Completely

Vietnam veteran John Otte did his best to forget the war. He got married, raised two sons and made a career working at credit unions. But as Otte neared retirement, memories of combat flooded back. Starting in 2005, he filed a series of claims with Veterans Affairs for disability compensation, contending that many of his health problems stemmed from the war. The VA agreed, and now the 65-year-old with two Purple Hearts receives $1,900 a month for post-traumatic stress disorder and diabetes - and for having shrapnel scars on his arms.

MILWAUKEE - Dodgers General Manager Ned Colletti was evasive when asked Monday about Don Mattingly's job status, refusing to say whether the last-place team could fire its manager this week. Against this backdrop of uncertainty, Clayton Kershaw pitched his second complete game of the season, a 107-pitch masterpiece in a 3-1 victory over the Milwaukee Brewers at Miller Park that ended the Dodgers' three-game losing streak. "Every time I get in trouble, Kersh saves me for one more day," Mattingly said jokingly.

If you are a teacher in debt, there's good news and bad news. There are literally dozens of programs that could potentially help wipe out your student loans. But most of them have narrow requirements that may lock you out. Just ask Troy Dale, a high school counselor from Ellis, Kan. He and his wife have $23,000 in student loans that they've been paying down for nearly a decade. At their current rate, they'll still be paying off their student debts when their oldest child enrolls in college.

The ownership records of this property read like a “Who's Who” in Hollywood. Actress Kate Jackson sold the place to saxophonist Kenny G in 1990. Tennis champ Pete Sampras sold it to film producer Jon Peters in 2004. Now the Westside home is on the market at $4.995 million. The Traditional-style house, built in 1976, sits on 1.5 landscaped acres with a tennis court, a swimming pool, a spa, patios and lawns. The living has vaulted ceilings and a fireplace, the family room contains a bar and the master suite features dual bathrooms and closets for a total of four bedrooms, five bathrooms and 5,076 square feet of living space.

In these troubled economic times, it's not hard to understand why people might want to protect their life savings by purchasing a hard asset like gold or silver. At least, that's the pitch of Monex, the big Newport Beach investment firm, which bills itself as "America's trusted name in precious metals investments" and assures clients that it's "committed to customer service. " So let's take a look at the experiences of some customers who say their trust in Monex was misplaced.

Making pitchers completely stop in their delivery is like making drivers completely stop at stop signs. One disrupts the flow of our great game; the other the flow of traffic. Bring the "California Roll" back to the big leagues! NICK ROSE Westwood

Re "Merits of Estate Tax," letter, June 24: The Congressional Budget Office has released information that this tax is "cost-inefficient" since it costs more to administer and collect this tax than the total amount collected. For this reason alone, it should be abolished completely. The sooner the better. ALEX H. GAAL San Marino

Regarding the article about so few political movies being made ("Propelled by politics," Nov. 10), nowhere does the story mention "Bowling for Columbine," which is the most political film (and making money, Hollywood!) today, and it's an independent to boot. How could you leave it out completely? Hank Rosenfeld Santa Monica

I have been an admirer of your column for some time. The Oct. 17 one in The Times about the Thomas-Hill controversy is deserving of a literary award. It expresses my sentiments completely--especially your last paragraph. MIMI BIRNKRANT, Newport Beach

In her excellent article on the North Frisian island of Fohr ("Island Playground in the North Sea," Sept. 11), Eva G. Fremont translates the term Wattenmeer as cotton sea . There is in German the word Watte , meaning cotton , but it is not related to Wattenmeer or Watt , a derivative of the low German and Old High German wat , which means "a place in the sea low enough to wade through." ELISABETH HAGGBLADE Fresno By the second paragraph of Eva G. Fremont's article on the German island of Fohr, I wanted to scream.

Check any correct answer to the following question: What is 42? a) the number worn by Jackie Robinson when he played with the Brooklyn Dodgers. b) a movie about Robinson's courage in breaking baseball's color barrier in 1947. c) the number of games the Dodgers will win this season. Doug Thomson West Los Angeles :: Perhaps the Dodgers should just put everybody on the disabled list and call it a season. Sterling Buckingham Canyon Country :: I finally figured out what the Dodgers' motto this year means.

Two senior administrators and two principals have been removed from their jobs pending the completion of an investigation into how they handled sexual misconduct allegations against a teacher at a Wilmington school, district officials told The Times. Those placed on paid leave are Linda Del Cueto, the senior instructional administrator in the San Fernando Valley; Mike Romero, head of the adult education division; David Kooper, principal at Gulf Elementary in Wilmington; and Valerie Moses, principal at Los Angeles Elementary in Harvard Heights.

Elon Musk quips that it's easier getting rockets into orbit than navigating his commute between home in Bel-Air and his Space Exploration Technologies factory in Hawthorne. "The 405 … varies from bad to horrendous," said Musk, who also co-founded PayPal and Tesla Motors. "It just seems people in Los Angeles are being tortured by this. … I don't know why they aren't marching in the streets. " The massive project to widen the 405 Freeway is not only causing traffic nightmares for motorists like Musk but has also been plagued by cost overruns and delays.

Danusia Francis, a charismatic freshman on the UCLA gymnastics team, had a little trick up her sleeve Sunday for the balance beam event final in the NCAA championships at Pauley Pavilion. Francis did something you probably shouldn't try at home — even on the ground and certainly not on a balance beam. It was a move she described as "a backward cartwheel with no hands. " And she landed it, the first collegiate gymnast to perform that difficult aerial trick on the balance beam.

BOSTON - The first victim the doctor approached was a slender young woman, her legs exposed and bloody where she fell after the explosions: at the edge of Boylston Street near a mangled stroller and toppled barricades. Dr. Natalie Stavas performed CPR with the help of a stranger until paramedics arrived and loaded the woman, still unresponsive, onto a backboard and headed for the hospital. Stavas, 32, had been near the finish of the Boston Marathon herself. She was covered in sweat and Gatorade, shivering, with numbness descending into her legs.

Occidental College has hired two former sex crimes prosecutors to complete an extensive review of the university's handling of sex abuse cases amid allegations that officials don't take such cases seriously. The university announced the review Thursday after a group of Occidental students, faculty and alumni filed a civil rights complaint with the U.S. Department of Education alleging that the school failed to protect women from sexual assaults. Flanked by six current and former students, attorney Gloria Allred said the complaint outlines violations of Title IX, which bars sex discrimination at schools.

Superstorms that slammed the East Coast prompted many Southern Californians to take a hard look at their own emergency preparedness plans, including how to keep cellphones charged when the power goes out. With a flurry of battery-boosting devices landing on the market, I tested eight of the latest and most novel designs on a recent ski trip to Colorado, reasoning that besides a storm, earthquake or blackout, the last place you'd want to be stranded with...

With few exceptions in modern motorbiking, the two-wheeled world has broken down something like this: Manual transmission equals motorcycle (and macho). Automatic transmission equals scooter (and sissy). But in the last year, the most caveman of two-wheeled categorizations has begun to evolve: Motorcycles are beginning to incorporate automatic transmissions. The Honda DN-01, which is rolling into U.S.

American Airlines, hoping to reinvent itself by coming out of bankruptcy with a new logo, freshly painted planes and a merger plan that will make it the nation's largest carrier, suffered a setback Tuesday when a computer outage grounded hundreds of planes across the country. The computer problem forced the airline to cancel 745 flights, frustrating thousands of passengers who were left to fume and wait at crowded terminals from Los Angeles to Dallas and New York. Even after the system was restored about two hours later, passengers waited in long lines as airline officials struggled to rebook them on new flights.

With office rents and occupancy rates stuck in neutral, only nine new office buildings were completed in Los Angeles County in the first quarter. The nine buildings contain a total of 140,000 square feet, a pittance by local standards. The U.S. Bank Tower in downtown Los Angeles, for instance, holds more than 1.4 million square feet. More properties came on line in the fourth quarter of 2012, when 15 buildings with nearly 710,000 square feet were completed, real estate data provider CoStar Group said.