A prior Marine sergeant, Roman Sabal, 58, has spent more than a decade in his country of origin, Belize, after returning in 2008 to seek natural treatments for diabetes, The San Diego Union-Tribune reported. When he tried returning to the U.S., it prompted an immigration court case. He said he was unaware that it was scheduled, and the judge ordered a deportation issue in his absence, the Union-Tribune reported.

Sabal initially came to the U.S. on a tourist visa, the Union-Tribune reported. After seeing the U.S. Marine Corps while he was in the Belizean military, he wanted to join. He did not have permission to stay, but made it into the Marine Corps with a fake identity document.

The Union-Tribune reported that he confessed this during boot camp but was told, “Don’t worry about it. You’re a Marine now.”

He served for six years in the Marine Corps and additional years in the Army Reserves, the Union-Tribune reported. Then, he applied to become a U.S. citizen in 1995.

Sabal did try to obtain a visa through the Department of State in 2016 to attend a naturalization interview, Victoria Starrett, Sabal’s attorney, told the Union-Tribune. That request was denied because of Sabal’s deportation order.

Sabal’s legal team expects it will have to file a federal court lawsuit, Starrett said, to get him access to the citizenship process.

Sabal is the father of two U.S. citizen children, the Union-Tribune reported. His 13-year-old daughter had been hopeful she would see her father soon. But that is now on hold.

He is planning to stay a few days in Tijuana for a possible resolution, the Union-Tribune reported. If there is not one, he will start the lengthy and expensive trip back to Belize and try again later.

“Veterans should not be forced to jump through futile hoops when all parties know they will be denied,” Starrett told the Union-Tribune. “This charade should stop here.

Organizers are calling their event, “Storm Area 51, They Can’t Stop All of Us” and their plan is to “see them aliens” at the top secret Air Force facility within the Nevada Test and Training Range. But although it may have started as an internet joke, Air Force officials aren’t laughing, at least publicly. In fact, they have issued a warning. Don’t go there.

Air Force spokeswoman Laura McAndrews told The Washington Post Friday that officials are aware of the event, scheduled for Sept. 20.

“[Area 51] is an open training range for the U.S. Air Force, and we would discourage anyone from trying to come into the area where we train American armed forces,” McAndrews said.

More than 540,000 people around the world Friday marked themselves as “going” to the 3 a.m. event. By Tuesday evening, that number had grown to 1.4 million, with another 1.3 million indicating that they are interested.

The event posting has also spawned thousands of memes and battle plans. And while most people seem to be taking it as the joke it was intended to be, hotels and campgrounds in the area are booking up, Forbes reported Tuesday.

Many still regard the government’s few statements about Area 51 with skepticism.

Rumors that the government uses the facility in Lincoln County, Nevada, to hide extraterrestrial life and unidentified flying objects have been a part of the social fabric for years.

In the early days of the Cold War, the skies over the continental U.S. were flush with sightings of objects that led many Americans to look to the stars for answers. The Air Force itself began Project Blue Book in 1952 as a systematic study of unidentified flying object sightings. The project was charged with scientifically analyzing UFO data to determine whether UFOs were a national security threat.

Then in 1989, self-proclaimed physicist Bob Lazar gave a now-famous television interview in which he claimed to have worked on reverse engineering extraterrestrial technology at Area 51 and to have seen U.S. government documents describing alien involvement in human affairs over the past 10,000 years.

Theories of concealed aliens were further fueled in 2017 when the Pentagon confirmed a $22 million government program, begun in 2007, to analyze “anomalous aerospace threats,” The Washington Post reported.

While people around the world continue to offer their own ideas on how to achieve the September “storm,” the Air Force is remaining mum on exactly what steps it would take to repel a non-alien invasion. But it won’t be caught unprepared.

“The U.S. Air Force always stands ready to protect America and its assets,” McAndrews said.

The battle cry was for Anthony “Tony” Procassini, who served during the bloody Battle of Okinawa during World War II, according to the Detroit Free Press. The mortar crewman suffered a blast concussion on May 14, 1945, and spent weeks recovering.

Procassini was joined by more than 25 relatives at the Fort Dearborn, Michigan, American Legion post ceremony, MLive.com reported.

“I’m sorry that Dawn, my wife of 74 years, couldn’t be here to share this moment with us,” Procassini said of his wife, who died in 2018, according to MLive. “We know the process of 75 years was a long time, but it was worth the effort because it gave me the opportunity to share the results with my grandchildren.”

The couple had settled in Ann Arbor, Michigan, after the war, and had nine daughters and a son, according to his wife’s obituary. Procassini also was a businessman who retired at age 93.

The Marine Corps veteran had submitted paperwork for his Purple Heart when World War II concluded. When it never came, he continued with his life ― until a few years ago when family inspired him to file paperwork, MLive reported.

But there were still delays. Procassini and other World War II veterans reached out to then-Marine Commandant Gen. Robert B. Neller, a Michigan native, who helped expedite the bureaucratic process, according to the Detroit Free Press.

U.S. Rep. Debbie Dingell, D-Mich., and Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., attended the ceremony, along with some veterans who served with Procassini in the Pacific, according to MLive.

Procassini expressed his gratitude to the Marine Corps and his country.

“What I say is Semper Fi and God Bless America,” he said, according to MLive.

The VA does not currently offer an upfront 12-month supply option. Approximately 24,000 women receive oral contraceptives and a policy change could prevent an estimated 583 unintended pregnancies, found Colleen Judge-Golden, an M.D., Ph.D. student at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.

“We see extended contraceptive dispensing as a win-win,” Judge-Golden said, “promoting women’s health and women’s autonomy to use birth control as they decide, while also being economically sustainable for the VA.”

Judge-Golden, the lead author of the paper published Monday in the Journal of the American Medical Association, analyzed the expense of the proposed program with senior author Sonya Borrero, M.D., M.S., the associate director of the VA’s Center for Health Equity Research and Promotion. Research found that money saved on health care costs would exceed the cost of providing larger upfront quantities of birth control pills to women.

Forty-three percent of women receiving three-month increments of birth control will encounter at least one refill gap over a 12-month period that increases the risk of unintended pregnancies, VA data showed. Women outside of the VA who receive one year’s worth of birth control pills were alternatively found to experience fewer refill gaps and less pregnancies.

“This is a great opportunity for the VA to roll out this policy change on a national level and continue to be a leader and set an elevated standard for women’s health care,” said Borrero, who serves as director of the University of Pittsburgh’s Center for Women’s Health Research and Innovation.

Many health care providers prefer to write prescriptions gradually so that patients more regularly check in with their providers, VA’s Chief Consultant for Women’s Health Services Dr. Patty Hayes stated. Refills are sent through the mail and can be acquired via phone, secure messages or online without arranging a trip or appointment, Hayes stated.

“Because life plans and health can change quickly, VA encourages women Veterans [sic] to be engaged with their VA providers more than once a year,” Hayes stated.

Insurers are required by law to cover a year’s supply of contraceptives in 17 states and the District of Columbia, the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation stated.