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Not nearly as bad as CheneyBush/911
Hours after images of bloodied Orlando, Florida nightclub patrons flashed across screens around the world, so-called Islamic State (IS) “fanboys” seemed energized, claiming and then trumpeting the terror group’s success on social media. Yet while the pain and suffering caused by 29-year-old shooter Omar Saddiqui Mateen will linger, there is some doubt among those in the counterterrorism business that the group’s declared victory early Sunday morning by someone they likely never even heard of will be anything more than fleeting for the self-declared caliphate.
The problem for IS, they say, is that such high-profile violence, a hallmark of the group’s rapid rise, was never really the driving factor. “During its rapid expansion in 2014, ISIL was able to parlay battlefield success into public relations momentum and establish itself as a magnet for new recruits,” a U.S. intelligence official told VOA using an acronym for the terror group. With losses mounting in Iraq, Syria and even Libya, IS has become increasing desperate “to grab headlines and stoke fear,” the official said, all in an attempt to mask its inability to hold on to territory as a variety of forces with U.S. and coalition backing close in. “ISIL is unable to respond,” the official added. “So it is instead lashing out.” The tactic does not seem to be playing well with would-be recruits, who at one point were flocking to IS at the rate of 1,000 a month.
Runners pass under the the flags flying at half-staff around the Washington Monument at daybreak in Washington, Monday, June 13, 2016. The flags were ordered to half-staff by President Barack Obama to honor the victims of the Orlando nightclub shootings.
U.S. intelligence and military officials say in recent months the flow has slowed to a trickle, with no signs of speeding up. “If the goal of Islamic State is to reverse its losses in Iraq, in Syria, to really change any of the main organization dynamics which really seem to be going south for this group, then attacks like these will be completely insignificant,” said Max Abrahms, a terrorism theorist at Northeastern University and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. “Foreign fighters were attracted to the group because they wanted to side with a stronger force,” he said. “Had [the Orlando terror attack] happened two years ago, when Islamic State was making territorial gains, I think more foreign fighters would be inclined to join up with the group.” “ISIL’s outlook is in fact cloudy,” said Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. “I don’t think they can reverse their losses in Iraq, Syria or in Libya.”
But Gartenstein-Ross said that does not mean the terror group is any less lethal, a warning repeated constantly by intelligence officials. “The key thing to look for, in this case particularly, is North America and whether you get other copycats acting in ISIS’s name,” he said. “If that happens you can see, perhaps, an energizing of their North American network in the United States and in Canada.”
Carnage in Orlando Could Prove Hollow Victory for Islamic State
One day after the worst mass-shooting in U.S. history, this was known about the killer: he supported Islamic State but had no known direct ties; he expressed hatred of gays; his ex-wife accused him of being abusive; and he earlier claimed ties to al-Qaida, prompting the FBI to question him at least twice. Omar Marteen was also a Muslim, a father, a son of middle-class Afghan immigrants, a security guard for nearly a decade and the owner of a state-issued firearms license. The question some are asking is which of the above factors provides a key to why Marteen walked alone into a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, early Sunday and killed 49 people.
Flood of information after attacks
In a non-descript office in a shopping mall on the edge of the campus of George Washington University in Washington, D.C., researchers log the tweets of English-speaking Islamic State (IS) supporters worldwide. The Center for Cyber and Homeland Security is one of many centers for the study of extremism cropping up across the U.S. “There is a really big swell of information that comes right after attacks," says research fellow Audrey Alexander, who, along with her colleagues, follow more than 1700 English speaking accounts – 300 of them in the U.S. “[Social media] gives tremendous legitimacy to the (IS) movement," she said. "So, the fact that there is such an outgrowth within the United States shows that this a powerful narrative and it is a salient message.”
A Twitter feed logged by the Center for Extremism at George Washington University.
The “message” has resonated with a small but active group of IS social media supporters across the U.S. According to a report released by the Center last year called “ISIS In America” — a title that uses a different acronym to identify IS, which is also known as ISIL and Daesh — more than 56 people took things a step farther and were arrested for actively assisting the terror organization in some way. Why this small cadre of Americans is attracted to IS is far from clear. All of the experts VOA spoke with agreed there is no common profile. Of the 56 arrests last year, 86 percent of them were male; the overwhelming majority were U.S. citizens or permanent residents who ranged in age from 15 to 47. “Statistically, the vast majority are homegrown,” Said Lorenzo Vidino, who co- authored the report. “All kinds of backgrounds, maybe second generation immigrants.”
Failing at life
The pitch is fast, but the swing of the bat is on target. Danish Bashir, 25, sprints toward first base as his parents, Imran and Amina, cheer for his adult softball league team from the stands. It’s a scene that could take place in any town across America. The Bashir family are Pakistani-American immigrants; their two sons, Danish and Daniyal, were born and raised in the U.S. They are part of the fabric of the 3 million-plus Muslims living in the United States. According to a recent Pew Research Center report, Islam will be the second-largest religion in the U.S. by 2050. If presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump — who has called for a ban on Muslims entering the U.S. — were to get his way, families like the Bashirs would never have been allowed in America. And they never would have had the opportunity to become citizens.
Calls for ban
In a speech given Monday after the shooting in Orlando, the real estate mogul doubled down on his call for a ban. “The bottom line is that the only reason the killer was in America in the first place was because we allowed his family to come here," Trump told the crowd. "That is a fact and it is a fact we need to talk about." Amina and Imran Bashir came to America in 1988 to attend Syracuse University in upstate New York. They met in their second year, eventually married, and decided to stay and raise their family in the U.S. “We just embraced it,” says Amina speaking about integrating into American culture. “We were used to student life. We came and it was a lot of fun. Imran would wake up with MTV on. We loved it over here.” The Bashirs have settled comfortably into a colonial-style home in the upper-middle-class Virginia suburbs of Washington.
Family
Imran and his eldest son, Danish, work in the computer technology industry. The youngest son, Daniyal, is a doctor of pharmacy candidate at the University of Baltimore. “Springfield is good enough,” Amina said of the town she calls home. “Everything is here. We all have family near here, they are all split up and it doesn’t matter whether our neighbors are Muslim or not. You know it really doesn’t matter to me.” While there are cities in the U.S. that have large concentrated Muslim populations, the vast majority are well integrated — spread out in mixed neighborhoods across the country.
Muslims in Europe
Molenbeek, a Brussels melting pot of more than a half-dozen nationalities, is located a half-hour walk from the city’s fabled Grand Place. It’s here where some jihadi fighters have returned from Syria, and where some of the suspects linked to terrorist attacks in Brussels and Paris grew up. But Molenbeek is more than the sum of a few radical residents. It is the reflection of today’s rapidly changing, multicultural Europe that demands, experts and activists say, new ways of rethinking integration. For some, that means recognizing different notions of belonging — to a neighborhood or city, for example, as well as to a nation.
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Pentagon Press Secretary Peter Cook said that the Purple Heart for Brown would be considered but the award would "depend on the definition of the event" in which his life was lost, a reference to the criteria for the Purple Heart established by Congress after the Fort Hood, Texas, shootings in 2009. Cook said the decision on the award would be up to the Army. Brown was at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando frequented by the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community when the worst mass shooting in U.S. history occurred. Police say he was among the 49 killed by 29-year-old Omar Mateen, who reportedly pledged allegiance to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria in 911 calls.
Following lobbying by families of the victims, Congress in 2013 added to the criteria for the Purple Heart to make victims of the Fort Hood massacre eligible. At Fort Hood, Nidal Hasan, a U.S. Army major and psychiatrist, fatally shot 13 people and wounded more than 30 others. Hasan was sentenced to death and is being held at the U.S. Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, during appeals. Congress in 2015 amended the National Defense Authorization Act to expand eligibility for the Purple Heart to include troops killed in an attack where "the individual or entity was in communication with the foreign terrorist organization before the attack," and where "the attack was inspired or motivated by the foreign terrorist organization."
Antonio Davon Brown, a 29-year-old captain in the U.S. Army Reserve, was one of 49 people who was killed in the shooting
Then-Army Secretary John McHugh later said, "The Purple Heart's strict eligibility criteria has prevented us from awarding it to victims of the horrific attack at Fort Hood. Now that Congress has changed the criteria, we believe here is sufficient reason to allow these men and women to be awarded and recognized with either the Purple Heart or, in the case of civilians, the Defense of Freedom medal." McHugh's action also applied to an attack on a Little Rock, Arkansas, recruiting station in 2009 in which Pvt. William Long was killed and Pvt. Quinton Ezeagwula was wounded. The shooter, Abdulhakim Muhammad, was later convicted and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Brown, who joined the Army three years before the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy against openly gay service was scrapped, was assigned to 3rd Battalion, 383rd Regiment, 4th Cavalry Brigade, 85th Support Command based in St. Louis, Missouri. Brown, whose home of record was listed as Orlando, graduated from Florida (A&M) Agricultural and Mechanical University with his undergraduate degree in Criminal Justice. He was commissioned as a second lieutenant on August 8, 2008. In 2010, he received his Master's degree in Business Administration from University of Mary, North Dakota. In May 2009, he served on active duty with the 1st Special Troop Battalion, Fort Riley, Kansas. It was during that assignment with the battalion that Brown served an 11-month overseas deployment to Kuwait, the Army Reserves said.
In a statement Tuesday, Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said that Brown "served his country for nearly a decade, stepping forward to do the noblest thing a young person can do, which is to protect others. "His service both at home and overseas gave his fellow Americans the security to dream their dreams, and live full lives," Carter said. "The attack in Orlando was a cowardly assault on those freedoms, and a reminder of the importance of the mission to which Capt. Brown devoted his life."
Army Captain Killed in Orlando May Be Eligible for Purple Heart: Cook | Military.com
Angel Candelario-Padro served in the Puerto Rico National Guard and the U.S. Army Reserve, officials said. "It is again with our deepest sadness, our heartbreak that we inform you that National Guardsman SPC. Angel Candelario-Padro was among the victims we have lost," said Matt Thorn, executive director of OutServe-Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, a Washington, D.C.-based organization that represents the U.S. lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community. Candelario-Padro had been a member of the Puerto Rico National Guard and was assigned to the Army band, Thorn said in a statement. He also played clarinet with his hometown band and had just moved to Orlando from Chicago, he said.
Candelario-Padro served in the Guard from Jan. 12, 2006, until Jan. 11, 2012, at which point he transferred to the U.S. Army Reserve, Sgt. 1st Class Michael Houk, a spokesman for the National Guard Bureau, confirmed in an email to Military.com. Additional information about his service history wasn't immediately available from the U.S. Army Reserve. The 248th Army Band posted a condolence message and photo of Candelario-Padro on its Facebook page. "Very painful to mention this but we have to recognize and do a tribute to one of our own," it stated. "With great sadness I want to report the loss of who was in life the SPC ANGEL CANDELARIO. The Band 248 joins the sadness that overwhelms your family and we wish you much peace and resignation. Spc Candelario, rest in peace."
Candelario-Padro for two years prior lived in Chicago, where he worked at the Illinois Eye Institute and had side jobs at Old Navy and as a Zumba instructor, according to an article in The Chicago Tribune. He was at the Pulse nightclub frequented by the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community when the worst mass shooting in modern U.S. history occurred. Authorities say 29-year-old Omar Mateen, who reportedly pledged allegiance to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria in 911 calls, killed 49 people and injured another 53 before being killed in a shootout with police.
Angel Candelario-Padro, a victim of the deadly shooting in Orlando, had served in the Puerto Rico National Guard and was a member of the band.
Army Reserve Capt. Antonio Davon Brown was also killed in the attack and may be eligible to receive the Purple Heart, a Pentagon spokesman said on Thursday. Meanwhile, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran, Imran Yousuf, 24, is being recognized as a hero for helping between 60 and 70 people escape the mass shooting by unlatching a door near the back staff halfway of the building. Candelario-Padro will be flown home to Puerto Rico to be buried in the Guanica Municipal Cemetery in a section reserved for service members, Thorn said.
Second Army Victim Identified among Casualties of Orlando Shooting | Military.com
A bunch of faggots getting killed is hardly the worst shooting in american history.No question waco is worse. Bill Clinton killed 80 americans when he sent in the TANKS and his victims were burned alive!!!. And waco was undoubtedly a hate crime. Gun owners and religious people are the groups liberals like clinton hate most of all.
I think he is just asking your straight up opinion.The homo nightclub patrons didn't kill themselves the way Vern Howell did in Waco.
Apples and oranges.
There were 21 innocent children in the Davidian residence. David Koresh was known to be psychologically unbalanced, yet the federal authorities saw fit to either start that fire -- or to provoke the known psycho to do it. Either way, who was clearly to blame?The homo nightclub patrons didn't kill themselves the way Vern Howell did in Waco.
Apples and oranges.
Getting drunk with degenerates is a military mission?Killed in his home town...
Army Captain Killed in Orlando May Be Eligible for Purple Heart: Cook
Jun 16, 2016 | The Defense Department on Thursday left open the possibility that Army Reserve Capt. Antonio Davon Brown, who was killed in the attack at the Orlando nightclub early Sunday, might be eligible to receive the Purple Heart.
Pentagon Press Secretary Peter Cook said that the Purple Heart for Brown would be considered but the award would "depend on the definition of the event" in which his life was lost, a reference to the criteria for the Purple Heart established by Congress after the Fort Hood, Texas, shootings in 2009. Cook said the decision on the award would be up to the Army. Brown was at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando frequented by the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community when the worst mass shooting in U.S. history occurred. Police say he was among the 49 killed by 29-year-old Omar Mateen, who reportedly pledged allegiance to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria in 911 calls.
Following lobbying by families of the victims, Congress in 2013 added to the criteria for the Purple Heart to make victims of the Fort Hood massacre eligible. At Fort Hood, Nidal Hasan, a U.S. Army major and psychiatrist, fatally shot 13 people and wounded more than 30 others. Hasan was sentenced to death and is being held at the U.S. Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, during appeals. Congress in 2015 amended the National Defense Authorization Act to expand eligibility for the Purple Heart to include troops killed in an attack where "the individual or entity was in communication with the foreign terrorist organization before the attack," and where "the attack was inspired or motivated by the foreign terrorist organization."
Antonio Davon Brown, a 29-year-old captain in the U.S. Army Reserve, was one of 49 people who was killed in the shooting
Then-Army Secretary John McHugh later said, "The Purple Heart's strict eligibility criteria has prevented us from awarding it to victims of the horrific attack at Fort Hood. Now that Congress has changed the criteria, we believe here is sufficient reason to allow these men and women to be awarded and recognized with either the Purple Heart or, in the case of civilians, the Defense of Freedom medal." McHugh's action also applied to an attack on a Little Rock, Arkansas, recruiting station in 2009 in which Pvt. William Long was killed and Pvt. Quinton Ezeagwula was wounded. The shooter, Abdulhakim Muhammad, was later convicted and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Brown, who joined the Army three years before the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy against openly gay service was scrapped, was assigned to 3rd Battalion, 383rd Regiment, 4th Cavalry Brigade, 85th Support Command based in St. Louis, Missouri. Brown, whose home of record was listed as Orlando, graduated from Florida (A&M) Agricultural and Mechanical University with his undergraduate degree in Criminal Justice. He was commissioned as a second lieutenant on August 8, 2008. In 2010, he received his Master's degree in Business Administration from University of Mary, North Dakota. In May 2009, he served on active duty with the 1st Special Troop Battalion, Fort Riley, Kansas. It was during that assignment with the battalion that Brown served an 11-month overseas deployment to Kuwait, the Army Reserves said.
In a statement Tuesday, Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said that Brown "served his country for nearly a decade, stepping forward to do the noblest thing a young person can do, which is to protect others. "His service both at home and overseas gave his fellow Americans the security to dream their dreams, and live full lives," Carter said. "The attack in Orlando was a cowardly assault on those freedoms, and a reminder of the importance of the mission to which Capt. Brown devoted his life."
Army Captain Killed in Orlando May Be Eligible for Purple Heart: Cook | Military.com
See also:
Second Army Victim Identified among Casualties of Orlando Shooting
Jun 17, 2016 | A second U.S. Army victim has been identified among the casualties of the deadly shooting at an Orlando nightclub.
Angel Candelario-Padro served in the Puerto Rico National Guard and the U.S. Army Reserve, officials said. "It is again with our deepest sadness, our heartbreak that we inform you that National Guardsman SPC. Angel Candelario-Padro was among the victims we have lost," said Matt Thorn, executive director of OutServe-Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, a Washington, D.C.-based organization that represents the U.S. lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community. Candelario-Padro had been a member of the Puerto Rico National Guard and was assigned to the Army band, Thorn said in a statement. He also played clarinet with his hometown band and had just moved to Orlando from Chicago, he said.
Candelario-Padro served in the Guard from Jan. 12, 2006, until Jan. 11, 2012, at which point he transferred to the U.S. Army Reserve, Sgt. 1st Class Michael Houk, a spokesman for the National Guard Bureau, confirmed in an email to Military.com. Additional information about his service history wasn't immediately available from the U.S. Army Reserve. The 248th Army Band posted a condolence message and photo of Candelario-Padro on its Facebook page. "Very painful to mention this but we have to recognize and do a tribute to one of our own," it stated. "With great sadness I want to report the loss of who was in life the SPC ANGEL CANDELARIO. The Band 248 joins the sadness that overwhelms your family and we wish you much peace and resignation. Spc Candelario, rest in peace."
Candelario-Padro for two years prior lived in Chicago, where he worked at the Illinois Eye Institute and had side jobs at Old Navy and as a Zumba instructor, according to an article in The Chicago Tribune. He was at the Pulse nightclub frequented by the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community when the worst mass shooting in modern U.S. history occurred. Authorities say 29-year-old Omar Mateen, who reportedly pledged allegiance to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria in 911 calls, killed 49 people and injured another 53 before being killed in a shootout with police.
Angel Candelario-Padro, a victim of the deadly shooting in Orlando, had served in the Puerto Rico National Guard and was a member of the band.
Army Reserve Capt. Antonio Davon Brown was also killed in the attack and may be eligible to receive the Purple Heart, a Pentagon spokesman said on Thursday. Meanwhile, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran, Imran Yousuf, 24, is being recognized as a hero for helping between 60 and 70 people escape the mass shooting by unlatching a door near the back staff halfway of the building. Candelario-Padro will be flown home to Puerto Rico to be buried in the Guanica Municipal Cemetery in a section reserved for service members, Thorn said.
Second Army Victim Identified among Casualties of Orlando Shooting | Military.com
The parents who agreed to put them in that environment.There were 21 innocent children in the Davidian residence. David Koresh was known to be psychologically unbalanced, yet the federal authorities saw fit to either start that fire -- or to provoke the known psycho to do it. Either way, who was clearly to blame?The homo nightclub patrons didn't kill themselves the way Vern Howell did in Waco.
Apples and oranges.
Again, 21 children. Some as young as two. Regardless of any other consideration those kids were best described as hostages. Still, in spite of Koresh's threat to kill everyone inside if a breach was attempted, the feds saw fit to drive a tank retriever's boom through a wall and shoot in military-grade CS gas canisters that burn off at more than 2700f. Even if the feds didn't know these canisters could easily start a fire, they knew there were kids inside and they knew Koresh was a dangerous, suicidal crazy who had repeatedly warned that he would kill everyone if an attempt was made to break in.
So, weighing all of the above facts, who would you say was directly to blame for the horrible deaths of those children?
Why?The parents who agreed to put them in that environment.There were 21 innocent children in the Davidian residence. David Koresh was known to be psychologically unbalanced, yet the federal authorities saw fit to either start that fire -- or to provoke the known psycho to do it. Either way, who was clearly to blame?The homo nightclub patrons didn't kill themselves the way Vern Howell did in Waco.
Apples and oranges.
Again, 21 children. Some as young as two. Regardless of any other consideration those kids were best described as hostages. Still, in spite of Koresh's threat to kill everyone inside if a breach was attempted, the feds saw fit to drive a tank retriever's boom through a wall and shoot in military-grade CS gas canisters that burn off at more than 2700f. Even if the feds didn't know these canisters could easily start a fire, they knew there were kids inside and they knew Koresh was a dangerous, suicidal crazy who had repeatedly warned that he would kill everyone if an attempt was made to break in.
So, weighing all of the above facts, who would you say was directly to blame for the horrible deaths of those children?
The massacre at Wounded Knee killed more...No question waco is worse. Bill Clinton killed 80 americans when he sent in the TANKS and his victims were burned alive!!!. And waco was undoubtedly a hate crime. Gun owners and religious people are the groups liberals like clinton hate most of all.
The massacre at Wounded Knee killed more...
If you include women and children that are unarmed and killed an honor, then pat yourself on the back...The massacre at Wounded Knee killed more...
We were at war with the injuns. THINK, hater.
If it were, you'd be in a nightly military mission with your familyGetting drunk with degenerates is a military mission?Killed in his home town...
Army Captain Killed in Orlando May Be Eligible for Purple Heart: Cook
Jun 16, 2016 | The Defense Department on Thursday left open the possibility that Army Reserve Capt. Antonio Davon Brown, who was killed in the attack at the Orlando nightclub early Sunday, might be eligible to receive the Purple Heart.
Pentagon Press Secretary Peter Cook said that the Purple Heart for Brown would be considered but the award would "depend on the definition of the event" in which his life was lost, a reference to the criteria for the Purple Heart established by Congress after the Fort Hood, Texas, shootings in 2009. Cook said the decision on the award would be up to the Army. Brown was at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando frequented by the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community when the worst mass shooting in U.S. history occurred. Police say he was among the 49 killed by 29-year-old Omar Mateen, who reportedly pledged allegiance to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria in 911 calls.
Following lobbying by families of the victims, Congress in 2013 added to the criteria for the Purple Heart to make victims of the Fort Hood massacre eligible. At Fort Hood, Nidal Hasan, a U.S. Army major and psychiatrist, fatally shot 13 people and wounded more than 30 others. Hasan was sentenced to death and is being held at the U.S. Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, during appeals. Congress in 2015 amended the National Defense Authorization Act to expand eligibility for the Purple Heart to include troops killed in an attack where "the individual or entity was in communication with the foreign terrorist organization before the attack," and where "the attack was inspired or motivated by the foreign terrorist organization."
Antonio Davon Brown, a 29-year-old captain in the U.S. Army Reserve, was one of 49 people who was killed in the shooting
Then-Army Secretary John McHugh later said, "The Purple Heart's strict eligibility criteria has prevented us from awarding it to victims of the horrific attack at Fort Hood. Now that Congress has changed the criteria, we believe here is sufficient reason to allow these men and women to be awarded and recognized with either the Purple Heart or, in the case of civilians, the Defense of Freedom medal." McHugh's action also applied to an attack on a Little Rock, Arkansas, recruiting station in 2009 in which Pvt. William Long was killed and Pvt. Quinton Ezeagwula was wounded. The shooter, Abdulhakim Muhammad, was later convicted and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Brown, who joined the Army three years before the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy against openly gay service was scrapped, was assigned to 3rd Battalion, 383rd Regiment, 4th Cavalry Brigade, 85th Support Command based in St. Louis, Missouri. Brown, whose home of record was listed as Orlando, graduated from Florida (A&M) Agricultural and Mechanical University with his undergraduate degree in Criminal Justice. He was commissioned as a second lieutenant on August 8, 2008. In 2010, he received his Master's degree in Business Administration from University of Mary, North Dakota. In May 2009, he served on active duty with the 1st Special Troop Battalion, Fort Riley, Kansas. It was during that assignment with the battalion that Brown served an 11-month overseas deployment to Kuwait, the Army Reserves said.
In a statement Tuesday, Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said that Brown "served his country for nearly a decade, stepping forward to do the noblest thing a young person can do, which is to protect others. "His service both at home and overseas gave his fellow Americans the security to dream their dreams, and live full lives," Carter said. "The attack in Orlando was a cowardly assault on those freedoms, and a reminder of the importance of the mission to which Capt. Brown devoted his life."
Army Captain Killed in Orlando May Be Eligible for Purple Heart: Cook | Military.com
See also:
Second Army Victim Identified among Casualties of Orlando Shooting
Jun 17, 2016 | A second U.S. Army victim has been identified among the casualties of the deadly shooting at an Orlando nightclub.
Angel Candelario-Padro served in the Puerto Rico National Guard and the U.S. Army Reserve, officials said. "It is again with our deepest sadness, our heartbreak that we inform you that National Guardsman SPC. Angel Candelario-Padro was among the victims we have lost," said Matt Thorn, executive director of OutServe-Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, a Washington, D.C.-based organization that represents the U.S. lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community. Candelario-Padro had been a member of the Puerto Rico National Guard and was assigned to the Army band, Thorn said in a statement. He also played clarinet with his hometown band and had just moved to Orlando from Chicago, he said.
Candelario-Padro served in the Guard from Jan. 12, 2006, until Jan. 11, 2012, at which point he transferred to the U.S. Army Reserve, Sgt. 1st Class Michael Houk, a spokesman for the National Guard Bureau, confirmed in an email to Military.com. Additional information about his service history wasn't immediately available from the U.S. Army Reserve. The 248th Army Band posted a condolence message and photo of Candelario-Padro on its Facebook page. "Very painful to mention this but we have to recognize and do a tribute to one of our own," it stated. "With great sadness I want to report the loss of who was in life the SPC ANGEL CANDELARIO. The Band 248 joins the sadness that overwhelms your family and we wish you much peace and resignation. Spc Candelario, rest in peace."
Candelario-Padro for two years prior lived in Chicago, where he worked at the Illinois Eye Institute and had side jobs at Old Navy and as a Zumba instructor, according to an article in The Chicago Tribune. He was at the Pulse nightclub frequented by the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community when the worst mass shooting in modern U.S. history occurred. Authorities say 29-year-old Omar Mateen, who reportedly pledged allegiance to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria in 911 calls, killed 49 people and injured another 53 before being killed in a shootout with police.
Angel Candelario-Padro, a victim of the deadly shooting in Orlando, had served in the Puerto Rico National Guard and was a member of the band.
Army Reserve Capt. Antonio Davon Brown was also killed in the attack and may be eligible to receive the Purple Heart, a Pentagon spokesman said on Thursday. Meanwhile, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran, Imran Yousuf, 24, is being recognized as a hero for helping between 60 and 70 people escape the mass shooting by unlatching a door near the back staff halfway of the building. Candelario-Padro will be flown home to Puerto Rico to be buried in the Guanica Municipal Cemetery in a section reserved for service members, Thorn said.
Second Army Victim Identified among Casualties of Orlando Shooting | Military.com
