Retiree News photograph | click to enlarge
This photograph was taken on August 4, 2003 at the State Capitol. Governor Linda Lingle pinned Darryll Wong to brigidier general in a ceremony in Ceremonial Room at the Capitol.
In the photograph are two retired chief master sergeants – Darryl Ho and Thomas Sato.
Darryl served as the NCOIC of the Consolidated Base Personnel Officer (CBPO) for many years before his retirement.
Tom served on the fighter flightline for many years. He was one of the NCOs on the flightline when then-Capt Wong started his Hawaii Air National Guard career as an aircraft maintenance officer.
From the U.S. News & World Report website
Retirees have an opportunity to relocate to a place that better suits their interests and budget. The challenge is finding a place that will meet all of your retirement needs. A new U.S. News analysis compared the 100 largest metropolitan areas in the United States as potential retirement spots.
The study included data about housing affordability, happiness, desirability, retiree taxes, the job market and access to quality health care. The data was weighted based on a U.S. News online survey of people age 45 and older about their retirement preferences.
Over half of the list contains cities from just three states: Florida, Texas and Pennsylvania. There are seven cities in Florida that made the 25 Best Places to Retire, largely due to affordable homes, low taxes and high ratings for happiness and desirability. The list also contains four places in Texas and three Pennsylvania communities that provide a high quality of life at an affordable price.
The U.S. Army has taken steps to energize its recruiting machine, but the service may still be many months away from unveiling a new slogan to replace “Army Strong.”
It’s been just over four months since Sergeant Major of the Army Daniel Dailey floated the idea that the Army might come up with a new slogan that’s as powerful as “Be All You Can Be” was to the Army at the end of the 20th Century.
From the Task and Purpose website
Army Maj. Brent Taylor was killed in an apparent insider attack in Afghanistan on Saturday, but days before his tragic death, he penned a powerful call to action for his fellow Americans ahead of Election Day in November: Embrace the glory of democracy.
“It was beautiful to see over 4 million Afghan men and women brave threats and deadly attacks to vote in Afghanistan’s first parliamentary elections in eight years,” Taylor, a 39-year-old Utah National Guardsman and the mayor of North Ogden, Utah, wrote in his final Facebook post on October 28. “The strong turnout, despite the attacks and challenges, was a success for the long-suffering people of Afghanistan and for the cause of human freedom.”
“As the USA gets ready to vote in our own election next week, I hope everyone back home exercises their precious right to vote. And that whether the Republicans or the Democrats win, that we all remember that we have far more as Americans that unites us than divides us.”
Thousands of Afghans turned out to vote in the country’s first parliamentary in years in the aftermath of another devastating insider attack in Kandahar that wiped out the province’s top security officials and left an American general wounded.
“Many American, NATO allies, and Afghan troops have died to make moments like this possible; for example, my dear friend Lieutenant Kefayatullah who was killed fighting the Taliban the day before voting began,” Taylor wrote on Facebook.
Taylor, a Bronze Star and Purple Heart recipient, was on his fourth tour in Afghanistan and had previously served two tours in Iraq. He is survived by his wife and seven children.
“There are men and women who go off to a deployment every day with no fanfare, with no attention, with no news articles on one individual. It’s what they do. The call to serve comes up, and you just answer it,” Taylor told Deseret News as he prepared to return to Afghanistan in January. “If it’s something we can do, and the call comes to serve, we say yes.”
Hawaii Air National Guard photograph | click to enlarge
This undated photograph shows then-Capt Gary “Pork” Peters during a family day doing a cockpit orientation of a F-4C Phantom.
Pork joined the 199th Fighter Squadron out of U.S. Marine Corps in June 1984. He flew F-4 Phantoms and F-15 Eagles during his time with the squadron. He served in several staff positions and later became the squadron commander.
In September 1998, Pork left Hawaii to become the commander of the then-181st Fighter Wing in Terre Haute, Indiana. The Wing flew F-16 Fighting Falcons. In 2004, he retired and started working for defense contractors.
According to his LinkedIn page, Pork recently joined Valiant Global Defense Services at MCAS Yuma.
In 2008, the Wing had a mission change and was redesigned the 181st Intelligence Wing.
Here’s some good news about medical expenses in retirement: health care inflation has slowed over the past year, lowering your projected lifetime tab, according to a new report. And here’s the bad news: even at this lower growth rate, health care expenses are a runaway train that can plow a hole into the most carefully constructed budget.
Retirement health care expenses are projected to rise at an average annual rate of 4.2%, versus an estimated 5.5% last year, according to a report released last week by HealthView Services, a Danvers, Massachusetts-based company that provides retirement health care cost data and tools to financial advisors. The report attributed this decline primarily to slower growth in the cost of prescription drugs.
From the Everyday Health website
Nearly 1 in 3 adults — 75 million Americans — has high blood pressure, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. While eating healthier and reducing sodium intake are great ways to lower your blood pressure, exercise is a crucial and potentially fun way to fight hypertension.
Although not every form of exercise might be right for you, there are a number of ways you can stay active to keep your blood pressure down. Here are four options:
Believe it or not, spam still dominates the palate of many local breakfast and brunch spots in Honolulu, but a new construction boom has brought new plates and new life to the Aloha State restaurant scene. That means more varied brunch options everywhere you turn. Why get simple scrambles when you can now kau kau, or eat, a mouth-watering Short Rib Loco Moco or a decadent order of green tea pancakes?
Sure, you can keep your Spam, but you’ll have to make room for these tasty bites served up at the best brunch spots in town.
From the U.S. News & World Report website
You may have followed your credit score closely during your working years, when milestones often coincided with credit checks for mortgages and car loans. However, certain factors related to credit change when you enter retirement. You might not have a mortgage anymore, and have no plans to purchase another car. Only 16 percent of baby boomers were concerned about maintaining good credit as a top financial priority when getting ready for retirement, according to a 2017 TransUnion survey.
But before brushing credit to the side, it’s important to carefully consider whether you will need credit during your retirement years. “Seniors may not anticipate using credit during retirement, but circumstances change,” says Mike Sullivan, a personal finance consultant with Take Charge America, a nonprofit credit counseling and debt management agency. Here’s how credit might be used in the years to come, along with good strategies to stay on top of your credit.
From the Task and Purpose website
Here is what we have learned from the military and what has become routine for a head injury whether in Iraq, Afghanistan or the emergency room in your city after admission for a presumptive head injury or stroke.
As soon as you enter the emergency room (ER) as a “Head Injury,” your blood pressure and breathing will be stabilized. ER doctors know the procedures and will, if there are signs of increased intracranial pressures, put you into a drug-induced coma to slow any ongoing damage to injured brain cells and protect any of the remaining healthy tissues from undergoing any secondary damage.
Hawaii Air National Guard photograph | click to enlarge
Hawaiian Raptors from the Hawaii Air National Guard 154th Wing and the active duty 15th Wing are back on the Big Island! This time at the Hilo International Airport for another round of logistics capabilities training just in case we get diverted to alternate airfields in the Hawaiian islands. Between training we’ll have an F-22 Raptor exhibit open to the public, Nov 1 and 2, 430p-7p. Come down and see us and talk story!
The role of family caregiver is not unlike other important roles we may play in life — bride or groom, mother or father — except for one thing: It doesn’t come wrapped in happiness. You don’t enthusiastically share with co-workers that your mom has Stage 4 lung cancer or excitedly tell neighbors that your husband was just diagnosed with Alzheimer’s.
But there are ways for family caregivers to find happiness in their caregiving journey.
We spend so much time and effort obsessing over how to generate enough money to have enough money for retirement. We work hard, save diligently and invest strategically, all in the hopes that eventually our nest eggs will be big enough to support the lifestyle we want once we quit working.
Amid all that striving and working, many people forget to employ some simple strategies that could make a huge impact on how much money they keep in their pockets that they can then add to their retirement savings. What are they?
Taking steps to lower taxes after you retire. Here are a few ways you can do just that.
This undated photograph was taken at the alert pad. It shows L-R: Harold “Shaka” Schatz, Les O’Brian, Jamie Bury, and Richard Dove in front a F-4C Phantom.
After the F-4 era, Shaka transitioned to the F-15 Eagle, and flew several more years with the 199th Fighter Squadron before retiring.
Les was a weapons systems officer (WSO) who was an Air Force Advisor assigned to the 199th Fighter Squadron. He moved on to another assignment after his HIANG tour. The Air Force Advisor program faded away during the F-4 era. Side bar – in reviewing documents, there is some confusion whether his name is spelled O’Brian or Obrian.
Jamie moved to support positions after the F-4 era. He retired after serving his 20 years.
Rich became the Director of Personnel for a few years before leaving the Guard. We believe his call sign was “Big Bird”.
Mahalo to Harold “Shaka” Schatz and Stanley “Ossum” Osserman for helping with the ID and providing comments.
