WASHINGTON — As you walk along the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington D.C., you can hear the sound of pencils rubbing across paper as those who served with or family of the particular veteran whose name is engraved in the stone creates a rubbing copy of the name to take with them.

On a recent Honor Flight Tri-State trip, Korean War veteran Paul Dickmann wandered along the wall in search of five names.

“I’m getting up in years and it was important to me while I was here,” Dickmann said.

With a small notepad in hand one by one he found each name.

The five names are out of a list of 20 soldiers killed in the Vietnam War who came back home to Boone County.

One of the men was Sergeant Charles Fleek of Petersburg, Kentucky. The Medal of Honor recipient jumped on top of a grenade to save his fellow soldiers. Fleek's medal is embedded in the wall of the Boone County courthouse for all to see.

Although Fleek was from Kentucky, he enlisted through a Cincinnati recruitment office.

“He's listed as a Congressional Medal of Honor winner in Ohio, but we know in Kentucky he's one of our boys,” Dickmann said.

The other names he searched for were men from Hebron and Petersburg. All five were people he had a close connection with, but did not know. The connection was only made possible by Dickmann's post-service work as a funeral director.

“I had the privilege of conducting services for nine of them, so while we're here I’m saying hello and goodbye one more time,” he said.

Having made the connection his journey ends a decades-old mission to continue to honor these men.

“Touch their spirit one more time,” he said. “I've touched their bodies, now I'm touching their spirit."

If you have a veteran story to tell in your community, email homefront@wcpo.com. You also can join the Homefront Facebook group, follow Craig McKee on Facebook and find more Homefront stories here.

Women are the fastest-growing segment of the veteran population — and the homeless veteran population.

Despite over 200 years of service, women say they’re often not recognized as veterans.

“My husband is in the Marine Corps," said Cynthia Taylor, an Army veteran. "His service always, always overshadows mine. No one ever assumes I’m the veteran.”

Taylor served nearly seven years as a combat swim instructor and logistics specialist in the Army.

“I was stationed in Germany and ran 38 different warehouses. We supported Africa and all throughout Europe with supplies, as far as helicopter supplies and food. We provided for humanitarian missions in Africa and things of that nature," said Taylor.

Skills she uses today in her work supporting women veterans. Taylor is a program support coordinator for the Foundation for Women Warriors, a 100-year-old nonprofit dedicated to honoring and empowering the women veteran community.

The nonprofit is campaigning to honor women veterans with a California license plate dedicated to their service. The effort began with a woman who served in the Air Force during Vietnam, who also designed the special decal.

Jodie Grenier, CEO of the foundation, shares a similar experience as Taylor after transitioning from the military.

“When I did tell people that I served in the Marine Corps or served in combat in Iraq, I was often met with, 'Well, you're so petite,' or 'Your hair is so long,'" Grenier.

Questions, she says, men often don’t receive.

"Even if we go to a veteran appointment together, veteran, VA appointment, they will ask for his ID. And he'll be like, she's the veteran, we're here for her," said Taylor. “I had a veteran license plate, they thought I was driving my husband’s car. It wasn’t me. I wasn’t the veteran.”

Despite her years of leadership in the Army, Taylor faced a new uphill battle entirely entering the civilian world.

“I had very little savings, I didn’t have a job, I ended up moving back with my parents because they don’t prepare you for any of that," said Taylor. "You don't know your benefits, what’s available to you because they don’t share it with you.”

And the sisterhood she once had all but disappeared.

"The men, you can only joke around so much, but they don't understand what you're going through," said Taylor. “You just feel so disconnected that you don't know how to make friends with regular people, and it was really isolating and lonely.”

Grenier believes a lack of recognition of women's service has contributed to issues seen today, including many women not accessing the benefits they've earned and a general misunderstanding in society about how many women serve in the military.

“Women have served this country long before they even had the right to vote. They served dating as far back as the Revolutionary War, where they disguised themselves as men to provide battle care. For years and years, women have participated in wars, and it wasn’t even until the 1970s that women that participated in WWI were recognized as veterans.”

Grenier says the isolation and barriers to health care are compounded for women, who have a higher rate of single parenting.

“You don’t serve with a ton of women, and when you transition, you certainly don't transition out into some sort of sisterhood," said Grenier.

According to the VA, 18 states or territories currently offer women veterans license plates.

To make the women veteran license plate available to all California women veterans through the DMV, the foundation must first collect a minimum of 50 paid applications for the license plate with a special decal.

“This is not an initiative to say women veterans need their own thing," said Grenier. "But until we get there until society realizes that women are veterans as well, this is just another way that we can honor the service of these women.”

“Having something that symbolizes the woman as the veteran really speaks volumes and honors her service, that she is the one that made the sacrifice," said Taylor. “I think as a community we owe it to that individual to make sure they don't become homeless, that they are offered the same chances as their male counterparts.”

More than symbolic, they hope it will connect women.

"I really look forward to the day when I can honk my horn and wave and say, 'Thank you for your service,' and know that it’s a woman in the vehicle.”

The foundation is also collecting new and unused children’s toys, clothes, and baby items for women veterans, hoping to support 100 veteran families this holiday season.

Hundreds of thousands of veterans are sitting and waiting for their claims for benefits to be reviewed as the U.S Department of Veterans Affairs pushes to hire 2,000 employees to help with the growing caseload.

In an email sent out to veterans in October, the VA projected a backlog of pending cases to reach 260,000 out of an inventory of 603,000 cases.

This backlog comes as the VA is adding three new presumptive health conditions to those deployed to Asia.

“These three conditions are respiratory conditions: chronic asthma, sinusitis, and rhinitis,” said Beth Murphy, Executive Director of Compensation Service.

She says those impacted by the new conditions are those who deployed to southwest Asia from August of 1990 to present day or were deployed in Syria, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan or Djibouti from September 19, 2001, to present day.

“There's a potentially eligible population, among those folks, up to 3.5 million veterans,” Murphy said.

That's a case load that, depending on how many of those eligible apply, will bog down a process with a 125-day average timeline for a case decision, according to Murphy.

She says teams are working overtime to process claims.

“Just since August, we've already processed 4,000 claims, millions of dollars in benefits and health care to these veterans,” Murphy said. “We continue to process the claims as they come in. And we're encouraging folks to file if they have one of these conditions, or if they have a respiratory condition, and they're not quite sure if it's one of those three. Please reach out, ask questions, file a claim. We're here to help.”

As of the 4^th quarter of fiscal year 2021, Kentucky has 4,125 servicemembers signed up to the "Burn Pit Registry," according to data on the VA website. Ohio has 6,215 participants and Indiana has 3,489.

Those are just those who’ve signed up for the registry, and the presumptive conditions are not just tied to the burn pits. The conditions are tied to particulates in the air from a range of sources.

If you’re a veteran who has already applied for benefits, you should receive something in the mail notifying you of the new illnesses tied to presumptive conditions and toxic exposure.

“If you've already filed a claim for one of these conditions, but it's still pending, you haven't received a decision yet, we’re asking folks to sit tight on those. They will be processed, and they will be considered under all available service connection,” Murphy said.

If you haven’t filed and you’re a veteran who served in those regions, head over to VA.org to begin the process for applying for benefits.

If you have a veteran story to tell in your community, email homefront@wcpo.com. You also can join the Homefront Facebook group, follow Craig McKee on Facebook and find more Homefront stories here.

EVENDALE, Ohio — There’s something to be said about keeping secrets, and GE Aviation has done a pretty good job with that over the years. During the early 1980s, many of its employees built engines in a special assembly line, but never knew what aircraft the engine would fly.

“When they first started to produce these, they had to build a separate classified production line so the people in the manufacturing plant couldn’t know what they were making, and they were shipped in crates off to Burbank, California, to Lockheed Martin to put them in the jet,” said Cole Massie, media relations for GE Aviation.

Those engines powered the F-117 Stealth Fighter.

GE Aviation got its footing on military aviation, despite it being only about 15% of the work it does today. The major work the company does is tied to commercial aircraft engine building. As you drive along I-75, you can’t help but notice the gigantic GE Aviation facility in Evandale.

“The Air Force actually encouraged GE to buy this plant,” Massie said.

Over the years, GE Aviation played a critical role in every major combat situation, whether through its first venture into aviation technology ensuring World War II bombers could get to their target, or the A-10 Warthog flying inverted toward enemy tanks on the battlefield. Engineers continue to gain the eye of Air Force contracts.

“The Air Force is fielding the F-15EX, which is the most up-to-date version of the F-15, and the Air Force selected GE’s engine to power the first eight examples of that jet,” Massie said.

GE Aviation is also working on a prototype engine to attempt to revolutionize the Air Force fleet.

“This is the next generation of engine architecture,” said David Tweedie, general manager of Advanced Combat Engines for GE Aviation.

He says the XA100 hit the drawing board in 2007 and it’s taken this long to get full testing underway.

“Right now, it’s a prototype we’re looking forward to putting into production for the F-35 and the airplanes that come beyond the F-35,” Tweedie said. “We have now run the two prototype engines; currently running the second.”

The engine design is called adaptive and will seamlessly change fuel use based on the need of the pilot or situation in flight.

“Fighter engines are typically sized to maximize thrust at the expense of fuel efficiency,” said Tweedie.

The XA100, according to Tweedie, will change the game when it comes to that fuel efficiency component, extending the capability of the Air Force and any aircraft flying it.

“They will fly and operate the airplane the way they will normally do, and the engine will decide which mode is most appropriate based on what’s needed at that point,” Tweedie said.

The House of Representatives has given GE Aviation an expected deadline of 2027 for full production status.

It’s another engine in a long history of engines created in secret to maintain the military advantage over other countries.

“If you think about some of the secret programs that have come to light in the past, you think about the F-117 Stealth Fighter. That engine was built by GE under complete secrecy,” Massie said. “The B-2 has GE engines. Those were developed in secrecy. The U-2 spy plane has GE engines developed in secrecy, and GE has a history of working on classified and military products and this is the next in a long line of military programs.”

There are approximately 1,400 military veterans currently working at GE Aviation. The company was recently named a Top Veteran-Friendly Company by U.S. Veterans Magazine.

If you have a veteran story to tell in your community, email homefront@wcpo.com. You also can join the Homefront Facebook group, follow Craig McKee on Facebook and find more Homefront stories here.

NORWOOD, Ohio — As the final hours of U.S. involvement in Afghanistan tick down, some cases of mental health tied to post-traumatic stress sparked by the chaos in Kabul have some veterans reaching out for help.

“It was heartbreaking. To see what people sacrificed and gave up for 20 years to watch it all just crumble before us,” Air Force veteran Tyler Britton said.

He’s served on a critical care transport team during the war. It was a fast-paced job he said he loved, and one he felt played a role in the ongoing fight against the Taliban.

“There were three tours, there were about 90 missions, 150 or so patients all around the world,” Britton said.

Now, 20 years later, the Taliban is back in control. As a veteran looking at the uprising of concern across non-military or veteran groups, he said he can see an awakening regarding the fact U.S. troops were still in Afghanistan.

“I've heard more about Afghanistan in the past two weeks than I had, you know, since I joined in 2000,” Britton said. “It's kind of disheartening to see, it's disheartening on both ends, right. You got an American public who, quite frankly, didn't care. And then you have the, the other side where you watch all the sacrifices that people made, and now it's just gone. It's all for naught.”

Frustrations being experienced by many Afghanistan War veterans.

“The primary reaction has been increased PTSD symptoms, which can include flashbacks, nightmares, panic attacks, hyper arousal, hyper vigilance,” said Cher Runtenelli, director of the Cincinnati area Vet Center.

She said the number of walk-ins and return veterans coming in the door of the center on Montgomery Road in Norwood with specific issues tied to the images they’re seeing on television has increased. In some instances, they’re Vietnam-era veterans with memories of the evacuation of Saigon.

WCPO Staff

The predominant veterans coming through the door right now, Runtenelli said, are those who’ve never really sought treatment for issues dealing with their wartime experiences.

”One symptom of PTSD is what we call avoidance, and you want to avoid all your thoughts and feelings related to your experience,” she said.

Army National Guard and Iraq War veteran Taylor Cott decided to use his school benefits after his service to become a certified counselor to help his fellow veterans post service. He now works at the Vet Center.

“We are getting blown up with calls," he said. "I mean, there's just call after call of people who have never engaged in this is the tipping point for them.”

He said one part in the process toward healing is to ensure these Afghanistan veterans focus on the single mission they were responsible for and the fact they completed the mission they were tasked with during deployment.

“You did your part, like don't carry the weight of the world almost,” Cott said. “That's all we can ask for any service member.”

Being mindful of your thoughts and what you're feeling and thinking during this time is also critical to realize you may need to reach out to the Vet Center, he said.

“Realize that maybe there's something past anger, push past that anger, maybe, maybe you're hurting," Cott said. "And hurting is best realized in community. We're not meant to be an island. So come, you know, hurt with us because we're hurting too. But we, thank God, have some skills. And we've learned a few tricks and we want to share those tricks with our fellow veterans.”

WCPO Staff

The counseling sessions have turned the compass for him, Cott said, and he encourages his fellow Afghan war vets to take that first step.

“A lot of veterans, are kind of taught to suck it up and move on,” he said. “So, I think it'll take a while for these groups to really get going. But once they do, I think there'll be a lot of freedom in that and realizing you're not alone – and your experience and what you're going through.”

Due to the increase in the number of veterans coming through the door the Vet Center has extended its counseling services. Patient walk-ins are welcome anytime during normal hours. Group sessions for Afghan War veterans take place every Tuesday at 11 a.m. and 6 p.m.

The Vet Center is located at 4545 Montgomery Rd, Norwood, OH 45212. Their phone number is 513-763-3500.

If you have a veteran story to tell in your community, email homefront@wcpo.com. You also can join the Homefront Facebook group, follow Craig McKee on Facebook and find more Homefront stories here.

HILLSBORO, Ohio — Veterans returning to civilian life sometimes face mental health issues as a result of their time spent during deployment. One local charity, Save a Warrior, helps soldiers deal with those issues through an intense program.

“Once you have an absence of hope, inside of the spirit inside of somebody's psyche, that's when the trouble starts. That's when you can start going down that really dark path,” said Adam Carr, executive director of Save A Warrior.

The non-profit focuses on ‘alternative holistic’ approaches to overcome the symptoms associated with post-traumatic stress and suicidal ideations, according to its website.

“We would love to be the first stop on somebody's journey as they're getting ready to transition,” Carr said. “We're here through transformation to inspire hope inside of a human being so they can take a different path, because we know our veterans and first responders, they deserve it. They've served our country; they've given everything to ensure that we get this incredible life of freedom that we have.”

Carr went through the program himself, following his time as a soldier within Special Forces. He discovered an all-too-common sense of trouble navigating the world outside of deployments and military structure. He missed the sense of serving.

“I was losing friends in combat," he said "I lost friends to suicide, commanders. I mean, the list goes on, we could have a whole segment just on that. And I was really looking for something that was having an impact in this area. And I found that through Save A Warrior.”

The SAW program is an intense 72-hour initial experience to get to the root of the issues followed by a 500-day plan to get the veteran back on track.

Courtesy, Save a Warrior

“I tried to go back into my old life, though, afterwards, you know, I tried to cope with my problems, the way that I knew how to cope with them. It wasn't until I actually hit my, you know, my real bottom, after Save a Warrior that I decided to, like, really buckle down,” Army veteran Keith Johnson said.

His journey after the military had its ups and downs. He used the education benefits he earned during his service to send himself to culinary school, with the goal of becoming a chef. However, despite his full certification, his lifestyle had veered him off course.

“I ended up at Save a Warrior after I caught a few felonies," Johnson said. "And basically, crashed my life in the ground.”

Save A Warrior was the lifeline he needed. He now serves as the organization’s executive chef planning and cooking for the dozen or so attendees to the program during different class groups or cohorts.

Courtesy, Save a Warrior

To date, the organization said they’ve had 1500 veterans and/or first responders come through the program. Those attending range from modern day veterans from Afghanistan and Iraq to veterans from World War II who are still dealing with the effects of their service.

“What happens is a 500-day, well-executed plan that really helps somebody get into a community, that 500 day starts when they come through the program, and then take a day by day, daily practice into account, whether it's meditation, serving other people, a lot of times, that's volunteering, and getting things back on track, into where life really, if you're to look at things in the fork of a road looks completely different 500 days later,” Carr said.

Rosa Torres is the Female Programming Facilitator for Save A Warrior and describes one of the principals behind what they do to help those attending process whatever weight the person is carrying.

“We're not negating what happened, we're not trying to erase what happened,” she said. “What this program does is it strips away the power, what happened, happened, it's how we perceive it, how we accept it, how it occurs to us, that can either affect our lives negatively, or just be another thing that we can accept, learn how to accept, and then continue to live a full life.”

Courtesy, Save a Warrior

According to Torres, women veterans or first responders carry the burden tragedy in a different manner which means women coming through the program often take a different route to free themselves.

“Women, by and large, carry a burden that men don't carry, because life comes through us. And we are responsible for life,” Torres said. “And then when we were present when lives are lost or taken, or even more so responsible for taking lives, as in the military, something inside is wounded, to the point where we start to feel that there will, never be a healing for that. This program, by and large, helps us address those wounds, and heal them. So that we can take our lives back and live with the freedom that life should bring us.”

The Save a Warrior headquarters is also expanding to be able to help even more veterans and first responders improve their mental health and overall well-being.

“We have the construction of the first ever National Center of Excellence for complex post-traumatic stress in the United States,” Carr said.

They hope to have the facility completed by the end of 2021.

People interested in finding out more information about the Save A Warrior program can visit their website.

If you have a veteran story to tell in your community, email homefront@wcpo.com. You also can join the Homefront Facebook group, follow Craig McKee on Facebook and find more Homefront stories here.

CINCINNATI — Police departments across Ohio have received a recommendation from the Ohio Attorney General to implement a program created in Cincinnati to aid police response to a scene where a veteran is in crisis.

The Military Liaison Group was the idea of Cincinnati Police Sergeant Dave Corlett.

“Last year we were about 1,000 officers, over 300 veterans in the department so we’re more than a 30% veteran department which allowed me to expand the program,” Corlett said.

The concept is relatively simple: Veterans currently serving within the department respond to scenes where military veterans are in distress. It could be a domestic call or even a situation where the veteran is threatening suicide.

“The communication that goes on between two veterans is much different than the communication that would go on between a law enforcement officer and a veteran,” Corlett said. “The ability to have relatable experiences -- you can’t get any better than that.”

It’s part of the de-escalation process and often opens the door to treatment or services the veteran didn’t realize were available to them.

“I’m a Gulf War veteran, so I was out of the military and here serving in the police department by June 1992. I didn’t learn until five or six years ago that I was eligible for healthcare at the VA," Corlett said. "So, that kind of struck me that if I didn’t know those things other veterans don’t know them either."

That led to a discovery process for Corlett, who began to not only get healthcare at the VA, but he also began to better understand the process so he could share the knowledge with other veterans on the department and help veterans when he dealt with them during police calls.

“So, when I’m talking to a veteran and telling him he needs to go to the VA I don’t just tell him he needs to go to the VA, I ask him if he’s willing to go with me and speak to a doctor I know by name and I will take you there myself,” said Corlett.

That scenario played out one night when a veteran had a mental health crisis and barricaded himself inside with several guns, threatening to kill himself.

"Our crisis negotiator had been on the phone with him for 90 minutes before he remembered we existed," Corlett said. "He called me, woke me up and said, 'I need you to get down here.' Ten minutes later, he walked out and surrendered to me and I personally drove him up to the Veterans Administration hospital."

He said what they do is not a Band-Aid.

"We try to follow up and try to guide them into fixing the issues that brought to the crisis in the first place," said Corlett.

The program is made up of partnerships from the Veterans Court, Easterseals, sheriff's departments, fire departments, and more.

The success of the program and its simplistic approach caught the eye of Ohio’s Attorney General.

“I was so impressed with this, I immediately talked to my team and said we need to push this out around the state," Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost said. "We need to help other departments begin to do this.”

Working with Corlett, the AG’s office created the Veterans Response Program guidelines for other police departments in the state.

“There’s a lot of talk about de-escalation and this is just one tool in that de-escalation toolkit,” Yost said. “Instead of hooking someone up and taking them down to the county, connecting them to resources to help them is a much better outcome.”

While he said the program doesn’t prevent arrests if the situation warrants it, it does put veterans on a path, whether through Veterans Court or the VA healthcare system, to turn their situation around.

“Recognizing the particular issues that a vet might have and looking for a way to respond proportionally,” Yost said.

As Corlett prepares for retirement from the police department, he said he’s proud of the program he will leave behind and the mark he’s made on so many other veterans.

“This program brought me back to where I felt like I was making a difference, and that was my goal as a policeman to begin with,” Corlett said.

You can read the Veterans Response Program guidelines on the Ohio Attorney General’s website.

If you have a veteran story to tell in your community, email homefront@wcpo.com. You also can join the Homefront Facebook group, follow Craig McKee on Facebook and find more Homefront stories here.

ATTLEBORO, Mass. —

It was a reunion seven months in the making when Air Force Master Sgt. Hector Rivera finally returned home to his dog, Kanoh.

"He’s my son. He’s going to be seven years old in March, and I've had him since he was a pup, and I didn’t have anyone that could take care of him," Rivera said. "It was tough leaving him behind."

He loves his 6-year-old dog so much, he had him tattooed on his arm.

To make sure his dog was taken care of while he was in Kuwait, Rivera turned to a program called Dogs on Deployment.

"This is the second time I've used them. Words cannot describe how thankful I am," he said. "They have been wonderful to me. Constantly, they would stay in contact with me. That made me feel great."

Through the program, volunteer families foster dogs whose owners are overseas.

Before he left, Rivera entrusted Kanoh to Joanne and David Donahue.

"Honestly, I just want to say, I'm so grateful, grateful for people like Joanne and David," he said.

"He’s been just a wonderful dog," Joanne Donahue said. "I'm just so glad to see them back together again. It’s great."

Kanoh learned some new tricks while Rivera was away too, like closing doors and learning Spanish commands.

"This is the story the community needs. This is nothing but goodness right now," David Donahue said.

Finally, Rivera was able to come face-to-face with Kanoh for the first time in months.

"I didn’t know how he was going to react, to be honest with you," he said. "I got really teary. He knows. You can’t explain it."

For David Donahue, fostering Kanoh was also a lesson in what service can look like.

"The level of service is not just for veterans," he said. "I think we all as a community support their service, and that becomes our service."

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CINCINNATI — It’s summertime, and that means it is time to pack up those sleeping bags and backpacks for Veteran Camp. At least that’s the goal for Crossroads Church as they focus on bringing area veterans together for fellowship.

“No expectations other than to being community, recharge yourself, you know, forget about the things that you left outside our camp walls, and just focus on yourself, and be remembered that you have a community to help you moving forward,” said Mike Crossley, Base Camp director.

Crossley is a Marine Corps veteran, having served from 1986 to 1994 working in the field of reconnaissance. He is also a longtime member of Crossroads Church, which already had what they call "Man Camp."

“We recognized right away, the organic experience that Man Camp was, you know, totally transferable to the veteran community,” Crossley said.

It wasn't long before Air Force veteran Chris Yeazel joined discussions about launching Veteran Camp.

“We just keep pressing each other saying that, you know, we need to do this for vets, because it just made sense with the camaraderie and working together, building relationships,” Yeazel said.

When asked about veterans who aren’t regular attendees of the church or who practice another faith, Crossley said he understands why there could be some reluctance to attend.

“One thing, if anything, Crossroads does, we don't care where you are; we don't care what you look like; we don't care what your religious beliefs," Crossley said. "We just want you to here. We just want to show you what love is. Our number one priority is just being in community.”

That said, faith is at the heart of the camp, and Crossley pointed out that veterans can make a very familiar connection to what’s written in the Bible.

“There is one of the things that a veteran understands, is in the book of John, this is there's a verse that talks about, there's just no greater love than to lay down one's life for a friend," he said. "A veteran understands that. A veteran understands sacrifice.”

The 24-hour camp experience was created three years ago. The pandemic forced them to cancel the camp in 2020, so this upcoming camp will be its second.

Army veteran Chris Macklin works for Easterseals of Greater Cincinnati within the military and veteran services section.

“I signed up as soon as I saw the email,” he said.

Macklin spends his days helping veterans with everything from housing and automotive issues to employment opportunities, often working outside any type of normal hours to get the mission done.

“My tank was empty,” he said. “I needed somebody to pour some back into me because I was just feeling drained and didn't really know it.”

Macklin said he went to the first Veteran Camp held by Crossroads, and it led to great personal discoveries and a new network of support.

“To my amazement, it wasn't about church," he said. "It's really about building fellowship, creating a network, meeting other veterans that were struggling just like me, if not worse, and everybody just trying to find their own path to get out of what the bears they were facing."

Macklin is now planning to attend the second camp at the end of July.

“I got a championship — I got the arm-wrestling championship,” he said. “So, you guys out there that think you can handle, let’s go. Start to work out right now.”

As of now, the camp is only for male veterans. There is a registration fee to sign up for the overnight camp, but Crossley said veterans should not let the fee stop them from signing up.

Veterans interested in signing up for the camp can find more information on the Crossroads Church website or email manveterancamp@crossroads.net.

If you have a veteran story to tell in your community, email homefront@wcpo.com. You also can join the Homefront Facebook group, follow Craig McKee on Facebook and find more Homefront stories here.

GUATEMALA CITY —

With Kamala Harris visiting Guatemala and Mexico on her first foreign trip as vice president, the Biden administration is expected to announce new measures to fight smuggling and trafficking, and hopes to announce additional anti-corruption efforts as well on Monday, a senior administration official said.

The official, who briefed reporters traveling with Harris on Sunday, spoke on condition of anonymity to preview announcements before they have been made public. No further details were provided.

Harris has been tasked by President Joe Biden with addressing the root causes of the spike in migration to the U.S.-Mexico border, and her aides say corruption will be a central focus of her meetings with Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei on Monday and Mexico's Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador on Tuesday.

"Corruption really does sap the the wealth of any country, and in Central America is at a scale where it is a large percentage of GDP across the region," said special envoy Ricardo Zuniga.

"We see corruption as one of the most important root causes to be dealt with," Zuniga added.

The trip got off to a rocky start when Harris' plane returned to Joint Base Andrews in Maryland about 30 minutes after takeoff because of what her spokesperson said was a problem with the landing gear. She departed on another plane and landed late Sunday in in Guatemala City, where she was met by Foreign Minister Pedro Brolo.

Harris is seeking to secure commitments from Guatemala and Mexico for greater cooperation on border security and economic investment, and aides say she will also discuss vaccine sharing during her meetings. But corruption in the region — a far more intractable challenge — will complicate her efforts.

It's already had a significant impact on her work in Central America. Harris has yet to engage substantively with the leaders of Honduras and El Salvador, who are both embroiled in corruption scandals.

Giammattei has faced criticism over corruption within his own government. Zuniga acknowledged that the U.S. government faces a challenge in working with him but argued Harris was in the country in part to have a direct conversation with the president about this and other issues.

"The best way to deal with these cases where you have a very complex relationship in a country like Guatemala is to talk clearly and plainly as partners, as countries that have to get along," he said.

Harris has laid out an approach centered on creating better opportunities and living conditions in the region through humanitarian and economic aid. She announced plans to send $310 million to provide support for refugees and address food shortages, and recently secured commitments from a dozen companies and organizations to invest in the Northern Triangle countries to promote economic opportunity and job training.

Washington won some goodwill through its vaccine diplomacy this past week. Giammattei and López Obrador both received calls from Harris on Thursday telling them the U.S. would be sending 500,000 doses and 1 million doses, respectively, of COVID-19 vaccine.

While in Guatemala, Harris also plans to meet community leaders, innovators and entrepreneurs. In Mexico, she will speak with female entrepreneurs and hold a roundtable with labor workers.

She's underscored the need to address corruption in public remarks and events. In a May meeting with a number of leading voices on Guatemala's justice system, she noted her work as a prosecutor and said that "injustice is a root cause of migration."

"Part of giving people hope is having a very specific commitment to rooting out corruption in the region," she said.

Harris has also raised the issue during virtual meetings with the leaders of both countries, and aides say she will do it again during meetings on her trip. During their past conversations, they have discussed areas of mutual interest — improving port security, fighting smuggling networks, going after corrupt actors — and the goal of this trip is to turn that talk into action, aides say.

While the vice president will make announcements concerning new efforts at cooperation and new programs, she's not expected to announce any new aid during her trip.

While in Latin America, Harris will also have to navigate the politics of immigration. Congressional Republicans have criticized both Biden and Harris for deciding not to visit the border, and contend the administration is ignoring what they say is a crisis there. April was the second-busiest month on record for unaccompanied children encountered at the U.S.-Mexico border, following March's all-time high. The Border Patrol's total encounters in April were up 3% from March, marking the highest level since April 2000.

Conservatives will be watching Harris closely for any missteps, hoping to drag her into further controversy on an issue that they see as a political winner.

In her efforts to win commitments on corruption from the region's leaders, Harris can point to a number of moves by the Biden administration last week.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken emphasized the problem during his own recent trip to Central America. The White House issued a memo elevating foreign corruption to a major national security issue, and directed all federal agencies to prioritize it and modernize their foreign corruption-fighting tools.

Eric Olson, director of policy at the Seattle International Foundation, which works to promote good governance in Central America, said that addressing corruption will take particular diplomatic skill. Harris will need to hold the leaders of Guatemala and Mexico accountable while also deepening trust and cooperation with the two nations.

"The challenge that she faces is how to, on the one hand, have a conversation, keep the door open — while not seeming to ignore the obvious elephant in the room, which is this incredible penetration of the state by corrupt actors," he said.

In Mexico, López Obrador continues to face a complicated security situation in many parts of the country. Nearly three-dozen candidates or pre-candidates were killed before this weekend’s midterm elections as drug cartels sought to protect their interests. The government’s inability to provide security in parts of the country is of interest to the U.S. in an immigration context, both for the people who are displaced by violence and the impact it has on a severely weakened economy trying reemerge from the pandemic.

The number of Mexicans encountered by U.S. Customs and Border Protection rose steadily from December through April. Mexico remains a key U.S. ally in trying to slow immigration, not only of its own citizens, but those crossing its territory. Successive U.S. administrations have effectively tried to push their immigration enforcement goals south to Mexico and Guatemala.

Nongovernmental organizations placed Guatemala's widespread corruption at the top of their list of concerns before Harris' visit.

Last month, two lawyers who are outspoken critics of Giammattei's administration were arrested on what they say were trumped-up charges aimed at silencing them.

The selection of judges for Guatemala's Constitutional Court, its highest, was mired in influence peddling and alleged corruption. Giammattei picked his chief of staff to fill one of the five vacancies. When Gloria Porras, a respected force against corruption, was elected to a second term, the congress controlled by Giammattei's party refused to seat her.

Harris' visit comes with high expectations, but experts say clear progress on corruption may be elusive.

"These are societies built on corruption," said Olson. "You're not gonna have an impact in six months."

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Sherman reported from Mexico City. Associated Press writer Sonia Pérez D. in Guatemala City contributed to this report.