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Nathan Johnson, a third-year law student at the UA Little Rock William H. Bowen School of Law, has made the most of his “COVID summer” and has been selected to join the U.S. Air Force JAG Corps.
Johnson began law school at Bowen with no idea what he wanted to do. However, as he took Professor Terrence Cain’s Criminal Law course, he realized he was passionate about criminal law.
“I was learning everything I needed in other classes. I was grasping the concepts, but there wasn’t that ‘spark’ you look for in a career,” Johnson explained. “But criminal law its history and importance, what is at stake–was intriguing. It clicked in a way nothing else had. I knew I wanted to have a career where I could give it my primary focus.”
By Caitlin M. Kenney
Jan 14, 2021
The Army will review thousands of discharge records of veterans affected by military sexual trauma, post-traumatic stress disorder and other behavioral health conditions following a class-action lawsuit, the service announced Tuesday.
The review is part of a settlement reached in the lawsuit Kennedy v. McCarthy, which was preliminarily approved Dec. 28, according to the Army. The service will look at discharges of veterans affected by PTSD, traumatic brain injury, military sexual trauma or other behavioral health conditions.
“Under the agreement, the Army will automatically reconsider certain discharge-status-upgrade decisions made by the Army Discharge Review Board between April 17, 2011, and the effective date of settlement that partially or fully denied relief to Iraq- and Afghanistan-era veterans with less-than-fully-honorable discharges,” the statement reads.
His PTSD symptoms began to emerge after he returned to the United States.
“He became increasingly self-isolating, had trouble sleeping, avoided stressful situations and suffered from survivor’s guilt and depression,” according to the lawsuit. “He had no sense of [the] future, feeling as if he was still waiting for the IED that should have killed him in Iraq.”
He began to drink heavily and expressed suicidal thoughts. Mr. Kennedy was later given a “general” discharge, rather than the more positive honorable discharge, after going AWOL from his unit to attend his own wedding.
“Being a soldier was the center of Mr. Kennedy’s identity during his service and he gave everything he had to do the best job he possibly could,” the lawsuit stated. “Leaving the Army with a judgment saying that his service was less honorable than others’ caused serious damage to his psyche at a time when he was already struggling with serious mental health issues.”
Court Rules in Favor of Veterans Exposed to Radiation
In the Press
Court Rules in Favor of Veterans Exposed to Radiation
In a nationwide class decision released on December 17, 2020, the Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims (CAVC) ordered the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to reexamine how it evaluates disability claims of veterans exposed to ionizing radiation in a 1966 nuclear cleanup operation at Palomares, Spain. The Court’s decision is a long-awaited step towards recognizing Palomares veterans’ service and ensuring they have access to the benefits they earned. The class is represented by the Veterans Legal Services Clinic at Yale Law School and the New York Legal Assistance Group.