Sunday, January 26, 2014

President Obama and rise in military suicides

President Obama and rise in military suicides
Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
January 26, 2014

The murder-suicide of a female soldier's family soon after she came home from Afghanistan, certainly raises a lot of questions. One of the questions is centered around military families and their need for mental health-support services.

Murder-suicide at Fort Hood raises questions Incident forces look at psychological stress on troops' families.
"Experts and advocates say the incident raises questions about whether, even after 13 years of war, the military is paying enough attention to the psychological stress on families during troops' overseas deployments."

The answer is simple. The military is not doing enough for the troops or families but they make a different claim saying that after all these years of "doing something" about all of this, it is working.

They said it but facts are supported by the outcome and not simple words uttered during a press conference. The number of enlisted personnel has gone down however the number of suicides has not gone down accordingly. Certainly not enough to show any real progress in addressing the psychological impact of stress without end.
Karen Ruedisueli, the deputy director of government relations for the National Military Family Association, said such a study will be vital.

"Anecdotally we have heard that suicide rates among military families have increased," she said. "As deployments decrease ... people may think that behavioral health resources for families are no longer needed. The residual effects will be long-lasting."

Yet while the questions need to be answered, the biggest question not being asked is how did the increase in suicides and mental health issues increase after President Obama pushed to reduce them?

August 28, 2008
Spc. Chris Dana's story told to Obama by step brother
Stepbrother tells guardsman's story to Obama
Helena soldier took his own life after tour of duty in Iraq
By LAURA TODE
Of The Gazette Staff

Montana National Guard Spc. Chris Dana will never know the impact his life and ultimately his death may someday have on the lives of veterans nationwide.

Dana took his life in March 2007, less than two years after returning from a tour in Iraq. His family believes he was a victim of post-traumatic stress disorder, brought on by his combat experience.

Since Dana's death, his stepbrother Matt Kuntz has campaigned for more awareness of the costs of untreated post-traumatic stress syndrome in Iraq war veterans.

Wednesday, he was invited to meet with Sen. Barack Obama to share the message he's been spreading statewide for more than a year. At a quiet picnic table at Riverfront Park, Obama sat across from Kuntz, his wife, Sandy, and their infant daughter, Fiona.
The link to this story is long gone however the post is still up on Wounded Times. On August 13, 2008, Editor and Publisher had a question by Greg Mitchell, Why Isn't the Press on Suicide Watch? In 2007 I asked the same question with a long list of names attached.

Looking back, the truth is, while 2012 was the highest year for military suicides, the number of deployed troops was at the lowest during both wars.
Troops strength
But just looking at DOD numbers, we see only part of the story. To get a proper perspective, we have to take a look at the veterans these two wars created. This is as of 11/11/11
THOSE WHO HAVE SERVED

22,658,000

In the decade since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, 2,333,972 American military personnel had been deployed to Iraq, Afghanistan or both, as of Aug. 30,2011. Of that total, 1,353, 627 have since left the military and 711,986 have used VA health care between fiscal year 2002 and the third-quarter fiscal year 2011.

The VA's Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, a non-profit whose mission is to improve the lives of veterans, points out that 38 per 100,000 of all Iraq and Afghanistan veterans using VA health care committed suicide during latest data available. There is very little information about veterans not using VA health care. Compare that to 11.5 deaths per 100,000 for the general public.

The last Suicide Event Report from the Department of Defense was released in 2012 for 2011. In the report detailed information included branches as well as attempted suicides. As of January 2014, they have not released the report for 2012. We still do not know how many military personnel committed suicide in 2013 other than what the Army reported up to November.

For calendar year 2013, there have been 139 potential active duty suicides.

For calendar year 2013, there have been 139 potential not on active duty suicides (89 Army National Guard and 50 Army Reserve)

The exact same number. 139 Army and 139 Citizen soldiers.

In the same report, the DOD updated the numbers for Army suicides in 2012
Updated active duty suicide numbers for calendar year 2012: 185 (184 have been confirmed as suicides, and one remains under investigation).
They also updated the Army National Guards and Army Reservists
Updated not on active duty suicide numbers for calendar year 2012: 140 (93 Army National Guard and 47 Army Reserve): 140 have been confirmed as suicides and none remain under investigation.


2009 was the year they increased their efforts for addressing suicides and encouraging soldiers to seek help. Or at least that was what they claimed. Comprehensive Soldier Fitness feeding the term "resilient" has been behind the increase in suicides.

If you doubt this then all you have to do is take a look at Vietnam and see what the numbers were back then for the entire war.

Casualty Category for Vietnam War
Number of Records

ACCIDENT 9,107
DECLARED DEAD 1,201
DIED OF WOUNDS 5,299
HOMICIDE 236
ILLNESS 938
KILLED IN ACTION 40,934
PRESUMED DEAD (BODY REMAINS RECOVERED) 32
PRESUMED DEAD (BODY REMAINS NOT RECOVERED) 91
SELF-INFLICTED 382
Total Records 58,220

This has nothing to do with politics but everything to do with the lack of attention by the press on military suicides. They report on the headlines they want us to know but avoid asking any real questions. If you think things are as bad as they are going to get, they are going to get worse according to history. In October of 2007 there was this report 148,000 Vietnam Vets sought help in last 18 months and the number of Vietnam veterans committing suicide went up afterwards as well. The last deaths tied to the Vietnam War were in 1975 but as you can see, those numbers were not the end of the story. The end of the OEF and OIF wars have yet to be written but if we do nothing, the numbers will tell the story of how much we cared and what we did to change the outcome.

For starters, why have suicides gone up among the troops and veterans after President Obama pushed for changes? Why have they gone up after the DOD pushed "resilience" in Comprehensive Soldier Fitness? Why hasn't anyone been held accountable?

The story of the Fort Hood murder-suicide investigation deserves attention however the questions that should have been asked all these years have received no attention at all.

Saturday, January 25, 2014

Three Airmen killed in car crash

Police identify 3 Holloman airmen killed in car crash
Air Force Times
Jeff Schogol
January 23, 2014

Police identified three airmen from Holloman Air Force Base, N.M., who were killed Tuesday morning in a car crash.

Staff Sgt. Ryan Nicholas Loehr, 26; Airman 1st Class Deshon Maurice Wartley, 21; and Airman 1st Class Lamont Keith Cullars, 19, were pronounced dead at the scene of the crash, the Alamogordo Police Department said Wednesday.

The three airmen were in a 2006 Honda Civic that was going very fast when the car went off Airport Road at a curve and turned over several times, a police news release says. Police were dispatched to the scene at 7:30 a.m. Two of the airmen, who were wearing seatbelts, were found inside the car. A third airman was thrown from the car.
read more here

WWII veteran's claim of Hiroshima radiation finally honored by VA

WWII vet exposed to radiation at Hiroshima wins VA benefits fight
San Francisco Chronicle
By Kevin Fagan
Published: January 25, 2014

John Brenan rolled his Jeep into freshly bombed Hiroshima in 1945 on a reconnaissance mission to see whether there was any enemy left to fight. The only enemy the Army sergeant found in the miles of rubble pulverized by America's atomic attack was the one he couldn't see: radiation.

The fallout surrounded his body, and that is almost surely why he got colon cancer four decades later, his doctors told him. Brenan managed to beat the disease, but then came the follow-up battle -- filing a disability claim with the Department of Veterans Affairs.

It took until last week for him to win that battle. And victory only came with the help of a member of Congress.

On Friday, Rep. Jackie Speier, D-Hillsborough, Calif., stood in her office with the 90-year-old Brenan and said his case is an example of the vexation that can come with filing for veteran disability benefits. But it's also evidence, she said, that the VA is making progress on clearing its infamous backlog of claims.

"This kind of thing should never happen, and we are working hard to make sure it doesn't," Speier said, as Brenan sat next to her in a walker-chair, a World War II veteran's cap on his head. "John's claim was denied over and over again, mistakes were made over and over, and he only finally got his benefits because we wouldn't take 'no' for an answer."
read more here

Soldiers to compete in Olympics Luge

Soldier Trio Nominated to U.S. Olympic Luge Team
U.S. Army Installation Management Command
By Tim Hipps

PARK CITY, Utah, Jan. 23, 2014 – Three soldiers from the U.S. Army World Class Athlete Program earned nominations for the U.S. Olympic Luge Team for the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi, Russia.

U.S. Army World Class Athlete Program members Sgt. Matt Mortensen and Sgt. Preston Griffall earn a berth in the 2014 Olympic Winter Games by virtue of their World Cup performances, including this run to a ninth-place finish in luge doubles at Utah Olympic Park in Park City, Utah, Dec. 13, 2013. Team USA luge coach Staff Sgt. Bill Tavares will join Mortensen and Griffall at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia.

Team USA luge coach Staff Sgt. Bill Tavares will lead Sgt. Matt Mortensen and Sgt. Preston Griffall, who secured their spot with a ninth-place finish in doubles at the Luge World Cup stop, Dec. 13, 2013, at Utah Olympic Park.

The U.S. Army World Class Athlete Program, or WCAP, duo completed its first run down the 1,335-meter track that features 15 curves in 43.948 seconds, followed by a shakier slide down the mountain in 44.132 seconds -- for a cumulative time of 1:28.080. Germany's Tobias Wendl and Bvias Arlt won the race with a 1:27.326 clocking.

"There's always a little bit of pressure when you're sliding, but for Preston and I, the main thing was just get down to the finish without walls -- do something that you've done hundreds of times, and just do it OK," said Mortensen, 28, of Huntington Station, N.Y. "Second run, I tried not to do it OK, but we still managed to get down without any walls."

Griffall, a 2006 Olympian who just missed making the team in 2010, had even more reason to be concerned. As the bottom guy on a doubles team, it's often difficult to see what is happening.

"Our second run, like Matt said, we had some problems on the run," said Griffall, 29, of Salt Lake City, Utah. "There's a big scoreboard, actually, behind curve 14 -- because I can't see directly in front of me because Matt's sitting there -- so I was turned around and trying to look at the scoreboard to see what place we were in. And we're still traveling at 60 or 70 miles per hour, and I couldn't see where the place was on the board."

read more here

Forrest Gump Rerun

I was just watching a rerun of Forrest Gump and reminded of how several things in the Vietnam scenes were based on reality. One of them is the fact that while Tom Hanks was shown receiving the Medal of Honor from President Johnson, it was actually footage of Sammy Davis.




UPDATE

I interviewed Sammy a couple of years ago and he talked about what it was like when he came home. Sammy earned the Medal of Honor and was wounded. He is one of the stories of mistreatment many Vietnam veterans received. In this video as he talks about being beaten, the citation is being read.

Military caregiver, the life some of us choose

This is a wonderful story but some do it by choice. I met my husband ten years after he left the Army and Vietnam. It was a choice for me and I didn't go into this marriage blindly. I learned what PTSD was over 30 years ago. I loved him and all that came with him was part of the man I loved and still do. There are families like mine all over the country doing the same thing. We choose this life willingly.
A job nobody applies for - military caregiver
Military caregivers speak out about need for support
By Jeanette Steele
JAN. 24, 2014

It can be an emotionally brutal "job," and one that nobody really applies for.

With more than half of U.S. troops married, the hard work of dealing with war injuries – both missing limbs and emotional scars – is falling to spouses and family members who are increasingly identifying themselves as “military caregivers.”

It's a population getting more attention since 2010, when the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs was directed to begin offering a monthly stipend and health insurance to people caring for gravely injured Iraq and Afghanistan veterans. The Pentagon quickly followed suit with a similar stipend for active-duty families.

A 2013 survey by the nonprofit Blue Star Families showed that 12 percent of members described themselves as military caregivers. Officials with the organization say they expect that figure to rise as more spouses and other family members realize the role they are playing.

Gina Canaday, wife of an Camp Pendleton explosives technician, was near the end of her ability to handle the stress of her husband's brain injury and untreated post-traumatic stress disorder.

“I didn't want to live like this anymore. The only reason that I'm still here is because I have children. That's not something you want to tell people, but it's the truth,” said Canaday, 44, a former soldier herself.

“I got married to stay married, but this isn't what I signed up for. When you feel that alone, it's easy to get so deep that you can't claw your way out of it.”

Canaday and another Camp Pendleton spouse, 31-year-old Shannon Duncan, describe living in a shadowy world of isolation.
read more here
For the Love of Jack When an article like the above comes out, it is important for us to know what life can be like for many military families. After all, they knew the risks and were willing to accept them but when reality hits and wounds occur things can, and all too often, change. Some relationships are just not strong enough to endure. Others thieve.

It is even more of an obligation when we enter into relationships with veterans after they leave the military. For us, we don't have to worry about deployments. We have to worry about what came after them. We don't have to "hold down the fort" while they are gone. We have to hold everything together.

Military families have an advantage because they did it together supported by other military families. For veterans and their families, too many enter into relationships they are not prepared for and when they understand they need support, they can't find it.

This isn't a contest about who has it harder or who does it better. I marvel at the strength of many couples I meet because they are still part of the military life. Still we cannot forget that for caregivers of veterans, it was a choice made out of love after military life.

Sgt. Erica McRell awarded Bronze Star for heroism

Dyess honors 'two warriors' with medals for Afghanistan service
Reporter News
By Christopher Collins
Posted January 24, 2014
PHOTO BY Joy Lewis/Reporter-News
Brig. Gen. Glen VanHerck, 7th Bomb Wing Commander, Sgt. Erica McRell, and her service dog, Jonny, begin the ceremony to honor McRell with a Bronze Star on Friday at Dyess Air Force Base.

For U.S. military personnel serving in Afghanistan, danger can loom around every corner.

That became abundantly clear to Sgts. Erica McRell and Rafael Rhodes, two Dyess Air Force Base personnel who were awarded medals at a Friday event at the base for their bravery in the line of duty.

“We’re going to honor two warriors,” said Brig. Gen. Glen VanHerck, 7th Bomb Wing commander.

McRell was awarded with the Bronze Star for leading a team of embedded Army Special Forces members through hostile Afghan territory in search of buried improvised explosive devices.

“She was living out in the countryside, sleeping in tents every night, taking care of business,” VanHerck said. “She’s getting the Bronze Star for heroism.”

While leading the team, McRell and her canine partner, Jonny, located more than 50 IEDs. U.S. troops and Afghan civilians are often targets of these devices.

“She saved many, many lives,” VanHerck said. “We appreciate your service.”

Rhodes was also honored after his encounter with an IED — but in his case, the bomb exploded underneath the military vehicle he was traveling in as part of a convoy. After the bomb exploded, Rhodes and other members of the convoy came under enemy fire.
read more here

Huge difference between PTSD and CPTC

Huge difference between PTSD and CPTC
Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
January 25, 2014

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is not new and while we may want to think it is, think that we are just learning about what it does, the truth is horrible. Research has been going on for over 40 years now.

That research began because Vietnam Veterans came home from combat and pushed for it.

Experts began studying combat veterans and they helped the researchers to find ways to help anyone after traumatic events. So why are they the last to really benefit from what they started?

The answer is too many researchers do not understand the differences between what caused PTSD. The Mayo Clinic has combat at the top of the list.
Kinds of traumatic events

Post-traumatic stress disorder is especially common among those who have served in combat. It's sometimes called "shell shock," "battle fatigue" or "combat stress."

The most common events leading to the development of PTSD include:
Combat exposure
Rape
Childhood neglect and physical abuse
Sexual molestation
Physical attack
Being threatened with a weapon
But many other traumatic events also can lead to post-traumatic stress disorder, including fire, natural disaster, mugging, robbery, assault, civil conflict, car accident, plane crash, torture, kidnapping, life-threatening medical diagnosis, terrorist attack and other extreme or life-threatening events.

The best experts out there have been trying to explain that while there are different levels of PTSD, there are also different types of it based on causes. For Combat Veterans, PTSD is a lot different and has to be treated differently.

Never Forget Price Paid
This T-shirt was designed from this.


Combat is at the top of the list and everything else is being a survivor after being a victim.

Police officers and firefighters are the closest to combat because they are not "victims" of the event but responders to it. They willingly risk their lives to help someone else. They need to be treated differently as well.

For veterans, they were changed by combat. An average young adult, trained to think differently, physically change and that training pushed them to be different from average citizens. Or, should I say more different considering they were not like average citizens in the first place. Average citizens are not able to subject themselves to dying for someone else. When they do, we acknowledge how remarkable they are and treat them like heroes.

Tyler Doohan was just 8 years old when he died. "Authorities in the town of Penfield, just east of Rochester, say the boy alerted relatives to the fire early Monday morning inside his grandfather's trailer home, and that six of them escaped. They say the boy died while trying to rescue his grandfather, who used a wheelchair and crutches after losing a leg." His story rightfully made headlines across the country.

There was some other death reported that should have made national news as well. A young Air Force husband and wife, serving in Afghanistan together became a lonely widow escorting her husband's body back home "Capt. David Lyon, who died Dec. 27 in Afghanistan, had been with his wife, Capt. Dana Lyon, just days earlier."

Some want to pass off deaths like this as part of the jobs they do. After all, they knew the risk so it becomes easy to just ignore the basis for them being willing to do it. Some fail to understand that the cause of the wars they fight change with time and reasons but they remain committed to one single objective. Save as many lives as possible even if it costs them their own life.

That is the huge difference between victim PTSD and combat post traumatic change. CPTC is the best way for me to describe it because healing it is not impossible. They changed when they entered into the military, changed again serving in it and they can change again to heal the wounds no one else can see.

There is an Army of volunteers across the country doing the healing since 1984. Point Man International Ministries, which I am very proud to say I belong to, has been helping veterans heal and working with families so they will heal as well. We're all committed to helping veterans see that none of this is all there is. They are not destined to suffer forever.

There are three parts to healing CPTC. Mind, body and above all, spiritually. It is not about taking out psychologist or physical therapy. It is about taking care of the whole veteran and helping them remember why they did it in the first place. They forget that they were willing to die for someone else. When we read in John 15
9 “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love.
10 If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love.
11 I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.
12 My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.
13 Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.
14 You are my friends if you do what I command.
15 I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.
16 You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you.
17 This is my command: Love each other.
Wars are evil things but those who fight the wars are not evil because in the end they were willing to die for someone else. They should need to be reminded that all that goodness is still inside of them and there is nothing they cannot be forgiven for because God knows their heart even if they forgot what compelled them to serve. They are different from the rest of us and have to be treated accordingly. Point Man has been doing this work for 30 years because we understood what too many experts never understood.

Was "Special Tribunal for Lebanon" tied to murder-suicide at Fort Hood?

Mom back to Fort Hood just before murder-suicide
My San Antonio
BY SIG CHRISTENSON
JANUARY 24, 2014

SAN ANTONIO — Pfc. Carla Santisteban returned to Fort Hood from Afghanistan at 4:24 a.m. Tuesday.

“In Fort Hood!” she wrote on Facebook.

Three hours later, her husband, Rouhad Ahamd Ezzeddine, and their two daughters Leila Rouhad, 9, and Zeinab Rouhad, 4, were dead.

The Army's Criminal Investigation Command said Ezzeddine, a 43-year-old civilian, was believed to have killed the girls.

So far CID isn't saying how that happened or provide details of the circumstances, but authorities say the girls and their father were found dead at 7:15 a.m. Tuesday in a home in Fort Hood's Pershing Park.

The Army late Thursday identified the father as the likely killer in a murder-suicide case.

“This is a terrible tragedy for the mother and families of these children,” said Maj. Gen. Anthony Ierardi, Fort Hood senior commander and commanding general of 1st Cavalry Division. “We are doing everything possible to care for the family in this time of profound grief and loss.”

The CID statement said the incident occurred in the wife's residence. The Army said Santisteban is assigned to a support battalion with the 1st Cavalry Division's 2nd Brigade Combat Team.
read more here

Beirut news reported this

BEIRUT: Local media reported Thursday evening that the Lebanese man who is believed to have shot himself and his two daughters dead in the U.S. has a link to the Special Tribunal for Lebanon.

Rihad Ezzedine, a 43-year-old from the southern town of Kafra, was found dead in his home in Texas’ Fort Hood military base early Tuesday morning along with his two daughters, Layla and Zeinab, 9 and 4 respectively, according to the Associated Press.

Veterans exposed to cadaver parts from contaminated lab

Veterans exposed to cadaver parts from contaminated lab
Bloomberg
By Kathleen Miller
January 24, 2014

WASHINGTON — The Department of Veterans Affairs ordered $241 million of cadaver tissue and other material derived from human and animal bodies in the last three years, some of it from vendors warned by federal regulators about contamination in their supply chain.

About $4.7 million of the VA purchases came from Alachua, Fla.-based RTI Surgical Inc. and the nonprofit Musculoskeletal Transplant Foundation, of Edison, N.J., according to data obtained by Bloomberg News under a Freedom of Information Act request.

The VA ordered human tissue from the two suppliers after they were warned by the FDA for safety deficiencies — RTI for contaminated products and processing facilities, and Musculoskeletal Transplant for distributing tissue from tainted donor bodies, according to federal contracting data compiled by Bloomberg.

The suppliers said they have addressed the problems, which weren't tied to human harms.

The disclosures come as Congress and veterans' advocates are pressing the VA about whether it tracks body parts and other implants used to treat veterans well enough to warn patients of potential dangers. In September 2012, the VA shelved a system it was building to help alert patients when the parts are recalled. Some of the VA's buying was made outside standardized purchasing contracts without required justifications, the Government Accountability Office said earlier this month.

"It's a big accident waiting to happen," said Rick Weidman, executive director for government affairs with the Silver Spring, Md.-based Vietnam Veterans of America.
read more here