Sunday, April 24, 2011

"Not proud of lack of care our vets are receiving now"

There is only one "one size fits all" therapy for veterans and that is we do all we can to give them what they need. If a tiny program works for these veterans, do it. Don't find excuses to cut something that is helping them heal. Doing all we can is therapy for them because we prove they do matter. Cutting programs tells them they are not worth the price.


End of VA program spurs protests
Posted: April 22, 2011

By Ann Marie Bush
THE CAPITAL-JOURNAL
The elimination of a program at the Colmery-O'Neil VA Medical Center has some people concerned about the possibility of cuts to other veterans’ programs.

"The bottom line is the VA has closed some very important clinics," said Marvella Kreipe, of Tecumseh.

At issue in this case is the lapidary program, where rock cutting and polishing took place.

Kreipe and her husband, Bill, a Vietnam veteran, were two of six people protesting cuts outside of the VA hospital Thursday afternoon.

Georgia and James Bent, of Quenemo, also held signs protesting the closure of the lapidary program and the possible closure of other programs.

James Bent, who served in the Kansas National Guard, has had a lot of improvement during his time in the lapidary program, Georgia Bent said. James returned from Iraq a few years ago.

"My husband was in the military for over 20 years," Georgia wrote in an email. "He and I are both proud of that. What we are not proud of is the lack of care our vets are receiving now. My husband is not the same man he was prior to spending a year in Iraq. It has taken many, many months of counseling and treatment programs to get him where he is able to function normally."
read more here
End of VA program spurs protests

Female Army Vet, released from PTSD program, committed suicide at shooting range

TAYLOR: Iowa woman recently released from post-traumatic stress disorder treatment program
Published: Saturday, April 23, 2011

By Rene Cizio

TAYLOR — A 38-year-old Iowa woman killed herself Wednesday at Top Gun Shooting Sports, 16725 Racho Road.

Police said Army veteran Wendy Torrey had been released recently from a post-traumatic stress disorder treatment program at the Battle Creek Veterans Affairs Medical Center.

Police said Torrey went to the range at about 1 p.m., rented a semiautomatic handgun and shot at targets for awhile. Surveillance video shows that she stopped firing at the target and shot herself in the head.
read more here
Iowa woman recently released

Ignored sacrifices

If you search Google images for Easter, there are 20,700,000 results to find. This was the first picture and up until page 11 in the results, it was all about colored eggs and the Easter Bunny.

Much like Christmas being all about Santa, Easter has been taken over and has taken away Christ. This image showed up on page 11.


If you go to church, Christmas is all about the birth of Christ. At least that's the day Christians celebrate it but when you look back to why they decided on December 25, discovering this day is not really a holy day to most of the world, is not that big of a shock. The trees, holly and celebrations were tied to old traditions of celebrating the Winter Solstice and had nothing to do with the birth of the Son of God. It was all about what was in it for the people. The early Christian church couldn't get the people to stop celebrating, so they decided to tie the celebrating to Christ.

Easter has been one more time during the year when people do more celebrating than honoring the willingness of Christ to sacrifice His life for the sake of humanity. We ignore His life, how He lived and what He did, pretend that the crucifixion was a failure instead of a known outcome predicted 700 years before it happened as much as we forget He had a choice that day to walk away or fulfill God's mercy. When plain humans have a choice of thinking of themselves or of others, we seem to find it easier to accept self interest above sacrifice. Most want to know what's in if for them.

We ignore sacrifices everyday. Volunteering is considered to be done by people not good enough to be paid for what they do. High school graduates entering into the military are thought of as doing it just because they can't find a job or can't afford college. Sacrifices for the sake of someone else are reasons to find excuses to dismiss what some do for the sake of others. It makes us feel better about ourselves when we do nothing for anyone else.

We ignore Christ and forget about God until we need something from them. We ignore the men and women serving in the military until we need them to do something for the country and what they do better end soon after it begins or we lose interests, then complain about how much what they are doing is costing us. We ignore volunteers until something is not being done and then we wonder why no one is showing up to feed the hungry, help someone in need or even hold a door for us when our hands are full.

When the world turns selfish, we wonder why, until another disaster hits and suddenly they show up again. It is not that they stopped doing things for other people. We stopped looking for them.

Saturday, April 23, 2011

Reporter ignores more important story

This is what the headline was.
Ex-Marine beats wife during divorce hearing

They focused on the fact this man was a Marine. Was that just an easier headline for them to use than the fact this woman tried to get a restraining order against her husband but it was denied before this even happened? Where was her protection?
Wife speaks about court attack

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (WSVN) -- A mother of two came on camera to talk about a brutal beating by her husband that unfolded in front of a judge.

The incident occurred at the Broward County Courthouse, last Friday.

Caty Scott-Gonzalez was at the final court hearing for her divorce from her husband, Paul Gonzalez. Scott-Gonzalez said her husband blind-sided her inside the private chambers of Judge Ronald Rothschild. As Gonzalez began beating his wife, a dozen bailiffs rushed in to subdue him.

The victim said, "They had to Tase him twice in order to remove him from me."

Scott-Gonzalez was beaten so badly, she fell unconscious. "The first blow to my face knocked me out, so I don't really remember anything," she said. "I just had a bad feeling, but I thought that the place that I was in, that there was nothing that could happen to me, and I was wrong."

Gonzalez has been charged with felony battery. The ex-Marine remains in jail on $1 million bond. During Gonzalez's appearance in bond court, the judge said, "Rarely in my career have I ever set a bond in this amount or even approaching it, but the allegations are indeed extremely serious and shocking."

According to Scott-Gonzalez, she tried to tell others that her husband could be violent at times. The battered wife said she attempted to get a restraining order against her husband; however, her request was denied.
click link above for more

When women are afraid in their own home, it is about as bad as it gets, but for too many the nightmare comes when they try to get someone to protect them. Why was it denied? Who denied it?

We cover a lot of stories on veterans but one that does not get enough attention is the simple fact that some of the veterans coming back are living on anger because they did not get the help they needed. This is a price being paid all too often.

When families are dealing with PTSD veterans, it makes it harder to live with some of them. Keep in mind that most do not abuse their families, but as we've read too many times, some do. The first thing families need to do is find a safe place to live and then try to get their spouse help from a distance.

I don't know if Gonzalez has PTSD or not but I do know this woman tried to get protection from him and this is the result of her not getting it. So why was this a bigger story as an ex-Marine beating his wife in court than the fact the court refused to help her be save in the first place?

Military faces challenge to malpractice shield Feres

Military faces challenge to malpractice shield
(AP)
BRADENTON, Fla. (AP) — Veterans, military families and others who oppose a decades-old law that shields military medical personnel from malpractice lawsuits are rallying around a case they consider the best chance in a generation to change the widely unpopular protection.

The U.S. Supreme Court has asked for more information from attorneys and will decide next month whether to hear the case of a 25-year-old noncommissioned officer who died after a nurse put a tube down the wrong part of his throat.

If the law is overturned, it could expose the federal government to billions of dollars in liability claims. That makes it highly unlikely a divided Congress desperate to cut expenses will act on its own to change what's called the Feres Doctrine, a 1950 Supreme Court ruling that effectively equates injuries from medical mistakes with battlefield wounds.

The court case involves the death of Air Force Staff Sgt. Dean Patrick Witt, who was hospitalized in 2003 for what should have been a routine appendectomy at Travis Air Force Base in Fairfield, Calif. Following surgery, a nurse anesthetist inserted a breathing tube into his esophagus instead of his trachea or airway, depriving his brain of oxygen. Witt, of Oroville, Calif., died once his family removed him from life support three months later.

The nurse admitted her mistake and surrendered her state license. Federal courts denied the legal claim by Witt's widow, saying their hands were tied by the Feres Doctrine. Witt's family appealed, aiming to help other service members who get hurt in military hospitals.

"We labored on this for a long, long time, and we decided that the right thing to do here was to protect the rights of other people who go into the military and are signing away their rights to get good health care in the military system," said Witt's brother-in-law, Carlos Lopez, of Salt Lake City. "So we're hoping, we're praying, that his case could be the one that changes everything."

The Feres (pronounced FEHR-es) ruling grew out of the Federal Tort Claims Act of 1946, which allowed lawsuits against the government for negligent acts under certain circumstances. Initially the law was interpreted to forbid lawsuits by military personnel and their families only for combat-related injuries and deaths, but the decision in Feres vs. United States — involving a soldier who died in a barracks fire — widened that exclusion to bar any lawsuits over injuries "incident to military service."
read more here
Military faces challenge to malpractice shield

Friday, April 22, 2011

After over 60 years, Daytona Beach soldier's remains are coming home

Many people do not know how many were not accounted for after Korea.


KOREAN UNACCOUNTED FOR
(Bodies not identified/bodies not recovered) 8,176
Prisoner of War 2,045

Killed in Action 1,794

Missing in Action 4,245

Non-battle 92

Total: 8,176


After over 60 years, Daytona Beach soldier's remains are coming home
By Jason Wheeler, Volusia County Reporter
Last Updated: Friday, April 22, 2011 2:58 PM
DAYTONA BEACH --
The son of a U.S. soldier, killed during the Korean War, is getting ready to lay his father to rest -- 61 years after he died.

Sergeant First Class James Caldwell's remains were were excavated from a mass grave by the North Korean government in the 90's, and turned over to the U.S.

DNA helped identify the remains at the POW-MIA Accountability Center.

Johnston Caldwell was a toddler when his father disappeared in 1950.

For Caldwell, he and his sister said their goodbyes years ago.

"I lost my dad when I was a kid, only 4 1/2 years of age," Johnston Caldwell said. "I never got to know that much about him except what my mother told me, so we kind of buried him a long time ago."

James Caldwell's remains are being flown to Volusia County on Monday. They will be met by a full military honor guard, as well as the president of the local Korean War Veterans Assocation, Robert McGuire.

According to McGuire, Caldwell's family is lucky. Many more families are still waiting for word of their loved ones.
read more here
Daytona Beach soldier's remains are coming home

Here is one more story I came across that will warm your heart a bit more. It is about the Vietnam War and a group of veterans, police and firefighters making a difference.

KIA Man’s Dog Tag Returned to Family by Nam Knights
Biker group returns fallen soldier’s dog tag
By AUDREY PARENTE, Staff writer

March 10, 2011 – DAYTONA BEACH — At 16, Darlene Woodruff looked up to her soldier cousin, Army Sgt. Robert Melvin Fletcher, who wrote letters to her from the jungles of Vietnam.

The thought of him not coming home never crossed her mind. But on Mother’s Day in 1968, she learned of his death.

“I remember thinking — wondering — what kind of things he had faced over there as such a young man,” Woodruff said. “I remember thinking he had done something far greater than I had done or would ever do.”

More than four decades later, as part of an annual Bike Week party Thursday morning, she learned how her cousin died.

At a special ceremony at the Veterans of Foreign War Post 1590, she watched her sister, Sharron Blais, clutch his dog tag and hug the soldier in whose arms he died.

The former soldier, retired steelworker Clifford William Searcy Jr., found his way to Daytona Beach and Fletcher’s family as part of a chain of events that began in 1998 when a Wall Street trader bought a sack of 100 dog tags from a Vietnamese peasant. The journey ended with Searcy telling Woodruff and Blais the story of their cousin’s final moments.
read more here
KIA Man’s Dog Tag Returned to Family by Nam Knights

JP Morgan and Chase will pay $26 Military Foreclosure Claims

Bank Settles Military Foreclosure Claims

April 22, 2011
Stars and Stripes|by Bill Murphy Jr.
Banking giant JPMorgan Chase and Co., which admitted earlier this year that it had improperly overcharged thousands of military families on their mortgages and foreclosed on the homes of servicemembers in Iraq and Afghanistan, will pay $26 million to settle the class action lawsuit that brought the activity to light.

Marine Capt. Jonathan Rowles and his wife, Julia, filed the suit, which accused Chase of ignoring the protections they were due under a federal law known as the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act.

“We are sorry and regret the mistakes our firm made on mortgages for members of the military, and we’d like to thank Capt. and Mrs. Rowles for helping us address them,” Chase's chief administrative officer, Frank Bisignano, said in a statement announcing the deal. “We hold ourselves accountable and responsible for these mistakes, and fixing them is just the beginning of a new way forward with the military and veteran community as we make serving them a core part of how we operate our business every day."

“My family and I thank Chase for resolving this matter,” Capt. Rowles said in the same statement.

“It is our hope that this settlement will result in greater attention by the entire financial services industry to the nation’s laws that protect our military families."
read more here
Bank Settles Military Foreclosure Claims

Scientists make breakthrough in understanding stress related disorders again

Most enter into the military right out of high school. This region of the brian is not fully developed until the age of 25. So there you have part one of the reason so many young veterans never leave combat behind and why they grow old fighting battles in their minds.


Scientists make breakthrough in understanding stress
A team of neuroscientists has made a breakthrough in understanding how the brain responds to traumatic events.

The discovery could lead to new treatments for stress-related psychiatric disorders.

Dr Robert Pawlak, from the University of Leicester, said: "It was known certain individuals are more susceptible to detrimental effects of stress.

"However, the reasons were not clear."

Researchers, led by Dr Pawlak, found that the emotional centre of the brain – the amygdala – reacts to stress by increasing production of the protein neuropsin.

This triggers a series of chemical reactions including activating a gene that determines the stress response.

Blocking those proteins reduced stress levels.

Dr Pawlak said: "We are tremendously excited about these findings. Our discovery opens new possibilities for the prevention and treatment of stress-related psychiatric disorders such as depression and post-traumatic stress disorder."
Scientists make breakthrough in understanding stress

The problem I'm having right now is this study was even done in the UK when it was already known years ago. This is one more reason why there has been no real new research done.

I've been involved with PTSD since 1982 when I met my Vietnam Vet husband. Over the years there isn't much I have not read simply because my life was involved as his wife. This wasn't just research to me. It was my life so it mattered a great deal. Over all these years I've gone to more conferences and taken training to the point where I cannot remember all of them unless I search my book case and storage boxes for the information I brought back home. I can tell you for a fact this information has been out there for several years but it did not come from studying members of the military. It came from research done on civilians.

What this does not include is the answer as to why the average rate of humans exposed to trauma and ending up with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is one out of three and not 100%. The answer is in how we are all different.

Some people are selfish thinking about themselves and their own needs more than others. Some are compassionate enough that they put other people ahead of themselves. Some are in between these two groups. PTSD strikes those who are able to feel more deeply than others. They not only walk away with their own pain but they take upon themselves the pain of others.

They want to develop a drug that blocks proteins without ever understanding why PTSD strikes in the first place. They don't understand why the exposures to traumatic events increase the risk of PTSD even in the subjects that fall into the "self" group. They ignore the increased levels of police officers over firefighters and the military higher than anyone else. Police and military members are not only exposed to more events but they also participate in the events with violence. Their PTSD is much different than simply surviving the event itself. Firefighters respond after the fire and they develop PTSD as well but as with civilians, it is a different type of wound they carry with them.

Until researchers understand what is behind it, they will not make any real contributions to healing it. Repeating studies that were already done is a waste of time.

It took a Vietnam Vet 28 years to have VA claim approved

You may read this and say "it's great" but when you think about the hell they go through between filing a claim and finally seeing the day it is honored, you'd know how high the price was. It eats away at them when they see everything they have slip away and it seems no one gives a damn.


Local veteran wins 28-year-long battle for disability and medical benefits with the help of Sen. Gillibrand
Published: Thursday, April 21, 2011

By PAUL POST
ppost@saratogian.com

SARATOGA SPRINGS — Vietnam veteran Roger Lefco has finally won a 28-year battle to obtain disability and medical benefits.

The 68-year-old Stillwater resident has obtained $42,000 in retroactive benefits and will get an additional $2,600 in monthly Veterans Administration benefits going forward.

He was forced to leave his job 10 years ago because of war-related post-traumatic stress disorder and has been out of work ever since.

"There is hope for New York veterans," he said. "They should never give up and keep on fighting for what they deserve."

Lefco served in Vietnam from 1963 to 1966, where he picked up fuel, bombs and explosives for delivery to his own base at Phu Bai. In 1970, he went to work for New York Telephone Co. where he stayed until December 2001, when PTSD forced him to leave his job.

Lefco filed his first claim for VA benefits in 1983. However, at that time, veterans were required to document specific incidents that might have triggered the disorder.
read more here
Local veteran wins 28-year-long battle

Judge Robert Russell and Veterans Treatment Court Honored

Legislature Honors Judge Robert Russell and Veterans Treatment Court
By WKBW News

April 20, 2011
Updated Apr 20, 2011 at 2:00 PM EDT
Buffalo, NY – ( release) The Erie County Legislature honored Judge Robert Russell and his vision and leadership in creating the nation’s first Veteran Treatment Court in Buffalo.

Legislator Daniel Kozub drafted the Proclamation that was read on the floor of the Legislature at a regular session on April 14, 2011. In it he thanked Judge Russell for forming the first ever veterans treatment court in the nation in January of 2008. Since that time the program has been copied in counties throughout the United States.
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Legislature Honors Judge Robert Russell