CITRUS COUNTY CHRONICLE ARTICLE

With love from Daddy’s girl
By Nancy Kennedy

Rebekah Lloyd jokes with her father, David Gregory, in the front yard of Gregory’s home as he arrived home from his job at the property appraiser’s office Wednesday evening in Homosassa. /CATHY KAPULKA/Chronicle

Even though she has to bend down to kiss her dad, Rebekah Lloyd said that in her eyes, he’s 8 feet tall.

After an especially difficult two years for her father, David Gregory, the former Miss Teen Citrus and Miss Citrus wants to take this Father’s Day to honor the man she calls Daddy.

“My dad is such an inspiration to me,” she said from her dad’s house in Homosassa. The 57-year-old Gregory adopted Lloyd and her two brothers, Zachary and James, when he met and married their mother. Lloyd was just a baby, and Gregory is the only father she has ever known.

“It doesn’t take DNA to make a dad,” she said.

“What’s most amazing to me about my dad — he was born with osteogenesis imperfecta, a brittle bone disease. He’s in an electric wheelchair now, but he doesn’t let that stop him,” she said. “He has had over 100 broken bones and had to have steel rods put in his legs when he was a teenager; he has pain, and it hasn’t been easy for him. What’s most amazing is that the bone thing isn’t even an issue with him — he even walked me down the aisle at my wedding in 2004.”

Except for the joy of an only daughter’s wedding, 2004 was an especially difficult year for Gregory. A week after the wedding, his mother died, and then four months after that, his brother-in-law, who was his best friend, also died. Then his wife was diagnosed with heart disease and had two stints put in her heart.

Meanwhile, he was still walking, but started using a motorized scooter. However, he didn’t have a wheelchair-accessible van with a drive-up ramp like he has now. So, to transfer the scooter onto the rack on the back of his car, he had to prop himself against the car and “drive” the scooter using his hands onto the rack, secure the gate behind it, then slowly make his way into the car. When he got to work, he had to reverse the process, then do it again when he got home.

Currently, Gregory works at the Property Appraiser’s office in Crystal River. Prior to that he had various jobs: he operated Liberty Stagecoach delivery service, managed a Wilson’s Leather store in a mall in New Port Richey, operated boats at the Marine Science Center, worked at a bank, was a substitute teacher and a garage mechanic.

“He always worked,” Lloyd said. “I had dreams of being a model, and he drove me all over Tampa and Orlando to modeling things. I’d say, ‘Oh, Daddy — it’s only $500!’ and he’d say, ‘We can’t afford that, but you’re still beautiful, Honey.’”

Also in 2004, Gregory developed chest pains and discovered that he needed heart bypass and valve replacement surgery, which is serious enough for someone with normal bones. For him, the risks were multiplied.

On the morning of his surgery, Gregory’s children, his wife and her family and his dad all came to the hospital. “We all kissed him as he went into surgery; it was that risky,” Lloyd said.

But he recovered and returned to work 10 weeks later.

“I never looked at (the bone disease) as a hindrance; I just overcame anything I could,” Gregory said. He always told his kids: “Never let go of your goals and dreams.”

He also said he’s proud of his daughter and his two sons. Proud that they are accomplished and that they did it all on their own. Zachary, a sergeant in the Army, is in Iraq, he’s due back in Dec; James is a corrections guard in Bushnell; Lloyd put herself through college at USF using money she received from entering local scholarship pageants.

It was an exceptionally proud moment when Gregory walked his daughter down the aisle, with the help of his Irish shillelagh walking stick.

“I treasure the dance we had at the wedding,” he said. They danced to “Daddy’s Hands,” a country song that Lloyd used to sing to her daddy when she was little.

“I wasn’t allowed to drive until my senior year of high school, and I didn’t date until I was 16. When I wanted to go out with friends, my dad got in the car and they had to drive around the block so he could test out their driving capabilities,” she said.

“At the time I thought, ‘You’re so strict; it’s not fair,’ but now that I’m 27 … and have two stepdaughters of my own, I know now why he did it. I know exactly where Daddy was coming from, and I’m better for it.”

My Marine Grandson got married yesterday!

My grandson, Mark Gregory, got married yesterday to Emily Bare at the Citrus Hills Golf & Country Club. It was a beautiful wedding with the Marines ushers and Best Man, the whole wedding party was spit and polish and I took great pride in it. I would like to thank everyone who helped put it together, of course, the Bride’s father, Greg Bare, did an outstanding job organizing it and covering all the details that made it unique and forever memorable. Our families, the Gregory’s and the Bares, are now joined and offer a bright future to Citrus County and the Nation. I hope to have some pictures soon!

More of the Same in 2008

This is a an opinion by Charley Reese in the Citrus County Chronicle, 12.8.2007, I am surprised that the Chronicle carries his opinions. The Chronicle is noteworthy in it’s bias against anyone who can think and look at evidence.

To borrow a wise-crack from an old friend, I don’t know who is going to win the presidency, but I know who’s going to lose – - the American people. Only Rep. Ron Paul recognizes the Constitution and the rule of law, and he has no chance at all. He has no chance because the majority of the American people have never read the Constitution and pay no attention to it. In case you haven’t noticed, contemporary political debate is all about plunder and patronage. Patriotism is being willing to bomb foreigners if they decline to do what the American emperor wants them to do — provided, of course, they are defenseless. The contest is all about who promises the most goodies by robbing Peter to provide them to Paul.
There is no intelligent discussion of foreign policy. There is no intelligent discussion about the economic problems that are harming the American people. There is no discussion, intelligent or dumb, about the systematic loss of civil liberty that has occurred under the Bush administration. There is no serious discussion about reforming the tax laws, which require thousands of pages of small print. There is no discussion about the erosion of American sovereignty.
These politicians are all word people, and their word is no good. You can’t even rely on them to keep the superficial promises they make. It’s obvious that not a one of these nabobs has any idea what he or she will actually do should he or she wind up in the White House, other than continuing to campaign and raise money for the next election. Talk about conservatism and liberalism is meaningless, because there are no conservative or liberal candidates, only opportunists. Again,the exception being Ron Paul. Conservatives who claim to be against gay marriage, abortion and driver’s licenses for illegal aliens only reveal how unconservative they are. A true conservative would recognize that those are state issues in which the federal government, including the federal courts, has no legitimate role at all. A true liberal would be raising holy hell about the loss of civil liberties and unconstitutional wars and giveaway programs.
You tell me what the philosophical differences are between Hillary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani. Both are politicians who managed to become millionaires. Mrs. Clinton claims to have executive experience solely on the basis of having shared the bed of Bill Clinton. There is, under the Constitution, no office of first lady The first lady is nothing but the wife of the president and has no authority whatsoever, she shouldn’t even have a staff or a budget.
Mr Giuliani, the self-promoting former mayor of New York City, simply promises to keep doing the unconstitutional things the current president is doing. Giuliani is neither a crime-fighter nor an expert on terrorism. As a prosecutor, he took evidence developed by the FBI and did what all prosecutors do. Prior to the attack on the twin towers, he had failed to make sure all the first responders could communicate and stupidly put the city’s emergency command post in the twin towers, against the advice of real experts. After the attacks, he walked up and down the street in front of TV cameras, made speeches and went to funerals. That’s neither expertise nor leadership.
After writing off Ron Paul as being too much like the Founding Fathers to get elected, the best of the sorry lot IS probably Mike Huckabee, who lost 100 pounds and plays the guitar, and Bill Richardson, who speaks Spanish and has actually had foreign-policy experience. The rest would be a disaster. But keep in mind, this election is not about change. It’s about more of the same.

All The DEAD

I have been focusing on the historical background of Corporate America’s take over of the United States government. I had intended for this video to explore in detail the events that have occurred in our history that have lead to the point of where we are now, now being the almost complete disenfranchisement of the American voter either through subliminal, and, not so subliminal mass media manipulation. When you hear the same message over and over again in whatever outlet your ability to discern fact from fiction disappears and your views become that of corporate America . Hate, greed, bloodshed, anything that promotes violence and turmoil is good. Blood for profit has been a long standing bottom line for big business, the more blood, the more the profit!

The Republican Party was first to be wined and dined by the Neo-Cons, the party of less spending, less government, less taxes, has been taken off track to such an extent that being a Republican no longer has the same meaning it did 50 years ago and most Republicans don’t even realize it. Because of this the Republican Party exemplifies the views of corporate America but Corporate America and the Neo-Cons are still not satisfied and want to cover all the bases and have seized the bastions of most Democratic candidates. Because of the obscene amount of money that is involved in running for political office, candidates that would have been truly representative of the American people cannot stand by their beliefs and still run successfully. They must sacrifice their principles in order to have a chance at the golden ring. This has always been true to a certain extent throughout history, but never, never, in the way that it is today.

Corporate America has seized the media outlets, it has seized the candidates, it has seized the electoral process via the electronic methods of voting, and it has seized the country! And even with all this, when it cannot win with true election results, it uses fraud. The election of 2000 is an example, when the exit polls were wrong for the first time ever in history. It is a contagion that spreads like wildfire with very few breaks. It is spread with wild innuendos and with out and out lies through email and word of mouth. It takes away the ability to think for yourself, examine the evidence and reach YOUR conclusion, not’s someone else’s. To defeat it, to create a break, all that is required is to look at the evidence, all the evidence and come to your own conclusion, yet it remains, seemingly invincible.

We are on the final stage, act III, of the World’s greatest experiment, that experiment was Democracy the last vestige of Freedom for mankind. Remember the original meaning of Democracy, not what they would have you believe it to be today. Democracy is what our Constitution emblazoned, not that which is today’s stripped down version. Don’t let them change the meaning of Democracy in the way they have manipulated so many words from the past. The odds are not good, in fact, they are quite dismal, yet there might be a chance, slim as it may be, there are a few candidates who are running for President who have indicated by not only their mouths, but by their actions, that they have the American people best interest at heart and not that of the Neo-Cons and Corporate, military-industrial complex of America. They are Ron Paul, Republican, Dennis Kucinich, John Edwards and Bill Richardson, Democrats. These candidates do not have huge corporate backing so therefore are not very likely to succeed, thus they fail and we lose. Help with grass roots effort and elect one of these individuals, our country needs it, you and I need it.

All the dead, at least their troubles are over, pity this poor man who’ll have the rest of his life to live with disabilities and discrimination.

WASHINGTON, Illinois (CNN) — Ty Ziegel peers from beneath his Marine Corps baseball cap, his once boyish face burned beyond recognition by a suicide bomber’s attack in Iraq just three days before Christmas 2004.

 

 

 

Ty Ziegel, a Marine, was badly wounded in Iraq. He battled the VA over disability benefits when he returned.

 

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He lost part of his skull in the blast and part of his brain was damaged. Half of his left arm was amputated and some of the fingers were blown off his right hand.

Ziegel, a 25-year-old Marine sergeant, knew the dangers of war when he was deployed for his second tour in Iraq.

But he didn’t expect a new battle when he returned home as a wounded warrior: a fight with the Department of Veterans Affairs.

“Sometimes, you get lost in the system,” he told CNN. “I feel like a Social Security number. I don’t feel like Tyler Ziegel.”

His story is one example of how medical advances in the battlefield have outpaced the home front. Many wounded veterans return home feeling that the VA system, specifically its 62-year-old disability ratings system, has failed them. Watch Ziegel display his model skull »

“The VA system is not ready, and they simply don’t have time to catch up,” Tammy Duckworth — herself a wounded veteran who heads up the Illinois Department of Veteran Affairs — told the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee in March.

VA Acting Secretary Gordon Mansfield said cases like Ziegel’s are rare — that the majority of veterans are moving through the process and “being taken care of.” He also said most veterans are fairly compensated.

“Any veteran with the same issue, if it’s a medical disability, … it is going to get the same exact result anywhere in our system,” he said.

 

 

 

 

Waging War on the VA

 

CNN’s Dr. Sanjay Gupta investigates the shocking reality of what happens to the nation’s wounded warriors when they return home.
Saturday and Sunday, 8 p.m. ET

see full schedule »

More than 28,500 troops have been wounded in Operation Iraqi Freedom, including about 8,500 that have needed air transport, according to the U.S. military. See photos of these Iraq war heroes »

A recent Harvard study found that the cost of caring for those wounded over the course of their lifetime could ultimately cost more than $660 billion.

In Ziegel’s case, he spent nearly two years recovering at Brooke Army Medical Center in Texas. Once he got out of the hospital, he was unable to hold a job. He anticipated receiving a monthly VA disability check sufficient to cover his small-town lifestyle in Washington, Illinois.

Instead, he got a check for far less than expected. After pressing for answers, Ziegel finally received a letter from the VA that rated his injuries: 80 percent for facial disfigurement, 60 percent for left arm amputation, a mere 10 percent for head trauma and nothing for his left lobe brain injury, right eye blindness and jaw fracture.

“I don’t get too mad about too many things,” he said. “But once we’ve been getting into this, I’m ready to beat down the White House door if I need to.”

“I’m not expecting to live in the lap of luxury,” he added. “But I am asking them to make it comfortable to raise a family and not have to struggle.”

Within 48 hours of telling his story to CNN this summer, the Office of then-VA Secretary Jim Nicholson acted on Ziegel’s case. The VA changed his head trauma injury, once rated at 10 percent, to traumatic brain injury rated at 100 percent, substantially increasing his monthly disability check.

 

Don’t Miss

• In depth: Iraq war casualties
• Department of Veterans Affairs

Duckworth, the Illinois VA chief, knows exactly what Ziegel and other severely wounded vets are going through. She lost both her legs when a rocket-propelled grenade struck her Blackhawk helicopter on November 12, 2004. Her right arm was also shattered. Watch how Duckworth’s wounds changed her life »

She told CNN she received “incredible care” at Walter Reed for 13 months, but soon realized the transition to the VA wouldn’t be as smooth.

“I started worrying about the fact that maybe this country won’t remember in five years that there are these war wounded,” Duckworth said.

Garrett Anderson with the Illinois National Guard, for example, has been fighting the VA since October 15, 2005. Shrapnel tore through his head and body after a roadside bomb blew up the truck he was driving. He lost his right arm.

The VA initially rejected his claim, saying his severe shrapnel wounds were “not service connected.” Watch Anderson describe “my arm was hanging there” »

“Who would want to tell an Iraqi or Afghanistan soldier who was blown up by an IED that his wounds were not caused by his service over there?” said Anderson’s wife, Sam.

After pressure from Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, the VA acted on Anderson’s case. He has since been awarded compensation for a traumatic brain injury.

“It upsets me that the VA system operates in a way that it takes people of power — and who you know and what you know — to get what you want,” said Anderson, who is now retired.

When asked about Anderson’s case specifically, the VA’s Mansfield said such cases make him “more dedicated” to fixing the system.

In July, President Bush and a commission appointed to review the care of veterans returning from war announced the need for a complete overhaul of the disability ratings system, which dates back to World War II. The VA is now considering action on the commission’s recommendations.

Ziegel eventually won his battle. Still he feels for so many others he believes are getting cheated by the system.

“We’re feeding the war machine, but you never think of the war machine that comes home and needs, you know, feeding back home,” he said.

 

 

His family hopes they don’t have to fight the VA again. In August, Ty Ziegel’s brother, 22-year-old Zach Ziegel, was deployed to Iraq.

“I want to make the VA system better because if he has to go through anything I went through, that’s really going to upset me. That’ll make my fuse real short and hot,” Ty Ziegel said.

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