Thursday, June 27, 2013

Robert Guzzo Jr. Navy SEAL To Be Remembered With Memorial Race in NC

PTSD Victim, Navy SEAL To Be Remembered With Memorial Race in NC
Portsmouth Patch
Posted by Sandy McGee (Editor)
June 26, 2013

Robert Bryan Guzzo Jr., 33, was a beloved father, son, Navy SEAL, Portsmouth High School football star and "a ham for the camera," according to an interview from The Washington Post's online TV show The Fold, which featured Guzzo in a previous story.
read more here

PTSD, a Navy SEAL and family left behind

Other Navy SEALs lost to suicide
Navy Cmdr. Job W. Price

Chief Petty Officer Jerald Kruse

Editorial on Veterans got the obscenity target wrong

This part got to me. "We believe that is obscene as our nation’s veterans deserve better." but what they missed was the fact the veterans also deserved better from the press. They always ignore their own role in what happened because they simply ignored it or played political games. When they took such an important subject but assigned reporters without a clue, unable and unwilling to do basic research so they know what questions to ask.

That happens all the time. I know my readers are growing weary of reading about THE WARRIOR SAW, SUICIDES AFTER WAR but when you know what is in it, you'll know why I wrote it. It is what they "saw" that haunts them but the DOD and the VA won't address that. There is a difference between what they actually "saw" and how they see themselves afterwards. That is only part of the book. It is about how things got so screwed up after 40 years of research on the connection between combat and PTSD, much different from what civilians end up with. It is about businesses and colleges making billions a year pushing the program experts blame for the rise in suicides along with attempted suicides. It is about how Congress had funded "efforts" for over ten years that do not work and have not held anyone accountable. If the fact veterans are suffering really bothered the editorial board of DNJ, then they should have paid attention all along and told the whole truth.
EDITORIAL: The nation's veterans deserve better
DNJ.com
Jun. 26, 2013

The Department of Veterans Affairs currently has 245,000 veterans who have waited a year or more for the VA to take action on their medical claims. More than half a million have waited 125 days or more, which is the organization’s goal for processing claims.

Recently the VA bragged that most of the backlog that was more than two years old had been cleared.

We believe that is obscene as our nation’s veterans deserve better.

The men and women who serve this country have returned from war only to face a bureaucracy that does not seem focused on providing them the assistance to which they are entitled. Many veterans who face physical injuries or life-long post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are returning and finding the help they need is unavailable.

This is particularly ironic given that June is PTSD Awareness Month and the VA’s own website is filled with articles and links talking about PTSD, symptoms, treatments and more.

The nation has been at war since 2001. Two different presidents, both of whom express a tremendous amount of respect and affection for our nation’s veterans, have seen these problems increase under their administrations. They have seen vets returning from war and facing far too many challenges in trying to get the benefits they’ve earned.
read more here

My Comment
You are right about the two different Presidents however you are missing the most important part. Nothing was ready to care for the wounded before they were sent into Afghanistan in 2001 or into Iraq in 2003. But you also have to go back many more years, more generations, before you find a time when veterans were treated with the dignity and respect they paid for when they were sent to war. If you do that, then it is an honest attempt to fix what has been broken for years. Just an example the backlog of VA claims was over 900,000 in June of 2009. Not the first time veterans were left waiting. Vietnam veterans had the same problem and the bulk of the VA claims are from Vietnam veterans still seeking help for PTSD and Agent Orange. We didn't do right by them but newspapers forget about them all the time. OEF and OIF veterans will be forgotten about when the next war starts unless we fix what is broken now.


By the way, would have been great if they took a look at how long Vietnam veterans waited. My husband's claim took six years and that was back in the 90's. I found all the reports they failed to put together and was shocked by what I discovered.

Marine's conviction overturned in killing of Iraqi father of 11

Marine's conviction overturned in killing of Iraqi father of 11
By Alex Dobuzinskis
Reuters
June 27, 2013

LOS ANGELES - The highest military appeals court on Wednesday overturned the murder conviction of a Marine sergeant found guilty in 2007 of leading a squad in Iraq that was accused of killing a civilian they had captured, bound and gagged.

Three judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces found Sergeant Lawrence Hutchins gave a statement to a U.S. Navy investigator while in custody that should have been ruled inadmissible and tainted his court-martial.

The case stems from the 2006 death in Hamdania, Iraq, of Hashim Ibrahim Awad, 52, a father of 11 and grandfather of four.

In 2007, a court-martial at Camp Pendleton Marine Corps base north of San Diego sentenced Hutchins to 15 years in military prison after finding him guilty of unpremeditated murder, larceny and other crimes.
read more here

Wednesday, June 26, 2013

"Veteran business owner" should be ashamed of himself

Duckworth rips witness over veterans disability claim
Posted by
CNN's Ashley Killough
3 hours ago

(CNN) – Democratic Rep. Tammy Duckworth, an Iraq war veteran and double-amputee, lambasted a witness during a congressional hearing Wednesday, accusing him of "gaming the system" for federal veterans benefits.

The witness, Braulio Castillo, had come under scrutiny from the House Oversight and Government Reform committee for allegedly claiming veteran disability status as a way to gain an advantage in contracting bids for the Internal Revenue Service.

Castillo, president and CEO of an IT company called Strong Castle, reported a foot injury he sustained in 1984 at the U.S Military Academy Preparatory School, according to a report released by the committee. He was honorably discharged in his first year at the school, and later went on to play football at the University of San Diego as quarterback and linebacker.
read more here

Reporters don't know the difference between the "military" and the VA

How did they go from this headline Veterans' uphill road back, struggle with suicide to the ones used afterwards?

Military suicides reach 350 in 2012, WJLA June 25, 2013

This one was really bad. It linked them to the backlog of claims at the VA
Military's Suicide Rate In 2012 Surpassed Combat Deaths
by KREX News Room
by Jacklyn Thrapp
Story Created: Jun 25, 2013
WASHINGTON (AP) - More active-duty military men and women committed suicide last year than were killed in Afghanistan.

According to statistics released by the Army, some 350 people in the military killed themselves in 2012, and 295 troops were killed in Afghanistan.

The high number of suicides is partly blamed on administrative backlogs in the Department of Veterans Affairs and the stigma many soldiers still attach to getting help for mental health issues.
This is the whole article printed on the news site. That's it. It was taken from the Associated Press Report, that is clear because it contained the same error of using "military" suicides and then the VA, when both departments keep their own separate figures. But so did this one from Navy Times Growing problem of suicide in military spotlights VA

None of the "news" sites corrected the error. They didn't correct the story that started out with the suicide of Joe Miller even though his suicide happened 5 years before the number of suicides reported as "fact" from 2012. If they wanted a report on a military suicide from last year all they had to do was look at their own files for it.

SEAL commander's death in Afghanistan an apparent suicide, December 23, 2012

William Busbee who served three tours in Iraq with the Army returned home at the beginning of the year. December 13, 2012

Staff Sgt. Courtey Rush of Aledo, Illinois was a rising star in the Air Force – a crew chief who loved working on C-130s. In January, 10 months after her second deployment, Courtney was alone in her home off base in South Carolina when she shot and killed herself.

Senior Airman Jordan C. Bordelon was found with a self-inflicted gunshot wound at his Valdosta, Ga. apartment complex, and was immediately transported by emergency responders to South Georgia Medical Center for treatment. Oct. 27, 2012

There are so many reports on Wounded Times under "military suicides" because they are all connected to military service but they are separated simply because of the way they are tracked by the government. When reporters get it wrong and others fail to figure it out, it proves how little they really pay attention.

As for Senator Joe Donnelly: Nation must do more to prevent military suicides, he pretty much just made it worse with his new bill and "unfit for duty" clause.

Gay marriage is not what you may think

I am reading a lot of religious leaders coming out against what the Supreme Court decided was right on gay marriage. It got me thinking about what too few people are aware of.

In December of 2010 a Denver church grew after accepting homosexuals.
Highlands Church marks its first birthday Sunday, having survived a year in which it lost half its congregation and two-thirds of its financial support after the pastor declared that gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people could participate fully in church life and leadership.

The Rev. Mark Tidd, married father of five, said his decision created a maelstrom that forced his break with the denomination of his ordination, the Christian Reform Church.

It also led him to end his affiliation with Pathways Church.

They were not bitter partings, the pastor said, just inevitable.

"I knew my views and practices were outside their bounds," Tidd said. "My church extends the love of God to people who are treated like the last group of lepers on earth."
On October 10th, 2011 First openly gay pastor ordained in the PCUSA spoke to CNN

(CNN) - It was nearly three decades in the making, but the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has ordained its first openly gay pastor. The Rev. Scott Anderson was ordained Saturday at Covenant Presbyterian Church, in Madison, Wisconsin.

"It's an exciting time for me personally to be the first openly gay person ordained in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), and it's a big moment for our church that has has excluded gays and lesbians for so many decades, so it's a new day for us," Anderson told CNN's Suzanne Malveaux.

Anderson had previously been a Presbyterian pastor but left the ministry in 1990 after he was outed by congregants.
Eastern Orthodoxy

The Orthodox Church holds the opinion that sexuality, as we understand it, is part of the fallen world only. In Orthodox theology both monasticism and marriage are paths to Salvation (sotiriain Greek; literally meaning, "becoming whole"). Celibacy is the ideal path, exemplified in monasticism, while marriage is blessed under the context of true love ("Man must love his wife as Jesus loved his Church": this phrase is part of the Orthodox Marriage Ritual). This context can be interpreted by the non-Orthodox as not being exclusive of homosexuality; whereas it is seen as exclusive of homosexuality by the vast majority of the Orthodox. Traditionally, the church has adopted a non-legalistic view of sin (see above), in which homosexuality is a sin. Although some members of the church may have assumed an active role in encouraging negative social stereotypes against gay individuals who do not repent, they misrepresent the stance of the Orthodox Church, which does not promote judgment of people but judgment of actions. However, several prominent members of the clergy have made statements condemning homosexuality.

All jurisdictions, such as the Orthodox Church in America, have taken the approach of welcoming people with "homosexual feelings and emotions," while encouraging them to work towards "overcoming its harmful effects in their lives," while not allowing the sacraments to people who seek to justify homosexual activity.

LGBT activism within Orthodox churches has been much less widespread than in Catholicism and many Protestant denominations. In 1980 the group Axios was founded in Los Angeles to advocate for sexual minorities in the Orthodox church, and has since started several other chapters in the United States, Canada, and Australia.


There is what is legal and what is religious. There is a difference. What is right with one church may not be right with another but you have the right to join or quit whatever church you want to. In my case, I am Eastern Orthodox so according to them, they can deny me sacraments if I justify homosexual "activity" but I am not sure what they mean by that. My church taught me to love others and that is how I have tried to live. I am not trying to justify anything other than they have the same rights under the law to live free and must live with the rules of the religious groups they want to belong to. If they do not feel welcomed there, there are other places they can go and feel loved.

I have talked to far too many members of the military risking their lives for this land of freedom but were not free to live as themselves.

House and Senate Committees Death Panels

House and Senate Committees Death Panels
Wounded Times Blog
Kathie Costos
June 26, 2013

My friends are in low places right now. They are not high and mighty. They don't have the money to hire anyone to fight for them. There was a time when members of Congress actually did but those days are long gone. The truth is pretty ugly but few know what is really going on. Now I am wondering if the high and mighty have any clue at all.

I am about as angry as I can be with good reasons. First the press has been sleeping on the job. They have failed to do basic research. They are the biggest reason why the American people have not held Congress accountable for anything.

Start with the reports on the VA backlogs. The truth is the majority of the claims are from Vietnam veterans, not Iraq and Afghanistan veterans. The truth is, this problem is not new. The ugly truth is, we didn't take care of Vietnam veterans and we are still not taking care of our veterans from all of the wars they were sent to fight. The press didn't bother to look up the history of backlog claims. Members of Congress were too busy playing political games to remind them of what went on before.
In 2006 there were more than 500,000 veterans with pending claims and of those 100,000 were over a year old without resolution according to the VA. By March of 2007, the Boston Globe reported that the backlog of claims had gone from 69,000 in 2000 to 400,000 in 2007 taking 177 days to process an original claim and 657 days to process an appeal. The news got worse with a staggering 915,000 in 2009 with 803,000 with the Board of Appeals.

“Backlogs are at the point where veterans must wait an average of six months for a decision on benefits claims and some veterans are waiting as long as four years,” number of unprocessed veterans claims exceeds 915,000 — a 100,000 jump since the beginning of the year.” (Have VA Pay old claims automatically, Rick Maze, Marine Corps Times, June 30, 2009)

Congress knew what redeployments were doing to the troops back in 2006, but did not do anything to correct this.
“U.S. soldiers serving repeated Iraq deployments are 50 percent more likely than those with one tour to suffer from acute combat stress, raising their risk of post-traumatic stress disorder, according to the Army's first survey exploring how today's multiple war-zone rotations affect soldiers' mental health.” (Repeat Iraq Tours Risk of PTSD Army Finds, Ann Scott Tyson, Washington Post, December 20, 2006)
The House Veterans Affairs Committee along with the Senate have spent billions on "prevention" but the result has been deadly.

"This 12,000 attempted suicides per year shows clearly, without a doubt, that there is an epidemic of suicide among veterans," said Paul Sullivan of Veterans for Common Sense.” (VA Hid Suicide Risk, Internal E-Mails Show, CBS and Associated Press, April 21, 2008)


In 2012 we were told by the DOD that most of the suicides were not tied to deployment. A year before, it was a different story.

DEPLOYMENT: The suicide rate was highest among those who are currently deployed (18.3 deaths per 100,000) and dropped after deployment (15.9 per 100,000). For the entire TAIHOD dataset (from 2004 through 2008), 23 percent of the soldiers studied were currently deployed, 42 percent had never been deployed and 35 percent had been previously deployed but were not currently deployed. (Army STARRS Preliminary Data Reveal Some Potential Predictive Factors for Suicide March 22, 2011)

That study didn't come from the DOD but came from the National Institute of Mental Health.

From THE WARRIOR SAW, SUICIDES AFTER WAR
They went up for a reason and here they are.
2003 Army 79 26 while deployed
2004 Army 67 13 while deployed
2005 Army 87 25 while deployed
2006 Army 99 30 while deployed
(Army Suicide Prevention Program Fact Sheet, Army Public Affairs, August 17, 2007)
2007 Army 115 36 while deployed (50 deployed prior to suicide and 29 not deployed)

Those numbers came before all the "efforts" went into force.
The following is from the Department of Defense Suicide Event Report.
Air Force Suicides Confirmed and Pending (2011 page 93)
2008 45
2009 43
2010 60
2011 50
241 Airmen who attempted suicide in 251 separate incidents.

Army Confirmed and Pending Suicides (2011 page 128)
2008 140
Suicide attempts 570
Of the 140 suicides, 34 (24%) occurred in OIF-OEF. One hundred sixteen suicide attempts (12%) were reported to have occurred in OIF-OEF. Nineteen percent of Soldiers with completed suicides, and 14% of Soldiers with suicide attempts, had a history of multiple deployments to Iraq and/or Afghanistan. Of suicide events reported as occurring in theater, the majority was reported to have occurred in Iraq.

2009 164
Army DoDSERs Submitted for Non-Fatal Events 2,047 Army DoDSERs for non-fatal events were submitted for 2009. Of these, 502 (25%) were submitted for suicide attempts, 347 (17%) for instances of self-harm without intent to die, and 1198 (59%) for suicidal ideation only.

2010 160
DoDSERs provide data on suicide attempts for 400 individuals. Two attempts were reported (DoDSERs submitted) for 11 (2.75%) individuals, and three for one individual (0.25%). Additionally, four Soldiers with a 2010 suicide attempt DoDSER subsequently died by suicide in 2010 and were also included in the preceding section.

2011 167
440 DoDSERs for 2011 Army suicide attempts. As indicated in Table 5.29, these DoDSERs provide data on suicide attempts for 432 individuals. Two suicide attempt DoDSERs were submitted for 8 (1.85%) individuals

2011 Army suicide attempts 432 individuals with 440 attempts

Marines Confirmed and Pending
2008 42
2009 52
2010 37
2011 32
2011 156 Marines who attempted suicide in 157 separate incidents

Navy Confirmed and Pending
2008 41
2009 47
2010 38
2011 52
2011 87 Navy suicide attempts

Department of Defense Suicide Event Report for 2011
For 2011 there were 935 attempted suicides in the military with 915 individuals trying to kill themselves. 896 tried once, 18 tried twice and 1 tried three times.
Before all the money was spent the number of attempted suicides was higher, so that is one good bright spot.
“In 2006, the Army documented 2,100 attempted suicides; an average of more than five per day. In comparison, there were 350 attempts in 2002, the year before the war in Iraq began. The method of choice was a firearm. There is no firm data on Soldiers who had thoughts of suicide.” (Suicide Gets Army’s Attention, Army, Debbie Sheehan, Fort Monmouth Public Affairs October 14, 2009)
Or at least it is easy to think it is until you think about the "personality disorder" discharges that were happening. They are still doing it. They don't have to count them once they are discharged.


It is important you know those numbers because of what is in this book. For 2012 it was reported that there were 179 attempted military suicides and the headlines all seemed to read the same way. 349 suicides were successful. The reporters broke down the numbers like this.

Marine Corps 48, Navy 60, Air Force 59 and Army 182 but what the reporters forgot about were the Army National Guardsmen and Army Reservists the DOD did in fact include in the Army Suicide numbers. Army National Guards 96 and Army Reserves 47. That is where we are. That is about as telling as it can be because in 2008 the Department of Defense was telling the nation that they had a plan to prevent suicides.

The plan was to train the troops to become “resilient” and actually believe they could prevent Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. What we saw was an increase in the number of service men and women taking their own lives.
When they keep spending more and more money on what has failed, they have become death panels instead of really taking care of the troops and our veterans.

Every section of THE WARRIOR SAW, SUICIDES AFTER WAR has been sourced back to reporters as well as government reports.

The question is, since all this information has been there all along, why has the press been so reluctant to tell the truth? Why have members of Congress been able to just say whatever they want and spend whatever money they want without any accountability? Why has the DOD been able to just push through whatever they want without being held accountable?

Supreme Court Defense of Marriage Act is unconstitutional

US supreme court rules Doma unconstitutional – live updates LIVE

Justices to deliver opinions on two major same-sex marriage cases: the Defense of Marriage Act and California's Proposition 8 The Guardian Tom McCarthy in New York Wednesday 26 June 2013 09.33 EDT

Thief takes custom-made bike made for double amputee veteran

UPDATE
Double-amputee vet's bike found two days after it was stolen

Thief takes custom-made bike made for double amputee veteran
NBC News
By Elisha Fieldstadt
June 26, 2013


Tiffini Skuce
Matt Dewitt's mountain bike was custom-made for him by the Ride 2 Recovery organization.
Dewitt lost both of his arms while serving in the Army in Afghanistan.

A bicycle that was custom-made for a wounded U.S Army veteran was callously stolen in Alaska on Monday night — along with the bikes of four other vets who were in a challenge with an organization that helps service members recover from war injuries through bike riding, a representative for the organization said.

California-based "Ride 2 Recovery" has given out over 5,000 bikes for returning soldiers to ride in their everyday lives but also holds “challenge” trips for members all over the world. Often, these trips include a few days of rides, upwards of 70 miles each. A group of 50 rode one of three challenges in Anchorage on Monday, said Alison Valenziano, R2R's director for administration operations.
read more here

Reserve Soldier is Three-Time Survivor Including Cancer Battle

Reserve Soldier is Three-Time Survivor
DVIDS
by Sgt. Phillip Valentine
Jun 25, 2013

KANDAHAR AIRFIELD, Afghanistan — Fighting and surviving a war on terror is no easy task.

Neither is surviving almost three decades of service in the Army Reserve. Fighting and surviving cancer is a whole other level of difficulty. Combating all three simultaneously sets the bar so high, it seems insurmountable. For one soldier serving in the 311th Expeditionary Sustainment Command, it’s entirely possible.

Master Sgt. Larry Velasco is a cancer survivor assigned to the 311th’s support operations section and currently serving here and he couldn’t be happier.

“I wanted to support my unit and the troops in Afghanistan with my skills and training I have been provided with by serving over 30 years of service,” said Velasco. “I am a soldier. I want to serve my country and make my Family proud.”

Velasco, a Los Angeles native, had served more than 17 years in the Army Reserve when he was diagnosed with thyroid cancer and he believed this revelation would end his military career.
read more here