. They tell how the \u201ccombat cocktail\u201d prescriptions dispensed by the VA can turn them into junkies, how it leaves them with bedroom and bathroom insecurities, how it degrades their internal organs.So they make illegal medicinal choices that relieve anxiety and hypertension, choices that help them sleep, choices that turn them into criminals, ruin their military careers, stain their permanent records, and bar them from benefits they\u2019ve earned for getting their bells clanged by roadside bombs half a world away. Denied options afforded civilians, active-duty veterans residing in states offering legal medical marijuana have been sentenced to second-class citizenship and pointless suffering by a discriminatory and punitive federal law.<\/p>\n<p>And nothing happens. If only they had been fighting for Canada. Veterans Affairs Canada has been reimbursing its veterans for medical cannabis since 2008. Come October, our northern neighbors will make marijuana legal for everybody.<\/p>\n<p>In America, when it comes to veterans and Schedule 1, redress procedures are so dysfunctional, the 14th chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff recommends making an end run around the VA altogether and letting the National Security Council fix it.<\/p>\n<p>Thus, after years of wrangling with a crashed system, the troops who\u2019ve returned from action in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere are now on the front lines of a fight they didn\u2019t sign up for \u2014 a clash with their own government.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYeah, we\u2019ve lost a lot of guys, but this isn\u2019t just about us,\u201d says Josh Frey, a Marine who nearly lost his right shoulder in Iraq but got busted in rank for smoking marijuana during rehab to ease the pain. \u201cWe\u2019re doing this for all Americans.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Again.In terms of theater, the rebellion against Schedule 1 may lack the big-crowd numbers that previous veterans\u2019 grievances have taken to the public square. But the drama is no less urgent.<\/p>\n<p>In 1932, more than 17,000 largely jobless Depression-era veterans who served in World War I demanded immediate cash for their service certificates, which weren\u2019t scheduled to be redeemed until 1945. The so-called \u201cBonus Army\u201d was scattered by police gunfire in Washington, and one was killed. But the aging warriors got their money.<\/p>\n<p>Beginning in April 1967, the first elements of what evolved into Vietnam Veterans Against the War would gather with 400,000 antiwar protesters in New York City. For the next five years, perhaps as many as 20,000 of these organized veterans applied sustained public pressure on Congress to withdraw U.S. troops from Vietnam. The rest is history.<\/p>\n<p>The latest movement, by contrast, has no single flashpoint or triggering event to propel it. It emerged in tandem with what policymakers call the Global War on Terror, slowly, spontaneously, a dawning collective realization percolating in small circles. It grew by email, phone calls and every other way that bad news travels. The way it caught up to Bradenton resident Aaron Cornelius just this year.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_55\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\"><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>In 2009, while responding in a Bradley Fighting vehicle to an ambush in Baghdad, Cornelius got walloped by an improvised explosive device that ripped out a chunk of his skull the size of a tennis ball. The wound was so remarkable he had a cast replica made. With titanium mesh now filling in for the missing bone, Cornelius came home blind, never to see his family, his home, America, again. A few years later, his wife would succumb to pain-pill addiction. So Cornelius thought he knew what the bottom felt like.But in February, the 49-year-old former staff sergeant his subordinates called \u201cPops\u201d learned that he was still better off than others who escaped with more parts intact. Two of his old Army colleagues shot themselves to death on the same day. By May, three more buddies from his unit had followed suit.<\/p>\n<p>Amid the commiseration and shared notes, the patterns rang loud and clear. Says Cornelius, \u201cTheir cases all involved medicine and alcohol.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Cornelius cycled through that combination as well, and says he\u2019s in a better place today thanks in part to a form of marijuana called CBD. Variations on this story have been playing out in cascades of statistics since America\u2019s response to 9\/11. And, like so many other survivors of those foreign adventures, Cornelius supports fellow veterans advocating solutions from an exceedingly complex plant that has been demonized for a century in the United States.<\/p>\n<p>Some, like Dakota Meyer, the Marine Corps Medal of Honor recipient, leverage their hero status. In March, Meyer challenged lawmakers in his native Kentucky to show compassion for the wounded and end marijuana prohibition in the Bluegrass State.<\/p>\n<p>Others, like California\u2019s Jose Martinez, offer their own maimed bodies for public contemplation.<\/p>\n<div class=\"video-container\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/youtube.com\/embed\/Z9FoeLVA6ZY?rel=0&amp;showinfo=0&amp;vq=hd720\" width=\"300\" height=\"150\" frameborder=\"0\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div id=\"part2\" class=\"subhead\">Part II<\/div>\n<p>Advances in medicine are working miracles on battlefield casualties like never before. According to an American Legion report, the wounded-to-killed ratio in Afghanistan is 7.4 to 1, versus 1.7 to 1 in World War II and 2.6 to 1 in Vietnam. Consider, for instance, how at least five quadruple amputees have survived catastrophic injuries over the last decade. And in March, a team of 11 surgeons at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore made medical history when, over the course of 14 hours, they transplanted a donated penis and scrotum onto a veteran who got his genitals blown off in Afghanistan.<\/p>\n<p>The bottom line, however, is that those who might have died a generation ago can suffer pain-management challenges that have failed to keep pace with life-saving technologies.<\/p>\n<p>In 2012, a land mine near Kandahar stripped Jose Martinez of both legs and his right arm. At one point in Martinez\u2019s recovery, the Army infantryman was ingesting up to 150 daily VA-prescribed pills for pain and post-traumatic stress disorder.<\/p>\n<p>But it was only after getting better results from rolling joints and packing bowls that Martinez managed to end his opioid addiction. In 2015, he joined two dozen other veterans who showcased their contempt for outdated formulas by dumping their prescription pills and scattering the plastic containers at the gates of the White House.<\/p>\n<p>The protesters were affiliated with the Weed for Warriors Project, just one of many grassroots nonprofits sprouting like wildflowers across the nation: the Veterans Cannabis Project, the Veterans Cannabis Group, Veterans for Medical Cannabis Access, the Santa Cruz Veterans Alliance, HeroGrown, Hoosier Veterans For Medical Cannabis, etc.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_33\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\"><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>On Memorial Day weekend, more small groups converged on Washington amid this rising tide of national discontent. One was called the Live To Tell Foundation, established as a veterans peer-support group, by the mother of Janos \u201cJohnny\u201d Lutz.Late last year, the VA and Janine Lutz resolved the malpractice lawsuit she filed following her son\u2019s suicide in 2013. A paper trail indicated VA doctors twice violated their own protocols, and ignored instructions on her Marine son\u2019s medical records, by prescribing him Klonopin for anxiety.<\/p>\n<p>A benzodiazepine-family sedative assigned to the Schedules III and IV categories, Klonopin is associated with suicidal ideation and has gained notoriety for turning up in the autopsies of Playboy centerfold Anna Nicole Smith, Hollywood producer Don Simpson, and novelist David Foster Wallace. The VA website \u201cstrongly recommends against the routine use of benzodiazepines in veterans with PTSD\u201d based on \u201cunproven efficacy &#8230; and well-known risks for abuse and dependence.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Even so, according to an American Legion White Paper released in July, more than 25 percent of veterans newly diagnosed for PTSD are being prescribed \u201cbenzos,\u201d and the veterans organization cited a 2013 study indicating that 43 percent of military personnel who attempted suicide from 2008 to 2010 \u201chad taken psychotropic medications.\u201d It also warned that 16 percent of PTSD veterans are getting morphine-equivalent opioid doses alongside benzodiazepine, which \u201cputs individuals at increased risk for overdose.\u201d That\u2019s what happened to Johnny Lutz.<\/p>\n<div class=\"video-container\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/youtube.com\/embed\/1RhBZL5pxJQ?rel=0&amp;showinfo=0&amp;vq=hd720\" width=\"300\" height=\"150\" frameborder=\"0\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p>In addition to Klonopin, during the same VA visit, the young Marine was also prescribed 90 morphine pills with a dosage increase from 45 milligrams to 75. Lutz had been trying to taper off, and another doctor had weaned his morphine dosage down to 35 milligrams.<\/p>\n<p>Rather than gamble with protracted and costly litigation, his mother settled for $250,000 in October. But her boy is still gone. And as long as federal health care providers continue to dispense dangerous medications with no allowance for cannabis \u2014 an option she feels would have \u201c100 percent\u201d saved Johnny\u2019s life \u2014 Lutz intends to keep calling out Schedule 1 hardliners at every turn. Until marijuana prohibition ends, she says, every veteran is at risk.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDuring the hearing, they asked the doctor who gave Johnny the Klonopin \u2018Are you aware they don\u2019t prescribe benzos for PTSD?\u2019 She said, \u2018Yes, I am aware of it.\u2019 My lawyer said, \u2018But that didn\u2019t matter, did it?\u2019 She kept silent. This is not just \u2018screwing up\u2019 when somebody dies. As far as I\u2019m concerned, (two) VA doctors are guilty of murder.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u2022 \u2022 \u2022<\/p>\n<p>On May 18, under questioning from the House Judiciary Committee, acting Drug Enforcement Administration chief Robert Patterson delivered perplexing testimony. Thirty years with the agency, and Patterson was a pillar of selective knowledge.<\/p>\n<p>Quizzed about what percentage of the 64,000 fatal American drug overdoses in 2016 were from nonprescription opioids, Patterson said \u201cFentanyl alone makes up for about 20,000.\u201d Combinations of heroin and fentanyl, he added, accounted for the balance.<\/p>\n<p>Pressed further, Patterson said he was unfamiliar with surveys from legal medical marijuana states that showed patients are using cannabis to sever their dependencies with pharmaceuticals. He was unaware of a 2017 study by the National Academy of Sciences affirming that marijuana products do, in fact, mitigate chronic pain.<\/p>\n<p>Asked how many Americans had suffered fatal marijuana overdoses, Patterson replied, \u201cI am aware of a few deaths from marijuana,\u201d but he could supply no substantiating numbers. The DEA website states, \u201cNo death from overdose of marijuana has been reported.\u201d Unable to recite the amount of arrests for illegal drug use logged in 2016, he was informed by U.S. Rep. Hank Johnson, D-Georgia, that marijuana alone accounted for 800,000, that African-Americans were nearly 3.5 times more likely to face those charges, and \u2014 reading from a Washington Post headline \u2014 that \u201cmore people were arrested for pot than for murder, rape, aggravated assault and robbery combined.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Patterson managed a significant concession by declining to label marijuana as the gateway to more dangerous drugs. Yet, when asked why cannabis remained classified as a Schedule 1 substance, every bit as lethal as heroin and more dangerous than cocaine, Patterson\u2019s demeanor was so unflappable he could\u2019ve been holding a pair of deuces or a royal flush. \u201cThe reason it remains in Schedule 1,\u201d he said with a straight face, \u201cis because of the science.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In June, Patterson announced his intention to retire, stating his job had become \u201cincreasingly challenging.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u2022 \u2022 \u2022<\/p>\n<p>Anticipating the worst, Jose Belen of Lake Mary told his wife to hide his guns. The Iraq stuff kept banging back on him \u2014 the death of his best buddy in 2003, the civilians in the car, the dying little girl he and his jumpy Army cohorts had shredded with gunfire.<\/p>\n<p>Belen left the military with a PTSD diagnosis in 2005, but he kept it on the down low \u2014 how would that play with prospective employers? In his lucrative role as a salesman with a high-profile insurance company, smoking pot helped. But he lived in fear of random corporate drug tests, so he sometimes went months between tokes, feeling like a deviant with a double life. He tried holding it together by taking mild mood-leveling scripts for depression and insomnia.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_48\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\"><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>By 2016, things at home were getting so scary that his wife, Danielle, insisted he level with the VA doctors. They prescribed heavy-duty meds. But after weeks of rage and binge-drinking, another doctor told him it was the wrong combination, he needed to get off, ASAP. But he needed to first go clean for two weeks, cold turkey, before beginning a new regimen.The spins, nausea and hot flashes flared up the very next day, as Belen was working out at a gym. He dashed to the bathroom and convulsed over the toilet. He needed to go home. He texted Danielle, who couldn\u2019t shake free. He grabbed his daughter from gym day-care downstairs.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBy this time, I could barely walk, the migraine, the nausea, dry heaving, all coming at one time. I lived 10, 15 minutes from the gym and by this time, I\u2019m actually throwing up, my daughter\u2019s in the car, I\u2019m sweating, I call my stepson and say, \u2018Be in the driveway, I\u2019m really sick, get your sister and lock yourself in your room.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBy the grace of God, I made it to the house, I had my shirt off, I\u2019d puked all over myself, and my son got my daughter. It was terrifying and I didn\u2019t want them to see, and it kept getting worse and worse. I had my underwear on, I was in a fetal position in the living room.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_51\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\"><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>\u201cAnd it was just so hot, I was crying. I ran up to my daughter\u2019s room \u2014 she had a rosary over her bed \u2014 and I ran back downstairs and put it over my head and started saying \u2018Our Fathers\u2019 &#8230; One part of your mind is telling you you\u2019re crazy. Every time I closed my eyes I saw this picture of the Joker that I had seen a few months before.\u201d Belen taps his tattooed forearm, where Batman\u2019s inky nemesis flashes a maniac grin. \u201cThis is peak PTSD. This is what I put on my body to never forget that day and everything I went through.\u201dToday, following the detox nightmare, the 35-year-old combat veteran holds a Florida medical marijuana card. He credits remedies considered of no medical value by the federal government \u2014 cannabis oils, creams, extracts \u2014 for the even keel. And for \u201cimmediate relief,\u201d the native New Yorker also smokes bud, which remains illegal in Florida. As a result, he has found the voice he never knew he had.<\/p>\n<p>Belen has become a motivational public speaker, advocating for suicide prevention efforts and expanded business support for veterans through his Mission Zero nonprofit. In April, his profile went viral, with appearances on \u201cFull Frontal With Samantha Bee\u201d and on C-SPAN, where he was a panelist in a discussion of marijuana as an exit drug. Those invitations came because of what he did in a U.S. District Court in Manhattan in February.<\/p>\n<p>Fed up with being criminalized by Schedule 1, Belen joined four plaintiffs in a long-shot legal challenge against the U.S. Department of Justice, alleging the federal ban against marijuana is unconstitutional. Joining him are former NFL star Marvin Washington, along with 7-year-old Jagger Cotte, whose severe neurological disorder is being treated by cannabis. Also listed is 12-year-old Alexis Bortell, a \u201cmedical refugee\u201d who had to leave Texas for fear of prosecution and move to Colorado in order to receive legal marijuana treatment for epilepsy.<\/p>\n<p>Belen says he feels humbled to speak for everyone whose stories are never told.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMy poor wife \u2014 the things she had to endure,\u201d he says. \u201cSpouses are so hyperfocused on keeping their spouses alive, when do they have time to look in the mirror and take care of themselves? And what about the children who are living through this, where daddy just killed himself in the other room? How\u2019s that kid gonna go through life?\u201d<\/p>\n<div class=\"video-container\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/youtube.com\/embed\/_3LAebeF0hM?rel=0&amp;showinfo=0&amp;vq=hd720\" width=\"300\" height=\"150\" frameborder=\"0\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p>\u2022 \u2022 \u2022<\/p>\n<p>Resistance to cannabis as medicine \u201chas nothing to do with cannabis,\u201d insists Dr. Mikhail Kogan, medical director of the George Washington Center for Integrative Medicine in Washington. \u201cI can probably list half a thousand effective modalities of treatment that are strongly evidenced, and yet they are not advocated for the medical field. Clinicians are very conservative.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Kogan, who did consulting work for two years with a Veterans Affairs hospital in Washington, appeared with Belen on C-Span\u2019s \u201cexit drug\u201d panel in April. He says critics of the VA are barking up the wrong tree, suicides or no.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf the physician has an ethical dilemma, they should leave the VA and go to work for the private sector. That\u2019s it. And they can prescribe cannabis there. I got out of the VA when I realized my hands were tied on so many fronts, and I knew it was my ethical responsibility to serve my patients to the best of what I ethically see fit.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut I\u2019m not going to argue that the institution as a whole is so screwed up, because they\u2019re not, they\u2019re trying to keep above the water. And frankly, they\u2019re doing a lot better than 99 percent of the institutions in this country.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Kogan maintains that cannabis should be de-scheduled, not rescheduled, because it\u2019s \u201csafer than Tylenol.\u201d But according Dr. Marcel Bonn-Miller, reassigning marijuana\u2019s status is only the beginning. What the nation should be gearing up for, he says, is regulatory oversight at the federal level.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEach state has their own laws on cannabis, right? The problem is that the regulation then falls on each state, which is a monumental task. It is not just an issue of oversight of the plant, but also the production and sale of goods processed from the plant, like edibles, tinctures, oils, whatever,\u201d says Bonn-Miller, coordinating principal investigator of a study on the impact of marijuana on veterans with PTSD.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf you create an extract from a plant that has been sprayed with pesticides, you are super concentrating those pesticides in your extract. Same goes for other chemicals or byproducts of the production process or whatever method you\u2019ve used to get higher yields and more profits. Those are winding up in the products that people are consuming. We know tomatoes grow on a vine, but what did they go through to wind up diced and in a can? Imagine if you had a system with no oversight over canned tomatoes.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>That oversight responsibility would rest with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Kogan says the real elephant in the room is an FDA action that lumbered through the door in June. That\u2019s when the FDA issued its first-ever stamp of approval to a marijuana product, a non-psychoactive extract called Epidiolex. Designed to treat two types of pediatric seizure disorders by a United Kingdom company called GW Pharmaceuticals, Epidiolex is expected to reach the market this fall.<\/p>\n<p>For the past 20 years, researchers have been documenting the \u201centourage effect,\u201d in which marijuana compounds often work best on patients by complementing each other, depending on the ailment. Kogan says advocates of botanical marijuana could find themselves trumped and out-spent by corporate drugmakers if they fail to invest in rigorous research.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe pharmacological agents may have a certain biochemical efficacy, but chances are they\u2019re not going to have the kind of whole-body effect that can interact with every cell in your body. But it\u2019s not going to be enough to say plants are just as effective and they\u2019re cheaper than pharmacological entities in the long run,\u201d he says. And impediments to proving that through research will continue \u201cuntil we get rid of Schedule 1.\u201d<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<div id=\"part3\" class=\"subhead\">Part III<\/div>\n<p>America offers two rails for rescheduling marijuana, according to a Brookings Institution analysis.<\/p>\n<p>The straightest path is through legislative action on Capitol Hill, where Congress is free to amend, in any way it sees fit, the Controlled Substances Act of 1970. Vilified with an anti-Semitic rant from President Nixon, impervious to the subsequent discovery of cannabinoid receptors embedded in human physiology, marijuana\u2019s irrational status as a danger to society has been condoned by lawmakers ever since.<\/p>\n<p>The second option is through executive action, which requires White House backing. Infinitely more complex, executive action runs such a gauntlet of federal bureaucracies, it borders on farce. More on that later.<\/p>\n<p>In 1970, American support for legalization was a fearful 12 percent. Today, according to a Center for American Progress poll released in June, support has more than quintupled, to 68 percent. Consequently, with 30 states sanctioning medical cannabis, and with nine of those legalizing personal use, Congress might well have enough votes to reclassify marijuana today.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s the assessment of Paul Armentano, deputy director for the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. The 48-year-old nonprofit keeps scorecards on congressional members, and 62 percent of the combined houses receive passing grades of \u201cC\u201d or higher when it comes to loosening the reins on reefer.<\/p>\n<p>Furthermore, in a bipartisan bid to break the gridlock and secure more votes to remove marijuana from Schedule 1, four U.S. representatives \u2014 Don Young, R-Arkansas; Dana Rohrabacher, R-California; Earl Blumenauer, D-Oregon; and Jared Polis, D-Colorado \u2014 in 2017 registered as a Congressional Member Organization entity, called the Congressional Cannabis Caucus.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cUnfortunately,\u201d says Armentano, \u201cthere has yet to even be a single hearing in Congress for a piece of legislation to address that issue, because committee chairs keep making sure these bills never reach the floor. At this point, in 2018, I could foresee a situation where all 50 states have legalized marijuana medically and Congress keeps Schedule 1. There has been no political will to move on this issue for the last 20 years.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>On NORML\u2019s scorecard, the biggest obstructionists on Capitol Hill are Rep. Pete Sessions, R-Texas, who chairs the House Rules Committee, House Judiciary Committee chairman Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Virginia, and Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, who runs the Senate Judiciary Committee. Their offices did not reply to requests for comment from the Herald-Tribune.<\/p>\n<p>Even if Armentano\u2019s 50-legal-states scenario came to pass, it would do veterans no good. Which is why Gen. Hugh Shelton, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 1997 to 2001, suggests dispensing with structural roadblocks altogether when it comes to getting help for America\u2019s defenders.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_64\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\"><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>A Vietnam veteran and Purple Heart recipient who has undergone eight surgeries, many related to his 450 airborne jumps and a recent accident, Shelton himself is in chronic pain and can barely walk. \u201cI\u2019ve never tried marijuana,\u201d he says, \u201cbut I\u2019m a big fan of it.\u201d The stories he hears are so convincing, he says, the new VA director should get off the fence and be a fierce advocate.\u201cLet\u2019s change the system. There\u2019s nothing magic about it, it wasn\u2019t written in blood,\u201d says Shelton, who served under presidents Clinton and Bush. \u201cI think it\u2019s something our nation needs to be dealing with and I think it might even be higher in the chain than the VA on the federal level in Washington. We ought to even consider having the National Security Council take a look at it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Taking the stalemate to the NSC is unheard of. But for Shelton, a special-operations visionary who challenged the status quo by expanding veterans\u2019 benefits and negotiating for the highest pay raises in 14 years, the epidemic of military suicides is a challenge to the nation\u2019s conscience.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen you have veterans that are suffering because of some quirk in the law or because someone is just too lazy to do the work that it takes to get this stuff done, then that\u2019s a real issue,\u201d Shelton says of the crisis. \u201cAnd sometimes they need help, like a brick through a plate glass window.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u2022 \u2022 \u2022<\/p>\n<p>About 10:20 a.m. on March 9, at the Veterans Home of California in Yountville, situated in the middle of wine country, a decorated veteran suffering from PTSD pulled a rental car into its parking lot. Albert Wong, 36, had been expelled days earlier for bringing knives into the place. Wearing an ammo belt and carrying a rifle, Wong stepped out of the vehicle. He headed for Madison Hall, where staffers were holding a farewell party for departing employees.<\/p>\n<p>Madison Hall was part of a model residential treatment facility called The Pathway Home. Established in 2008 and profiled by Smithsonian Magazine in 2010, Pathway accepted some of war\u2019s most troubled survivors, and was redesigned for early intervention services in 2015.<\/p>\n<p>Wong opened fire and took out Pathway Home\u2019s core leadership: executive director Christine Loeber, 48; therapist and program clinical director Jen Golick, 42; and 32-year-old Jennifer Gonzalez Shushereba, a pregnant VA psychologist based in San Francisco. After exchanging shots with a Napa County sheriff\u2019s deputy, Wong turned his gun on himself.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_23\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\"><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Perhaps none grieved more than those Pathway helped. The most visible of its former patients is Adam Schumann. \u201cI felt like a piece of me was lost in that whole disaster,\u201d Schumann says from his home in Minot, North Dakota. \u201cThat place saved my life.\u201dSchumann\u2019s story went Hollywood in 2017. Based on a biography by Washington Post reporter David Finkel, \u201cThank You for Your Service\u201d was partially filmed at Pathway Home, with Miles Teller \u2014 who played an aspiring jazz drummer in \u201cWhiplash&#8221; and will play Maverick in the upcoming remake of \u201cTop Gun\u201d \u2014 starring in the lead role.<\/p>\n<p>It is difficult to imagine how any of America\u2019s lawmakers and policy wonks who have not literally tasted blood on their tongues can relate to the despair that would eventually drive Schumann to his basement back in Kansas, loading a shotgun and sticking the barrel under his chin. Confronted by his pleading wife, the former Army staff sergeant ended the 20-minute standoff when he heard his baby son upstairs, rousing from a nap in his crib.<\/p>\n<p>Schumann, 36, survived three tours of Iraq, where roadside bombs would claim the lives, one by one, of 11 members of his battalion. He was infected with guilt following the death of a new arrival, who had volunteered to take his place on patrol so Schumann could video chat with his wife.<\/p>\n<p>In 2007, Schumann was leading a platoon in Sadr City when a sniper shot one of his men in the head. Schumann gathered his colleague from the rooftop and hoisted him over his back. He struggled down three flights of stairs, at an angle where the leaking wound dribbled blood into Schumann\u2019s mouth.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI got some of his brains in my mouth, too,\u201d says Schumann, who left the military in 2009 and came home with traumatic brain injury. \u201cSo every now and then, if I get a certain taste or texture in my mouth, I\u2019ll lose my appetite for a few days.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Shortly after the VA loaded him up with scripts for pain and stress, Schumann began complaining of excruciating abdominal issues. A lab dye test indicated \u201cmy liver was huge, and the doctor said, \u2018You have to be an alcoholic.\u2019 I kept telling him \u2018I don\u2019t drink.\u2019 He said, \u2018You look like you\u2019ve been drinking heavily for 20 years.\u2019 But I wasn\u2019t abusing the medication \u2014 I was taking it as directed.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Schumann\u2019s now ex-wife went online and identified the culprit as acetaminophen, a pain-reliever ingredient. He agreed to toss the pills and kick. He detoxed on the couch, pillow over his face to muffle the withdrawal screams. \u201cLooking back,\u201d he says, \u201cI\u2019m thinking if I was trying to kill someone, this is the kind of cocktail I\u2019d give \u2019em.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Schumann spent six months as a patient at Pathway Home in 2011. He returned in 2014-15 as a peer support counselor, \u201cone of the most rewarding experiences of my life.\u201d Marijuana was a major part of it. No smoking was allowed at Pathway, but he and his fellow veterans had no problems getting their hands on pot outside. He has fond memories of rolling blunts with his buddies, hopping on Segways, and heading for secluded hills in the vineyards, airing it all out beneath California\u2019s mild skies.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c(Marijuana) has given me a portion of my life back that I didn\u2019t think I would\u2019ve had,\u201d he says. \u201cLike my appetite. I love to cook, I love to eat now.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI smoke every day, and I would like to think I contribute to society. I\u2019d like to think I\u2019m helping raise the next generation of smart little kids \u2014 they\u2019re straight-A students, and my daughter wants to be a trauma surgeon.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Pathway Home remains closed indefinitely.<\/p>\n<p>\u2022 \u2022 \u2022<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou know, it\u2019s a funny thing, every one of the bastards that are out for legalizing marijuana is Jewish. What the Christ is the matter with the Jews, Bob, what is the matter with them?\u201d This is President Richard Nixon, speaking to White House aide Bob Haldeman, May 26, 1971, on a secret Oval Office recording released in 2002. \u201cI suppose it\u2019s because most of them are psychiatrists, you know, there\u2019s so many, all the greatest psychiatrists are Jewish.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In 1996, two years after Nixon\u2019s death, top policy adviser John Ehrlichman revealed to Harper\u2019s magazine writer Dan Baum that the \u201cwar on drugs\u201d was conceived as a weapon to wield against political enemies, namely, antiwar protesters and blacks.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe knew we couldn\u2019t make it illegal to be either against the war or black,\u201d Ehrlichman told Baum in an article that wasn\u2019t published until this April. \u201cAnd then, criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The transcripts of Nixon\u2019s White House tapes read like a John Belushi-era \u201cSaturday Night Live\u201d skit. Calling the Controlled Substances Act of 1970 \u201cthe best thing that has hit the country in the narcotics field,\u201d Nixon trots out clich\u00e9s that could\u2019ve been lifted from the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers comics:<\/p>\n<p>\u201cA person does not drink to get drunk. A person drinks to have fun.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cA person does not drink simply for the purpose of getting high. You take drugs for the purpose of getting high.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou see, homosexuality, dope, immorality in general: These are the enemies of strong societies. That\u2019s why the Communists and the left-wingers are pushing the stuff, they\u2019re trying to destroy us.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Controlled Substances Act was designed to codify America\u2019s myriad drug laws under a single statute. Congress arbitrarily assigned no-medicinal-value Schedule 1 status to marijuana as a placeholder until it could be formally reviewed by a special panel. After all, in a 1971 Journal of the American Medical Association article that would foreshadow the avalanche of revelations to come, researchers announced marijuana was relieving intraocular pressure in some glaucoma patients.<\/p>\n<p>The review board was called the National Commission on Marihuana (sic) and Drug Abuse. At the outset, Nixon informed the commission chair, former Pennsylvania Gov. Raymond Shafer, that he expected a unanimous recommendation for keeping cannabis outlawed. Instead, the 14-member board returned a not-guilty verdict in 1972.<\/p>\n<p>Rather than documenting the sorts of hyper-kinetic spasmodics depicted in the 1936 propaganda film \u201cReefer Madness,\u201d the commission instead discovered that marijuana tended to make users passive, if not downright drowsy. While commissioners discouraged its use, they compared pot\u2019s risks with alcohol and urged an end to prohibition. The Nixon administration ignored the recommendations of its own study, and Congress failed to lead.<\/p>\n<p>Since 1972, the Schedule 1 legacy of the only U.S. president to resign from office has generated well over 20 million arrests of Americans on marijuana charges, according to NORML. An American Civil Liberties Union study puts the the annual estimated cost of enforcing those laws at $3.6 billion.<\/p>\n<p>Glaucoma sufferer Robert Randall became America\u2019s first certified medical marijuana patient in 1975. Today, more than 2.1 million Americans have legal access to a drug that, according to its Schedule 1 status, can kill you as fast as a syringe of brown street smack.<\/p>\n<p>\u2022 \u2022 \u2022<\/p>\n<p>There will always be verifiable tales of shiftless Cheech &amp; Chong stoners whose incapacitating recreational habits have become cultural archetypes. Less publicized are counterintuitive testimonials from the likes of Charles Claybaker, who says a glut of prescription meds, not cannabis, left him listless and inert.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_20\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\"><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Last Veterans Day, the 34-year-old St. Petersburg resident was one of two Honored Veterans cited by the city, and for good reason. Consider the trajectory:<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_22\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\"><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>After suffering career-ending injuries in Afghanistan, the former Army Ranger earned a degree, with honors, from Eckerd College, in small nonprofit management. That gave Claybaker a leg up on his new mission: mobilizing local resources to help those who aren\u2019t so lucky. In 2015, he started a nonprofit foundation designed to get \u201csurvival packs\u201d \u2014 clean socks, sunscreen, nonperishable snacks, batteries, etc. \u2014 to veterans having difficulty decompressing into civilian life. Claybaker also led a fundraising drive to build the St. Petersburg Veterans Memorial. It was dedicated in January, at Dell Holmes Park.<\/p>\n<p>Claybaker attributes a large part of his postwar success to marijuana. \u201cCollege was incredibly hard, but the pot killed the pain, and it allowed me to focus and keep my mind from wandering all over the place,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_21\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><figcaption class=\"size-medium wp-image-21\"><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>A former special operations sergeant whose fifth tour in a combat zone ended in 2010 with a V-22 Osprey crash in Afghanistan that smashed his spine, knee and hip, Claybaker was wary of the opioids that the VA gave him while he was still in service. There was heroin addiction in his family. Knowing his field days were over, Claybaker detoxed before leaving the Army and took the pain. \u201cSo I spent the last eight months pretty much suffering.\u201dMilitary career over, Claybaker was initially reluctant to accept his friends\u2019 advice to try marijuana.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cA lot of guys are real apprehensive about it, I mean hey, we\u2019re all special ops and we don\u2019t wanna wind up like some hippie dude,\u201d he says. \u201cBut that\u2019s how it always starts out, like \u2018Bro, you gotta try this, it works.\u2019\u201d Claybaker can\u2019t suppress the smile. \u201cAnd then, it\u2019s like \u2018Bro!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Claybaker today has trimmed the scripts back to Zoloft and Wellbutrin. He sees buddies self-medicating with alcohol, which he considers far more dangerous than marijuana. He says one committed suicide by cop.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI don\u2019t get it,\u201d he says. \u201cI\u2019m a Republican, and if for no other reason than economics, we need access to this to save ourselves a lot of money in the future on detox clinics, addiction therapy, all that. Fiscally, it\u2019s a no-brainer.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>And then there\u2019s Tyson Manker, who wants to reform an entire system.<\/p>\n<div class=\"video-container\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/youtube.com\/embed\/Ke1UIEqlfW0?rel=0&amp;showinfo=0&amp;vq=hd720\" width=\"300\" height=\"150\" frameborder=\"0\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div id=\"part4\" class=\"subhead\">Part IV<\/div>\n<p>Marijuana became a zero-tolerance military taboo in 1981, after a Navy plane crashed on the flight deck of the USS Nimitz. Fourteen sailors were killed, 45 were injured, and traces of marijuana turned up in six autopsies. Although no evidence linked cannabis to the accident, marijuana took the fall and President Reagan imposed a no-mercy policy across the military spectrum.<\/p>\n<p>Corporal Tyson Manker, 3rd Battalion 7th Marine Regiment, probably isn\u2019t the kind of target Nixon had in mind while plotting vendettas against political enemies. Manker\u2019s unit was on point in April 2003 when it rumbled into Baghdad. For Manker, the journey reached its nadir in Karbala, where the Illinois native had to clean up a Humvee after a corpsman buddy suffered an explosive fatal wound from an accidental weapon discharge.<\/p>\n<p>Then came the marijuana thing.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_63\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\"><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Manker got busted in rank, was fined $1,500, got kicked out of the service with an \u201cother than honorable\u201d discharge, lost his $50,000 signing bonus, lost his Montgomery G.I. Bill for college and all the money he had contributed to it, and lost his Illinois veterans grant. No pension. No VA benefits. Insult to injury, he is barred from joining a veterans service organization, or having \u201cveteran\u201d listed on his driver\u2019s license.Today, Manker is a staff attorney in Washington, D.C. for the Veterans Education Success nonprofit, which offers free legal service to veterans and protects their access to higher education. He is also the public face for those kicked out of the military with \u201cbad paper,\u201d or anything less than an honorable discharge.<\/p>\n<p>Represented by Yale\u2019s Veterans Legal Services Clinic, Manker is rolling his own grievances into a class-action lawsuit against the Naval Discharge Review Board, claiming it is biased against veterans suffering from PTSD. Discharge review boards hear appeals from those who want their dismissals reconsidered and upgraded. Several hundred thousand veterans are estimated to inhabit this category.<\/p>\n<p>The NDRB, which also governs Marines, denies 85 percent of all requests, the highest rejection rate in the armed forces. Manker suspects a majority of those are drug-related, and that a vast majority of those involve cannabis.<\/p>\n<p>In late 2003, on the front end of a 30-day leave after rotating back to the States from Iraq, Manker and his buddies tried numbing themselves out through cannabis and alcohol. Knowing marijuana lingers in the system for 30 days, Manker lit up that one night only.<\/p>\n<p>His urinalysis came back clean after he returned to the Marine base at Twentynine Palms, California. But a colleague turned up dirty and ratted him out. For three hours, under intense interrogation, Manker denied he\u2019d smoked marijuana. After being threatened with 50 years of prison time, he broke and confessed as he was being fingerprinted.<\/p>\n<p>Manker spent several years adrift in dark places. In 2009, he was jumped by a stranger outside a bar who stabbed him 10 times, once in the jugular vein. But he was resilient. He pulled himself together, majored in political science, earned a law degree in Illinois, passed the state bar exam, and became a trial lawyer. The academic journey also alerted him to his eligibility for VA options no one had told him about. He was in for a surprise when he got his hands on the post-deployment health assessment form he had filled out while in Iraq in 2003. According to the rules, his answers should have triggered red flags for PTSD.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd I find that a guy at battalion level just sat there and checked \u2018no further screening needed\u2019 for the entire battalion. Nobody even bothered to interview me. I mean, I should\u2019ve been in a f&#8212;ing hospital in Germany along with the rest of my unit. How many times has this happened?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Maj. Maggie Seymour, USMC Reserves, is a marathon runner in Beaufort, South Carolina, for whom marijuana has no personal appeal. She has served on several ad hoc administrative separation panels, convened to retain or discharge a Marine for conduct infractions. She calls Manker\u2019s expulsion \u201ca heartbreaking case\u201d that underscores the military\u2019s hard-wired and arbitrary bias against marijuana.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s a risk-averse culture,\u201d she says. \u201cEveryone just wants to check the box and cover their ass. But at some point that begins hurting the patients, hurting the Marines, the people underneath you who have figured out a way to treat issues resulting from combat situations we put them into.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s like, \u2018I\u2019ll just follow the rules, without any respect or understanding of the person as a whole or the issues, and if something bad happens, it\u2019s not on me, it\u2019s not my fault.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In March, with backup from Yale and the National Veterans Council for Legal Redress, Manker submitted a class-action suit to a federal court in Connecticut against the NDRB on behalf of sailors and Marines whose appeals were snubbed by the NDRB when their issues involved PTSD or TBI (traumatic brain injury). He says the NDRB is ignoring its own rules. He wants the NDRB to contact everyone it has rejected over the past 15 years, and he wants it to encourage those rejects to reapply for upgrades.<\/p>\n<p>Ironically, Manker attributes his academic and professional successes to Nixon\u2019s revenge: \u201cI used marijuana all through law school. It\u2019s one of the reasons I graduated in less than three years and passed the Illinois bar the first try. It helped me focus, it helped me sleep. To me, it\u2019s the same thing as having a beer after work.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u2022 \u2022 \u2022<\/p>\n<p>Army sergeant Kris Goldsmith didn\u2019t get expelled for marijuana. He got kicked out for trying to kill himself.<\/p>\n<p>During a yearlong deployment to Iraq in 2005, he was assigned to document atrocities in what had degenerated into a religious war between Shiite and Sunni militias. He recorded everything, mass graves, mutilated cadavers, the remains of tortured children \u2014 enough images to slither into his dreams forever.<\/p>\n<p>Hoping to get out in 2007, Goldsmith was informed he was under stop-loss orders. In May of that year, on the evening before he was scheduled to ship back to the land of corpses, a buddy found him collapsed in a field in Fort Stewart, felled by chasing half a bottle of Percocet with vodka.<\/p>\n<p>Two weeks after checking out of the base psych ward, the Army hit him with two Article 15 nonjudicial punishments, one for \u201cmalingering\u201d and the other for \u201cmissing movement.\u201d His request for a court martial was denied, and by August he had been drummed out on a general discharge, which he regards as unacceptable. Three months after his separation, at age 22, Goldsmith was diagnosed for PTSD.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cRather than looking at my suicide attempt as a legitimate mental health issue, they looked at it as a criminal issue,\u201d says Goldsmith. \u201cIf they really thought my suicide attempt was a criminal act, they would\u2019ve put me through a trial. But rehab and due process are too costly to the mission of combat.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat\u2019s really troubling is, the average person who gets bad paper is more likely to die of suicide, more likely to be incarcerated, and more likely to have chronic health issues, not just mental but physical, especially if they\u2019re denied VA health care.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>According to VA statistics from June, of the roughly 20 daily veteran suicides, six recently received some VA health care coverage and 14 did not.<\/p>\n<p>Today, Goldsmith is the founder of a nonprofit called High Ground Veterans Advocacy, designed to empower veterans with leadership skills to champion veterans\u2019 rights. He also serves as an assistant director for policy and government affairs with Vietnam Veterans of America. In 2016, he appealed to the Army Discharge Review Board in hopes of getting an honorable discharge.<\/p>\n<p>Although marijuana doesn\u2019t agree with him, Goldsmith has buddies who rely on cannabis for everything from PTSD to chronic back pain. \u201cI\u2019m jealous of my friends who are able to use it as a kind of cure-all,\u201d he says. \u201cThe fact that they\u2019ve got something that works for them, and that they have to technically break a law to attain that \u2014 that\u2019s kind of insane to me.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Goldsmith says a random memory can send him into a three-month tailspin. He\u2019s had two good years now, and takes Duloxetine and Wellbutrin for depression. \u201cIt works for me,\u201d he says, \u201cbut I don\u2019t know what it\u2019s doing to my liver.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u2022 \u2022 \u2022<\/p>\n<p>You can trace the military\u2019s prickly engagement with marijuana at least as far back as the American occupation of the Panama Canal Zone in the 1920s. In the July-December 1933 issue of a journal called The Military Surgeon, an article titled \u201cMariajuana (sic) Smoking In Panama\u201d described one of the first attempts to assess its behavioral impact on servicemen.<\/p>\n<p>For context, the Surgeon piece cited the 20th edition of the United States Dispensatory, a guide to eclectic pharmacological and botanical solutions for a range of illnesses, published in 1918. Cannabis was said to create \u201ca peculiar delirium &#8230; accompanied by exaltation of the imaginative function and later by a remarkable loss of time.\u201d The tome noted accompanying \u201cmotor weakness and diminished reflexes\u201d and drowsiness, but acknowledged marijuana\u2019s ability to \u201crelieve pain, to encourage sleep, and to soothe restlessness.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In response to occupation authorities\u2019 concerns about what was happening to American troops as they smoked cannabis with Panamanian natives, 34 soldiers \u201cknown to be or suspected of being marijuana smokers\u201d were put under quarantined observation at various times from December 1931 to October 1932 in a hospital setting. Although the report stated none of the subjects \u201cexhibited psychotic symptoms,\u201d it paradoxically added that \u201c62 percent were constitutional psychopaths and 23 percent were morons, a total of 85 percent mentally abnormal.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Ranging in age from 19 to 33, the soldiers smoked an average of five joints a day. They \u201clost reserve, became animated, laughed without adequate cause, and talked foolishly.\u201d All reported getting the munchies afterwards, and \u201cthere was no tendency to combativeness or destructiveness.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The report recommended keeping military bases marijuana-free, although it saw no reason to prohibit cannabis from being sold or used in civilian areas. The authors also upbraided officers for the way they \u201cestimate(d) the efficiency and soldierly qualities in their commands.\u201d The report said commanders \u201chave unduly emphasized the effects of mariajuana, disregarding the fact that a large proportion of the delinquents are morons or psychopaths, which conditions of themselves would serve to account for delinquency.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Eighty-five years later, this actual but clownish account of monitoring troops on cannabis underscores the vacuum of legitimate scientific research in this field. A study currently underway in Phoenix will change all that. But the hurdles to that project imposed by Schedule 1, and the prospects for moving forward, put its future in doubt.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<div id=\"part5\" class=\"subhead\">Part V<\/div>\n<p>\u201cWe bombed the city before we went in. Our mission was to clear the Jolan district, right, like that was the hardest of the hard. Push \u2019em back to the Euphrates. There were foreign fighters there, Chechens, these were the real deal guys, imported from Syria and who knows where else, they were smart. Fighting guys who want to die, they get hyped up on all these drugs, they shot themselves up with adrenaline, I mean, you\u2019re shooting a guy and he\u2019s still coming at you saying \u2018Allah akbar!\u2019 It\u2019s like \u2018The Walking Dead.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The second battle of Fallujah, November-December 2004, has been described as the most brutal urban combat since the Battle of Hue during the Vietnam War in 1968. Josh Frey rolled into the ruined city with the 3rd Battalion 1st Marines.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOn, like, the 25th of November, an RPG skipped across the street and I peeked over thinking it didn\u2019t blow up and then bloom! The blast hit me but I\u2019ve got so many guardian angels I can\u2019t even explain why I\u2019m here, actually. It just peppered me with shrapnel, burns all over my face and maybe a concussion. I think that\u2019s where the TBI (traumatic brain injury) came from, that plus all the tanks firing and all those explosions, there were so many explosions, controlled dets and firefights and I\u2019m just trying to stay alive and that\u2019s why I am like I am now, with this anxiety.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_59\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\"><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Frey, 41, is a gregarious raconteur who speaks in run-on sentences and gesticulates emphatically when he remembers Fallujah. He was an Mk 19 gunner aboard a Humvee, where the blood, gear and a photo of his immediate predecessor\u2019s wife had yet to be cleared. Frey says he knew he was done after what happened on the cold rainy morning of Dec. 12.Frey and a buddy caught a glimpse of two gunmen scurrying across the street in the distance. They opened fire and missed. The whole place lit up. As the Marines gave chase, Frey\u2019s sergeant ordered him to bring grenades.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo I run back, I hop in the Humvee and grab the grenade crate and throw it on the hood. I start driving, my foot hits the brakes and the grenades come off the roof, they fly everywhere, and there\u2019s Sgt. Shealey with, like two fingers blown off, and he\u2019s kind of in shock and I\u2019m \u2018Sergeant, your hand!\u2019 He says it\u2019s fine, I\u2019m like no, it ain\u2019t fine and I grab my tourniquet and tie it real tight to stop the blood from flowing and that\u2019s when all the other sections start rolling up.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Frey rejoined the pursuit on foot, rounded a corner into a blasted interior courtyard that looked like the set of Road Warrior \u201cand all hell breaks loose pop-pop-pop-pop-pop and then my weapon jams so I grabbed my vehicle commander\u2019s weapon.\u201d Guns blazing, Frey and the Americans burst into a room where maybe three to four enemy fighters lay waiting, he can\u2019t remember exactly. His buddy took a round in the head and \u201cI got hit in my shoulder, it was like instant, my bicep detached, it was definitely an AK or bigger. But we f&#8212;ed them up.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cGunner Mortimer, he got it in the bicep but it went in and out. It was like total chaos and Doc Bradley\u2019s hitting everybody with morphine and I\u2019m like gimme the morphine gimme the morphine and it didn\u2019t do anything, there was so much pain, my shoulder was basically a box of rocks and I\u2019m bleeding out \u2014 I had to have six blood transfusions.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Twenty-two surgeries later, three screws holding his shoulder together, Frey was diagnosed for PTSD. He tries reciting all the meds doctors prescribed back at Camp Pendleton \u2014 fentanyl, Lexapro, Pamelor, Gabitril, Percocet, methadone \u2014 but he gives up. \u201cAs soon as I left the bed, I started smoking weed. And I volunteered that information, I told \u2019em, I said, hey, this stuff helps me.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>When his subsequent urinalysis popped hot, \u201cThey busted me down to PFC from lance corporal,\u201d Frey says. \u201cThen they put me on restriction, inside the hospital, like I\u2019m a bad little kid, like I\u2019ve gotta check in every hour. They had me by the balls.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMaybe because they felt sorry for me,\u201d Frey continues, \u201cthey gave me my stripe back.\u201d So he resumed smoking marijuana, not necessarily because it cured his pain, but because it put him at ease, which helped him manage it better.<\/p>\n<p>Not only did command bust him again, they recommended him for an other-than-honorable discharge. Frey unloads a series of expletives on the colonel who started the process. The colonel\u2019s bad paper proposal landed on a general\u2019s desk. Unlike Tyson Manker, who committed the same offense, Frey was in for a pleasant surprise.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cShe said \u2018Leave him alone, he\u2019s been through enough.\u2019\u201d More than a decade later, Frey says everyone\u2019s been through enough. Civilians, too. \u201cIt\u2019s not right,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s not right to keep putting us through this.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u2022 \u2022 \u2022<\/p>\n<p>In February 2017, a combat veteran became the first subject in a precedent-setting American study on the effects of smoked marijuana on post-traumatic stress disorder. Barring unforeseen glitches, that placebo-controlled, triple-blind randomized crossover project will be completed early next year. But the road to this milestone has been nearly half a century in the making, strewn with roadblocks at every turn.<\/p>\n<p>It started in Oxford, Mississippi, 1968, when the University of Mississippi\u2019s School of Pharmacy applied for, and was awarded, a unique contract from what eventually morphed into the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. It was the nation\u2019s first and only government-approved license to grow marijuana for research.<\/p>\n<p>This exclusive deal was granted to Ole Miss two years before Congress passed the Controlled Substances Act, five years before lawmakers established the Drug Enforcement Administration to prosecute violations of that Act, and six years prior to the founding of the National Institute on Drug Abuse. As one of 27 agencies under the National Institutes of Health umbrella allowed to conduct marijuana studies, NIDA\u2019s primary mission, according to a spokesperson, \u201chas traditionally been to study the adverse effects of drugs and develop treatments\u201d for addiction.<\/p>\n<p>But when it comes to marijuana, lately it is the medicinal effects that have been keeping researchers busy. At last glance, PubMed.gov, which aggregates medical abstracts going back to 1966, lists nearly 28,000 references to marijuana, more than all the papers published on oxycodone, OxyContin, Ritalin and Adderall combined. And no wonder. The breakthroughs documented by chemists and botanists over the past 30 years are legion.<\/p>\n<p>Beginning with the confirmation of chemical compounds, called cannabinoids, in lab rats during the 1980s, and the subsequent identification of cannabinoid receptors the following decade, an entirely new portrait of human physiology is emerging. Some researchers are pursuing evidence that could trace the evolution of these receptors to the beginning of the Cambrian explosion, 600 million years ago.<\/p>\n<p>Called the endocannabinoid system, this revolutionary blueprint of the brain and central nervous system reveals these pervasive chemicals bind with and activate receptors throughout the bodies of all vertebrates \u2014 organs, bones, lymph cells, blood vessels. Brain maps indicate most receptors are in regions responsible for memory, cognition, emotions, appetite and motor coordination.<\/p>\n<p>To date, at least 113 cannabinoids have been identified. The best known are tetrahydrocannabinol or THC, the psychoactive ingredient, and cannabidiol or CBD, which has no intoxicating properties. Between the two, using delivery systems as diverse as creams, oils, vaporizers and tinctures, clinicians have employed combinations to fight nausea, pain, cancer, multiple sclerosis, Alzheimers and muscle spasms, to mention a few.<\/p>\n<p>But in 2017, the National Academy of Sciences stated the U.S. should have made far more progress than it has: \u201cSpecific regulatory barriers, including the classification of cannabis as a Schedule 1 substance, impede the advancement of research.\u201d Furthermore, \u201cResearchers often find it difficult to gain access to the quantity, quality and type of cannabis product necessary to address specific research questions.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Few know how high those bureaucratic hoops are better than New College alumnus Rick Doblin, the founder and executive director of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies. Since 1986, Doblin has been supporting clinical trials aiming to get psychotropic drugs accepted as legitimate additions to psychotherapy.<\/p>\n<p>In 2009, Doblin and Arizona primary care physician Dr. Sue Sisley, who would become the current project\u2019s principal investigator, began discussions that have culminated in precedent-setting, government-approved research on the effects of cannabis on veterans with PTSD. However, nearly a decade after the brainstorming began, and with the end now in sight, their efforts could still wind up in a bureaucratic ditch.<\/p>\n<p>\u2022 \u2022 \u2022<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt doesn\u2019t matter when, where, or what country you come from. When a veteran comes back from war, you hear the same thing \u2014 my loved one came home a different person. Well, this isn\u2019t a figure of speech, this is a literal statement of truth. With PTSD, you\u2019ve been in some traumatic event. And your DNA gets superheated through a process called methylation.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Wounded by mortar fire in Sadr City in 2005, Army sergeant and psychological operations specialist Boone Cutler spent two years recovering at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Cutler\u2019s concerns about what happened to him in Iraq led him into the frontier of epigenetic adaptation. Under this scenario, now playing out in science journals, environmental events can alter the human epigenome, a chemical soup of compounds that sends instructions to DNA and modifies its function to fit a situation.<\/p>\n<p>According to the journal Advances in Experimental Medicine and Biology, \u201cepigenetic alterations &#8230; can be transmitted trans-generationally and could be associated with a wide range of diseases including several reproductive disorders.\u201d Boone Cutler argues that life under fire activated his \u201cwarrior gene,\u201d which he suspects he inherited as a third-generation military veteran.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s like this. The first time you get shot at, you\u2019ve got PTSD. After maybe a hundred times you\u2019ve gotten used to it,\u201d says Cutler, also diagnosed for early-onset Parkinson\u2019s as a result of his blast-related injury. \u201cBy time I left Iraq, I was eating pizza bagels in a combat environment and I could give a f&#8212;. My DNA had prepared me for it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>After transitioning to a civilian environment, however, these epigenetic adaptations that affected his endocrine system didn\u2019t serve the Army veteran well, with the attendant insomnia and hyper-vigilance. Then Cutler investigated marijuana\u2019s cannabinoid phenomenon, and it turned him around. \u201cWhat the endocannabinoid system does is restore balance to the endocrine system, to all the body\u2019s systems,\u201d he says. \u201cBut the endocannabinoid system does not work without cannabinoids.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Still, Cutler doesn\u2019t blame the VA for initially loading him up on opioids that didn\u2019t work. \u201cI believed in that standard of care at the time, too,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n<p>Today, Cutler is a partner in a CBD retailer called Warfighter Hemp. He also hosts a talk-radio program on veterans issues from his home in Reno, Nevada, and is attempting to get veterans to sign on to his anti-suicide Spartan Pledge. But Cutler\u2019s immersion into the world of epigenetic adaptation also leaves him concerned for society at large.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt scares me a little that we actually have a warrior caste. It\u2019s a different ethos, and the warrior wants to do it over and over again,\u201d he says. \u201cBut you put that in a civilian environment? Sometimes what you get is a criminal.\u201d<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<div id=\"part6\" class=\"subhead\">Part VI<\/div>\n<p>A decade removed from the war in Iraq, the entire tank platoon who served with former Army Sgt. Matthew Garrison showed up for the funeral. All except one, a sergeant who couldn\u2019t make it because he was stuck in a Moroccan desert. But he phoned Matthew\u2019s father, and Steve Garrison will never forget his words.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_58\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\"><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>\u201cHe said, \u2018Mr. Garrison, Matt saved more American lives than anyone I\u2019ve ever met in this Army.\u2019 One day his lieutenant told him \u2018We\u2019re gonna go out there with privates and metal detectors\u2019 and my son said \u2018Lieutenant, please don\u2019t kill my soldiers, don\u2019t do it.\u2019 The lieutenant says \u2018Sergeant, nobody wants to kill your soldiers; if you have a better plan, tell me and we\u2019ll do it.\u2019\u201cMy son says \u2018Listen, I spent a year (excavating) French antiquities, and the first lesson you learn is, you look for structure. You\u2019re gonna put my men on a road and snipers are gonna pick \u2019em off, and you\u2019re gonna kill my soldiers.\u2019 He said, \u2018We\u2019re gonna go in Humvees and we\u2019re gonna look for structures just like I did in France, we\u2019re gonna look for disturbed earth, we\u2019re gonna look for spots where the rocks are a little bigger than other rocks because that\u2019s where they\u2019ve dug, that\u2019s where the IEDs are, that\u2019s where the weapons cache is, and that\u2019s where we\u2019ll dismount.\u2019 And that day, they found the biggest cache they\u2019d found in Iraq as of that date, where there was a 500-pound Russian bomb.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Matt Garrison would discover and dispose of so many insurgent bombs during his two tours of Iraq, he came home with a Bronze Star \u2014 as well as PTSD, an 80 percent disability, and deafness in one ear. His dad keeps a constant reminder of Matt\u2019s extraordinary perceptual abilities looped around his neck. Matt found it in France, when he was a young foreign exchange student.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_57\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\"><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>It\u2019s an ancient bronze coin, minted during the 222-235 A.D. reign of emperor Severus Alexander. Matt also recovered a pair of lead Roman dice, as well as the remains of a bell, from what had likely been a troop campsite during Pax Romana.Maybe the warrior gene played a role in that Bronze Star as well \u2014 it has at least a century\u2019s worth of pedigree. Matt\u2019s great-grandfathers fought on opposite sides during World War I. One of his grandfathers had two ships sunk from beneath him by U-boats in the Atlantic during the Second World War. His father is a Vietnam vet, Navy. He has two brothers who served. All three would follow dad into a sprawling nursery business in South Florida\u2019s rural Homestead.<\/p>\n<p>Matt was the one who struggled with war-zone ghosts, physical pain, abrupt mood swings, the whole laundry list. A former undercover narcotics officer in New York who became police chief at the Miami-Dade town of Virginia Gardens, Matt\u2019s dad knew that cannabis was safer than opioids. Steve Garrison told his son that he should smoke a joint, it\u2019ll help you sleep. But Matt was embroiled in a child-custody squabble; a positive court-ordered urinalysis could ruin everything.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe said, \u2018Daddy, I\u2019d love to, but I can\u2019t afford to take a chance, and as long as I\u2019ve got a prescription bottle, I\u2019ll use it.\u201d Matt also indulged an ample supply of liquor. \u201cHe had an enlarged heart and it was exacerbated by all the drugs he was taking,\u201d says Steve. \u201cAnd he\u2019d sit there and kill a whole bottle of Johnnie Walker Black in one sitting.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_62\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\"><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Matt died of suspected heart failure in January 2017, at age 35, during a road trip in Maryland, where he was attending a nursery show. When Steve Garrison, 73, talks about the kind of man Matt turned out to be, his voice breaks. So he poured his grief into a mission: \u201cI have a moral responsibility to my son and his fellow soldiers, to do anything that I possibly can.\u201dIn 2017, he applied for a medical marijuana grow license from the Florida Department of Health on the first day permitting began. His application status has been \u201cpending\u201d ever since, even as growers without veterans\u2019 credentials \u2014 Florida has veterans preference laws \u2014 have acquired permits. He and his veteran sons are suing the Florida Department of Health in Tallahassee\u2019s Second Judicial Circuit Court.<\/p>\n<div class=\"video-container\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/youtube.com\/embed\/6dNPL5hTaTI?rel=0&amp;showinfo=0&amp;vq=hd720\" width=\"300\" height=\"150\" frameborder=\"0\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p>\u2022 \u2022 \u2022<\/p>\n<p>Since 2010, the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies\u2019 medical marijuana research model for veterans has survived a series of momentum swings. It has been put on hold by the Food and Drug Administration, approved by the National Institute for Drug Abuse, scrutinized by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, rejected by the Public Health Service, rejected by NIDA \u2014 until, finally, in 2014, it cleared what appeared to be its last hurdle by getting everyone on board.<\/p>\n<p>Then the green light flashed red again.<\/p>\n<p>NIDA had informed MAPS in 2011 that it could deliver whatever marijuana researchers needed from the University of Mississippi. In 2014, NIDA backtracked, saying it needed another growing season. In 2015, NIDA told MAPS one of the four strains it ordered fell below the 12 percent THC\/12 percent CBD content requested. MAPS accepted the lower percentages rather than wait. When the first Ole Miss shipment arrived in early 2017, MAPS site principal investigator Sue Sisley complained about its smell and its quality, which generated more headline controversy.<\/p>\n<p>Never mind that public opinion gathered behind medical marijuana during the Obama years, and that more states voted to legalize personal use. The DEA continued to rigorously prosecute federal cannabis laws; from 2011-17, its marijuana busts produced 41,701 arrests and the seizure of $233,462,591.93 in assets. But in response to mounting criticism about the half-century grow monopoly at Ole Miss, in 2016 the DEA announced it would grant licenses to farmers hoping to cash in on federal research.<\/p>\n<p>To date, the DEA has received 26 applications. None have been granted, because Attorney General Jeff Sessions ordered the agency to suspend the screening process.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSessions and the DEA are not rejecting any of the applications, because they have no legal grounds to reject them,\u201d says Doblin, the MAPS executive director. \u201cSo what they\u2019re doing is delaying. And that\u2019s been the main strategy for 50 years, to delay. Particularly when they don\u2019t have good arguments. In the meantime, we keep having all these veteran suicides.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Given Congress\u2019 unwillingness to confront Schedule 1, America\u2019s second option for rescheduling marijuana lies with the executive branch. And that path leads to remedy schematics evoking a Rube Goldberg contraption.<\/p>\n<p>According to the Brookings flowchart, the Health and Human Services secretary, the AG\u2019s office or an \u201cinterested third party\u201d can request from the HHS a scientific assessment of the data. With an assist from the FDA, HHS reports its findings back to the AG. The AG, most likely with an assist from the DEA, conducts its own independent review of the evidence.<\/p>\n<p>If the AG determines rescheduling is needed, that office then begins working on Executive Order 12866, which mandates a cost-benefit analysis of proposed new regulations regarded as \u201ceconomically significant.\u201d At that point, the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, a branch of the White House\u2019s Office of Management and Budget, weighs in with final suggestions before the policy shift.<\/p>\n<p>On record as saying \u201cGood people don\u2019t smoke pot,\u201d Sessions has never disguised his contempt for cannabis. Last December, he huddled with 81-year-old former Nixon drug czar Robert DuPont, reportedly to address federal strategies to contain growing public support for marijuana. Among DuPont\u2019s suggestions was making drug testing a mandatory addition to primary health care. In January, Sessions revoked the Obama-era \u201cCole memo\u201d that allowed states to develop their own marijuana rules without federal meddling, and vowed a return to the \u201crule of law.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_68\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><figcaption class=\"wp-image-68 size-medium\"><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>DuPont, also the first director of NIDA, left the government to pursue new opportunities on the front end of President Reagan\u2019s \u201cJust Say No\u201d era. In 1982, DuPont joined former DEA chief Peter Bensinger to form a workplace drug testing and employee counseling service, called Bensinger, DuPont &amp; Associates. Chief among its clients were corporate human resources departments, but the company was just one of many startups looking to jump on this growth market. According to the analytics firm Research and Markets, the global drug-testing industry passed the $3 billion mark in 2016.Bensinger recently sold his ties to the company, and although he acknowledges some \u201cmedicinal value\u201d to marijuana, he sees no reason to remove it from Schedule 1, due to the presence of THC.<\/p>\n<p>Informed that some veterans regard themselves as second-class citizens because of the prohibition, Bensinger says \u201cSome of us don\u2019t think marijuana is good medicine. So you could take the position that they\u2019re second-class citizens, or you could say, because they are under federal jurisdiction, they are protected from it.\u201d<\/p>\n<div class=\"video-container\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/youtube.com\/embed\/4jrW2uGV_bQ?rel=0&amp;showinfo=0&amp;vq=hd720\" width=\"300\" height=\"150\" frameborder=\"0\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p>In June, President Trump said he would \u201cprobably\u201d support legislative proposals to make it illegal for the federal government to interfere with state cannabis laws. However, back in February, Israeli media reported that Trump called Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and asked him to cancel planned exports of Israeli medical marijuana into the U.S. Netanyahu told his cabinet that the deal was off, at least for now, leaving $100 million worth of high-quality Israeli cannabis with nowhere to go.<\/p>\n<p>However, the ongoing MAPS study could be upended by a Catch-22 that has nothing to do with the rescheduling controversy.<\/p>\n<p>Working on a $2.1 million research grant from the state of Colorado, MAPS began testing veterans at the Scottsdale Research Institute in Phoenix in early 2017. It got no help from the VA regional office in Phoenix, which snubbed MAPS\u2019 appeal to circulate flyers for PTSD-diagnosed patients. Nevertheless, MAPS expects to meet its baseline quota of 76 subjects, and complete its Phase II clinical trials, by early next year. Phase II testing is designed to assess the efficacy and side effects of new drugs.<\/p>\n<p>Here\u2019s the rub: The FDA requires Phase III trials to be conducted with the actual product its sponsor plans to bring to the market. But the marijuana provided by NIDA and Ole Miss is prohibited from commercial use and therefore cannot be employed for Phase III.<\/p>\n<p>With commercial grow-license applications in limbo and a big shipment of Israeli marijuana scuttled, Doblin says successful Phase II results could hit a dead end. \u201cUnless we break that monopoly,\u201d he says, \u201cwe\u2019re kind of stuck.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>NIDA issued a statement to the Herald-Tribune pointing out a way forward: \u201cIt is feasible that a commercial enterprise interested in applying for drug approval using government-provided marijuana could produce bio-equivalent materials for the market.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u2022 \u2022 \u2022<\/p>\n<p>Reality went sideways for Nick Butterworth in Iraq, and it wasn\u2019t just the roadside bombs. He was driving 14-ton M915 rigs for the Army, running supplies in armed convoys from one base to another, when the mission changed. After the first couple of months, his unit had nothing to haul. The delivery contracts had been farmed out to corporate giant Kellogg Brown &amp; Root.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_42\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Diagnosed for PTSD after his service in Iraq, Nick Butterworth of Cape Coral says medical marijuana helps him function better than any medicines he can obtain from the VA. [Herald-Tribune staff photo \/ Dan Wagner]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>\u201cSo here we are, making $30,000 a year providing security for KBR drivers pulling down $120,000, OK? They were doing our jobs.\u201d Butterworth takes a hit on his back porch in Cape Coral, and holds it in. \u201cAnd it wasn\u2019t just American civilians, there were third-country nationals, too. Somebody was making a lot of money, and it wasn\u2019t us.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_44\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\"><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The stuff he\u2019s inhaling is called honey. It\u2019s an amber liquid packed into a cartridge that fits inside a slender vape pen that fits easily inside a shirt pocket. Florida allows ingestion by applying heat to liquid, or vaporization, but not flame-to-herb smoking. And this extract, in more ways than one, is not your daddy\u2019s dope.In the 1970s, according to NIDA, the average joint contained 1 percent THC. Today, the THC range on commercial shelves in legal personal-use states like Colorado and Oregon usually runs anywhere from 20-29 percent by weight.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_45\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\"><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>His supply, acquired with a Florida medical card and produced by the Trulieve medical dispensary, is certified Godzilla-grade 82 percent THC. A little goes a long way. But it\u2019s pricey. At his rate of consumption, Butterworth estimates this $75 cartridge will last less than a week.Trulieve spokeswoman Victoria Walker estimates 10 percent of the 130,000-plus Floridians on the medical marijuana registry are veterans. Veterans get a discount, but because of Schedule 1, insurance won\u2019t touch it, and expenses are all out-of-pocket.<\/p>\n<p>Butterworth prefers to hit the cannabis sativa in the morning, like a pick-me-up cup of coffee. He might finish the day with a nightcap of cannabis indica to help him sleep, and work on hybrid combinations during the day. If it sounds like he smokes a lot, Butterworth \u2014 who left the Army with fluctuating back pain and PTSD \u2014 says the prescription alternatives left him feeling self-absorbed and lethargic.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_43\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\"><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Since getting his medical card last year, the native New Yorker now legally enjoys trips with his family to Disney and Busch Gardens. He also volunteers with a Cape Coral nonprofit called Wolfhounds Legacy, which trains rescue-shelter dogs to become service dogs for veterans. It takes patience. He has two himself, Camo and Abigail.And there\u2019s another quirk that can sound a little weird coming from someone with a bad back: He plays ice hockey in a Tampa-area veterans club. Afterward, his spine pays the price.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019ve gotta do it, I\u2019ve gotta have that rush of adrenaline. I am addicted to that. Having said that,\u201d adds Butterworth, who grew up playing hockey in Buffalo, \u201cthere\u2019s no high like being shot at in a war. There really is nothing that gets your adrenaline going like almost dying.\u201d<\/p>\n<div>\n<div class=\"video-container\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/youtube.com\/embed\/cOZWMnEW-y8?rel=0&amp;showinfo=0&amp;vq=hd720\" width=\"300\" height=\"150\" frameborder=\"0\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"part7\" class=\"subhead\">Part VII<\/div>\n<p>Last year, the American Legion, the oldest and largest veterans service organization in the U.S., could ignore the facts no longer. Since the expansion of its Veterans Crisis Line in 2007, the Department of Veterans Affairs has been logging 500,000 phone calls, e-chats and text messages annually, and its staff have sent emergency services to callers more than 66,000 times. And since early 2015, the Legion itself has been getting swamped by calls from traumatized Iraq\/Afghanistan veterans for whom VA prescriptions weren\u2019t working. They wanted legal access to marijuana.<\/p>\n<p>The Legion conducted its own membership survey. Ninety-two percent of veteran households supported research into the medical benefits of cannabis. Eighty-three percent favored medical legalization, and 82 percent wanted marijuana as a treatment option. The poll indicated 22 percent of veterans are already using marijuana as medicine.<\/p>\n<p>At its convention last August, the Legion called on the VA to allow its doctors to at least discuss marijuana with patients. In November, at a press conference in Washington, with selected politicians in attendance, the Legion advocated ripping the Schedule 1 label off marijuana in order to expedite medical research. Its featured speakers included Boone Cutler, Josh Frey and Janine Lutz, who lost her Marine son to an intentional morphine overdose in 2013.<\/p>\n<p>Lutz\u2019s testimony \u2014 \u201cIn my son\u2019s mind, he thought his two previous attempts were something that he wanted to do, he did not know it was because of the pharmaceuticals, and he was terrified\u201d \u2014 was the emotional centerpiece of the Legion\u2019s message to Congress.<\/p>\n<p>In December, the VA announced it would authorize its physicians to discuss, but not prescribe, medical marijuana for veterans. But it stayed silent on Schedule 1. Consequently, a handful of politically active veterans agreed to make yet another run on Washington, the Saturday before Memorial Day. They would call it the \u201cPlants Over Pills\u201d rally.<\/p>\n<p>\u2022 \u2022 \u2022<\/p>\n<p>The stage is a small raised platform set up at Lafayette Square, directly across from the White House. It supports a single public-address speaker and a podium bearing Janine Lutz\u2019s \u201cLive To Tell\u201d nonprofit logo, alongside a portrait of her son in uniform. At 9 a.m., the heat and humidity are stifling, and there is no shade for relief.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_27\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\"><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The lineup includes a dozen speakers, all veterans, save for Lutz, and they outnumber the bystanders, at least initially. Event coordinator Derek Cloutier, USMC, Fallujah survivor, and founder of the kick-opioids-with-marijuana New England Veterans Alliance, goes first. He is followed by speakers taking turns with tales of trauma, addiction, confusion, guilt and \u2014 at least for now \u2014 stability through marijuana.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_35\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\"><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Somewhere in between speeches, a handful of veterans hoists the eye-catching Lutz Memorial Wall, unfurls it before the podium, and stands silently beneath the enervating sun. Each portrait bears a watermark of \u201cPTS\u201d or \u201cPTSD.\u201d Janine Lutz dropped the \u201cD\u201d mid-project after it occurred to her that what the afflicted have in common isn\u2019t a disorder, but a sane and natural human response to horror.Clustering in pools of shade along the perimeter, bystanders begin to linger at the spread of suicide faces, 369 in all, the rough equivalent of 16 days\u2019 worth of self-annihilation in America. Kyle Bartee wanders over and drops to her knees. Her son\u2019s combat boots dangle from her backpack. Her son, former Army private Brennan Conklin, PTSD, TBI, three back fractures, is immortalized here. In 2013, at a park in Raleigh, at age 25, Brennan hanged himself.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_36\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\"><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>At noon or thereabouts, the veterans move out, hoisting the wall of the dead vertically for traffic and tourists to see. Leading the way with the Stars and Stripes is former Army PFC Ryan Walton, Iraq, a first responder to the rogue terrorist bloodbath that left 13 soldiers dead and 30 wounded at Fort Hood in 2009. Walton\u2019s T-shirt is emblazoned with a red, white and blue marijuana leaf. Spectators who appear to be civilians are closing ranks and following their lead.By time the marchers cross the street and complete the short hike to the Department of Veterans Affairs headquarters on Vermont Avenue, the crowd is maybe a hundred strong. The chants crank up. \u201cPlants over pills!\u201d \u201cPills! Kill!\u201d \u201cPills! Kill!\u201d Some light up. The wall of the dead now squares off at the front door of the VA. \u201cNo more! Drug war!\u201d The aroma of reefer, legal now on public streets in the District of Columbia, wafts above the demonstration. No one from the VA bothers to address them.<\/p>\n<p>In short order, the crowd reverses course and heads back towards Lafayette Square, south to Pennsylvania Avenue, and fans out on the pedestrian mall before the White House. Visitors speaking many languages make room for a black and red banner that reads \u201cIt\u2019s estimated that each day 22 US veterans end their own lives.\u201d Its hashtag, #milemarker, refers to a cross-country PTSD documentary produced by Army veteran Korey Rowe.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat number is your stopping point?\u201d Army veteran Leo Bridgewater, who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, has a healthy set of pipes and doesn\u2019t need a bullhorn as he paces to and fro. \u201cThis is really happening!\u201d Some tourists walk on by, others reach for their cameras. \u201cThis is real!\u201d Bridgewater has appeared before the New Jersey State Assembly and successfully lobbied for the inclusion of PTSD in the state\u2019s medical marijuana coverage. \u201cWe\u2019ve done multiple tours in Iraq and Afghanistan! For you!\u201d In February, he joined a lawsuit challenging the Justice Department for its \u201cunconstitutional\u201d obstinance in blocking marijuana research. \u201cAnd look what you got for your money!<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou got 22 veteran suicides a day! That\u2019s what you got for your money! You got an opioid abuse and addiction epidemic!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u2022 \u2022 \u2022<\/p>\n<p>John Allen, 26, 2nd Battalion 8th Marines, knows three comrades who killed themselves and another four who died of opioid overdoses. In the aftermath of what happened on Sept. 29, 2013, in Camp Lejeune, Allen knows he could\u2019ve been one of them. Shortly after the worst day of his life, he woke up one morning with a broken back. Allen had been prescribed Ambien, among other things, which spurred him to sleepwalk out a high window and tumble more than 30 feet. His career ended on a medical discharge in 2014.<\/p>\n<div class=\"video-container\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/youtube.com\/embed\/5NWrVZd4f6E?rel=0&amp;showinfo=0&amp;vq=hd720\" width=\"300\" height=\"150\" frameborder=\"0\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p>Lately, at home in Milford, Michigan, he has whittled his medications from 16 down to three and says, \u201cI only take Valium for emergencies.\u201d He has quit the drinking that cost him his marriage. He credits marijuana for leveling him out and helping him sleep safely.<\/p>\n<p>On Memorial Day weekend, John Allen went into action. He spent $300 for gas and supplies and drove eight hours in order to reunite, one more time, with Rory Dalgliesh, his best buddy in the Corps.<\/p>\n<p>Allen wears an olive T-shirt with a marijuana leaf next to the letters \u201cRx.\u201d He has a black headband embroidered with a cannabis plant and green lettering stating \u201c100 % Legal.\u201d He affixes an American flag to his backpack. During the speeches and the march, Allen latches onto the end link of the Lutz Wall that contains Rory\u2019s photo.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_31\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\"><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Rory Dalgliesh had been a SAW gunner in Afghanistan and was feeling lost. Allen says Rory, a fellow Michigander, was getting ready to muster out, a divorce was likely, and he was \u201con a stupid amount\u201d of scripts. He had been complaining about how they made him feel, the sadness. Were marijuana available, Allen says \u201cthere\u2019s no doubt in my mind\u201d it wouldn\u2019t have ended the way it did.\u201cWe pulled up at his soon-to-be ex-wife\u2019s work, and he started crying. He pulled out a .38 and said I\u2019m gonna go in there and I\u2019m gonna shoot her and I\u2019m gonna shoot myself and that\u2019ll fix everything.\u201d Allen talked him off the ledge, took his gun, and diverted his attention to a pool table. They started drinking. Rory was inebriated, but he seemed OK and he didn\u2019t live far. Allen placed the gun in Rory\u2019s car. He followed Rory home, just to make sure he arrived safely.<\/p>\n<p>Allen returned to Rory\u2019s place the next morning. The front door was open. Every time he thinks about Rory, this is what he sees first. And he thinks about Rory every day.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd when I went inside I &#8230; I just know that smell. And I could smell death. So I kept walking in the living room and he was slumped over on the couch. I went over to him and checked his pulse.\u201d Rory was warm to the touch, but his struggles were over. \u201cI took the gun out of his hand.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Allen talks about how he moved his buddy off the couch to attempt futile life-saving measures, and how \u201chis head hit the ground hard.\u201d Allen\u2019s sunglasses come off. He wipes the emotion away with the heel of his hand. He was just 21. Rory will be 23 forever. \u201cAnd I got a pillow and put it underneath his head.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Semper Fi.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"page\" class=\"site\">\n<div id=\"content\" class=\"site-content\">\n<div id=\"primary\" class=\"content-area\">\n<article id=\"post-8\" class=\"post-8 page type-page status-publish has-post-thumbnail hentry\">\n<div class=\"entry-content full-width\">\n<div id=\"pl-8\" class=\"panel-layout\">\n<div id=\"pg-8-1\" class=\"panel-grid panel-has-style\">\n<div id=\"story-section\" class=\"panel-row-style panel-row-style-for-8-1\">\n<div id=\"pgc-8-1-0\" class=\"panel-grid-cell\"><\/div>\n<div id=\"pgc-8-1-1\" class=\"panel-grid-cell\">\n<div id=\"panel-8-1-1-0\" class=\"so-panel widget widget_text panel-first-child\" data-index=\"3\">\n<div id=\"vet-container-text\" class=\"panel-widget-style panel-widget-style-for-8-1-1-0\">\n<div class=\"textwidget\">\n<p>The Lutz Memorial Wall honors veterans who\u2019ve taken their lives as a result of post-traumatic stress disorder. The 369 faces pictured here represent roughly two weeks\u2019 worth of self-inflicted fatalities.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/1012747346-Adams(1)_.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/1012747346-Agar.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/1012747346-Alexander_.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/1012747346-Anthe_.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/1012747346-Arsiaga_.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/1012747346-Auvil_.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/1012747346-Avila.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/1012747346-Barrett_.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/1012747346-Bearup_.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/1012747346-Becker_.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/1012747346-Benson(1)_.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/1012747346-Bohannon.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/1012747346-Bordelon_.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/1012747346-Bradley_.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/1012747346-Brennan_.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/1012747346-Brunette.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/1012747346-Budney_.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/1012747346-Burchard_.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/1012747346-Burnett.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/1012747346-Campana.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/1012747346-Campbell.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/1012747346-Carroll_.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/1012747346-Ciccone_.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/1012747346-Clark-Jr_.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/1012747346-Clark_.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/1012747346-Collins_.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/1012747346-Contreras_.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/1012747346-Coy_.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/1012747346-Dale_.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/1012747346-Dalgiesh_.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/1012747346-Davison_.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/1012747346-Derby(1)_.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/1012747346-Derby_.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/1012747346-Dietz-Jr.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/1012747346-Dowling_.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/1012747346-Duran_.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/1012747346-Eckstein_.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/1012747346-Ewing_.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/1012747346-FAguilar.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/1012747346-FLAdams(2).jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/1012747346-FLAdams.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/1012747346-FLAlley.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/1012747346-FLBadrulhaimi.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/1012747346-FLBaulders-II.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/1012747346-FLBiehl.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/1012747346-FLBlankenship.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/1012747346-FLFolsom.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/1012747346-FLGammon.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/1012747346-FLGustafson.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/1012747346-FLHardy.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/1012747346-FLHenley.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/1012747346-FLHomnick.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/1012747346-FLJablonowski.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/1012747346-FLKyle-III.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/1012747346-FLLadner.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/1012747346-FLLaskowski.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/1012747346-FLLeasure.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/1012747346-FLTindall.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/1012747346-FLTipton.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/1012747346-FLTurner-II.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/1012747346-FLValerio.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/1012747346-FLVirgadamo.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/1012747346-FLWare.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/1012747346-FLWatts.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/1012747346-FLWeiss.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/1012747346-FLWestfall.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/1012747346-FLWike-Jr.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/1012747346-FLWolfel.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/1012747346-FLYellowhorse.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/1012747346-FLYoung,-J.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/1012747346-FLZZFisher.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/1012747346-FMancha.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/1012747346-FMayer.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/1012747346-FMcAlpine.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/1012747346-FMcCollough.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/1012747346-FMesenbrink.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/1012747346-FMielke.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/1012747346-FMiller.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/1012747346-FMora-Cruz.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/1012747346-FMoran.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/1012747346-FMorgan.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/1012747346-FMurray.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/1012747346-FNaholnik.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/1012747346-FNaslund.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/1012747346-FNowiski.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/1012747346-FOliver.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/1012747346-FOuthuse.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/1012747346-FPak.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/1012747346-FPallotta.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/1012747346-FPalozola.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/1012747346-FPatterson.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/1012747346-FPowelson.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/1012747346-FRasmussen.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/1012747346-FRiley-BD.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/1012747346-FRossi.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/1012747346-FRush.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/1012747346-FSchranz.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/1012747346-FSidles.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/1012747346-FSomits.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/1012747346-FSpraul.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/1012747346-FStillman.jpg\" 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src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/1012747346-Greany.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/1012747346-Gregory.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/1012747346-Grimshaw.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/1012747346-Grotke.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/1012747346-Gundlach.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/1012747346-Guzzo.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/1012747346-Hackett.jpg\" 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src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/1012747346-JohnsonCharles.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/1012747346-JohnsonKindall.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/1012747346-JonesIV.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/1012747346-Jorgenson.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/1012747346-Keesling.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/1012747346-Kelley.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/1012747346-Keyes.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/1012747346-Knudson.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/1012747346-Kuehl.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/1012747346-LaDart.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/1012747346-Lee.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/1012747346-Linnerooth.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/1012747346-Lucey.jpg\" 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src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/1012747346-Owens_.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/1012747346-Reed_.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/1012747346-Roberts_.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/1012747346-Rock_.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/1012747346-Shalters_.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/1012747346-Singleton_.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/1012747346-Smith-Ryan_.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/1012747346-Stafford_.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/1012747346-Stewart_.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/1012747346-Stoddard_.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/1012747346-Wechsler.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/1012747346-Winkler.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/1012747346-Wolfe_.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/1012747346-Younger.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/10127477346-Adams.JPGFL.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Allen.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/AlvarezIII.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Anestis.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Arace.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Aycock.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Baker.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Barnard.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Bartlett.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Barton.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Bell.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Benson,-Bryan.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Benson.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Beracha.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Berry.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Bojorquez.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/BonnevilleJr.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Bowman.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Brake.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Bramer.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Brooks.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Bryan-B.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Burnside.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Busbee.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Calderon.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Castaneda.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Castillo.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Chisholm.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Coning.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Conklin.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Conlen.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Contranchis.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Coons.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Cooper.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Cosme.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Couitcher.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Criss.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Cullen.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Dana.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Dangerfield.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Davis.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/DavisJr.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Delcampo.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Dillingham.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Downing.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/EdwardsIII.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Engen.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Epinette,-Chad.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Eppinette,-Damon.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Faulkner.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Fike.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Forstrom.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Furness.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Gearhart.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/George(1).jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Gilliam.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Goff.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Gorzik.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Goski.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Gould.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Gray.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Green.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Grijalva.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Gross.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Guillory.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Gurule.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Guthrie.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Guzman.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Hafner.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Harp.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Harris.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Hawk.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Henze.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Hirsch.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Hofmann.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Holman.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Hoots.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Hurst.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Jackel.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Jennings.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Jenson.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Johns-shirt-black.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/JohnsonJordan.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Johnston.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Jones-Jr.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Juneman.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Kalitz.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Keith.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Kennedy.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Ketchum.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Kittle.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/LaDue.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Landon.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Likes.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Linder-DA.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Logan.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Lopez-Jr.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Ludwick.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Mackulin.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Mahler.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Maloney.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Marsh.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Maza.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/McMath.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/McShan.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Meyers.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Miles.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Mitchell.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Morse.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Mount.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Nasief.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Naugle.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Nerstrom.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/O_Berry.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/O_Hearn.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Omvig.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Palmer.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Parkhill.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Pelky.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Pelton.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Peterson.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Pickerel.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Pierce.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Pohovey.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Portwine.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Powell.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Prestridge.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Price.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Pritchett.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Puckett.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Rasmussen,N.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Rateb.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Reber.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Redden.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Reilly.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Reyes.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Rhoads.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Rinella.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Robinson.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Rocha.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Rodriguez,-Joel.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Rodriguez,-Nicholas-T.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Rogers.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Rosario.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Ross.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Roth.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Ryan-III.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Scahill.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Schenetzke_4872.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Scheuerman.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Schuette.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Schulze.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Sears.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Sexton.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Shanafelt.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Shanks.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Shoffner.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Sims.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Slane.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Smith-Andrew-J.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Smith-Derek-Ryan.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Smith-Ryan-Robert.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Smith-Ryan-T.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Soignier(1).jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Soignier.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Somers.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Spoon.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Stalter.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Stangelo.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Staton.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Stites.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Sullivan_6989.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Swallow.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Swaney.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Sweet.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Tetting.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Theobald.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Thompson.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Thornton.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Tilley.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Tolliver.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Trejo.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Vernon.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Villani.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Walker.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Watson.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Webster.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Whisler.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/White(1).jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/White.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Whitelock.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Wicks.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Wiens.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Wilcox.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Wilson.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Wittenauer.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Wolfe.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Worden.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Wyman.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Young-MT.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Young.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/heraldtribune\/rxforveterans\/Younger.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vet_image\" 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