Veterans Come Out in Force Against Trump PTSD Comment

Trump under fire for PTSD comments
STARS AND STRIPES
By ALEX HORTON
Published: October 3, 2016

“I mean, I guess by reinforcing stigma (strong soldiers don’t get PTSD!), he’s doing his part to keep those VA lines short!” tweeted Ana Marie Cox, a political and culture columnist at MTV News and New York Times Magazine. Cox, with 1.3 million followers on Twitter, drove commentary early on.

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump on Monday told an audience of veterans that “a lot of people can’t handle” post-traumatic stress, igniting controversy on the sticking points of discussing mental health among troops and veterans.

“People come back from war and combat, and they see things that maybe a lot of the folks in this room have seen many times over,” Trump said during a question-and-answer session with Retired American Warriors, a political action committee, in Herndon, Va.

“And you’re strong and you can handle it, but a lot of people can’t handle it,” he said.

The remarks touched off charged discussion on Twitter as commentators took at least two positions: Trump appearing to characterize veterans with PTSD as weak on one hand, and Trump indelicately describing the complexities of trauma that could lead to avoidance of help on the other.

Eduardo Colon replied to Cox, saying “Vet with PTSD here -- I can’t wait for this election to be over with -- hopefully trump will disappear.” Other veterans offered restraint over the comments. “Trump isn’t even close to enlightened on mental health issues. But hard to watch that and think he was implying PTSD sufferers are weak,” tweeted Max Rosenthal, a reporter with Mother Jones and an Army veteran.

Trump went on to say he would have a “very robust level of performance” at the Department of Veterans Affairs in his administration, offering few details.
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Trump Says PTSD Veterans "Can't Handle It"

Trump suggests that vets with PTSD ‘can’t handle it’
BY ASSOCIATED PRESS
October 3, 2016


Video by Donald Trump Speeches Events

Donald Trump is drawing criticism after he appeared to suggest that veterans who suffer from PTSD might not be as strong as those who don’t.

Trump made the reference Monday as he discussed his commitment to improving mental health services for veterans at an event held by the Retired American Warriors political action committee.
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Full Event: Donald Trump Speech at Retired American Warriors Town Hall in Herndon, VA (10/3/2016)

Disabled Vietnam Veteran Alan Meisel Beaten By Sex Offenders?

update

Senators demand investigation into disabled veteran's death Sens. Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst sent a letter Friday to the secretary of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, asking him to look into the circumstances of Alan Meisel’s death. The senators referred to a Des Moines Sunday Register article about Meisel, who lived for decades in Iowa before moving to Texas in 2013 to be near a brother-in-law.

How did Iowa veteran end up dead in Texas
Des Moines Register
Tony Leys
October 1, 2016

SPRINGTOWN, Texas — Alan Meisel’s Iowa friends can’t imagine how he came to spend his final months here, stuck in a rundown rental house with two paroled sex offenders instead of in a nursing home.

Meisel, who lived in Des Moines much of his life, wasn’t a criminal. He was a decorated veteran of the Vietnam War, who qualified for a significant disability pension and free health care from the Department of Veterans Affairs. He was exposed to the chemical Agent Orange during the war, sparking a severe form of Parkinson’s disease that left him barely able to walk, talk or eat, his friends say. It also left him unable to defend himself last March, when two roommates in the Texas rental house allegedly shoved him out of his wheelchair and beat him black and blue, according to sheriff's investigators.

The 68-year-old veteran died three weeks after the alleged attack. A medical examiner listed “natural causes” for his death, but the autopsy report notes numerous scabs and yellowing bruises on his arms, legs and face. Just 102 pounds remained on his 5-foot-7-inch frame.

His friends back in Iowa aren’t satisfied with the fact that the two roommates are charged with assaulting Meisel. They see the tragedy as an example of how a vulnerable person can be neglected if no one speaks up on his behalf.

They want to know how he ended up in the rental home, which they believe was grossly inadequate for his medical needs. Why was he no longer in a nursing home with professional care? Why wasn't his veteran status enough to guarantee him that care? What happened to his money?
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Army Couldn't Defeat Moms Battle to Get Proper Care of Sons

Fort Riley bureaucracy frustrated moms who sought care for soldier sons
Topeka Capital Journal
Jonathan Shorman
October 1, 2016

The Martin and Ewing families’ ordeals played out in the weeks before the suspension and firing of Maj. Gen. Wayne Grigsby, the commander of Fort Riley. Grigsby remains under investigation, though the Army has been tight-lipped about the reason.

Stephen Martin, an Army specialist, had an autoimmune disease that was eating away at his nerve endings, gradually eroding his ability to feel in his limbs. And it was getting worse.

“As I get on the plane, I get an email from the doctor saying my son will never fully recover, because of these gaps in treatment, he’s in the condition he’s in, that he’s going to be receiving treatments the rest of his life,” Tracey Martin recalled.

She was in the midst of a battle with military bureaucracy to secure long-term treatment for her son and extricate him from the tentacles of Fort Riley, which she said kept him from getting the care he needed as he lost feeling in more of his body.

Beginning in early August, Tracey Martin, an attorney in Joplin, Mo., used military connections, members of Congress and stern dispatches to Pentagon officials to pressure Fort Riley for her son’s transfer. It worked; Stephen Martin now is receiving regular treatment at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., and shows signs of improvement.

“How do you explain that soldiers willing to risk life and limb fighting the enemy are instead losing life and limb to the brokenness of an army administration that seems like it can’t be bothered to fight for them?”
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To discover more about how our wounded were treated, start with the reporting done by Dallas Morning News two years ago Injured Heroes Broken Promises

PTSD on Trial: Walter Laak

Las Vegas man’s journey from stalwart Marine to PTSD time bomb
Las Vegas Review Journal
Keith Rodgers
October 1, 2016

Since his general discharge from the Marines under honorable conditions in January 2005, Laak said his Veterans Affairs service-related disability rating for PTSD has been increased in stages from 30 percent to 100 percent. At one time, he said, he was taking medication for nightmares but stopped, without explaining why he turned away from the VA’s efforts to help him cope with the mental illness.

The horrors of war came home with Walter Laak when the Las Vegas Marine returned from two tours of combat duty in Iraq with a severe case of post-traumatic stress disorder.

Today he sits in a jail cell, charged with beating and attempting to run over a Las Vegas pastor with his vehicle, then driving back to his victim’s home and firing multiple gunshots into it while the pastor’s wife and children hid inside. It is the third serious crime Laak has been charged with since his return from the battlefield. He was given a general discharge in 2005.

In two jailhouse interviews last week, Laak, 36, said he carried out the unplanned attack because he believed the pastor, a former neighbor, was an FBI “snitch” trying to interfere with his efforts to expose what he says were war crimes committed by U.S. military officials during the Iraq War.

In the interviews at the Clark County Detention Center, where he awaited a court appearance Monday to face charges of attempted murder, battery with a deadly weapon and discharging a firearm, Laak spoke calmly about his war experiences and made some seemingly bizarre allegations about “friendly-fire” Marine deaths.

His first tour of duty began at the onset of the invasion of Iraq and lasted through his unit’s arrival in Nasiriyah, where he says his experience led to his ongoing struggle with what he calls “delusional” PTSD.
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Rogue Navy Unit Tied to Texas Sheriff?

High-profile Texas sheriff tied to a rogue Navy unit facing a criminal probe
The Washington Post
By CRAIG WHITLOCK
Published: September 30, 2016

Why so many Pentagon officials and their relatives were working on the side as sheriff's deputies in Texas has not been explained in court, where much of the evidence has been sealed to protect national security. What a training base would have been used for there is just as murky.

Even among the colorful pantheon of Texas lawmen, Hudspeth County Sheriff Arvin West has seized his share of the limelight. In his 16-year career patrolling the West Texas outback, he has busted crooner Willie Nelson for pot, accused the Mexican army of invading U.S. territory and repeatedly ripped the federal government on television over border security.

Less well known are the country sheriff's strange connections to a rogue Navy intelligence office at the Pentagon that has been under criminal investigation for the past three years.

The former director of the intelligence unit, David W. Landersman, a civilian, is facing federal conspiracy charges for allegedly orchestrating a mysterious scheme to equip Navy commandos with hundreds of untraceable AK-47 rifle silencers.

A new wrinkle in the case, however, has recently emerged in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Virginia, where prosecutors have suggested that Navy officials from the intelligence unit also sought to funnel military equipment to rural Hudspeth County and set up a secret training base near the Mexican border.
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Veterans denied millions in benefits by VA

Veterans denied millions in benefits by VA
STARS AND STRIPES
By NIKKI WENTLING
Published: September 30, 2016

WASHINGTON — Roughly $110 million in payments to thousands of housebound veterans was withheld from them by the Department of Veterans Affairs, according to a new report from VA inspector general’s office.

The IG report found approximately 186,000 veterans as of March 2015 were designated as housebound because of illness or injury with errors in payments to about 33,400 of them. Others did receive payments, but they were delayed anywhere from five days to six years.

The report also found some veterans who were not designated as housebound received $44.3 million in money meant for housebound veterans.

“Staff did not accurately address housebound benefits,” the report concluded. “As a result, some veterans did not receive benefits to which they were entitled, while taxpayer funds were wasted paying other veterans who did not meet the eligibility criteria.”
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STARRS Research Holds More Worthless Information on Army Suicides

Army Suicides In the first quarter of 2016, the military services reported the following:

 58 deaths by suicide in the Active Component  18 deaths by suicide in the Reserves  34 deaths by suicide in the National Guard

Sounds really bad until you actually remember the number of enlisted also went down and these tragic ends to lives dedicated toward saving the lives of others ended because they were unable to find one reason to stay alive for their own sake. Over a decade of so called mandatory "prevention" training and that was the result for the first quarter of this year. Still wondering why the DOD repeatedly states that a lot of these troops committed suicide without being deployed. Obvious question should be, if the training didn't work to prevent those suicides, then how the hell did they expect it to work on those with multiple deployments?

I am still searching for the second quarter report even though this is October 1st. 

Within the above report, there is a chart showing what all these "efforts" has produced from 2012 for all branches. 
2012 Active 321 Reserve 204 525
2013 Active 255 Reserve 220 475
2014 Active 273 Reserve 179 452
2015 Active 266 Reserve 212 478
All branches for 1st Quarter 2016 Active 58 Reserve 52

These two charts show what the numbers were like in 2010 vs 2016

Pretty much shows that as the number of enlisted went down, the number of suicides did not reflect anything being accomplished by all the training these men and women received, but is worse is that when these young men and women became veterans, the DOD stopped being held responsible for their lives afterwards.

Does the research really shed any light on anything other than they lack the ability to actually see the obivous?

Research sheds new light on Soldier suicides
ARMY
By Gary Sheftick
September 28, 2016

"We're not trying to identify Private Smith, the ticking time bomb ... our goal is to identify a thousand people with a higher concentration [of risk factors]." Michael Schoenbaum

FORT MEADE, Md. (Army News Service) -- Women who join the Army at age 25 or older are the most likely Soldiers to attempt suicide during their first years of service, researchers found. Soldiers who have not yet deployed are also more likely to attempt suicide than their more experienced counterparts.

These are among a host of findings from the Army's multi-year "Study to Assess Risk and Resilience in Service members," known as STARRS.

At the same time, the research found that women and Soldiers who never deployed are actually not the most likely to die by suicide. Soldiers who use firearms in their suicide attempts are more likely to end up as fatalities, while women are more likely to attempt suicide by drug overdose, with a better chance of rescue.

STARRS, which began in 2009, was actually a grouping of eight different studies conducted for the Army by the National Institute of Mental Health, along with several universities. Harvard Medical School, the University of Michigan and the University of California-San Diego all participated in the study.

STARRS examined the records of 1.6 million Soldiers on active duty from 2004 to 2009. It also collected new information directly from more than 110,000 Soldiers at various points in their careers, from 2010 to 2014.

Participants included new Soldiers in basic training, established Soldiers in units around the world, and members of several brigade combat teams before and after deploying to Afghanistan.
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Fraud Veteran Owned Business Head Gets Jail and Fine

Chelmsford man sentenced in veteran-shamming case
Wicked Local Chelmsford
September 27, 2016

A Chelmsford man was sentenced today in U.S. District Court in Boston in connection with recruiting veterans as figurehead owners of a construction company in order to receive specialized government contracts, according to a press release.

“Taking advantage of set-aside programs intended to support the economic welfare and stability of veterans is appalling,” said U.S. Attorney Carmen M. Ortiz. “Through his scheme, Mr. Gorski undercut the efforts of hard-working veterans to compete for valuable government contracts and, as such, defrauded federal agencies dedicated to serving veterans of our armed services.”

David Gorski, 51, of Chelmsford, was sentenced by U.S. District Court Judge F. Dennis Saylor to 30 months in prison, one year of supervised release and ordered to pay a fine of $1 million, the press release said.

In June 2016, Gorski was found guilty by a jury following a 12-day trial of conspiring to defraud the United States by impairing the lawful governmental function of the Department of Veterans Affairs, the General Services Administration, the Army, and the Navy in the implementation and administration of the Service Disabled Veteran Owned Small Business (SDVOSB) Program. He was also convicted of four counts of wire fraud.
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Nasir Siddique Motives Unclear in Murder-Suicide Investigation

Man fatally shoots wife, son and himself in Maryland
Washington Post
By Dan Morse and Justin Wm. Moyer
September 29, 2016

Nasir Siddique, the father, was an employee at the Department of Public Works for the U.S. Army’s Aberdeen Proving Ground. He had served in active duty in the Army and reached the rank of lieutenant colonel.

By Wednesday night, friends of University of Maryland college student Farhad Siddique had grown deeply concerned. He’d missed a class that afternoon and couldn’t be reached. They reported him missing.

At 10:30 p.m. as the friends walked through a parking lot just outside the College Park campus, they spotted a red Jeep that belonged to Siddique’s father. The passenger-seat front window was shattered.

A police car, arriving to check on the young man, pulled into the same lot.

What soon became clear was a terrible sequence of events.

Siddique’s father, 57-year-old Nasir Siddique, had shot his son and then killed himself inside the Jeep, miles away from the family’s home in Harford County. Some time earlier, at the home north of Baltimore in Bel Air, Nasir Siddique had fatally shot his wife, 48-year-old Zarqa Siddique, who worked for the Harford school system helping students with severe disabilities.
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