Bouhammer's Military Blog » Military Support

Ranger Up trying to help Veterans with Employment

Bouhammer — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 17:22:30 +0000

My good friend Nick Palmisciano over at Rangerup.com has published the first of four videos giving advice and guidance for veterans looking for employment. Nick is a former US Army Ranger and now CEO of Ranger Up so he is more than qualified to give such advice.

In this first introductory video listen to Nick explain why he is doing this and how he compares looking for a job to a peanut-butter and jelly sandwich. I must say his comparison is pretty ingenious and really breaks it down to be simply understood.

200+ stores are giving back to our Military

Bouhammer — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 15:05:44 +0000

The number of businesses just keeps on climbing. Now there are over 200 companies that are doing a little something for our Veterans on their day, tomorrow. The folks over at Brads Deals have compiled a list of the 200+ stores. You can get to the list easily on their blog at www.bradsdeals.com/blog/2010/09/22/160-stores-with-military-discounts/ which they are continually updating.

In reviewing the list, I think there is something there for everyone. From Advance Auto Parts to Zaxby’s and everything in between.

Bravo to these businesses for offering these deals and to Brads Deals for putting this list together.

Stores & Services Offering Military Discounts

www.bradsdeals.com/military

Another reason why I love Soldiers Angels

Bouhammer — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 16:20:57 +0000

Chuck Z. knows first hand the generosity of Soldiers Angels. He saw it when he was wounded in Iraq after being blown off a bridge by an IED he was almost standing over and into a canal. While in the hospital, Soldiers Angels gave me the very first voice activated laptop which later turned into Valour-IT (yes that is a picture of Chuck using the laptop in the hospital).

Well Chuck in back in a combat zone, this time it is Afghanistan. Soon after getting to his very remote location a whole bunch of Soldiers Angels boxes showed up for him and his men.

You can read about it at tcoverride.blogspot.com/2011/11/mail-call.html

On a side note, I am not sure if he knows it or not, but Chuck is an inspiration to my good friend and brother from another mother, Matt Goss, who I am teamed up with this weekend. I was with Chuck the night we both first met Matt two years ago. Chuck and Matt has a very special and emotional talk that has impacted both men still to this day. I am truly privileged to have been there as a witness to the special event.

Matt Goss, Caesars Palace and Bouhammer team up for Veterans

Bouhammer — Sat, 05 Nov 2011 07:32:32 +0000

If you are a veteran (current or past) and would like to attend the Veterans Day event below, please contact me at admin@bouhammer.com

LAS VEGAS (Nov. 05, 2011) – British singing sensation Matt Goss, in conjunction with Bouhammer’s Afghan and Military Blog (www.bouhammer.com), is celebrating Veterans and honoring those who serve with complimentary tickets to his show Friday, Nov. 11 and Saturday, Nov. 12 in the Gossy Room at Caesars Palace.

“It’s important to raise awareness of the heroic acts these Veterans perform on a daily basis,” said Goss. “I’m honored to give this group a much deserved, enjoyable night out.”

Invited Veterans will receive complimentary entrance to the show for themselves and a guest, dinner and a meet and greet opportunity with Goss prior to the show.

Veterans Day (originally Remembrance Day) is a day remembered by countries all over the world, originally in recognition of the end of World War I. For additional information on Bouhammer’s Afghan and Military Blog, please visit Bouhammer.com.

All performances are held inside the Gossy Room at Caesars Palace and begin at 9:30 p.m. General admission tickets are priced at $40 (inclusive of entertainment tax). Tickets can be purchased in person at the Colosseum Box Office at Caesars Palace or by phone 1-800-745-3000 or on www.ticketmaster.com keyword: Matt Goss. A service charge applies to Ticketmaster purchases.

Presented by Robin Antin, creator of The Pussycat Dolls, Goss’s show offers a dynamic blend of musical talent; backed by a nine-piece band and sexy female dancers known as “The Dirty Virgins,” Goss entertains guests with a production featuring a mix of his career hits, songs from his new album and popular covers.

Goss has sold more than 17 million albums worldwide and is recognized for his appreciation of classic hits made famous by the Rat Pack. In his show at Caesars Palace, Goss performs “I’ve Got the World on a String” and “Luck be a Lady,” recorded by the legendary Frank Sinatra, who headlined numerous dates at Caesars Palace from 1968 to 1983.

About Matt Goss
Matt Goss reached international fame as the lead singer of ’80s British pop group Bros, enjoying more than a decade of success with more than 17 million records sold worldwide. Bros was the first band since Elvis to knock themselves off of the #1 spot in Australia and held a #1 spot in 19 countries simultaneously. In addition to his successful music career, Goss released an autobiography in 2005 achieving Best Seller status in the coveted London Sunday Times. Goss has gone on to focus on songwriting including writing the theme song for the #1 FOX program “So You Think You Can Dance” and writing the hit song “Change Me” for Keri Hilson and Akon which is featured on Hilson’s current chart-topping album In A Perfect World. Goss currently lives in Los Angeles where he is recording his next studio album. In September 2010, Goss released his first children’s book, “Bear Crimbo,” which is the first of a three-book deal. For more information about Matt Goss, visit www.mattgoss.biz.

About Caesars Palace
Reigning at the heart of the Las Vegas Strip, Caesars Palace features 3,300 hotel guest rooms and suites, including the 180-room Nobu Hotel set to open in 2012; and 25 diverse restaurants and cafes, including the 24-hour café Central by James Beard award-winning Chef Michel Richard. The 85-acre resort offers nearly 129,000 square-feet of casino space including a 14,000 square-foot poker room; a five-acre Garden of the Gods pool complex showcasing eight pools and two gardens; the 50,000 square-foot award-winning Qua Baths & Spa and Color Salon by renowned celebrity colorist Michael Boychuck; five elegant wedding chapels and outdoor gardens; 300,000 square-feet of premium meeting and convention space; and the acclaimed 683,000-square-foot Forum Shops offering more than 180 boutiques and dining establishments. Caesars guests enjoy Cascata, one of the world’s most exclusive golf courses; and the 4,300-seat Colosseum spotlighting world class entertainers such as Celine Dion, Jerry Seinfeld, Rod Stewart, Elton John and Shania Twain (beginning December 2012). For more information, please visit www.caesarspalace.com or caesars.thedigitalcenter.com to access media materials and request high-resolution images. Find Caesars Palace on Facebook and follow on Twitter.

Caesars Palace, along with all Caesars Entertainment Las Vegas resorts, including Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino, Paris Las Vegas, Flamingo Las Vegas, Harrah’s, Bally’s, Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino, Imperial Palace and Bill’s Gamblin’ Hall & Saloon, proudly prohibit adding mandatory resort fees to hotel guest room rates. For information on No Resort Fees visit www.caesars.com/noresortfees or find details on Facebook at www.facebook.com/noresortfees.

About Bouhammer’s Afghan and Military Blog
The Bouhammer [boo-ham-er] blog was originally created by a 22-year retired First Sergeant of the U.S. Army. This blog started out as a way to write about military related issues. It turned into a way for Bouhammer to document his 16 month tour as an Embedded Training Team leader in Afghanistan for family and friends. It is now one of the leading and award-winning blogs written exclusively on operations in Afghanistan and other military related topics. Troy Steward from Bouhammer.com also writes for the Official Army Blog at Army Strong Stories (armystrongstories.com/) , the You Served Blog (www.youserved.com) and co-hosts the weekly You Served Radio show and podcast (www.youservedradio.com). The Bouhammer blog can be found on Twitter at www.twitter.com/bouhammer and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/bouhammer.

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MEDIA CONTACT:
Melanie Shafer
Public Relations Specialist
Caesars Entertainment – Las Vegas Region
Mshafer1@caesars.com
(702) 794-3137

Troy Steward
Owner
Bouhammer Enterprises, LLC
admin@bouhammer.com

A deployed Chaplain needs you

Bouhammer — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 18:39:51 +0000

I got the message below from my very close friend MSG CJ Grisham who is currently deployed to Afghanistan. This is a great thing for any one person to do, but I also think it would be a great project for a school, scout group or church group to do. This Chaplain is not wanting much from you, and what little he does want will make a great positive impact on some of our deployed warriors.

One of our other contacts that we support over there is a chaplain at FOB Farah. He is chaplain for 1700 troops at 6 COPs and the FOB. Thought I’d share this with you in case you know someone there or any of your friends do:

If anyone would like to send picture on the internet from home holding a sign or banner wishing Merry Christmas, Happy Hannukah or season’s greetings to the Troops please send it to me and I will put them all on a disk and continually show them on our large screen TV in the chapel with holiday music playing in the background. If you know of anyone in the 2BSTB TASKFORCE LONESTAR, and you would like to send that Soldier a personalized photo greeting it would mean a lot to them. I did this when I was deployed as a chaplain to Iraq with my unit in the 82nd and it went wonderful. If you should decide to do this please send the photo to my yahoo account so my army account doesn’t get bogged down. My yahoo account is gilliam56a@yahoo.com

Remembering Aunt Maggie

Bouhammer — Sun, 28 Aug 2011 02:24:00 +0000

Aunt Maggie as she was known in my house was a very close friend of my family’s while growing up. I didn’t know anything about her Hollywood past as a kid. She was someone who came and visited and when she wasn’t visiting, she would call (usually in the middle of the night). As I got older I knew she was in some movies like Airport ’79 and in TV shows like Alice. I remember sitting around with my family in the 80s watching her in the sitcom Alice and laughing at how silly she was.

It wasn’t until many years later and after I was in the Army myself when I started to fully realize all that she had done. I am not talking about what she did in Hollywood (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martha_Raye) , but what she did in Vietnam and for our military (www.vietnamexp.com/morestories/MarthaRaye.htm). Besides the previous link there are many other stories about the true heroism of Aunt Maggie. Another story is below and even more can be found in the Special Forces Museum on Ft. Bragg, NC where one whole section is dedicated to her.

Some things you probably did not know about Martha Raye

Most of the old time entertainers were made out of a lot sterner stuff than today’s crop of activists and whiners.

It was just before Thanksgiving ’67 and we were ferrying dead and wounded from a large GRF west of Pleiku, Vietnam .We had run out of body bags by noon, so the Hook (CH-47 CHINOOK) was pretty rough in the back. All of a sudden, we heard a ‘take-charge’ woman’s voice in the rear.

There was the singer and actress, Martha Raye, with a SF (Special Forces) beret and jungle fatigues, with subdued markings, helping the wounded into the Chinook, and carrying the dead aboard. ‘Maggie’ had been visiting her SF ‘heroes’ out ‘west’.

We took off, short of fuel, and headed to the USAF hospital pad at Pleiku. As we all started unloading, our Captain said to Martha, “Ms Ray, with all these dead and wounded to process, there would not be time for your show!”

To all of our surprise, she pulled on her right collar and said…..”Captain, see this eagle? I am a full ‘Bird’ Colonel in the US Army Reserve, and on this is a ‘Caduse’ which means I am a Nurse, with a surgical specialty….now, take me to your wounded.”

He said, yes ma’am…. Follow me.

Several times at the Army Field Hospital in Pleiku, she would ‘cover’ a surgical shift, giving a nurse a well-deserved break.

Martha is the only woman buried in the SF (Special Forces) cemetery at Ft. Bragg .

A video of Maggie singing Silent Night

Today, August 27th is Aunt Maggie’s Birthday. She would have been 95. In my house we remember her every year on this day. We have a full set of dishes in our cabinets that she bought my mom way back in the day as a Christmas gift. My mom gave them to me not long after getting married and every year we have dinner on “Maggie’s dishes”.

Happy Birthday Aunt Maggie!! We love you and miss you!

Looking for a way to support the warfighter?

Bouhammer — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 16:51:00 +0000

Are you looking for a good way to support our men and women serving in harm’s way? There are many great groups and angencies out there like Books For Soldiers, Soldiers’ Angels and Adopt-A-Soldier, but sometimes people want to support warfighters that have a personal connection.

I have many friends and associates that are serving who I routinely ask what they need. There is never a shortage of needs and wants.

I have created a Bouhammer.com Support mailing list. If you would like to be put on that list so you could be notified of needs and addresses to send packages to, please send an email to admin@bouhammer.com with the subject SUPPORT LIST. Let me know who you are and anything else you want me to know. I will then add you to the mailing list.

This list is not shared with anyone and in fact all emails sent to it are sent Blind Copy so your email address is not shared with anyone else on the list.

Thank you for your support.

Bouhammer…

Valour-It needs Your Help NOW!

Bouhammer — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 20:30:59 +0000

Come on people, don’t just slap a $1.99 yellow ribbon magnet on your car and say you support the troops. Do something, I mean REALLY DO SOMETHING and support our wounded warriors that NEED your support. Everything given towards Project Valour-IT goes directly to the troops and providing them with voice-controlled laptops, Wii gaming systems, GPSes, etc.

Lets turn things around America. Quit hanging at the mall while the military is at war and support these men and women directly.

Men and women recovering have directly been helped and supported by these devices that help so much in their recovery.

I don’t know where to start. I was thrilled and truly appreciative of the laptop donation that Soldiers Angels sent. My neurology team is ecstatic with the progress that I have made, yet we all temper our excitement as I still have a long recovery ahead. Due to the great hearts (sponsors, donors, volunteers and others too numerous to mention) within Soldiers Angels I have become more mobile in my rehabilitation and the laptop is absolutely one of the tools that I have in my recovery toolbox. I use it to keep current on my schedule and have several applications that assist with recovery.

I know that my recovery has been aided by the cards, letters, and notes sent by your Angels. I love to read them and have started to send Thank You’s to many of them. I just want you and everyone to know that your organization is a Godsend to Soldiers. Please send this note of Thanks to the appropriate personnel, and if there is anything I can do to help, let me know.

God Bless You and God Bless America.

Lieutenant Colonel X

It is testimonials like that and many others which prove your assistance helps these troops out. Come on America, step up.

If you can’t give much or any at all, then at least help spread the word. There are only a couple of days left in this fundraising effort and we are nowhere near the goal. Share the link of soldiersangels.givezooks.com/campaigns/soldiers-angels-valour-it-fundraiser-july-2011/appeals/team-army-2 and ask all to go there and donate whatever they can.

The Soldiers’ Angels Project Valour-IT is fighting to help wounded warriors regain some independence of their own. Three days into its online fundraising competition, the project has raised over 10% of its goal of $100,000 to supply severely-wounded troops with voice-controlled laptops and other technology that aids their recovery, reintegration and independence.
“Using a voice-controlled laptop was first time I felt whole since I’d woken up after being wounded,” said Chuck Ziegenfuss, co-founder of Valour-IT and a Wounded Warrior himself. “It allowed me to do one thing that I had been able to do before I was wounded—use a computer. It allowed me to connect to my soldiers, friends, and family. That one thing began a long road to recovery. It gave me hope… hope that I could learn to do other things like I did before.”

To help enable Valour-IT to provide that hope to other wounded warriors and to thank the donors who make it possible, Soldiers’ Angels is offering special email gift certificates to all who donate at least $100 online, throughout the fundraiser.
$100+ donation: Certificate for a Soldiers’ Angels bracelet
$500+ donation: Certificate for limited-edition Valour-IT t-shirt
$1000+ donation: Certificate for a Valour-IT military challenge coin
$25,000+ donation: Dinner with Chuck Ziegenfuss in your hometown
For more information about the fundraising competition, email campaign(at)soldiersangels(dot)org or visit www.soldiersangels.org to donate. All funds raised go directly to wounded troops with no overhead costs removed, and requests for support are vetted through case managers.
About Soldiers’ Angels
Established in 2003, Soldiers’ Angels is a volunteer-based, award-winning 501(c)(3) nonprofit providing aid and comfort to members of the United States Army, Marines, Navy, Air Force and Coast Guard, as well as veterans and military families. For more information, see www.soldiersangels.org. Tax ID# 20-0583415 CFC #25131

Step up for Valour-IT

Bouhammer — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 15:13:29 +0000

Soldiers’ Angels Valour-IT project team needs your help, but even more so our wounded warriors need your help. Please click the button below to help out by donating whatever you can to the Valour-IT fundraiser. We have wounded men and women getting evacuated every day that get back to the states and could really use some of these voice-activated laptops, Wii gaming systems, GPSes, etc. that can help greatly in their recovery.

Also to help motivate you, be sure and check out the Valour-IT photostream to see some of the happy recipient’s of the items that Valour-IT provided to them. You can see it at www.flickr.com/photos/44308754@N07/

Take a moment and Remember a Vet Today

Bouhammer — Fri, 27 May 2011 20:20:38 +0000

Head over to www.imortuary.com/articles/i-remembered-a-vet-today/ and check out what I am talking about.

Via: iMortuary.com