A couple of days ago, George G. Nickle Jr. took 90 rounds of ammunition, and an AK-47, and went looking for his dog in his building. After shooting at the locks on two doors, he was cornered by 4 Boise policemen and surrendered. (I posted this before.)

Today, he is still not sure why he did this. Why he snapped. He did say in court testimony that "he was so irritated that his anger was a nine on a scale of 10 that night. [Idaho Statesman]

Staff Sgt. Anthony S. Schmachtenberger was found in his garage, the car's engine running. He was supposed to be deployed with the now-gone 2nd Battalion, 377th Parachute Field Artillery Regiment, 4th Airborne Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division who are in Afghanistan.

He was also having personal problems. [Anchorage Daily News]

The Army has proposed to include in basic training anti-stress programs to help combat the "aftereffects of combat and prevent suicides." [Associated Press}

Just the start for this story but it sounds familiar.

On Tuesday, George G. Nickle Jr went searching for his lost dog around his apartment complex carrying his AK-47. He attempted to shoot locks off two apartments before being cornered by Boise police. Despite shots being fired, neither Nickles or the police were injured and he was taken into custody.

Nickel, 38 is a Reservist with the 321st Engineer Battalion who spent a year in Iraq in 2007. Their job? Hunting roadside bombs.

He was wounded in a February 2007 attack that killed three of his fellow soldiers. Coming home, he spent four  months at Walter Reed Army Hospital in Washington DC, then returned to Boise.

More to come, I'm sure. [Idaho Statesman]

Did you know about this?  You can donate your unused air miles to Operation Hero Miles. The program is administered by Fisher House, and enables military families to visit veterans injured in Iraq or Afghanistan at hospitals all over the world. The link is at www.fisherhouse.org. [Belleville News-Democrat]

Minnesota newly-arrived Senator Frankin's first legislation, the Service Dogs For Veterans Act, has passed the Senate. Frankin worked with a Republican senator, Johnny Isakson, of Georgia. [ABC News]

The researchers at the University of Texas, Southwestern are doing a study on the 1991 Gulf War Illness hoping to find the reasons that so many veterans have suffered. They aren't being paid by the Veterans Administration because the UT researchers have privacy concerns.

In other words the proper paperwork hasn't been filled out and it's holding up the contracts. The veterans who participated have been contacted and new paperwork should solve the problem.

Maybe. [Dallas Morning News]

Senator Patty Murray has introduced legislation that "would require the Pentagon to compile a report for Congress that assesses methods for tracking combat experience among support troops." [McClatchy Newspapers]

Badly-wounded veterans often depend on the support of family and that family, their caregivers, need help because of the unrelenting toll taken on them.

"The caregivers seek passage of legislation that would require the Veterans Affairs Department to offer more training to primary caregivers of severely injured veterans from the recent wars. Those certified would be eligible for benefits such as health care and a stipend of a few hundred dollars a week." [Associated Press]

A new device is helping blind veterans - and others - to see again. "The machine is called the BrainPort vision device and is manufactured by Wicab, a biomedical engineering company based in Middleton, Wis. It relies on sensory substitution, the process in which if one sense is damaged, the part of the brain that would normally control that sense can learn to perform another function." [Washington Post]