What's the right answer with PTSD and gun rights?

What's the right answer with PTSD and gun rights?
by
Chaplain Kathie

I know a lot of veterans with PTSD and they own guns. For too many not receiving the help they need, having a gun helps them feel "protected" instead of being any kind of danger to themselves or others. While tracking PTSD reports across the country for all this time, I am also fully aware of the fact guns are used to end their pain as well as take the life of someone else when they "freak out" usually due to a flashback and other factors of PTSD. So what's the right answer? Is it to not allow them to have guns or would it be more appropriate to get them the help they need?

Not such a simple answer. When you consider some of the law makers wanting to do the right thing they need to look at the bigger picture. A knee jerk reaction is that it makes sense to take guns away but they need to look at what this ends up doing. It stops PTSD veterans from getting help because they don't want to give up their guns. Do you want them to have no help as PTSD gets worse while they have guns in the house?

I do presentations providing awareness of what PTSD is and what it does. Usually there is a question and answer time following the video. Most of the questions are about gun rights. This is not a good thing. Innocent civilians never being deployed into combat are victims of combat when PTSD takes hold and a veteran opens fire. They know how to use guns and they know how to hit what they aim for. After all, this is what kept them alive in combat. When they come home, they have relied on weapons to stay alive to the point where they cannot even think of being without their guns and knives. Weapons become a part of them and they would never think of leaving them behind or not having one within reach because in combat, every second brings more danger to them, then they take that thought into civilian life.

The best answer to this is to make sure every veteran with PTSD receives the help they need and this requires learning to live a peaceful life again. They cannot do this with medication alone. They need therapy provided by an expert dedicated to healing PTSD and not someone with such limited knowledge they can't even understand what PTSD is. Too often this is exactly what the veterans are getting.

The issue of them not being responsible for their financial affairs is connected to the majority of veterans with high PTSD scores. Short term memory loss and irrational thinking are parts of it as well, but just because they want to go out and spend money they can't afford or can't remember to pay a bill, that does not automatically make them dangerous to themselves or others.

When the Joshua Omvig Suicide Prevention Act was first being debated, my knee jerk reaction was supporting this effort. It made sense until it was pointed out to me that it could potentially cause more harm than good. I did not really understand how deep the need was to hang onto guns or how much this would hurt them emotionally. It was pointed out to me by one of my friends that they would end up feeling as if their time in combat meant nothing and that they were suddenly supposed to give up their rights just because they came home wounded by PTSD. PTSD hit them while they were in combat but they still had weapons, trusted to have the weapons and now when they are trying to live a relatively "normal" life again, they are supposed to give up their weapons leaving them feeling they are penalized for serving and risking their lives.

We read about veterans taking the life of someone else and think this is a huge problem. We read about them committing suicide with a gun but we fail to understand they find other ways. What we also fail to understand is that when we're talking about numbers measured by hundreds of thousands the percentage of veterans with PTSD using guns against someone else is low enough to show this is not the answer.

Bush Signs Joshua Omvig Veterans Suicide Prevention Bill into Law

The Joshua Omvig Suicide Prevention Act (H.R. 327) is designed to help address Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) among veterans by requiring mental health training for Veterans Affairs staff; a suicide prevention counselor at each VA medical facility; and mental-health screening and treatment for veterans who receive VA care. It also supports outreach and education for veterans and their families, peer support counseling and research into suicide prevention. The VA had been implementing a number of these programs, but not in a timely manner, whereas the Joshua Omvig bill mandates these programs and subsequent deadlines as a means of expediting the process for returning veterans.

The rate of 18 veterans a day taking their own lives does however prove the need to be better at taking care of them overall not just those deemed too impaired to handle their own finances.

In a perfect world, all our veterans would receive whatever care they need to recover from physical and invisible wounds, would be able to have the financial security when their wounds prevent them from working and would find their families receiving the full support they need to care for them, but this is not a perfect world. Less than half of PTSD veterans seek help to heal even though the sooner they seek help the better the outcome, they fight against getting help, partly because of the stigma but also because they do not trust the government to deliver anything. Can you blame them?

Depending on what part of the country they live in, their claims can be harder to have approved, harder to get to care and harder to find the best care. Even when you look at the National Guards, you'll find some states ahead of the rest with programs to address PTSD and suicides. The Montana National Guards efforts prove this and this program is being taken to a national level, but in between then and now, the Montana National Guardsmen are able to use this program while other National Guardsmen are receiving very little. Then there is the issue of the backlog of claims along with denials. There are too many obstacles already.

Threatening veterans to take away their guns ends up making sure less veterans seek help for PTSD and with the system the way it is, they don't need one more reason to stay away from the VA.

Bill protects rights of wounded veterans

It is clear from your recent editorial about S. 669, the Veterans' Second Amendment Protection Act, that you took the time to read the talking points of an organization opposed to my legislation, but never bothered to actually read the bill. I welcome the opportunity to inform your readers what it really does.

The Veterans' Second Amendment Protection Act requires a judicial process, rather than a bureaucratic one, to determine whether or not veterans are a danger to themselves or others before stripping them of their constitutional rights. These men and women are the only recipients of federal benefits who are automatically deprived of a constitutional right solely because they've been appointed a fiduciary, regardless of the reason. Recipients of Social Security and other federal benefits are not subject to such arbitrary decisions.

You wrote that the current process is "not easy." You are correct in one regard. While it is quite easy for VA to add a veteran--and family members--to the NICS list, it is extremely difficult for a veteran to appeal that decision. Just ask Corey Briest, a veteran who was severely wounded in Iraq. Corey's wife Jennifer, his fiduciary, wrote to me that a VA field examiner admonished them to rid the house of their guns or they could be prosecuted. Never mind that Corey was encouraged to hunt as part of his rehabilitation, and never mind that he owns a heirloom rifle, handed down to him by his grandfather (also a veteran) that Corey wanted to pass on to his son. And never mind that no one bothered in the first place to assess whether Corey was a danger to himself or anyone else.
read more here
Bill protects rights of wounded veterans

We Will Remember Them

We Will Remember Them
'We Will Remember Them' - Stars Record Tribute to Troops - ALL proceeds from the sale of this single will go to 'Help for Heroes' and 'The Royal British Legion.'
We Will Remember Them

Injured veterans are stuck in limbo

Injured veterans are stuck in limbo
No longer in war zone but also not 'home,' they battle for normal

James Janega

Tribune reporter

January 3, 2010


For Mitch Chapman, recovering from broken bones and a brain injury, the mission now is treating the pain and surviving the nightmares.

For Michael Brown, who suffers from a shoulder wound and post-traumatic stress disorder, it is controlling sudden outbursts.

For Casey Church, the muscles in his left buttocks and hip gone, it is learning to walk again.

Three months after the end of the Illinois National Guard's yearlong deployment in Afghanistan, these young men are among 108 wounded soldiers who returned ahead of nearly 2,900 uninjured comrades -- but who are still fighting their bit of the war.

The 40 who suffered the worst injuries remain hospitalized at a dozen facilities that include Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., and Brooke Army Medical Center in Texas. The remainder, many suffering serious but less obvious wounds, shuttle back and forth to Veterans Affairs hospitals and rehabilitation clinics across Illinois.
read more here
Injured veterans are stuck in limbo

Help Other People Evolve

Help Other People Evolve

by
Chaplain Kathie

H O P E

Today I went to a trauma seminar at Holmes Regional Medical Center in Melbourne FL. The speakers were wonderful but my mind drifted away from the civilians they were talking about focusing instead on the men and women in our military as well as the veterans.

We all get up in the morning not thinking today is the day our life will change forever, as a couple of the presenters pointed out. No one plans on traumatic events. It could be a car accident. It could be a fire. It could be someone deciding they wanted to obliterate co-workers they thought treated them badly. No matter how careful we are and no matter how much we don't deserve traumatic events to come into our lives, they happen usually because we are careless or because someone else caused it.

Getting over it depends on the kind of help we receive after, support from family instead of them avoiding us and the event and it also depends on our own inspiration to heal. God blessed us with the ability to overcome. All we need is already there but most of us have no clue where to look for it. Most want to return to the way they were before and when they can't this adds to the pain they carry. Any good therapist will tell them honestly there is no way possible to "return" to normal after trauma but they will also add in that the survivor can be better than they were before since every event in our lives, no matter how trivial or serious, changes us in some way.

Normal, regular people experience traumatic events in daily life even though we all try to avoid them. As bad as things can get for us, we need to stop and think about the men and women in the military serving today and the veterans we have living among us. Think of purposely going into danger and what that takes to be able to do it. Knowing someone ahead of them wants to kill them yet doing it anyway. This takes great courage to expose themselves to danger constantly in order to do their "jobs" and what deliver on what is asked of them.

We see police officers respond as they did today to the shooting in St. Louis

8 people shot, 3 fatally, at St. Louis factory, police say
January 7, 2010 2:50 p.m. EST

STORY HIGHLIGHTS
NEW: Suspect identified as Timothy Hendron; no word whether he's among those killed
Police doing room-by-room search at plant; interstate, surface streets closed
Of 8 shot, 3 are dead, 3 critically injured, two in fair condition, officials say
St. Louis, Missouri (CNN) -- Three people were killed and five others wounded Thursday in a shooting at a St. Louis, Missouri, transformer manufacturing company, police said.

It was unclear whether the suspect was among those killed at ABB Inc., St. Louis Metropolitan Police said in a statement.

A law enforcement official identified the suspect to CNN as Timothy Hendron.

The shooting occurred just before 6:30 a.m. Arriving officers were told that a man had entered the building with a rifle and a handgun, and that several people had been shot, police said.
read more here
http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/01/07/factory.shootings/index.html

We know they have to do this kind of thing all the time as well as respond to everything else going on in "regular" life. What we do not see is what happens in Iraq and Afghanistan any more than we saw what really happened in Kuwait, Bosnia, Somalia, Vietnam or any of the other actions. We saw news reports but do you ever wonder what it would have been like if film was rolling 24-7 with each and every unit? It would begin to help the rest of us understand that if traumatic events can change our lives so drastically with one event, what must it be like for them with event after event after event? We know civilians end up with PTSD and we know responders do as well but somehow that does not translate into assumption of "normalcy" when it comes to the servicemen and women.

Years ago I tried to explain that PTSD is a normal reaction to abnormal events, events out of our control bringing everything in our lives into question, because we can understand the shock a family feels when someone dies unexpectedly, the shock when a fatal diagnosis is given or when someone never walks thru the door again. We have an easier time acknowledging what the survivors are going through than we do when it comes to people dealing with all of it, plus their own "normal" traumatic events the rest of us go through. An example of this came this week.

Mom serving in Iraq hears two young sons died in house fire back home
Sons die in fire while mom's in Iraq'SHE'S DEVASTATED' Father pulls boys, ages 2 and 5, from room as smoke billows out window
January 5, 2010
BY STEFANO ESPOSITO Staff Reporter
If the dreaded news comes, it's supposed to arrive stateside with a knock at the front door and a visit from two somber soldiers.That tragedy played out in reverse Monday when a Lansing soldier serving in Iraq was told her two small children had perished in a fire while napping at home."She's devastated, and she is trying to hold on," said Clint Towers, who is Areah Brown-Towers' father-in-law and grandfather to the two victims -- Joshua, 2, and Jeremiah, 5.Clint Towers said the American Red Cross was making arrangements Tuesday to bring the grieving mother home -- perhaps as soon as Thursday.
read more here Sons die in fire while mom in Iraq

This Mom expected traumatic events in Iraq but as she faced them, the trauma came back home when her two sons died. Her life changed in an instant, yet not the kind of change, not the kind of trauma, she suspected would happen. In Iraq, in Afghanistan, they are prepared for the fact they could be in the wrong place when a bomb blows up or when a bullet has their name on it, just as they are prepared for the fact one of their friends could die, but as they face this reality, they also know something could happen back home even though they force themselves to not think about it, push it out of their minds because they have enough to worry about where they are as they face the reality they can do very little about it while they are deployed.

This is their reality.

When they are in the National Guards, they are soldiers while deployed, first responders back home facing natural disasters at the same time they worry about their families. For many, they work regular jobs, but these regular jobs often come with facing traumatic events on a daily basis while they are police officers, firefighters and emergency responders. All of this adds to what they have to heal from.

We are all humans, no matter what caused the trauma. It doesn't matter if we willingly risked our lives or not because all of our lives are at risk everyday. Most of us make it through our days without anything terrible happening, but for those touched by trauma, there is a private hell we either climb out of or sink into. For those who are able to climb out, we have a unique place in this world. We can help others find hope of being able to make it out of that pit because we are standing there.

We do not have to have PTSD to understand someone with it. We don't have to lose a limb to understand how something like that can change a life just as we don't have to lose a family member to be able to understand that. We understand better if we are survivors of the same kind of outcome, but just surviving trauma in itself helps us to be able to help them.

There is no kind of trauma that has not touched my life and perhaps that is why I was able to understand my husband better. He's the combat veteran and I am a veteran of trauma. My traumatic experiences began the day I was born with an violent alcoholic father who stopped drinking when I was 13. Before I was 5 I almost died because of what someone else did. Another child pushed me off a slide. I landed on my head, cracked my scull and had a concussion, but my life was placed in greater danger because the x-ray was read wrong and I was sent home. This was followed by a car accident, being beaten by my ex-husband, miscarriage and then almost dying after my daughter was born and an infection turned my system septic. With all of this and more, I was able to understand that trauma changes everyone. I also knew being a survivor was not anything to be ashamed of or feel hopeless about.

We can always offer hope to someone else. We can help other people evolve from darkness, feeling lost, frightened and alone into someone able to see that they can come out on the other side stronger too. We do this with experience, compassion and living an example of the continuation of living a full life by overcoming that which we cannot heal. Some trauma survivors have had serious bodily injuries they may never be able to fully recover from but that is not what has trapped them. It is what they have living inside of them trapping them from healing. You can help them find the power to heal and help them make peace with the fact the event changed them but does not have to destroy them.

When you read stories like the ones above, remember that most of the people on this planet will experience something out of the ordinary finding it hard to find someone as a role model to find hope from. Be there for them. Try contacting others online and share what you did to heal. If you are not healed yet, reach out to someone else and heal each other. None of this is impossible as long as there is still compassion in your heart from someone walking in your well worn shoes.

We were warned about what they carry home with them

The warning bells rang before the first troops were sent into Afghanistan but few heard them. They began to ring after Vietnam and grew louder every year as more and more veterans we asked much of were forgotten about when they were no longer of use to this nation. Some hard hearts will say that when a veteran is homeless it is his/her own fault because they cannot open their eyes and see the truth of the wound carried deeply in the soul of the men and women we send into combat. The things they carry home are our duty to tend to but when we don't this is what comes after they come home.

Year in Review: The Things Veterans Carry
By: GRITtv Saturday January 2, 2010 11:17 am

It’s 2010, and we’re still at war in Iraq and Afghanistan–and there are some who seem to think that adding a new war would be a great idea. It’s often pointed out that those who are willing to rush into wars are often not the people who fight in them. Back in May, we held a discussion on veterans’ issues. We wrote then:
More than one million soldiers have been deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan over the last eight years. Close to 4,500 have died in Iraq and nearly 20 percent of those who return have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Well over 100,000 Iraqis have been killed. As Memorial Day approaches how will soldiers, families of soldiers, and the rest of our society reflect on the dead and those still living with the trauma of war?
Today on GRITtv Darren Subarton a veteran who served in the Army’s 101st Air Borne Division, Joshua Kors who has written extensively on the experience of veterans returning from war, Dan Lohaus director of When I Came Home, and Nada Michael a student in Social Work at Smith College discuss the challenges veterans face, dealing with the VA, and what likely won’t be discussed Memorial Day.
For additional information on organizations and websites that support veterans you can visit Wounded Warriors Family Support, Community of Veterans, Iraq Veterans Against the War, and Support Your Vet.

PTSD posts open up healing

Thirty years ago something like this was not possible, then again, there were very few even talking about PTSD openly at all.

This post came from a friend of a veteran's son but opened up a lot of other people as they shared their own stories. Some also have PTSD or have someone in their life with it. They are talking and this is a wonderful thing as heartbreaking as some of the posts are to read.

We've come a long way since the early days of discovering what wounds came home with the veterans. It's not a matter of the wounds being new because they are as old as man, but no one wanted to talk about it. Veterans were sent to mental institutions or, as with my husband's uncle, sent to live on a farm to be "taken care of" until they died. These veterans suffered just as much as the families had no one to talk to about any of it. It was the well kept secret of the family.

This changed when Vietnam veterans came back and fought for research and treatment at the same time their own suffering was taken care of by using alcohol and drugs, usually resulting in broken families and incarcerations. Still even they didn't want to talk about the suicides among them either. Families searched frantically for help, advice and support but knew that would all be impossible to find if no one wanted to talk about it. If they were lucky, someone they know would mention something from time to time and discussions would breakdown the loneliness they felt.

Veterans would seek out other veterans, soon starting their own groups and they began to finally talk. They learned how to lean on each other the same way they did in battle but this time fighting a battle to heal.

Twenty years ago, the ability of the Internet opened up even more conversations as people were able to reach out across the country and share. Things changed for the better, the isolation and loneliness was replaced by a common bond and today we see posts like this.

The person did not have a PTSD veteran but was exposed to the reality they live with because he cared.

I witnessed my friend's Dad have a PTSD attack this weekend... it has really messed me up.

Hero's ashes found in trash end up with proper burial because teenagers cared

Ashes Found in Trash Led to Proper Burial
January 05, 2010
St. Petersburg Times

The two teenagers got to the cemetery first. He wore his dark green dress uniform from the National Guard. She wore a long black dress. They stood on the edge of the road, across from rows of matching military headstones, waiting for the funeral of the man they had never met.

Mike Colt, 19, and his girlfriend, Carol Sturgell, 18, had driven more than an hour from their Tampa homes last month to be at Florida National Cemetery in Bushnell.

They weren't really sure why they had come. They just knew they had to be here.

"It's kind of sad, huh?" asked Sturgell, scanning the sea of white gravestones.

Colt nodded. "Yeah, but it feels kind of important."

She pulled it out, brushed off the dust. Across the top, bold letters said, "Department of Defense." Inside, she found retirement papers from the U.S. Army; a citation for a Purple Heart issued in 1945; and a certificate for a Bronze Star medal "for heroism in ground combat in the vicinity of Normandy, France ... June 1944." In the center of the certificate there was a name: Delbert E. Hahn.

read more here

Ashes Found in Trash Led to Proper Burial

Free housing deals for Salvation Army officers?

Stunned by this report? Wondering how is it that the Salvation Army is paying for houses? Do they look at it the same way churches do and they supply housing for their clergy? I doubt anyone would have a problem with that as long as the property was in the name of the organization and not the person living there. It happens all the time but we never think of it.

The more expensive home away from where the Majors and Commander live seem just wrong when you think about the need increasing for people to be helped and many of the people seeking help of the Salvation Army have lost their homes along with everything else, plus add in people usually able to donate are seeking help for themselves now, the Salvation Army is under attack for something that was probably a practice they had for many years when times were better.

Don't let this report take away from the rank and file workers of the Salvation Army doing this work.

Free housing deals for Salvation Army officers create image problem
Mitch Lipka
Jan 5th 2010 at 10:00AM

Probably at the bottom of the list of things the millions of donors to the Salvation Army expect of those running the charity's programs would be arrogance and a cushy lifestyle.

If you're one of those donors, the purchases of two homes in Massachusetts for Salvation Army officers and the comments by a resident of one might change that perspective.

The Salvation Army, a religious organization best known for helping the homeless and addicted, does not lavish great wealth upon its officers. But as part of its compensation package, it does provide them with housing.

A story by the Worcester (Mass.) Telegram & Gazette done in conjunction with Boston University's New England Center for Investigative Reporting showed the practice can create some serious image problems at a time when charities are battling over a shrunken pool of donations.

First, we'll start with Divisional Commander Major William Bode. He and his wife Major Joan Bode (Salvation Army officers share the same ranks as their wives, who also serve the organization) live in a $900,000 home in Needham, Mass. Nice.

Then there's Major Michael Copeland, who, by his own account, repeatedly pushed property limits set for him in the Worcester area until settling on a four bedroom, two and a half bath home in suburban Holden, Mass., for $350,000 (pictured above). When the basement and garage are added in, the home's 3,800 square feet exceeds the 3,000 square foot cap permitted by the Salvation Army's own rules.
read more here
Free housing deals for Salvation Army officers

Mom serving in Iraq hears two young sons died in house fire back home

Sons die in fire while mom's in Iraq

'SHE'S DEVASTATED' Father pulls boys, ages 2 and 5, from room as smoke billows out window

January 5, 2010

BY STEFANO ESPOSITO Staff Reporter
If the dreaded news comes, it's supposed to arrive stateside with a knock at the front door and a visit from two somber soldiers.

That tragedy played out in reverse Monday when a Lansing soldier serving in Iraq was told her two small children had perished in a fire while napping at home.

"She's devastated, and she is trying to hold on," said Clint Towers, who is Areah Brown-Towers' father-in-law and grandfather to the two victims -- Joshua, 2, and Jeremiah, 5.

Clint Towers said the American Red Cross was making arrangements Tuesday to bring the grieving mother home -- perhaps as soon as Thursday.
read more here
Sons die in fire while mom in Iraq

Dover Air Force Base to expand care with Center for Families of fallen

Dover facility will serve families of war dead

By Randall Chase - The Associated Press
Posted : Tuesday Jan 5, 2010 12:55:06 EST

DOVER, Del. — The military mortuary at Dover Air Force Base, where U.S. war casualties from overseas are brought home, will open a new facility Wednesday to serve families who travel there to witness the return of their loved ones’ remains.

The Center for Families of the Fallen will be staffed by counselors and support specialists who will assist families awaiting the return of their loved ones to the nation’s largest military mortuary. Families also will be able to meet with casualty assistance officers who are assigned to them.

Officials said the new center will be more convenient both for families and mortuary officials than the space now shared by the Air Force Mortuary Affairs Operations Center at Dover with the base’s active duty and reserve wings.

“Sadly, as the death toll has grown in Afghanistan and Iraq, we find we need a larger facility,” said Maj. Shannon Mann, a spokeswoman for AFMAO.
read more here
http://www.armytimes.com/news/2010/01/ap_dover_new_mortuary_010510/

Landmark CBS Investigation and Veterans for Common Sense

Veterans for Common Sense and Paul Sullivan are proving a point. When people care beyond politics, speak the truth and fight to change things, things change. It is basic common sense. They are fighting for our veterans to receive the care they thought they were promised as anyone working a job would assume.

The rest of us go to work in the civilian world expecting that if we're hurt on the job, workman's comp will take care of our injury as well as the lost income when we cannot work. That's the rest of us and we'd be pretty angry if anyone prevented us from getting it. There would be people lining up in every newspaper office around the country demanding action because it would be simply wrong to not pay when we ended up hurt just doing our jobs. So why isn't this happening when it is men and women serving this country in one of the most dangerous jobs anyone could do?

These men and women agree to risk their lives everyday they are deployed. They agree to do jobs not many others would be willing to do. They are not just sent to another state to fill in gaps in manpower, they are sent into nations around the world and since 2001, they have been sent to a couple of the most dangerous places on earth to provide for what this nation needs.

They don't play politics. They don't get to decide to go into combat or not. They don't get to decide who to fight or how long it goes on. They don't even get to quit when they just don't want to do it anymore unless their enlistment time is up. They also have to leave their families behind when they are deployed for a year or, more often, longer than a year.

What do they ask of the rest of us? The same thing we expect out of our own employers and nothing more.

We hear all the talk about the backlog of claims but we tend to forget that number is a veteran usually along with an entire family waiting for us to do the right thing for them. We show up to send them off and we show up to welcome them home but then we pull a vanishing act as if our job is done and we don't need to care anymore.

The way our veterans are treated is not unique to the world. No nation really lives up to taking care of any of their servicemen and women properly but you'd think since we spend the bulk of the world's defense spending, we'd have at least a higher standard when it came to taking care of them men and women in the military. Why is it that we never think of them this way?

For years we've heard politicians say no amount of money is too much for this nation's defense. We were told that hundreds of billions of dollars had to spent to pay for Iraq and Afghanistan but did we hear the same cry for necessity when it came to talking care of the people we depend the most on? No. When it came to them some politicians were on the floor of congress whining about tight budgets with two wars to pay for.

The time to do the right thing was before they were sent. All of the wounded should have been planned for ahead of time and not when it was too late to save so many. To lose more after combat than we do during it is simply wrong and we didn't have to see so many die by their own hand but the DOD and the VA were not prepared to take care of all of them. We need to make sure this never happens again.

The other factor is as the newly wounded were waiting in line for help, the older wounded were getting into the same line and no one planned for them either. This all got worse very, very fast but until we get things right, it will keep getting worse at the same time we ask more and more out of the servicemen and women. Taking care of them is not just common sense, it's common decency.

Landmark CBS Investigation

The landmark news segment by reporter Byron Pitts and Producer David Schneider at "60 Minutes" revealed many new pieces of information because it was the first-ever major investigation into VBA.

* CBS reported the fact that more than 400,000 Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans have already filed disability claims against VBA. This information was obtained by VCS using the Freedom of Information Act.

* CBS embarrassed VBA into admitting VBA's disability claim form is an insane 23 pages long. We want to know when VBA will use a shorter, veteran-friendly form.

* CBS mentioned that VBA will be issuing new claim processing rules for PTSD. This an effort initiated and led by VCS since 2007 worth an estimated $5 billion for our disabled veterans.

VBA didn't dispute any of the facts presented by VCS and broadcast by CBS. Top on the list is the fact VBA has one million backlogged claims. Our lawsuit uncovered the long and outrageous waits veterans endure - six months for an initial decision and four years for an appealed decision.

Your Turn to Act

Now, today, it is your turn to call local newspapers, TV stations, and your local Congressman and demand immediate reform at VBA. We also need more investigations into VBA. For example, VBA illegally shredded veterans' claims, VBA improperly backdated computer records, and VBA paid top leaders huge cash bonuses while the claim backlog grew larger and veterans waited longer.

VBA urgently needs pro-veteran leaders, a pro-veteran culture, streamlined rules, and VBA claims staff to help veterans in every Veterans Health Administration medical facility.

VA could have saved, in 2004, about $1.4 billion over 5 years

Most people assume since the men and women veterans in this country, served this one country, their care as veterans would be the same regardless of where they live. It is appalling when they find out this assumption is totally wrong.

If you live in an area of the country, like Boston, there are many facilities to go to including clinics, but if you live in the Orlando area, the only place to go is the VA Clinic in Winter Park. If you need to have surgery along with many other procedures, you have to travel to Tampa. There is a hospital being built in Lake Nona. The ground breaking was in October of 2008 but the hospital won't be open until 2012. (If you're guessing it was because it was an election year, you guessed right.) If you live in rural area of the country, then your services are even harder to get to.

That's the biggest problem of all. When they are in the military, they are assigned to various bases and they receive the same kind of care no matter where they are from. All of them are treated equally until they leave the military. Then it does depend on where they live. Their claims are processed depending on where they live with some parts of the country harder to have claims approved and the rating decisions are different. Some parts of the country are more able to treat PTSD than others are just as some are better equipped to take care of serious illnesses better than others. Then you have to add in the communities as well. When the VA can't take care of all the needs of the veterans, most of the time they rely on the facilities in the area to take care of what is needed. Some communities are better than others.

Just as this report points out, some VA's do their own thing when it comes to being able to make purchases, leaving some of us scratching our heads wondering why they are not all the same no matter where they happen to be.

Clear Need for Procurement Reform at VA

House Committee Taking Steps to Fight Fraud, Abuse and Waste
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 16, 2009

Washington, D.C. – On Wednesday, December 16, 2009, the House Veterans’ Affairs Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee, led by Chairman Harry Mitchell (D-AZ), conducted a hearing to examine the processes and needs of the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) acquisition system and procurement structure. The Subcommittee reviewed recent Government Accountability Office (GAO) and VA Inspector General (IG) reports that detail unfairness and inefficiency in VA contracting.

“We all know that the acquisition system within the Department of Veterans Affairs has failed to develop a process that is both transparent and fiscally responsible,” said Chairman Mitchell. “Our hearing will hopefully determine the extent of the reform needed in order to ensure that the acquisition process within the VA is one that is fair, fiscally responsible, and effective. And, most importantly, serves veterans.”

Reports indicate that VA does not consistently acquire the best available price at a detriment to the taxpayers and veterans for several reasons. Most notably, most medical centers have negotiated and purchased medical healthcare services through contracts that individual VA medical centers have negotiated. This erodes the federal government’s leverage of its tremendous buying power. A 2004 GAO report stated that though VA had implemented policies and procedures that required medical centers to purchase medical products and services through VA’s contract programs, a VA IG report found that the medical centers continued to make many less cost efficient purchases from local suppliers. The VA IG estimated that, with improved procurement practices at medical centers, VA could have saved, in 2004, about $1.4 billion over 5 years.
read more here
Clear Need for Procurement Reform at VA

Man taken into custody after threats at VA Hospital

Man threatening himself, others, taken into custody

By CHRIS LEONARD

Staff Writer

WOOSTER -- A man outside of a mental health clinic who threatened suicide and said he would shoot police officers if he saw them was arrested without incident Monday morning.

Police officers were called to the 120 block of Walnut Street after receiving a call at 8:44 a.m. from the Veterans Affairs Mental Health Clinic in Mansfield notifying them there was a male outside its Wooster office threatening to commit suicide with a gun.

"He made a comment if he saw any police officers, he would shoot them," Chief Steve Glick said.
read more here
http://www.the-daily-record.com/news/article/4741439

Army tries to train soldiers on how to be mentally, emotionally tough

They will never get it~

Barbara Ehrenreich pointed out that the message the troops are getting is that if they end up with PTSD, it's their fault. This has been my biggest problem with the latest programs the DOD has come out with for this reason alone. It's not that the programs are bad, they just start badly.

The message the soldiers and especially the Marines are getting is they are responsible to "train their brains" like they train their bodies and if they don't then whatever happens is their fault. Whatever the programs have to say after that point, it's too late. The message has already been delivered and they shut off anything else.

When a big tough ex-Marine cries on a Chaplain's shoulder and apologizes because "he's a Marine" we have a huge problem.

The other issue is that they are still misunderstanding what courage and compassion are. They think if they have compassion, they cannot be courageous. Please tell me what good it does to care and have no courage? What good would it do to see a kid in the middle of the street without having the courage to rush out and save her? What good would it do to want to serve in the military, training to do it, being able to accept the fact you could die doing it but have no compassion? You'd be a machine ready to gun down anything that moves and not feel anything. You would also end up being the type of person no one touches in regular life either. There is a type of compassion that requires courage and this type goes into the military, into law enforcement, into fire departments and enter into other jobs where they are emergency responders. Their ability to feel is the basis of why they do what they do but they couldn't do it without courage.

So what the military gets wrong is trying to get them to kill off the best part about them instead of honoring it. They could work with the servicemen and women on that basis and I'm sure they would find they would get a lot more to understand what PTSD is and get them help right off the bat heading off PTSD, but that would be asking too much. After all, it's what the rest of the people in this country get when a traumatic event hits them and crisis teams rush in but that must be just too coddling for the military. Try telling that to some of the police officers and firefighters after the Twin Towers came down they were too soft to not need help. I bet they'd get a good laugh out of that one. Yes, crisis teams went in to help them heal right after the towers fell and as they were digging up the bodies of their buddies from the rubble.

Whenever you read reports about what the military is trying to do, what you see is the suicide and attempted suicide rate go up, not down. You see the divorce rate go up and then you wonder what they really know about PTSD because I have yet to hear a report they have been clued in that PTSD is a wound and strikes the compassionate because they walk away with their own pain and the pain of others. The military should know the root of PTSD if they ever plan on really addressing it instead of trying to kill it. They can heal it if they understand it and they can keep servicemen and women from dropping out when they want to stay in. These men and women can be healed even if they cannot be cured but they can also come out on the other side better than they were before the event itself.

Army trains soldiers on how to be mentally, emotionally tough
By Nancy Montgomery, Stars and Stripes
European edition, Sunday, January 3, 2010
A class full of battle-hardened sergeants in combat boots, being taught by a bunch of loafer-clad professors. The subject, more or less: how to be happier.

“It was awkward at first,” said Sgt. 1st Class Michael Bradley, of the 2nd Stryker Cavalry Regiment in Vilseck, Germany. “The first day, there were people who claimed it was touchy-feely.”

But as the 10 days of master resiliency training continued, those feelings faded, said Bradley, who was among the first group of NCOs to go through the first-of-its kind Army psychological course.

“A lot of people said, ‘I wish they’d had this when I came in the Army,’ ” he said. “‘I’d still be married only one time.’ ’’

The Army’s not in the marriage-counseling business, but it does try to keep soldiers alive — and failed relationships are a significant factor in the record suicide rates in the past several years. Additionally, up to 30 percent of troops are beset with PTSD and depression as soldiers have made repeated trips to war zones.

But social critics, such as Barbara Ehrenreich, who wrote The New York Times best-seller “Nickel and Dimed,” say that what Seligman markets in his books and classes is, like positive thinking in general, “snake oil” with numerous downsides.

In her book “Brightsided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America,” Ehrenreich argues that positive thinking and too much optimism lead to disasters like the Iraq war and the financial meltdown. She also says the emphasis on optimism means victims end up being blamed for their own misfortunes: they weren’t positive enough.

“If optimism is the key … and if you can achieve an optimistic outlook through the discipline of positive thinking, then there is no excuse for failure,” she writes. “The flip side of positivity is thus a harsh insistence on personal responsibility: If your business fails or your job is eliminated, it must be because you didn’t try hard enough, didn’t believe firmly enough in the inevitability of your success … to be disappointed, resentful, or downcast is to be a ‘victim’ and a ‘whiner.’ 

read more here

http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=66991

Guard killed, marshal injured in Las Vegas courthouse shooting

Guard killed, marshal injured in Las Vegas courthouse shooting
January 4, 2010 4:26 p.m. EST

STORY HIGHLIGHTS
NEW: Marshals say they don't know motive for shooting
Witness says he heard 30 to 40 gunshots
Suspect shot and killed, official says
No one else was in courthouse lobby during incident
(CNN) -- A man dressed in black walked into the lobby of a federal courthouse in Las Vegas, Nevada, pulled a shotgun from underneath his jacket and opened fire Monday, killing a court security officer and injuring a deputy U.S. marshal, an FBI spokesman said.

Seven marshals and security officers returned fire as they pursued the man into the street, FBI spokesman Joseph Dickey said. One witness described the volley of gunshots as "surreal," and another, who captured the firefight on video, said it was "unbelievable."

The suspect was shot by marshals and killed.
read more here
http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/01/04/las.vegas.shooting/index.html

Deployments take toll on children of soldiers

Deployments take toll on children of soldiers

By Preston Sparks - The Augusta (Ga.) Chronicle via AP
Posted : Monday Jan 4, 2010 7:47:48 EST

AUGUSTA, Ga. — Marcus Carr is the first to admit it can be a bit depressing.

Both of his parents are deployed overseas in the military — his mom in Iraq, his dad in Korea. Marcus’ parents are divorced, and while his mom is away he has been living with his stepfather in Augusta, helping out with extra chores such as washing dishes, caring for the dog and helping his half-brother with his studies.

“It’s kind of depressing,” he said recently, reflecting on how as a high school senior he has achieved certain milestones that his parents have been unable to enjoy with him. “It really takes a toll on me.”

So does, Marcus added, having to move six times because of military reassignments.

“Friends, it was always hard to make because you were only there for a little time,” he said, adding that he has also had problems with records transfers, sometimes losing credit for classes.

Marcus is among the thousands of children who must cope with the sacrifices that come from having a parent in the military. And amid prolonged wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, a new study suggests deployments are having an effect on military children.
read more here
Deployments take toll on children of soldiers

2,500 Fla. guardsmen preparing for deployments

2,500 Fla. guardsmen preparing for deployments

The Associated Press
Posted : Monday Jan 4, 2010 11:05:32 EST

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Nearly 2,500 soldiers from the Florida National Guard are heading to Texas this week to train for deployments in Kuwait and Iraq.

It is the largest contingent of Florida National Guard soldiers to be deployed since World War II.

The soldiers from the 53rd Infantry Brigade Combat Team are scattered throughout the state. For many, it’s their second or third deployment.

The troops began training at the Camp Blanding Joint Training Center near Jacksonville last year. Training included a model Iraqi village where expatriate Iraqis role-played and spoke Arabic. Guard members will spend a few weeks at Fort Hood, Texas.

Maj. Gen. Douglas Burnett, adjutant general of Florida, says about 8,000 Guard soldiers will remain in the state.
http://www.armytimes.com/news/2010/01/ap_guard_florida_deployment_010410/

CIA killed in Afghanistan was former Navy SEAL and expectant first time Dad

Expectant Dad Killed in Afghan Bombing
Stephen Majors
AP
COLUMBUS, Ohio (Jan. 3) - A former Navy Seal and an Ohio native whose wife is expecting the couple's first child were among seven people killed in a suicide bombing attack targeting a CIA base in southeastern Afghanistan last week.

Scott Michael Roberson, 39, was working as a security officer for the CIA when the blast on Dec. 30 rocked the remote outpost in Khost province, said his sister, Amy Messner of Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio.

The government notified his wife Wednesday of his death, Messner said, and the CIA has allowed them to make his death public.

Before joining the CIA, Roberson had worked undercover in narcotics for the Atlanta police. He also served with United Nations security forces in Kosovo and did several tours of duty in Iraq, where he provided protection to high-risk officials.
read more here
Expectant Dad Killed in Afghan Bombing

In love and war: marriage on the front lines

In love and war: marriage on the front lines


By Lindsay Wise - Houston Chronicle via AP
Posted : Saturday Jan 2, 2010 14:55:36 EST

BAGHDAD — You won’t find Iraq listed as a Top 10 honeymoon destination in the glossy pages of any bridal magazine, but there’s nowhere else newlyweds Miguel and Amanda Perez would rather be right now.

“I like to think about it like it’s the military sending us on a vacation,” joked Miguel, a 24-year-old sergeant from Houston. “Sand and palm trees everywhere — a nine-month honeymoon.”

The Perezes are one of six married couples who deployed to Iraq with the 72nd Infantry Brigade Combat Team, a Texas Army National Guard unit headquartered in Houston. About 3,000 soldiers from the brigade are stationed across the country, assigned to missions such as Green Zone security, detainee operations, force protection and convoys.

Both Perezes served in Iraq before. Miguel deployed from 2006-07. Amanda deployed from 2008-09.
read more here
In love and war: marriage on the front lines

PBS gets in touch with emotions and a Vietnam Vet with PTSD

Over the course of six hours, PBS gets in touch with emotions

By Joel Brown
Globe Correspondent

No doubt there are viewers for whom a six-hour PBS miniseries about our emotions sounds like an excruciating torment itself.

THIS EMOTIONAL LIFE

On: Channel 2
Time: Monday through Wednesday at 9 p.m.
“This Emotional Life,’’ debuting tonight on WGBH (Channel 2), proves that fear to be irrational. But whether it’s worth the time in therapy to overcome, they’ll have to decide for themselves.

The three-night show is promoted as an examination of our relationship to happiness, but only the third night really focuses on that. The first two examine roadblocks to happiness such as loneliness, marital discontent, post-traumatic stress, clinical depression, and phobias, as well as new attempts to overcome them.

The title seems an obvious reference to public radio’s storytelling “This American Life.’’ “This Emotional Life’’ revolves around narratives of real people wrestling with those emotional roadblocks: a family worn down by their adopted son’s attachment disorder; a Massachusetts state senator who found the greatest release from his depression by revealing it; a Vietnam veteran who struggled with PTSD for 30 years.
read more here
PBS gets in touch with emotions

Officer is mourned, loss shocks Worcester police department

Officer is mourned
Loss shocks Worcester dept.
‘GREAT DAD, OFFICER, MARINE, & FRIEND'

By Scott J. Croteau TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF
scroteau@telegram.com
Silent and solemn, a group of Worcester police officers stood yesterday on Reservoir Street in Holden to remember their brother officer, Mark D. Bisnette, a father and Marine who lost his life in a single-car crash Saturday.

Known as “Bizz” to his close friends, Officer Bisnette, 38, is remembered by many as a man with an infectious smile, who was proud to serve as a Marine in the Gulf War, and could carry on a conversation about anything.

“Everybody had their Bizz stories. The kid is just one of a kind. Just a great friend, always be there for you,” said Officer Thomas B. Duffy, who rushed to UMass Memorial Medical Center — University Campus in Worcester after hearing about his friend's crash.

“He was as loyal as they get. He would do anything for his family and friends,” Officer Duffy said.
read more here
http://www.telegram.com/article/20100104/NEWS/1040385/1116

VA reaches out to female vets

VA reaches out to female vets
By Michael O’Connor
WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER

When Amber Burns walks into the Veterans Affairs health clinic in Lincoln, she’s often the only female veteran in the place.

That probably will be changing.

Women make up one of the fastest-growing groups of veterans, a trend bringing changes to the VA health system in Nebraska, Iowa and the rest of the nation.

Members of the VA medical staff in Nebraska and western Iowa are receiving refresher training on gynecological exams, proper nutrition during pregnancy, cervical cancer diagnosis and treatment, and other medical care that women need.
read more here
VA reaches out to female vets

VA building has no handicap way in?

Idaho Falls
A Veteran's Struggle to Get In

Posted: Jan 1, 2010 11:25 PM EST


Reporting: Johnny Archer

A building in Bonneville County used for U.S. Veteran's Affairs has no handicap accessibility and there are some veterans who want to see that changed.

Veterans from counties other than Bonneville County use the building; vets that live as far away as Wyoming and Montana come to use it as well.

Douglas Stewart, disabled Vietnam veteran: "Vietnam veterans, Korean veterans and some of the Gulf War veterans that are all confined to a wheelchair have no way of getting into this building."

The building Stewart is referring to is the Veteran's Memorial Hall in Idaho Falls where hundreds of vets each month come to receive needed services; many of the vets are physically disabled.
read more here
http://www.kpvi.com/Global/story.asp?S=11758158

CBS 60 Minutes lets what veterans face into public mind

If you are a regular reader of this blog, you don't need to have a lecture from me about how bad it is for our veterans, so you can move on to the videos and then maybe thank 60 minutes and above all Paul Sullivan for doing this.

If you are not a regular reader, then please stay with me here a second. Before you watch these clips from 60 minutes, you need to think about something.

When they talk about a million claims, when they talk about 4 years to have a claim honored, they are not just talking about a claim. They are talking about a serviceman or woman, wounded because they served this country. They are talking about someone willing to give up their life if they had to, but managed to make it back home with wounds. They are also talking about this same man or woman, coming home with no income in the case they are unable to work or hold down a job because of their injuries. Usually the kind of injury we're talking about is PTSD. With this, they also see their family shatter under the weight of all the stress of a husband/wife with PTSD, their symptoms, unable to work because of those symptoms, and then they are left to wonder if they would have been better off dying in combat than surviving it.

After the Vietnam war, it seemed no one really cared about the veterans. We had some kind of twisted excuse to not pay attention back then. But this, this time it happened while we were watching and supposedly paying attention. It all happened since 9-11 when it just kept getting worse for our veterans at the same time they heard every political hack on TV and radio squawk about how much they cared but never once bothered to let the general public know what was going on.

Paul Sullivan is a hero to many veterans. He has been trying to get this right for the veterans since he left the VA. Isn't it time you decided to do the same for our veterans? I don't mean quit your day job but you can get involved my calling your congressman's office and letting them know, this will not be allowed to go on. Write letters to your local newspaper and send me a copy. I'll be happy to post it up for you. There is much you can do and much that has to be done but remember, they never once made us wait for them.

"We owe a debt to all who served and when we repay that debt to those bravest Americans among us, then we are investing in our future."
~ Barack Obama, August 3, 2009

VCS on "60 Minutes" Exposing Long Delays Veterans Face with VA Claims
Written by Byron Pitts
Sunday, 03 January 2010 20:41
Why The VA Frustrates Veterans: Two Wars Are Slowing The Large Bureaucracy, Delaying Benefits

January 3, 2010 (CBS News "60 Minutes") - There is a sacred tradition in the military: leave no one behind on the battlefield. But many veterans are beginning to believe their country has left them behind at home, once they're out of uniform and in need of help. That help is supposed to come from the Department of Veterans Affairs and the financial compensation it gives to veterans disabled by their military service.

It was Abraham Lincoln who said the purpose of the VA was to "care for him who shall have borne the battle." But the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have pushed the VA further behind in that mission, and today there are a million veterans waiting for the VA to handle their disability claims.

That has led some to latch onto another motto making the rounds for how the VA operates: "Delay, Deny and Hope That I Die."

Extra: Watch extented segment posted at CBS News featuring Veterans for Common Sense

Extra: Read how VA tried to launch a pre-emptive strike against "60 Minutes" and VCS at VAWatchDog.org

"When I hear that, I will tell you that it really troubles me. As somebody who has devoted 35 years of my life to this organization, and to serving veterans, it's extremely troubling that there are veterans who feel that way," the VA's Deputy Undersecretary for Benefits Michael Walcoff, told 60 Minutes correspondent Byron Pitts.

read more of this here
Exposing Long Delays Veterans Face with VA Claims

Web Extra: A Four Year Wait?
January 3, 2010 5:30 PM

Paul Sullivan is executive director of Veterans for Common Sense, an advocacy group that works on behalf of veterans' issues.

Watch CBS News Videos Online

Veterans' Benefit FrustrationsJanuary 3, 2010 5:30 PM

Two wars and a recession have significantly increased the claims handled by the U.S. Dept. of Veteran's Affairs, slowing the large bureaucracy and frustrating many veterans. Byron Pitts reports.

Watch CBS News Videos Online
CBS) There is a sacred tradition in the military: leave no one behind on the battlefield. But many veterans are beginning to believe their country has left them behind at home, once they're out of uniform and in need of help. That help is supposed to come from the Department of Veterans Affairs and the financial compensation it gives to veterans disabled by their military service.

It was Abraham Lincoln who said the purpose of the VA was to "care for him who shall have borne the battle." But the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have pushed the VA further behind in that mission, and today there are a million veterans waiting for the VA to handle their disability claims.

That has led some to latch onto another motto making the rounds for how the VA operates: "Delay, Deny and Hope That I Die."

"When I hear that, I will tell you that it really troubles me. As somebody who has devoted 35 years of my life to this organization, and to serving veterans, it's extremely troubling that there are veterans who feel that way," the VA's Deputy Undersecretary for Benefits Michael Walcoff, told 60 Minutes correspondent Byron Pitts.
read more here
Veterans Benefit Frustrations

House Fire Leaves Iraq War Veteran, Wife Homeless

House Fire Leaves Iraq War Veteran, Wife Homeless
A neighbor and friend helps the veteran, a stroke victim, to get out of the house as flames were increasing.
Story by D.K. Wright

DEEP RUN, Ohio -- The worst possible circumstances were all present on New Year's morning at a major house fire in Belmont County.
A recovering stroke victim was alone in the house, plus there were icy roads, no fire hydrants, a long distance for help to travel and the flames were prompting ammunition in the house to explode.

The house belongs to Joseph Ross and his wife Jenny.

Joseph, in his 40s, and a veteran of the Iraq War who was just recovering from a stroke, was at home alone Friday morning when he awoke to flames all around him.

"He said he was sleeping and he woke up and there was fire around him and he got his dogs out; he was over there counting the dogs and he got them out," said Linda Irwin, Ross' mother-in-law.

Neighbors who are dear friends reportedly got Joseph out the door to safety.
read more here
http://www.statejournal.com/story.cfm?func=viewstory&storyid=72793

Bullets, bombs, bills and books?

2 veterans help others battle debt
In exchange for donations, vets do community service under charity's auspices

By Bonnie Miller Rubin

Tribune reporter

January 2, 2010


It was past midnight in December 2003, when Roy Brown, a 23-year-old soldier serving in Iraq, experienced a life-changing moment.

Ironically, it didn't happen in combat but while the South Sider was on the phone, doing battle with a bank over his college loans.

"I'm on the other side of the world, worrying about (bombs) and where my unit would be moving next, and some loan officer is harassing my mother over $82.67," said Brown, shaking his head. "I just felt so disheartened and let down."

His high school pal, Eli Williamson, dealt with similar phone calls while overseas: "You can't even print what I was feeling."

But the disappointment and anger were followed by action. Once back home in Chicago, the two soldiers used their experiences as motivation to launch a nonprofit called Leave No Veteran Behind, dedicated to relieving the educational debt of those who have served in the military.

Brown and Williamson, both 29, have found office space on LaSalle Street, assembled a board of directors, connected with donors and erased the tuition bills of two servicemen and enrolled another 100 or so applicants, all of whom have been dogged by college bills.

Leave No Veteran Behind uses private donations to pay off a veteran's outstanding loans. In exchange, the soldier commits to 100 hours of community service, which helps provide purpose for someone who might have difficulty re-entering civilian life.
read more here
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-vet-charityjan02,0,7557334.story

They don't hate you, they hate what is happening to you

They don't hate you, they hate what is happening to you
by
Chaplain Kathie

If you have PTSD and are under the impression you are hiding it, you're not. You cannot hide what PTSD is doing to you. They notice how you are no longer laughing like you used to. They notice every part of you has changed including how they felt loved by you. They hear you in the middle of the night when the nightmares come. They see you when a flashback takes you back into combat. As you self-medicate to kill off feeling pain, you may say "I'm not hurting anyone." in order to justify yourself, but the truth is, you are hurting yourself and everyone in your life.

Your spouse, the one you promised to stay with in sickness and health, cannot understand that you do not suddenly hate her/him but are wounded inside.

Your kids don't understand and they feel as if you don't even like them anymore.

Your parents don't understand why their child, the man/woman they watched grow from infancy, has suddenly turned into a cold stranger in the body of their child.

Is it so easy to accept the idea they think you are a drug addict or alcoholic over having PTSD? Do you really think they admire you for coming home drunk? High? Talking tough? Getting into trouble? Do you want them to hate you so that no longer allowing yourself to feel anything for them is justified? Why is it so hard for you to remember that these people loved you no matter what happened before in your life?

They prayed for you before you left, while you were gone and thanked God because they assumed you came home fine. They loved you every time you achieved something just as much as they loved you every time you failed. They rejoiced for you just as much as they grieved for you but now you think they will not be there for you because you have PTSD. They knew "you" but they don't understand what has happened to change you unless you explain it to them.

The general public has very little understanding when it comes to PTSD. Your family is no different. Most of them say that while you were deployed, they had enough to worry about, so most did not even pay attention to the news and you didn't tell them much while you were gone either. They were not detached from you but detached from what you were going through just as much as they are detached from what is happening to you now that you're back. They cannot understand how to help you if you keep pushing them away instead of getting them involved back in your life.

If you are a veteran of Iraq or Afghanistan, now is the time to ask them to help you. Show them this video and let them know anger coming out of you is born out of the pain you are carrying. Let them understand that you are carrying what you went thru even if you do not go into detail with them. Help they understand what PTSD is and stop thinking there is more shame in being wounded than there is in being what they think you're becoming.

PTSD I Grieve

Posted to Great Americans by NamGuardianAngel on September 11, 2009

Click to Play View Details

While this video was developed for National Guardsmen, it applies to all combat veterans. Use it to help them understand why you act the way you do, say the things you do and have not said what you should have said a long time ago.

If you think for a second it's too late for you to heal, it's not. Today Vietnam veterans are finally beginning to heal, feel again, hope again, love again. It is not too late for them so it is not too late for you. When you start to seek help to heal, PTSD stops being able to increase the pain you feel. It stops getting worse.

When you begin to heal the first thing most experience is a flood of emotions, usually tears coming out feeling as if they will never stop falling. All of your emotions have been trapped behind a wall of pain built to protect yourself from more pain. The only emotion you felt safe to let out was anger but everything else was trapped behind the wall. Getting help cracks the wall and the release of emotions trapped behind it start to come out. That's why you cry. Pain is the emotion you felt first and is the strongest one. It has to be released first.

Once the pain is released then you can begin to find hope of being alive again. This will be your own alive day just as when a soldier has experienced a horrific wound awakening in the hospital calls the day they survived as their alive day. This is the day you begin to live again.

Stop trying to get the people in your life to get away from you and start to get them back in your life again.

Do you want to be homeless? What will that prove? That you don't need anyone in your life? Try surviving on the street with no one giving you a buck or two, or without anyone giving you food at a shelter or a blanket to keep you warmer. No matter what you want to believe, you do need people in your life and no one really lives without someone else helping them. It can either be your family or it can be total strangers but you do need someone.

Do you want to go to jail because you wanted to do drugs more than you wanted to be on medication? Do you want your family to really believe you hate them? Is it so much easier to put the burden of your wound onto their shoulders and make them suffer for what you will not tell them? Whatever you think will be easier to do instead of asking them to help you heal, you're wrong. They loved you before and they still love you now. Ask them for help and shove that stupid pride back where it belongs because as much as you want to think you're hiding the fact you're human, you're not fooling anyone.

The fact is that PTSD only comes after trauma, which is caused by something out of your control, from the outside attacking you. It "picked" on you because you have the ability to care more than others, have more compassion than others, feel deeper than others. It does not mean you are not courageous. It means you had the courage to act because you cared and now you can use the same courage to heal. Do you want to feel good things again? Do you think you can without getting drunk or high? You may have not noticed but when you are drunk or high, you surly don't look very happy. You are also unable to "feel" the good stuff humans are supposed to feel, like love, hope, passion and you stop feeling what it's like to be bonded to anyone.

Do you want to feel love for your family again? For your parents? For your spouse/girlfriend/boyfriend? Do you want to feel love for your kids again? Remember what it was like when you could feel the words "I love you" coming from them? When was the last time you "felt" those words reach your heart? When was the last time you felt anything other than anger?

The trauma of what you survived was out of your control. The rest of your life is within your control. God created a perfect chain of elements within all of us and it all comes from your soul. All you need to heal is within you but you need help finding out how it all works. Psychiatrists can help you fix the chemistry in your brain with medication and therapy. You can help your body work better when you eat better and exercise with calming activities. Yoga, meditation, martial arts and something as simple as taking a walk will get your body stronger and cleanse the negative energy from you. Just as important as taking care of your mind and body, is taking care of your spiritual life. Knowing God did not do this to you opens the door to asking Him to come back into your life.

There is an expression that infuriates. "God never gives us more than we can handle." This expression means that some people believe God is doing all of the bad stuff to them or causing it to happen. It is not that God is doing it to us, but that God is ready to give us what we need to get thru all of it. He can restore hope if you stop running from Him. He can restore all the faith you had before and even make it stronger if you allow Him. He can have you feeling all the good emotions you had before and make the sadness weaker.

You can heal but you can't heal if you keep trying to run away from it. You can't run from it because it will follow you no matter where you go. If you leave the people you love, what have you gained? You lost them and stand alone with no one by your side. You have also hurt people you once loved.

How do I know healing is possible? Because I have seen it in my own husband and many other veterans. There is no cure for PTSD yet and you cannot return to the way you were before. What can happen is that you come out of the darkness of PTSD better than you were before, more caring, more loving and yes, even happier. What you cannot heal, you can make weaker. You can come to a point where when nightmares come, they are not as powerful. When flashbacks come, they do not drain you as much or last as long. You can also come to a point where your family will react differently because they understand what is going on inside of you instead of blaming you for what comes out of you. The choice is your's to make but understand you did not end up with PTSD for any other reason than you survived traumatic events in combat so you can't really expect someone never exposed to any of it to automatically understand anything. Give then a chance to help you and give yourself a chance to feel love again for them.

No US combat deaths in Iraq in December but three non-combat deaths

One ugly truth about war is that we lose more after it than during it. With all the counts from the Department of Defense and the VA, the truth is that we never really know how many die because of war but are not counted in any of the totals. If they are out of the military, they are not tracked by the DOD. If they are not in the VA system as a veteran, they are not counted when they die either. It's almost as if they fall into a dark hole but their families know who they are, remember them and mourn them.

Zero combat deaths in Iraq for December but three non-combat deaths. This should not be the end of this story.

No U.S. combat-related deaths in Iraq in December
January 1, 2010 3:54 p.m. EST

STORY HIGHLIGHTS
NEW: Casualties decreasing among Iraqis with civilian death toll at its lowest in November
December is first month with no U.S. combat deaths since war began
"That is a very significant milestone for us," top U.S. commander in Iraq says
4,373 Americans have died in Iraq since start of war

Baghdad, Iraq (CNN) -- December was the first month since the beginning of the Iraq war in which there were no U.S. combat deaths, the U.S. military reported.

There were three noncombat fatalities.

"That is a very significant milestone for us as we continue to move forward, and I think that also speaks to the level of violence and how it has decreased over time," said Army Gen. Ray Odierno, the top U.S. commander in Iraq.

Since the beginning of the war more than six years ago, 4,373 U.S. military members have died -- 3,477 from hostilities and 898 in non-combat incidents.
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http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/meast/01/01/iraq.us.deaths/index.html

Be their guardian angel in this new year

Be their guardian angel in this new year
by
Chaplain Kathie

We've all seen the picture of the guardian angel watching over a boy and girl crossing the bridge as a storm approaches. She is a giant next to the tiny children. Her hand stretched out, ready to catch them if they begin to fall off the bridge, watching over every step they take. They children seem afraid even with her watching over them because they have not put all their trust in her, yet she is calmly guiding them.

When a friend asked me about the work I do years ago, I told her that my husband was behind all of it and the proceeded to tell her how his life during Vietnam would not let him go. I told her that he was not able to fight for himself because PTSD was taking all hope from him. She responded with, "Oh my God you're his guardian angel!" and then she played with some words on Vietnam arriving at "You're Nam Guardian Angel" because what I learned lead me to helping other Vietnam veterans. This is where my name came from.

The battle fought was to help them heal because I knew none of what was happening to our Vietnam veterans was carved in stone. None of it. Not the suicides, attempted suicides, divorce rates, homelessness, incarcerations or the fact less than half of them sought treatment. I saw what was possible in my own life, but I also saw what was not being done to provide the same kind of knowledge I had to gain the hard way. This work began in 1982, long before PTSD made it into any news broadcast.

Back then few books were written on PTSD even though the term was already being used in the 70's, contrary to what some "experts" claim only begin in the 80's. By 1978 the DAV commissioned a study and found there were 500,000 Vietnam veterans with PTSD and there were already over 70 veterans centers opened across the nation to help veterans heal. Dr. James Goodwin produced a pamphlet published by the DAV, The Etiology of Combat Related Post Traumatic Stress Disorders, Readjustment Problems Among Vietnam Veterans. This is not something that was common knowledge, nor was it anything the media seemed to take any interest in at all.

The Veterans Administration was slower to address this. They did not acknowledge it until the 80's and this is where some of the confusion began. Most of the studies done since then paved the way for what we see today when civilians experience traumatic events and crisis teams rush in to address the trauma of the survivors and the responders. We know trauma just as every other generation knew it but no other generation seemed willing or able to do more than keep it as a deep dark secret families kept to themselves.

Each time we sent men into combat, the result was the same as we see today. We read reports on PTSD, how a veteran suffers, families suffer, drug and alcohol problems along with domestic violence lead to more suffering but we also read about how everyday people are trying to do something about it for the sake of others.

Most of the time these efforts are lead by Vietnam veterans or their families, just like mine. It would have been very easy for me to simply fight for what my husband needed to heal and to have his claim approved, then just get on with my life. I had a decent job and my life had gotten to the point where, despite some of the issues remaining with PTSD, I was happily married. What changed between the time I met my husband and the time I decided to stay in this fight for other veterans was the knowledge gained. I knew no one should ever have to feel alone like I did, helpless or hopeless ever again.

Over the years I've seen many advances in getting to the point where people are aware of what PTSD and closer to getting rid of the stigma of PTSD but not to the level reported after 9-11. When the planes hit in New York, the trauma of that day weighed so heavily on the nation's heart, everyone knew what it was like to experience traumatic events and most of the people in this country, were not even there, not survivors, did not know anyone personally but had a response as if they were deeply connected to it.

Crisis teams responded to New York and Washington following the attack on the Pentagon. They were prepared to help because of the work done leading up to that day because Vietnam veterans pushed to have research done on the effects of trauma on the soul. It also lead to my horror knowing PTSD in our Vietnam veterans, Korean veterans and WWII veterans was about to get a lot worse because of this secondary stressor and the attack on the one place they were supposed to feel safe.

It did get worse. Just as with the study done by Dr. Goodwin, the prediction was an increase in PTSD as veterans got older and dealt with more traumatic events, it was easy to predict the increase in PTSD after 9-11. It was also easy to predict it when the troops were sent into Afghanistan given the history of warfare in that country as well as when they were sent into Iraq, given the history of that country. None of this should have gone unpredicted, yet there were less doctors and nurses working for the VA than there were after the Gulf War. Two active military campaigns history had already shown would be brutal and lengthy but no ramping up of the VA was beyond irresponsible, but few experts were saying anything about this or going any of the 24-7 cable news stations sounding any alarm bells.

None of what we've been seeing with PTSD had to happen and this is why it will take this entire nation to make up for lost time as well as the wound being able to cut deeper into their souls.

We have to stop saying let the VA take care of them, let this group or that group do it. We have to begin to ask what we can do because as the Obama Administration attempts to take on the flood of veterans seeking help, they are not paying attention to the tsunami offshore. I know what hardships come with PTSD but above that, I know what is possible with addressing it head on the right way with the right information and the right response. That's why I began to create the videos. Watch them and pass them on to anyone you think should understand what is going on with you or with someone you love.

Then take it to the next step. Get your clergy involved in this. Make them pay attention to PTSD because PTSD is a spiritual wound and scientists have already seen the region of the brain changed by it. They need spiritual help as much as they need psychiatric help.

If you know of a spouse dealing with a "changed" veteran, listen to them. If you suspect PTSD, help them to understand what it is and then encourage them to seek the help of a mental health worker to be diagnosed. Maybe you're wrong on what you suspect but there is no harm done in sending them to a doctor. You could very well be right and may end up not only saving a veteran's life but stopping their family from falling apart.

You would not be reading this blog if you did not care or want to learn more about PTSD. Trust the knowledge you've gained and listen when people talk. If you hear the term "suddenly changed" then that is the basis to move from. You can then ask "when" and usually you'll find a traumatic event. That is the only way PTSD strikes.

When psychiatrist look for signs of mental illness they will look for the usual suspects with PTSD being the last thing they look for unless they are told about trauma in the life. Otherwise no matter what they are looking for, they will find it because PTSD has the same kind of symptoms as most mental illnesses. The difference is PTSD's route cause is trauma, not beginning with brain but attacking it.

You can be their guardian angel and not only help them heal but provide a loving, guiding hand to catch them when they are about to fall in face of a storm. Be there because they are afraid they cannot make it over the bridge to heal. Comfort them with your hand ready to catch them and love them enough to fight for them. PTSD does not require a PHD to fight it but it does require knowledge. Learn what you can and then learn who to send them to for what you have yet to learn. You could end up saving the life of a hero. I can tell you there is no other feeling in the world that can come close to being able to do this for them.

Former colonel backs new PTSD EMDR treatment

There is much we know about PTSD that is not disputed. PTSD comes only after trauma, thus the title now assigned to it, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. PTSD changes lives of those "targeted" by it. We know there are different levels of it. We know it is treatable and healable, but so far, it is not curable. We also know that it stops getting worse when treatment, whatever method, begins.

We also know that when the whole person is being treated, the best results come. Take care of the mind, body and spirit.

PTSD is much like an infection. You are cut (by events you survived or witnessed) then tissue becomes infected around where you were cut (tissue is replaced by emotions and the chemicals in the brain reacting to the emotional "cut" received by the traumatic event) spreading out, digging deeper and causing more pain. When you have an infection, the body reacts to heal but more often than not, the body needs the help of antibiotics to fight off the infection. As the antibiotics begin to work the tissues heal, pain is eased and the scar remains behind. Depending on how soon the antibiotics are administered, the scar could be superficial or deeply embedded.

There is however no one size fits all "antibiotic" of therapy. Some do well with one but a buddy won't be helped at all by it, just as some will do well with one type of medication but others will not. If you do not feel as if your program is working for you, seek another one just as you would consult your doctor about another type of medication to use to heal the infection. Don't give up.

Former colonel backs new PTSD treatment
Doctor champions Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing
By JAKE LOWARY • The Leaf-Chronicle • December 31, 2009


A retired local colonel with more than 30 years of experience in helping soldiers with family and psychological problems is championing a new technique he says can be more than 85 percent effective in the treatment of combat-related stress.

E.C. Hurley, the executive director of the Soldier Center and Marriage and Family Institute on Tiny Town Road, says the level of stress on soldiers today has never been higher, with repeated deployments. But, he said, the treatment of stress-related disorders is also getting much better, particularly in the form of EMDR, or Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing.
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Former colonel backs new PTSD treatment

Celtics to honor NH Marine officer

Celtics to honor NH Marine officer

By BETH LAMONTAGNE HALL
New Hampshire Union Leader



Before the Boston Celtics take the floor at the TD Bank Garden on Saturday, a former high school basketball star and candidate for New Hampshire governor will take center court to receive an award for his 30 years of service as a Marine.

Lt. Col. Joseph Kenney, of Wakefield, is being honored by the Boston Celtics' "Heroes Among Us" program, which gives out monthly awards recognizing people who have made exceptional and lasting contributions to the community. Kenney and his family will be driven to Boston, courtesy of the Celts, meet some of the players and get tickets to the team's game against the Toronto Raptors.

"My son and I are excited to go down. He's a big Ray Allen fan," Kenney said.

A longtime Celtics fan and a former basketball player for Spaulding High School of Rochester, Kenney said the opportunity to see his team play while home on leave from Afghanistan is an unexpected treat. It's every young basketball fan's dream to stand in the middle of the parquet floor, he said, and he is proud to do so as a representative of the U.S. military.

Kenney will be heading back to Afghanistan to finish the last four months of his deployment next week. Earlier this year, U.S. commander in Afghanistan Gen. Stanley McChrystal outlined a new strategy in Iraq that emphasizes protecting the local people, reconstructing the infrastructure and using more troops to fight the Taliban.
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Celtics to honor NH Marine officer