Iraq Veteran Takes Long Walk to Honor Service and Acknowledge Price Being Paid

Westampton police officer, Marines to walk 100 miles with service dogs
Burlington County Times
By Kristina Scala Staff writer
September 1, 2015

He was deployed to Iraq in 2009 and to Afghanistan in 2011, and was awarded the Purple Heart, Navy Achievement Medal, Combat Action Ribbon and Select Marine Corps Reserve Medal. Einstein, who joined the Westampton Police Department in 2013 and serves as a volunteer firefighter in Riverton and Mount Laurel, was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder after his second tour of duty.

William Johnson
Westampton officer walking 100 miles to honor fallen comrades
Andrew Einstein (left) and Steven Walls acknowledge supporters who honk for them Tuesday. Their "Long Walk," as they have dubbed it, will raise funds in honor of fallen friends and create awareness of post-traumatic stress disorder in military veterans.

The 100-mile trek that Andrew Einstein and his two fellow Marines are on from Philadelphia to New York City for the anniversary of Sept. 11 won't be easy, but the journey that led them to this path has been devastatingly more difficult.

With their mission clear, and a trio of tail-wagging heroes by their sides, they walk to honor the fallen and create awareness of the high price paid by the men and women serving on the front lines.

"They fought for the Liberty Bell, for freedom, and we fight for the twin towers," said Einstein, a Westampton police officer and Iraq War veteran, Tuesday as he prepared to begin the trek.

Einstein is one of the 11 to 20 percent of U.S. veterans diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder since serving in the Middle East.

His ode to American freedom was muffled by a tolling bell that echoed across the Independence Hall courtyard Tuesday as the Burlington County native and Marines Devon Richio and Steven Walls prepared to set out on the 100 miles from Philadelphia to New York.

Richio and Walls are members of the Philadelphia Fire Department.

For them, the long journey is a way to fight a different type of war now that they have returned from the battlefield and wage a fight against PTSD.
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WWII Changed Utah

WWII put Utah women to work, changed face of the state
The Salt Lake Tribune
By CHRISTOPHER SMART
First Published Sep 01 2015

"It was simply revolutionary. There were very few facts of life that weren't impacted," Cannon said. "Nothing has altered the landscape here at home as much as the Second World War."

Utah State Historical Society Jo ann Roble works at Hill Air Force Base, post WWII.

During World War II, the United States and its Allies defeated enemies on two sides of the globe, but the impact on Utah cut across many fronts.

In fact, historians say, the war transformed the Beehive State — economically, socially and otherwise — more than any other event since the Mormons' arrival in 1847.

A relatively isolated place before Pearl Harbor, Utah had become part of mainstream America by the time Japan officially surrendered to the U.S. and its Allies aboard the USS Missouri 70 years ago Wednesday, on Sept. 2, 1945 — V-J Day.

The war effort sent men to foreign countries they otherwise would not have seen. By 1945, more than 62,000 Utahns were on active duty. With their victory, they came home with new ideas about the future — including more skiing in Utah.

More than 412,000 Americans perished in the fighting — more than 3,000 of them Utahns. Many who made it back suffered from "shell shock" ­— what is now known as post-traumatic stress disorder.
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Iraq Veteran Goofy Video Makes Sense to Military Families

It Started With a Goofy Video. Now ‘A Combat Veteran’ Is Helping Families in a Way He Never Imagined
Independent Journal
BY KARA PENDLETON
September 1, 2015

He may now be out of the service, but “A Combat Veteran” Drew Hernandez hasn’t let that stop him from being of service to others, particularly to his brothers-in-arms. Drew gave IJ some insight into why he does what he does and where he’s going from here.

A former reservist and active duty serviceman who spent time in Iraq, Drew creates and posts satirical videos about military life to both YouTube and Facebook.

His videos include titles such as 10 Types of Officers in the Army, 10 Types of Wives in the Military and Dating a Combat Veteran, which is shown below.
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Why Are They Debating Women in Combat?

Women in Combat: Silver Stars, Combat Action Badges and Casualties
Military.com
by Richard Sisk
Aug 31, 2015

In the coming weeks, the service chiefs will likely cite reams of data to support their positions on whether to lift restrictions on women serving in combat jobs.

A couple of the statistics will be hard to miss: More than 9,000 female troops have earned Combat Action Badges during modern combat operations, including those in Iraq and Afghanistan, and hundreds more have earned valor awards, including the Silver Star, the Army's third-highest valor award.

More than 214,000 women now serve in the military, account for about 14.5 percent of the force. The Marine Corps has the lowest percentage – slightly less than 7 percent. More than 280,000 women have served in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"As of April 2015, 161 women have lost their lives and 1,015 had been wounded in action as part of Global War on Terror (GWOT) operations" since the 9/11 terror attacks, according to the Congressional Research Service. The Army alone reported 89 women killed in the line of duty in Iraq and 36 in Afghanistan. "In addition, in modern combat operations, over 9,000 women have received Army Combat Action Badges for ‘actively engaging or being engaged by the enemy,'" the CRS said.

Through 2012, the Army reported that 437 women earned awards for valor to include two Silver Stars, three Distinguished Flying Crosses, 31 Air Medals, and 16 Bronze Stars.

In some instances, the women earning awards for valor led men in firefights. Then-Army Capt. Kellie McCoy, a West Point graduate, earned the Bronze Star with "V" device for her actions on Sept. 18, 2003, for leading 11 male paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne Division in breaking up an enemy ambush between Fallujah and Ramadi in Iraq's Anbar province.

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Oh but let's not forget the Medal of Honor as well as even more,,,,,,,,,

New Researchers Decades Behind On PTSD

This is why nothing has changed on PTSD research. They did it again. Over and over and over again, repeating studies other researchers discovered over 30 years ago! And I thought you couldn't get into MIT unless you were able to read? This is the headline MIT: PTSD could be prevented And this was the "shocker"

“That was really surprising to us,” said lead author and MIT postdoc Michael Baratta. “It seems like stress is enabling a serotonergic memory consolidation process that is not present in an unstressed animal.”

Yep, they blamed serotonin

Blame it on the serotonin

The specific pathway of this disease involves a part of the brain known as the amygdala, an almond-sized structure involved in responding to and remembering stress and fear. In mice with chronic stress who experience a trauma, a neurotransmitter known as serotonin acted on the amygdala to promote the process of memory consolidation. (Memory consolidation is the process by which short-term memories are turned into long-term memories.)

This shows it goes back to 1972

40 Years of Academic Public Psychiatry edited by Selby Jacobs, Ezra Griffiths
Page 80
"Pioneering research on the role of specific brain areas (locus coeruleus, raphe nuclei, midbrain dopamine neurons) regulating brain norepinephrine, serotonin and dopamine functions the systems targeted by out current psychiatric medications.

Easy to see why everything I started reading over 30 years ago has been forgotten. Guess there is no money in actually paying attention to what was learned before the internet actually gave them the ability to learn what was done long before most of them were even born!!!!!

Military veterans
Information about PTSD in veterans of the Vietnam era is derived from the National Vietnam Veterans Readjustment Survey (NVVRS), conducted between 1986 and 1988. The estimated lifetime prevalence of PTSD among American veterans of this war is 30.9% for men and 26.9% for women. An additional 22.5% of the men and 21.2% of the women have been diagnosed with partial PTSD at some point in their lives. The lifetime prevalence of PTSD among veterans of World War II and the Korean War is estimated at 20%.

And this shows who started all the research new researchers have avoided at all costs,,,and I do mean costs since they get paid to do new research no matter how many times it has been done before.

Causes
When PTSD was first suggested as a diagnostic category for DSM-III in 1980, it was controversial precisely because of the central role of outside stressors as causes of the disorder. Psychiatry has generally emphasized the internal weaknesses or deficiencies of individuals as the source of mental disorders; prior to the 1970s, war veterans, rape victims, and other trauma survivors were often blamed for their symptoms and regarded as cowards, moral weaklings, or masochists. The high rate of psychiatric casualties among Vietnam veterans, however, led to studies conducted by the Veterans Administration. These studies helped to establish PTSD as a legitimate diagnostic entity with a complex set of causes.

Vietnam Veteran Puts Up Protest Billboard "VA Is Lying, Veterans Are Dying"

Angry billboard brings national VA protest to Haley center
Tampa Tribune
Howard Altman
August 31, 2015

The billboard is on the 1200 block of East Fowler Avenue near the James A. Haley Veterans’ Hospital in Tampa. SALLY MULCARE

A national group of veterans and their families, upset with the Department of Veterans Affairs, has brought its protest to Tampa — in the form of a message on an electronic billboard on the 1200 block of East Fowler Avenue near the James A. Haley Veterans’ Hospital.

“VA is Lying, Veterans Are Dying,” reads the message, sponsored by a Facebook group called “VA is Lying,” launched by a Vietnam War veteran from Indiana.

“I started the Facebook group about two years ago because I was angry at the VA,” Ron Nesler said.

Nesler said he was upset, in part, about the treatment of his step-daughter, whose biological father is a Marine exposed to Agent Orange when he served in Vietnam. The exposure led to severe birth defects in the child and Nesler said his anger has been stoked by the VA’s poor response to a federal law mandating treatment for children of veterans exposed to the defoliant.

The VA’s actions on the matter have been “unconscionable,” said Rick Weidman, executive director for policy and government affairs for the Vietnam Veterans of America, a veteran service organization that has helped Nesler fight for benefits for his stepdaughter.
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Veterans, No Soup For You, Fundraisers Sucked Pot Dry

You are reading the work of a successful do'er and financial failure. Doing the work, I'm good at but I really suck at raising money to do it. I had to go back to work for a paycheck last year since no one has donated in over a year.

Anyway, there are more of "me types" out there doing the work for the sake of the work and not for money. It hurts when I have to file my financials and show a loss of a couple of thousand every year. What hurts more is when I read about charities using professional fundraisers leaving them with about 15 cents for every dollar given for the sake of veterans.

Donations to Illinois veterans charity mostly go to pay telemarketers
Chicago Tribune
David Jackson
August 31, 2015

A VietNow charity volunteer pushes a rack of boxes filled with hundreds of sandwiches bound for homeless people in Chicago on July 19, 2015, in Lombard.
(Stacey Wescott / Chicago Tribune)

To address the profound and unmet needs of veterans, Americans last year donated $1.4 million to a Rockford charity called VietNow National Headquarters.

But most of the money — about 85 percent — went to for-profit phone solicitors, and most of the rest was spent on VietNow's own administrative costs and a convention, public tax filings show.

The fraction of donations spent on direct service to former military personnel and their families did not even reach 7 percent in 2014. The charity gives out scholarships to youths, but it reported only a handful, worth $3,985.

"It may not seem like much, but it's the best we could do. That's probably the best way to put it," said charity President Joe Lewis, who took the top office last year.

In all, more than 90 percent of the $24 million donated to VietNow since 2003 came through telemarketers who kept the lion's share, the Tribune found. After fielding questions from the Tribune, Lewis vowed to renegotiate VietNow's telemarketing contracts.

"I wish (critics) could show me another avenue or how to raise money that we could embrace that would provide us with the funds we need for our organization," Lewis said. "I understand from the public's perception how it seems like so little of it comes to us. Do I wish we could get more? Pardon the language but, hell yes."

Helping to manage all of VietNow's fundraising is Richard Troia, a longtime telemarketer who in 2004 was permanently banned from charity fundraising in Illinois.

Troia bought more than $1 million worth of office and residential property in Florida and launched a company called United Publishing Inc. that since 2009 has been listed as a registered agent for VietNow in that state, the Tribune found.
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Police Office Shot and Killed, Manhunt Searches for Killers

Manhunt In Fox Lake After Police Officer Shot And Killed
CBS Chicago
September 1, 2015

CHICAGO (CBS) — A manhunt was underway in far north suburban Fox Lake, after a police officer was shot and killed while chasing three suspects on foot.

Lake County Major Crimes Task Force Cmdr. George Filenko said an officer was shot Tuesday morning near Rollins Road and Route 59.

At a late-morning news conference, Lake County Sheriff’s Det. Chris Covelli said, around 7:50 a.m., the officer radioed he was pursuing three suspects, after looking into their “suspicious activity.” Police lost radio contact with the officer, who was later found with a gunshot wound. Shortly after the news conference, Covelli confirmed that the officer died.

Covelli said police were conducting a ground and air search for three suspects — two white males and a black male. Unconfirmed dispatch reports indicated the suspects might have taken the officer’s gun and pepper spray. Police did not provide a more detailed description of the suspects.

People in the area were being told to stay inside, and to report any suspicious activity to 911.
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The first female VFW chief in Florida is reaching out to younger veterans

Leaving no Florida veterans behind: Front and Center
Orlando Sentinel
September 1, 2015

VFW Commander Amber Putnam: Veterans deserve better care.

Florida is veterans friendly, says VFW Commander Amber Putnam.

The first female VFW chief in Florida is reaching out to younger veterans.

Former Gov. Jeb Bush, one of the herd of GOP presidential hopefuls, recently made a bid to stake out leadership in one vital area: veterans' affairs.

His VA reform plan would enlarge options for care outside the VA and boost focus on female veterans care. Paramount issues in Florida, home to America's third-largest veteran population and more than 166,000 women veterans, including Amber Putnam, the first female state commander of the Veterans of Foreign Wars Department of Florida. Putnam, a panelist on the Sentinel's November Florida Forward veterans forum, recently shared plans for the VFW.

Q: What challenges do you foresee as the first female head of the Florida VFW?

A: The challenges I face are in many ways no different than those of state commanders that have come before me. As a woman, I of course come from a different perspective, but first and foremost I am a veteran. One thing we pride ourselves on as an organization is that we embrace and support all combat veterans regardless of race, religion or gender. It was that way when we served in the military, and it remains that way as we continue to serve.
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Veteran with PTSD Missing in Idaho

Missing retired Army vet with extreme PTSD 
Local News 8 ABC
POSTED:Aug 31, 2015

BONNEVILLE COUNTY, Idaho - An Idaho Falls area family is searching for a missing retired Army veteran with extreme PTSD.

Family members say Mark Oliver is a medically retired combat war veteran. He left home last night near Lincoln Road and Edmiston Drive.

The family says he is a high risk veteran. "He suffers from severe PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder) and depression. He had a medical history of seizures and black outs" says his wife. 

Mark was last seen wearing a black military shirt, blue jeans, and grey tennis shoes. He wears glasses and has a white gold wedding band. He is six feet tall and about 180 pounds.

Oliver has a large rose tattoo on his left forearm. He was driving a 2010 metallic blue Mazda 3.

If you have any information you are encouraged to call the Bonneville County Sheriff's Office (208) 529-1200.
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