VIRGINIA BEACH — Trails of Purpose, a Chesapeake-based nonprofit that uses horses to support military members, is preparing to expand its services to a new facility to accommodate a growing need for mental health resources.

Roughly 30 volunteers gathered Saturday at One Red Maple Farm to help clean the property. Trails of Purpose began leasing parts of the 38-acre Pungo farm in early May and is going through the city’s conditional use permit process to open the property to military members and their families seeking mental health counseling.

Located in the heart of one of the nation’s most densely populated military communities, co-founder Kayla Arestivo said expanding services was necessary.

“Just look at the news,” said Arestivo, a licensed mental health counselor and military spouse. “Military mental health — Department of Defense mental health — is overrun right now. It is not well supported or billeted.”

Trails of Purpose provides therapeutic care for service members suffering mental hardships, using horses for assisted psychotherapy and mental health education. The various services, which mostly involve handling the horses on foot, are meant to help current and former military members and their families overcome the trauma, transition and trials from military service.

“We’ve doubled our service members every year since we’ve been in existence,” Arestivo said. “I have had chiefs call me and say, ‘Nobody’s picking up the phone, Portsmouth is overrun and I have got this kid.’ And they literally drive the sailor out to us. That is the need.”

Ricky Bledsoe, a Trails of Purpose board member and retired Navy special warfare officer, purchased the property from Lynnette Bukowski, the widow of a veteran Navy SEAL. Bukowski, who owned the farm for nearly 10 years, had turned it into a retreat for veterans returning from combat.

“The whole premise behind buying the place was to continue the mission Lynn started,” said Bledsoe, who had volunteered with Bukowski.

Bledsoe retired as a chief warrant officer 3 in 2021 following a 30-year naval career.

“I noticed there was a lack of attention to people’s well being — especially for their mental health. It was always, ‘Go, go, go’ and not about the individual,” Bledsoe said.

Bledsoe, Arestivo and Trails of Purpose volunteers worked for three hours Saturday, ensuring the property will be available to military members and their families to “rest and refit.” Volunteers cleared overgrown vegetation and cleaned up animal pens, a bunk house and a barn.

“If you need a place just get out of the city on the weekends, we have that. If you want to just get out and be amongst nature with horses, without horses, or just sit over there and have lunch and let your kids play,” Bledsoe said. “It is somewhere to totally relax, for you to just withdraw from the overwhelming stuff of reality for a little bit.”

[ Navy, in suicide probe, admits it ‘failed’ crew of USS George Washington ]

Trails of Purpose sees about 100 military members, veterans and their families per week in individual, spouse, family or group therapy sessions.

“These are people who are built for community,” Arestivo said. “A lot of military members don’t typically have friends outside the military because they have built-in friends in the military. But when you leave the military, you don’t have that anymore. When you come out to us, now you do.

“Now, every Saturday you can show up to groups and you can trust that somebody is going to be there checking in on you. You have a place where you belong.”

In working with One Red Maple Farm, the nonprofit will be able to facilitate additional groups, running in tandem with the Chesapeake location. It hired three additional licensed professional counselors and is leasing seven new horses.

Opening the program at a second location has also expanded Arestivo’s goals.

“I would love for people to understand the value in civilian counselors for the military,” she said. “Maybe we don’t need to report everything back to TRICARE. Maybe people can just go and talk about what’s going on with them and it doesn’t have to be reported to the command.”

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Participating in Trails of Purpose is free and is not reported to commanding officers or military health insurance providers. A service member’s participation will only be reported if licensed professional counselors deem that person a threat to themself or others.

Arestivo’s short-term goal is to see the waitlist dwindle. It is currently four weeks.

“But right now, if I remove three from the waitlist, three more replace them,” Arestivo said.

While the Trails of Purpose program will not expand to the Pungo site until the permit is finalized in August, the nonprofit is hosting an open farm day from 10 a.m. to noon this Saturday at 1628 Mill Landing Road.

The event will allow military members and their families to meet the Trails of Purpose clinician staff, therapy herd and volunteers.

Those interested in volunteering or making a donation can email Trails of Purpose at [email protected] for more information.

Caitlyn Burchett, [email protected]

NEW YORK — The remains of a U.S. Marine veteran who was missing in Ukraine for more than a year returned to the United States on Friday and were headed to his hometown in eastern North Carolina.

A Turkish Airlines plane flying from Istanbul with the remains of retired Marine Capt. Grady Kurpasi landed at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport in the early evening. They were loaded onto a private jet bound for Wilmington, North Carolina.

Kurpasi, a 50-year-old Iraq War veteran, volunteered in February 2022 to help evacuate Ukrainian residents and later fought in the Ukrainian Foreign Legion, according to the Weatherman Foundation, the group that located his remains and repatriated them.

He was last seen in April 2022 after investigating the source of some gunfire with fellow volunteers in southern Ukraine and was declared dead last month by the U.S. State Department.

“There is an unspoken bond between those who serve in uniform,” said Weatherman Foundation President Meghan Mobbs, who led the effort to retrieve Kurpasi’s remains. “If you give your life in combat, your fellow Americans will bear any burden to bring you home.”

After months spent investigating a series of suicides of Hampton Roads-based sailors last year, the Navy has concluded that it failed its own personnel on an individual and systemic level.

The Navy released Thursday the findings of a comprehensive investigation into command climate and sailor quality of life and details 48 recommendations. It is meant to address what Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy James Honea called “years worth of systemic shortcomings.”

“The tragedy of the suicides in the Norfolk area shows that the Navy can and must do a better job of caring for sailors and their families,” Honea said in a virtual media roundtable Thursday morning.

The investigation focused on the USS George Washington, which came under scrutiny after three sailors died by suicide within a week last year while the carrier was undergoing an extended overhaul at Newport News Shipbuilding. An initial investigation found “life stressors” contributed to the life-ending decisions of the three sailors, but concluded the deaths were otherwise not connected.

Less than eight months later, the Norfolk-based Mid-Atlantic Regional Maintenance Center reported four suicides within 28 days. A separate Navy investigation also released Thursday found those deaths were not connected.

But the investigations into both commands reflected a failure in maintaining a suitable Navy standard.

“In both cases there was an organizational drift — a slow erosion over time — conditions that were clearly not right became acceptable,” reads a memorandum signed by Adm. Michael Gilday, chief of naval operations, and Carlos Del Toro, secretary of the Navy.

[ Military given deadline to implement Brandon Act, aiming to help service members seek mental health care ]

The investigation into the Washington was launched with the purpose of evaluating the challenges unique to a shipyard environment. During the investigation into potential connections between the Washington suicides, sailors reported constant noise and cold temperatures aboard a shell of a ship that was periodically without hot water and power.

“The events of the past year have caused me to reflect on the ideas of ‘habitability’ versus ‘suitability.’ Our shipyard ships may be habitable and able to sustain life (a minimum standard), but not suitable from a quality of life standport (an acceptable standard),” Rear Adm. John Meier wrote in his endorsement of the investigation’s findings.

The Washington entered dry-dock in 2017 for its midlife refuel and complex overhaul. That process typically takes four years. But the pandemic lengthened it by two years.

Adm. Daryl Caudle, commander of U.S. Fleet Forces, said throughout the investigation, it was “pointedly obvious the Navy had failed the George Washington.” Since entering its maintenance period, the Washington has experienced nine suicides among its crew dating back to 2017.

The investigation recommends the Navy create a split-tour program that ensures first-term sailors are not assigned to dry-docked aircraft carriers for more than two years.

“We definitely want a sailor who joined the Navy to go to sea, to get that opportunity to see the ocean, get into a port call, experience why that person joined and not spend that entire tour in a maintenance facility,” Caudle said.

Meier also touched on this issue, writing in his endorsement letter: “These shipyard sailors hoped for more, to be part of something bigger than themselves, and be part of a team … Sailors joined the Navy ‘to see the world,’ accelerate their lives, or to be ‘forged by the sea,’ but not to see the shipyard or drive a bus.”

It is also recommended every sailor assigned to a ship in an industrial environment receives allowance for off-ship and off-base housing — a benefit that is not currently available to junior sailors.

“When not underway, no sailor should be required to live on a ship or barge, with the exception of the duty section,” Caudle said.

The investigation also recommends working with local government and industry to improve parking for sailors assigned to public and private shipyards.

At one point, the Navy partnered with Newport News Shipbuilding to secure 2,100 parking spaces across four Hampton Roads locations for Washington sailors. But the investigation found local infrastructure is still “insufficient” to support the crews of multiple aircraft carriers in overhaul and new construction in the shipyard.

“There remains inadequate parking, transportation, access to food and nutritional options, training space, physical fitness facilities and housing options available to support the number of sailors assigned to ships and submarines in the shipyard. This directly contributed to poor Sailor QoS and morale,” Caudle wrote in his endorsement of the findings.

Three of the parking locations are considered “too far to walk” and require a shuttle ride to the shipyard. Travel time from two locations, one in Chesapeake and one in Suffolk, averages more than 50 minutes one way.

A former executive officer of the Washington, who was not named, told investigators: “I said this was unacceptable but eventually saw the writing on the wall and stopped fighting because the discussion was going nowhere … I believe all RCOH carriers experience the same parking issues. This is a solvable problem and it’s really about money. It’s an issue of the burden we put on sailors versus the cost we are willing to pay for that parking.”

The Navy plans to establish a single, accountable senior civilian for the development of a long-term quality of service plan that is specific to Newport News Shipbuilding in an effort to improve the overall quality of life for shipyard-bound sailors.

“I am never going to try to give you a reason why it takes a large mishap incident, a 9-11 event, to make the Navy — my organization, which I love — wake up and attack a problem that we should have seen coming,” Caudle said.

In conjunction with the Washington quality of service investigation, the Navy released a “new course for Navy quality of service” memorandum.

According to the memo, the Navy will work for the next 90 days to identify a definitive timeline on when all recommendations would be implemented. But some long-term solutions will require congressional funding or authorization.

“The conditions experienced by those assigned to the USS George Washington and MARMC are not the result of any act or inaction by any single leader. Collectively, Navy senior leadership, officer and civilian, let our standards slip — and in doing so we let our people down,” the memorandum reads.

Resources for service members and veterans struggling with mental health, including 24-hour crisis hotlines, can be found below:

• The Military Crisis Line: call 1-800-273-8255, ext. 1; or text “273Talk” to 839863
• Military OneSource: 1-800-342-9647
• National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 988 — call or text

Caitlyn Burchett, [email protected]

As politicians clash over the government’s borrowing limit, the looming debt default threatens the livelihood of troops and puts the stability of the defense industry and the Hampton Roads economy into question.

The U.S. government could run out of money unless politicians agree to raise or suspend the debt ceiling. Defaulting, which Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has warned could happen as soon as June 1, would mean military and federal civilian employees would go unpaid.

Where would that leave Hampton Roads, where federal defense dollars account for approximately 40% of the region’s economy?

Robert McNab, professor of economics at Old Dominion University, said a prolonged default — one lasting more than two weeks — would be “a government shutdown to end all government shutdowns” and “would undoubtedly create chaos” across Hampton Roads, rippling out to Virginia and the nation.

“When I say devastating, catastrophic, unprecedented, the great unknown, an abyss of economic turmoil — it is because it is so frightening what could happen. It could be a generational shift downward in the standard of living in the United States,” McNab said.

Should a default occur, McNab said the federal government will likely try to immediately curtail discretionary expenditures to make up for underwhelming tax revenues.

“And of course, the Department of Defense is the largest discretionary program in the United States government,” McNab said.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin confirmed during a Senate Defense Appropriations panel last week that the troops’ paychecks are at risk should Congress fail to avoid a default.

“What it would mean realistically for us is that we won’t, in some cases, be able to pay our troops with any degree of predictability. And that predictability is really, really important for us,” Austin said.

According to the Bipartisan Policy Center, about $4 billion in military salaries is scheduled to be paid out June 15.

But, the effects of a prolonged default would be felt by more than just service members.

The continued curtailment of expenditures could mean a $1 billion to $2 billion economic loss for the region each week the federal government is in default.

“So if you have an economy that’s roughly $106 billion and you are cutting economic activity by 1 to 2% a week, you are plunging the area into an immediate, significant, deep and devastating recession,” McNab said.

Department of Defense civilians and contractors may find themselves under stop work orders. Combined with active duty and reserve military members, this means around 20% of those employed in Hampton Roads could all go unpaid. Another 15% of Hampton Roads employment would be indirectly impacted.

How the shipyards would be affected is uncertain, with Gen. Mark Milley telling the Senate Defense Appropriations panel the Columbia-class ballistic missile submarines acquisition program, which will see the next five submarines built at Newport News Shipbuilding, “would be at risk.”

“Things like that would be stretched out long-term,” Milley said. “So it would have, I think, a very significant negative impact on the readiness and then of course the future readiness.”

McNab said “some work” at shipyards on projects with multiyear appropriations may continue.

“But we’re assuming that the federal government will allow that work to continue and not say, ‘We need to invoke force majeure’ and start terminating contracts left or right,” McNab said.

Force majeure is a clause included in some contracts that absolves the involved parties of liabilities should an uncontrollable event make it difficult or impossible to fulfill the terms of a contract.

Several defense analysts declined to comment further on how the defense industry might feel the effects of a default.

“I’d like to be helpful, but I think if anyone in this country tells you they have a clue what happens, they are being dishonest,” said Bryan McGrath, of Ferry Bridge Group.

Just the prospect of a federal default is pushing market yields and interest rates higher as the treasury’s cash dwindles.

“When people say, ‘They are just arguing in D.C. It doesn’t affect me,’ what people in Hampton Roads need to understand is this bleeds through all types of credit,” McNab said.

On May 1, the market yield on one-month treasuries was 4.49%. By May 12, it increased to 5.79%.

“It is just a 1.3% increase, but that is 1.3% on millions, if not billions, of dollars in short-term debt,” McNab said.

But, McNab said 30-year market trends indicate this is a short-term political issue.

“Market yields, so far, are saying this would be terrible and catastrophic — ‘Don’t do this.’ But, the market yields are also basically betting that the government is not stupid enough to allow a default to happen,” McNab said.

The divided Congress has never defaulted on federal debt before, although it has come close to an impasse in previous years.

“There’s always been the expectation that at some point, Congress will get its act together and pass an appropriations bill, and then, everybody gets paid essentially in arrears,” McNab said. “The problem with a debt default is it is uncharted territory, and we don’t know if the federal government would have the same capacity to borrow after a default that it has today.”

Caitlyn Burchett, [email protected]

Researchers will use NASA satellite data in their search for possible connections between War on Terror veterans’ illnesses and their locations during deployment.

A new tool, called Source-Differentiated Air Quality System, will help researchers who can then help clinicians in treatment, according to NASA and researchers. It can create charts and files of air pollution concentration at 1,200 bases in Southwest Asia since 2002 for each month. The tool can also provide data about type, severity and length of exposure veterans to pollutants faced by veterans with their exact deployment history.

“It’s important to our efforts to understand and help address the risk our veterans face not just from combat, but from the conditions in which they served,” said Eric Garshick, a pulmonary physician at VA Boston, in an April NASA press release.

Burn pits were used in Iraq, Afghanistan and other overseas bases to dispose of waste, sometimes including such toxic materials as made of toxic materials as fiberglass, medical needles and rubber. Soldiers also dealt with dust storms and other pollutants, putting them at risk of developing respiratory problems.

Data will be used to identify veterans potentially affected by the pollutants and research associations between certain pollutants and ailments veterans face, according to Garshick. Specifically, data from the tool will be used to help in a study of 5,000 veterans analyzing their ailments with their deployment histories, according to the release.

“It’s very fulfilling to connect NASA data to efforts to support veteran’s health,” said Meredith Franklin of the University of Toronto, the lead investigator. “They put their lives on the line for our country, and they deserve every effort to protect their health.” The project was funded by NASA and other researchers came from Harvard University, NASA and the VA.

Another NASA program to use satellite data to track health outcomes, Multi-Angle Imager for Aerosols, is set to launch in 2024 with help from the Italian Space Agency, according to NASA.

Ian Munro, 757-447-4097, [email protected]

A temporary exhibit will open Friday at the Military Aviation Museum, giving visitors an opportunity to learn the meaning of Memorial Day.

The Poppy Wall of Honor, measuring 7 feet tall and 7 feet wide, will offer an interactive display outlining conflicts dating to World War I. The red poppy flower is an international symbol of remembrance of the more than 645,000 military service members who gave their lives in combat.

Through a collaboration with USAA, the exhibit will be on display at the Virginia Beach museum through June 14.

“We are honored to partner with the Military Aviation Museum this year to extend our presence with the Poppy Wall of Honor as part of their Memorial Day observance. Our commitment to helping raise awareness of the true meaning of Memorial Day remains strong and we hope visitors will appreciate the additional opportunity to pause and remember those that gave their lives in service to our country,” said retired Lt. Cmdr. Joel Vargas, Military Affairs Representative at USAA.

The Military Aviation Museum also partnered with USAA to offer free and discounted admission to current and former service members.

Beginning Friday, military members, veterans, USAA members and USAA employees will receive a 50% discount on admission to the Military Aviation Museum. From May 26-29, those eligible will receive free admission.

The museum is at 1341 Princess Anne Road in Virginia Beach.

Caitlyn Burchett, [email protected]

A force to be reckoned with.

That is how Lt. j.g. Lael Sommer and Ensign Peyton Sommer describe their mom, retired Cmdr. Jensin Sommer.

“She’s about grit,” Lael said.

A first-generation immigrant from Taiwan, Jensin decided early she would attend the Naval Academy. She graduated in 1991 and pursued a 21-year Navy career, serving as a public affairs officer while raising two children with her husband, also a career Navy officer.

Now, those two children are following in her footsteps.

Lael Sommer, 25, is a navigator aboard the USS Gravely, a Norfolk-based destroyer. Peyton Sommer, 23, is a naval flight officer assigned to the VAW-120 Hawkeyes at Naval Station Norfolk. Both are Naval Academy graduates, just like their mother. Their father, retired Capt. John Sommer, also is a Naval Academy graduate.

“Having two parents come home in naval officer khakis, that was on the regular,” Peyton said of his upbringing in a military household. “And as a kid, I was like ‘Oh this is normal, this is the way most kids grow up.’ But most kids grow up with very different circumstances, and being 23 years old now, I give more credit to my mom and applaud her. She did what she needed to do, and her and my dad — their combined efforts — got the job done.”

“But so many other women had many more challenges than I. Yes, I juggled an active-duty career, but there were women of my era who were operational …” Jensin began.

“We are trying to give you credit,” Peyson said.

“Yeah, credit where credit it’s due. You did a good job, Mom,” Lael said.

The Sommers’ careers led the family to five duty stations, including Japan for Jensin’s seagoing tour from 2006-08 on the USS Kitty Hawk.

“It was a great combination of operational experience for me, but also knowing my husband and kids were on base with a great setup, living overseas, and periodically being able to see them,” Jensin said.

She recalls the family often had to rely on childcare centers or nannies while taking on non-traditional parental roles to juggle the demands of an active duty Navy career with raising children.

“And also being a partnership — my husband and I. He had to step in and do a lot of the cooking and household stuff. And I am more handy … You just have to make it work,” Jensin said.

But sometimes there is no substitute for Mom, Lael said.

“I could not for the life of me do my own ponytail. I asked my dad a couple times. He would do it for me, but he could not,” Lael said, shaking her head as she laughed. “And I remember the first day she got back I was like, ‘Mom, can you put my hair in a ponytail?’”

Lael, who was between 9 and 11 at the time, doesn’t remember her mom ever being home when stationed in Japan, but has memories of visiting her aboard the carrier. Seeing her mom as a strong female in a professional capacity, Lael said, set the tone for how she carries herself as a naval officer.

“She has warned me to be cognizant that perception is reality. I can be a lot more bubbly and outgoing, so I think she did a good job of mentoring me to be aware of that so that I’m not immediately underestimated … I am smart. I am capable,” Lael said.

As the Gravely’s navigator, Lael is responsible for determining the ship’s position and ensuring it is in safe water when underway. She also trains and oversees seven quartermaster sailors.

“Just observing her and the way that she talked to people, it instilled a lot of confidence in me growing up,” Lael said. “It kind of helped me learn how to not only like talk to people, but talk to different kinds of people.”

For Peyton — his mom who offered support and guidance during trying times at the Naval Academy.

“I never thought I’d be cut out for the Naval Academy … Once I finally got to the Naval Academy, I struggled a lot in my first year — just part of growing up and maturing,” he said. “But knowing that my mom was able to go through all the training and excel and have a successful career, 21-plus years in the Navy. Knowing where she came from — if she can do it, I can do it.”

As a naval flight officer aboard an E-2 Hawkeye, Peyton will interact with the radar systems, relying information to carrier strike groups.

Lael and Peyton said Jensin is “not a typical mom.”

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“She was not the type that can’t bear to be away from her children,” Lael said. “She was like, ‘You just do the job. You chose to be in the military. You chose to make the sacrifice. You know what comes with it.’… But she nurtured the qualities in us today that I think I’m most proud of.”

She and Peyton then rattled off: perseverance, determination, ambition, integrity, resourcefulness,

“And gratitude,” Peyton said.

“Yeah, definitely … She’s a force to be reckoned with,” Lael said. “Even going through the Navy when it was called GURL — that was what they called general unrestricted line for women back then — but she was just unfazed by that. I feel like she was a trailblazer in that she was a first generation immigrant. She decided from a young age she wanted to go to the Naval Academy because she wanted to give back to this country that gave her and her family so many opportunities.”

But Jensin says she and her family are “nothing special.”

“I was just very fortunate to have had the opportunity to serve the Navy … It means so much to me to have gone to the Naval Academy and to have been in the Navy, and for my kids to follow in my footsteps is utterly the best thing I could have ever wished for, and more than that, that they find it fulfilling,” Jensin said.

Caitlyn Burchett, [email protected]

NEW YORK — A U.S. Marine veteran who used a fatal chokehold on an agitated New York City subway passenger was freed from custody Friday hours after surrendering to face a manslaughter charge filed nearly two weeks after the encounter.

Daniel Penny, 24, appeared in court after turning himself in at a police station to answer criminal charges in the May 1 death of Jordan Neely. He did not enter a plea. Neely’s death sparked protests, while others embraced Penny as a vigilante hero.

A judge authorized Penny’s release on bond and ordered him to surrender his passport and not to leave New York without approval. Prosecutors said they are seeking a grand jury indictment. Penny is due back in court on July 17.

Penny didn’t speak to reporters as he arrived at a Manhattan police station with his lawyers Friday morning, nor did he respond to questions shouted by reporters as he was led from the police precinct house in handcuffs several hours later.

Inside the courtroom, Penny faced straight ahead, his hands still cuffed. He spoke softly, offering one-word answers to Judge Kevin McGrath as his lawyer, Steve Raiser, placed an arm around his shoulder.

Penny’s lawyers have said he was acting in self-defense when he pinned Neely to the floor of the subway car with the help of two other passengers and held him in a chokehold for several minutes.

A freelance journalist who recorded Neely struggling to free himself, then lapsing into unconsciousness, said he had been shouting at passengers and begging for money aboard the train but had not gotten physical with anyone. Penny’s lawyers have said he was “threatening” passengers but haven’t elaborated.

Neely’s death has raised an uproar over many issues, including how those with mental illness are treated by the transit system and the city, as well as crime, race and vigilantism. Penny, who is white, was questioned by police in the aftermath but was released without charges. Neely was Black.

Thomas Kenniff, one of Penny’s attorneys, said the veteran didn’t mean to harm Neely and “is dealing with the situation, like I said, with the sort of integrity and honor that is characteristic of who he is and characteristic of his honorable service in the United States Marine Corps.”

Donte Mills, a lawyer for Neely’s family, said Neely wasn’t harming anyone.

“There was no attack,” Mills said at a news conference Friday. “Mr. Neely did not attack anyone. He did not touch anyone. He did not hit anyone. But he was choked to death.” Penny, he said, “acted with indifference. He didn’t care about Jordan, he cared about himself. And we can’t let that stand.”

Neely’s father, Andre, wept as another family lawyer, Lennon Edwards, recounted the last moments before Penny tackled Neely to the ground and put him in a chokehold.

“What did he think would happen?” Mills asked.

Friends of Neely said the former subway performer, remembered by some commuters for his Michael Jackson impersonations, had been dealing with homelessness and mental illness in recent years. Neely had been arrested multiple times and had recently pleaded guilty for assaulting a 67-year-old woman leaving a subway station in 2021.

Mills said Neely’s outlook changed after his mother was killed by her boyfriend in 2007. Through his struggles, Mills said, Neely found joy in singing, dancing and bringing a smile to other people’s faces.

“No one on that train asked Jordan: ‘What’s wrong, how can I help you?’” Mills said, urging New Yorkers in a similar situation: “Don’t attack. Don’t choke. Don’t kill. Don’t take someone’s life. Don’t take someone’s loved one from them because they’re in a bad place.”

The Manhattan district attorney’s office had investigated the case for several days before deciding to file charges, in part to try to learn what happened aboard the train in the moments before Penny moved to restrain Neely. Prosecutors did not immediately explain why they decided criminal charges were warranted.

Neely’s death prompted protests in the city. On Wednesday, New York City Mayor Eric Adams, who had earlier said the investigation needed time to play out, gave an address in which he said Neely’s death shouldn’t have happened.

A second-degree manslaughter charge in New York will require the jury to find that a person has engaged in reckless conduct that creates an unjustifiable risk of death, and then consciously disregards that risk.

The law also requires that conduct to be a gross deviation from how a reasonable person would act in a similar situation.

The charges could carry a maximum penalty of 15 years imprisonment, though any jail term could also be far shorter.

___

Associated Press writers Bobby Caina Calvan and Karen Matthews contributed to this report.

Dr. Robert Haley still has questions.

“You’re always just trying to relieve this frustration that you don’t know the answer,” Haley said.

The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center researcher is among those who have studied an illness afflicting thousands of Gulf War veterans since the mid 1990s.

“First we proved that it was a disease and that it was an injury,” Haley said. “Then we proved that Sarin gas did it and then we’ve got this gene-environment interaction and the guys that are sick — it’s not their fault; they were born with a susceptibility.”

From the beginning, it was considered a mystery disease due to a lack of records of what every person was exposed to every day, according to Haley.

“This is no longer a mystery disease,” he said.

Using genetics, a study released by Haley and others last year linked the malady noted to cause respiratory complaints, sleep disturbances, forgetfulness, and muscle and joint pain, to the deadly chemical weapon Sarin. This study was another step in theory about the illness that afflicts roughly one-third of the 700,000 veterans deployed to the Persian Gulf is brain inflammation.

Before the first Gulf War, Saddam Hussein “had the second largest arsenal of nerve gas in the world,” said Haley.

Earlier this month, the VA and National Institutes of Health began a five-year pair of studies to better diagnose and potentially discover a treatment for the illness.

After 10 years researching epidemiology, Haley met in 1994 with Ross Perot, the Texas business magnate who had just failed in an independent candidate bid for the presidency.

Perot was looking for advice about a troubling trend he was hearing from veterans of the Gulf War. Perot, also a veteran, went on to describe “Gulf War Syndrome” and wasn’t sure the soldiers were getting the care they needed.

Haley said he remembers Perot showing him photos of soldiers who he described as looking like Arnold Schwarzenegger before the war and then like the prisoners of a concentration camp in years following the conflict.

Perot, who died in 2019, had resources and was looking to help the veterans and wanted an independent study into what he was meeting with veterans of the conflict, according to Haley.

“He had really piqued my interest — basically what he was describing was an epidemic,” Haley said.

Haley then agreed to do one study. Previous complaints about what would become known as Gulf War Illness were considered post-traumatic stress disorder at first and other psychological disorders, according to Haley.

Haley’s first investigation was on a reserve unit of construction troops who were civilians after the conflict. With 250 of the reservists signed up thanks to Perot’s help, Haley found two-thirds of them had this mystery illness through a questionnaire and neurophyschological battery. From there, the study expanded to more cities.

At first, Haley was skeptical, “but boy, talking to them and talking to their wives particularly this was something really serious and was impairing their function,” he said.

He brought the data back and analyzed it.

“Clearly, there was a disease and the symptoms were pretty uniform,” Haley said.

The data pointed to risk factors primarily as being in areas with exposure to levels of nerve gas in the air, according to Haley.

“We had all these high-tech weapons and nuclear capability and all this stuff, but we had a really primitive defense against nerve gas,” Haley said — rubber suits, gas masks alarms and a common drug to make nerve gas less lethal.

A Sarin gas storage facility was blown up in the air campaign and though much of the gas had dissipated, alarms went off and soldiers donned protection gear. But the levels were so low, the alarms were figured to be false, according to Haley.

“Now we know, 30 years later, there’s been tons of research showing that even low-level exposure can produce permanent brain effects,” Haley said.

Jim Tuite, former lead investigator for the Senate committee looking into the syndrome, produced a report about such a situation to the committee.

Haley asked Perot to fund another study with about 40 soldiers. These sorts of efforts in the 90s proved the illness was its own disease.

Next, evidence pointed to a gene that different soldiers had which provides to the effects of Sarin gas, Haley said.

“Our theory was then that if Sarin was the cause, then we would expect people who have the illness to be born with the weak form of that gene,” Haley said.

As research was compiled, more people contributed — such as Congress and the Department of Defense, he said.

In 2007, they designed a huge study telephone questionnaire for which the military helped researchers to contact soldiers, according to Haley.

He said 8,000 soldiers from the Gulf War era responded to questionnaire with more of an emphasis on contacting those who deployed in the conflict. The questionnaire included if a nerve gas alarm went off.

From there, they were able to get 2,000 for DNA to again examine the soldier’s gene’s strength against Sarin.

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Those soldiers who said they had heard a nerve gas alarm and had a weak form of the gene: “whoosh,” Haley said, as it explained many cases. However, he added that even those with stronger forms of the gene who heard multiple chemical weapon alarms over and over could still develop symptoms.

That paper was released in May 2022 in toxicology journal Environmental Health Perspectives, supported by one NIH institute after over a year of review to ensure correlation was in fact causation in this case, Haley said.

Like the VA and NIH, Haley continues to work to find a cure. He said when breakthroughs have occurred, like any good scientists, his first question is always to question his own findings and ensure they are solid.

“You go over and over them, reproduce them in another, test it another way to see if it stands up and by the time you get to where we are now and right now I don’t even think about what we’ve done I’m just totally into trying to figure out how do we now nail this finding down about inflammation,” he said.

“I’ll have great satisfaction then when hearing a bunch of veterans say they feel better,” he said.

Ian Munro, 757-447-4097, [email protected]

AUSTIN, Texas — A U.S. Army sergeant who fatally shot an armed protester at a Black Lives Matter march in Texas was sentenced to 25 years in prison Wednesday, after prosecutors used his social media history and text messages to portray him as a racist who may commit violence again.

Daniel Perry’s sentence now pushes the case toward a potentially thorny decision for Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, who has said he wants to issue a swift pardon.

Abbott requested the state Board of Pardons and Paroles to send him a pardon recommendation for Perry shortly after he was convicted in April of killing Garrett Foster at the Austin march in July 2020.

Abbott lauded Texas’ tough Stand Your Ground self-defense laws and said Perry was railroaded by a liberal prosecutor. Since then, Perry’s trail of texts and online posts, including shockingly racist images, have been made public and the governor has stayed silent on the matter.

Abbott’s office did not respond to an Associated Press request for comment on the sentence or whether he still intends to issue a pardon. Perry, 36, could have received up to life in prison.

Rice University political science professor Mark Jones said Abbott moved too soon on the call for a pardon.

“Abbott clearly boxed himself into a corner,” when he appeared to respond to criticism from conservative former Fox News star Tucker Carlson, who demanded the governor act, Jones said.

“I suspect if Gov. Abbott had known all that he knows now, he would not have jumped the gun on pledging to pardon him,” Jones said.

The Pardons and Parole board, which is appointed by Abbott, has already started reviewing Perry’s case. State law requires the board to recommend a pardon before the governor can act.

The case has been embroiled in politics as it came amid widespread demonstrations against police killings and racial injustice, following the killing of George Floyd, a Black man, by a white Minneapolis police officer.

Perry’s attorneys on Wednesday called the case a “political prosecution” and the release of the texts and social media posts “character assassination.”

Attorney Clinton Broden said the defense team would pursue both a pardon and a standard appeal in the court system.

“Those who claim that Governor Abbott’s expressed intent is based on politics simply choose to ignore the fact that it was only the political machinations of a rogue district attorney which led to Sgt. Perry’s prosecution,” he said.

Travis County District Attorney Jose Garza said it was Abbott “who decided to insert politics in this case.” Garza said he’s been assured by the parole board that he and Foster’s family will be given a chance to address the board in Perry’s case.

In a statement, the board confirmed the investigation is ongoing and declined further comment.

“The entire history of the board, the board has been a careful steward of the power of clemency in this state,” Garza said. “Our criminal justice system is not perfect, but in this case it worked exactly as it should. The Travis County District Attorney’s office is not done fighting for Garrett and the integrity of that process here.”

In a brief statement before sentencing, state District Judge Clifford Brown said Perry received a fair trial. The jury’s verdict “deserves our honor and it deserves to be respected,” Brown said, without mentioning the potential pardon.

Jones predicted the board will let Perry’s legal appeals happen first, and that it would be years, if ever, before the board makes a recommendation in the case.

“The majority (of conservatives) will want to put it in the rearview mirror,” Jones said. “Conservatives have far better causes and individuals to support, far better than Daniel Perry.”

Perry, who is white, was stationed at Fort Hood, about 70 miles (110 kilometers) north of Austin, when the shooting happened. He was working as a ride-share driver and had just dropped off a customer when he turned onto a street filled with protesters. Foster, a 28-year-old Air Force veteran who was also white, was legally carrying an AK-47 rifle.

Perry said he acted in self defense, claiming that he was trying to drive past the crowd and fired his pistol when Foster pointed a rifle at him. Witnesses testified that they did not see Foster raise his weapon, and prosecutors argued that Perry could have driven away without shooting.

Army spokesman Bryce Dubee has said Perry is classified as in “civilian confinement” pending separation from the military.

Among Perry’s statements introduced Tuesday, he wrote on Facebook a month before the shooting: “It is official I am a racist because I do not agree with people acting like animals at the zoo.”

Floyd was killed on May 25, 2020. A few days later as protests erupted, Perry sent a text message to an acquaintance: “I might go to Dallas to shoot looters.”

Foster was with his girlfriend, Whitney Mitchell, who is Black and uses a wheelchair, when Perry gunned him down. Mitchell and several members of Foster’s family were in the courtroom for sentencing Wednesday.

Foster’s mother, Sheila Foster, was allowed to address Perry after he was sentenced and still in the courtroom.

“After three long years we’re finally getting justice for Garrett,” she said. “Mr. Perry, I pray to God that one day he will get rid of all this hate that is in your heart.”