10th Mountain Division 1st Lt. David Provencher Earns Silver Star

Ellenville High School grad earns Silver Star for heroism in Afghanistan
Published: Thursday, January 27, 2011

By PATRICIA DOXSEY
Freeman staff

An Ellenville man fighting in the war in Afghanistan has been awarded the Silver Star, the nation’s third-highest award for valor in combat.

U.S. Army 1st Lt. David Provencher of the 10th Mountain Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team received the medal Wednesday during a ceremony at Forward Operating Base Kunduz in northern Afghanistan. He is an infantry platoon leader with 1st Battalion, 87th Infantry Regiment.

Provencher, a 1999 graduate of Ellenville High School, has been credited with saving the lives of three wounded soldiers and refusing to leave two others who were mortally wounded during heavy combat on June 16, 2010.
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Ellenville High School grad earns Silver Star for heroism in Afghanistan

Soldier admits killing two soldiers from Florida

Soldier admits killing 2 roommates in northern NY
(AP) – 5 hours ago

WATERTOWN, N.Y. — A Fort Drum military policeman admitted stabbing to death two Army buddies at their apartment near the northern New York military post and will be sentenced to 45 years to life in prison.

Spc. Joshua Hunter, who was raised in Ona, W.Va., repeatedly stabbed Waide James, 20, of Cocoa, Fla., and Diego Valbuena, 20, of Port Saint Lucie, Fla., last November in a duplex the three men shared near Fort Drum's main entrance.

The three friends had returned in spring 2009 from a yearlong tour in Iraq with the 10th Mountain Division, Hunter as a military policeman and the other specialists as drivers. Hunter's wife and parents say he returned from Iraq a changed man plagued by flashbacks.
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Soldier admits killing 2 roommates in northern NY

Soldier injured in Iraq becomes LMPD officer

Soldier injured in Iraq becomes LMPD officer

By Janelle MacDonald

LOUISVILLE, KY (WAVE) - LMPD graduated its newest class of officers Friday and one of them has already led an amazing life in the U.S. Military.

Twenty men and women are beginning new lives, putting their own lives at risk as LMPD officers

New officer Dexter Pitts is just hoping for a calmer life than the one he led before.

"When I was in the Army, I served with the 10th Mountain Division in Iraq," Pitts said.

Two years in, insurgents struck.

"I got wounded in action by a 300 pound bomb on January 2nd of 2005," Pitts said. "I just had this bad feeling. I just knew something wasn't right. You know, you can feel when somebody's watching you. I just knew somebody was watching us."

He was right.

"The next thing I know, I wake up and I'm looking at the sky," said Pitts. "I looked down at my left arm and my bones were trying to come through my skin ... I remember waking up in the Humvee and my lieutenant was like, 'You're good man. You're alive man.' He pulled me out the Humvee and it hurt so bad."

He went through six months of rehabilitation at Walter Reed Medical Center.

"I had 12 operations," said Pitts. "I had radiation therapy. I constantly battle with sickness, PTSD, nightmares."
go here for the rest and video
http://www.wave3.com/Global/story.asp?S=12673974

PTSD on Trail, combat claims disputed in double murder charges

PTSD comes only one way and that is after traumatic events. It does change the way people think, react and feel about others as well as themselves.

This article says Spc. Hunter did not see combat or any deaths of anyone in his unit this time but it does not say what happened on the other deployment that could have caused PTSD. It does not say if there were civilians killed when Spc. Hunter was in the area or not. As we all know from reports, bombs are still blowing up civilians in Iraq. We should not totally dismiss PTSD yet until everything is reported. If Hunter was not exposed to any traumatic events the his use of it to defend himself against a double murder charge is beneath contempt. PTSD does not let anyone off the hook for crimes they commit but it would have to be taken into account when deciding what justice is in each case. Too many of our veterans suffering from PTSD never commit crimes and never harm anyone. The veterans committing crimes are rare and this is something the media should take into account whenever they report on a story like this.

MURDER SUSPECT'S COMBAT CLAIMS DISPUTED
ARMY CHECKING: Deployed unit had no deaths, injuries
By JOANNA RICHARDS
TIMES STAFF WRITER
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 5, 2009

FORT DRUM — Officials from the Army base are looking into the veracity of claims that Spc. Joshua Hunter, the military policeman accused this week of killing two fellow soldiers, experienced trauma during his Iraq deployment.

Some of the soldier's family members said this week that the 20-year-old military policeman had returned from a recent deployment mentally disturbed. Emily Hunter, his wife, told the Associated Press, "He saw his best friend get blown up to pieces and he tried to put him back together. He was never right after that."

But the unit Spc. Hunter deployed with experienced no combat deaths or even injuries during its 15-month Iraq deployment that ended in mid-2009, although it had two non-combat related deaths, said Maj. Frederick C. Harrell, a spokesman for the 10th Mountain Division.

"We're looking into whether his statements are true or not," Maj. Harrell said. "There's questions on it, so we've just got to answer the questions."
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Deployed unit had no deaths, injuries

PTSD on Trail:Wife says Iraq war changed soldier accused in slayings

Wife: Iraq war changed soldier accused in slayings

By MARY ESCH


The Associated Press

ALBANY, N.Y. — Relatives say a Fort Drum soldier accused of stabbing his two Army buddies to death told them he saw his best friend "blown to pieces" in Iraq and came back a changed man: violent, sleepless, edgy and plagued by flashbacks.


Spc. Joshua Hunter, a military policeman, was expected to be arraigned on second-degree murder charges Friday morning, three days after the bodies of Waide James, 20, and Diego Valbuena, 23, were found in their apartment just outside Fort Drum, about 140 miles northwest of Albany. Hunter and the two victims served in Iraq at the same time in the same battalion.

They all were based at the wind-swept Army post near the Canadian border, home of the much-deployed 10th Mountain Division, and shared an off-base apartment.

Hunter's wife, Emily Hunter, told The Associated Press in a phone interview that her husband was outgoing before he went to war, but when he returned stateside, he was preoccupied by images of his friend being blown up.
read more here
http://www.ajc.com/news/nation-world/wife-iraq-war-changed-224253.html

President Obama bestows Medal of Honor on Jared Monti

Obama bestows Medal of Honor on Jared Monti, a sergeant who tried to save a wounded comrade
September 17, 2009 1:32 pm
As he weighs the next step in the war in Afghanistan, President Obama today bestowed the nation’s highest military decoration, the Medal of Honor, to a Massachusetts man who gave his life trying to save a fellow soldier.

“What can we do to be worthy of such sacrifice,” Obama said of Army Sgt. 1st Class Jared Monti of Raynham, Mass. Attending the ceremony in the East Room of the White House were Monti’s parents, Janet and Paul.

Monti, of the 71st Calvary Regiment of the 10th Mountain Division, had been leading a patrol when confronted by Taliban fighters. Monti called for backup.

One member of the patrol, Pvt. Brian Bradbury, was shot during the encounter. Monti twice broke cover and ran into the open under intense enemy fire to retrieve Bradbury. Monti “did something no amount of training can instill,” Obama said. He quoted Monti as saying, “He is my soldier, I am going to get him.”

On Monti’s third rescue effort, he was killed by a grenade and died in the field. Bradbury later died during the evacuation by helicopter.

Obama’s first Medal of Honor comes as the administration ponders the next step in the almost eight-year-long Afghanistan war. The president is weighing whether to add U.S. troops beyond the approximately 100,000 U.S. and NATO troops already committed to help the Afghanistan army fight a resurgent Taliban.
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Obama bestows Medal of Honor on Jared Monti

Vets shred uniforms to heal through art?

There are things we do in life that may feel good at the moment but we end up regretting them after. Like having sex with a stranger is powerful, feels good at the moment, later comes regret. You can't undo it later.

Too many veterans came back from Vietnam believing if they got rid of their medals, if they burnt their uniforms, if they got rid of every reminder about Vietnam, the ghost would just go away and leave them alone. That didn't happen.

Nothing worked because the wrong things were done in an attempt to heal the soul and mend the heart.

I met a friend for coffee a couple of days ago and he's an example of how something like turning memories of Iraq or Afghanistan, or any other war, into something else, ends up turning them into someone else for a very short time.

He came home from Vietnam, put his papers, medals, uniform and pictures into a steel trash can. He poured lighter fluid on them and watched them burn. He took the cooled ashes and put them into the soil where he planted a garden. He thought that if he took something he viewed as ugly in his life and turned it into something beautiful, everything would be wonderful again. He was wrong.

The flowers grew but he didn't know how to take care of them right and they died soon after they blossomed. They never had a chance because the soil didn't have what it needed to sustain life and he added nothing to it like proper watering, didn't add fertilizer or even pull weeds. Everything he thought was wrong about his time in combat, serving as a draftee, was still inside of him just as it was in the soil.

My friend sank deeper into despair and soon his family fell apart. He felt lost for years until someone finally told him what he needed to know.

There was no need to get rid of a part of his life because everything in a person's life goes into what they are. All the good and bad are used for a purpose. The reason we were sent to live on this earth. It can break us if we look at it the wrong way. As if God did it to us instead of God gave us what we need to get through what other people did to us or mistakes we made in our own lives. My friend, like so many faced death in Vietnam. Because of the horrors he saw and the way he felt so ugly inside with rage boiling, he thought God had abandoned the whole earth. How could there be a God when all of this evil lived? How could there be any kind of a loving God when so many are blown to bits in a second. People who did nothing wrong except to be born in the wrong place at the wrong time?

It's a speech I've given to veterans a thousand times, but someone else told him what I've been trying to say as well but somehow this other "angel" got the message thru. I don't know the words used exactly or how they were delivered but it came down to, God was there in Vietnam, because he was.

People tend to look at destruction, evil, violence and the wrong mankind can do, then wonder where God is. They think if He exists at all, He must be evil and they don't want to know Him. They cannot see the goodness within themselves anymore. If they could, they would understand that goodness, that care and compassion within them causing them so much pain, came from God. How could they understand this if no one reminded them? The goodness inside of them couldn't have come from a God that was evil. God was in the midst of all that horror because my friend could still care.

God puts the soul within all of us no matter if we believe in Him or not, it's there inside of us. It makes some of us care deeply for other people and equipped with a tremendous level of courage to do what we have been sent to do. It's all there within us, but if we do not listen, do not allow ourselves to be guided and sustained, then we will not grow in the love we have been given. Much like the garden had all it needed to grow, it did not receive what it needed to thrive. It withered away. It became a snarled mess instead of a beautiful garden filled with flowers.

When we do not know much about God or view Him as evil, then we turn from Him and then we turn from ourselves. If we do not see that He sent caring people to give of themselves because there would be so many turning away because of their own freewill, then we cannot see any goodness at all.

My friend ended up getting the message and changed his mindset. He turned back to God, eventually saw the goodness within him and viewed his time in the hell of combat as a part of him. He cannot get back what he destroyed with his act but what he misses the most were the pictures of his friends. Some of them died there. He does find comfort knowing they live on in his heart.

Getting rid of reminders of our life does not remove them from our lives. Turning them into something else cannot be done by simply making them look like something else. They have to be changed from within. Otherwise it's just one more regret that cannot be undone.

Vets shred uniforms to heal through art

By Russ Bynum - The Associated Press
Posted : Thursday Aug 6, 2009 11:48:18 EDT

SAVANNAH, Ga. — Tired of taking pills prescribed to suppress his pain, Zach Choate decided to wrestle head-on with the trauma that followed him home from Iraq. He began by using a razor to shred his Army uniform to bits.

“I’m hoping I come out of this a little more whole, a little bit more at peace,” said Choate, who was a gunner in the 10th Mountain Division. “I’m not an anti-war, anti-military person. This is just me fixing me.”

He chopped his camouflage jacket into inchlong strips. He diced the American flag patch on its right shoulder, along with a prescription for sleeping pills he found in a pocket. Even the Purple Heart ribbon Choate earned after being wounded by a roadside bomb got torn into tiny threads.

The 25-year-old soldier from Cartersville joined a handful of Iraq veterans at a Savannah art studio last week to destroy uniforms that had become painful reminders of their combat experience, using them to create something new.
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Vets shred uniforms to heal through art

Clermont Florida Soldier with 10th Mountain dies in Afghanistan

Florida soldier killed in Afghanistan

The Associated Press
Posted : Tuesday Aug 4, 2009 15:52:21 EDT

CLERMONT, Fla. —The Defense Department said Tuesday that Army Spc. Alexander J. Miller of Clermont, Fla., died Friday in Nuristan Province during an insurgent attack. He was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 32nd Infantry Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division (Light Infantry), Fort Drum, N.Y.

A Fort Drum spokeswoman said Tuesday that Miller has been awarded the Purple Heart, among other medals.

Miller’s stepfather told the Orlando Sentinel that the 21-year-old “put everybody before himself.”

According to the Defense Department, as of Monday, at least 686 members of the U.S. military had died in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Uzbekistan since the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan began in late 2001.
Florida soldier killed in Afghanistan

Sgt. 1st Class Monti's family told of Medal of Honor for him

UPDATE

White House: Soldier to receive Medal of Honor posthumously
Story Highlights
White House: President will present medal to soldier's parents in September

Staff Sgt. Jared Monti showed "immeasurable courage" in Afghanistan

White House says Monti gave his life for comrade in combat, but no other details

Much-decorated soldier was posthumously promoted to sergeant first class.
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- An Army staff sergeant will posthumously receive the Medal of Honor after he sacrificed his own life in an effort to save another soldier in Afghanistan, the White House said Friday.


By acts of "immeasurable courage," Staff Sgt. Jared Monti earned the Medal of Honor, the White House said.

Staff Sgt. Jared Monti will receive the medal, the nation's highest military honor, on September 17 for his actions in combat, the White House said in a statement. His parents, Paul and Janet Monti, "will join the president at the White House to commemorate their son's example of selfless service and sacrifice."

Monti, of Raynham, Massachusetts, died June 21, 2006, while deployed with the 10th Mountain Division, according to a Web site set up by family and friends to announce a scholarship in his honor. He was 31 when he died.
read more of this here
http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/07/24/medal.of.honor.monti/index.html

Fallen soldier to receive Medal of Honor

Sgt. 1st Class Jared C. Monti, 30, of Raynham, Mass., died in Gowardesh, Afghanistan, on June 21, 2006 when he encountered enemy forces using small arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades during combat operations. He was assigned to the 3rd Squadron, 71st Calvary, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division (Light Infantry), Fort Drum, N.Y.

By Gina Cavallaro - Staff writer
Posted : Thursday Jul 23, 2009 16:28:01 EDT

Sgt. 1st Class Jared Monti, who was killed in Afghanistan June 21, 2006, will receive the Medal of Honor for his actions in combat, his father, Paul Monti, told Army Times in a telephone interview Thursday.

President Obama called Paul Monti, a retired school teacher, Tuesday evening at his home in Raynham, Mass., Monti said.

“The talk was very short and to the point. He said ‘hello, how are you?’ and I said ‘fine, Mr. President’ and then he told me the secretary of the Army and the secretary of defense have approved Jared for the Medal of Honor,” Monti said. “He said he was proud of Jared.”

Sgt. 1st Class Monti, 30, was assigned to 3rd Squadron, 71st Cavalry, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division, when he was killed in Afghanistan.
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http://www.armytimes.com/news/2009/07/army_monti_MOH_072309w/

Families should watch for signs a veteran is repressing emotions

The occupation of Iraq is winding down as troops are withdrawn from the cities. Plans are in place to pull out most of the troops. While some will have to be trained for deployment to Afghanistan, others will be returned home to bases, cities and towns, as combat veterans. Many of these men and women no longer on the cycle of redeployments, will have the time they need to rest and recover from the endless months of risking their lives. The problem is, too many people right back here are still clueless about what they went through and what they can carry back home inside of them because of all of it.

Citizen soldiers, the National Guards and Reservists, returning to their families, no longer have the same connection they had to the people they deployed with. The support services are still not in place in too many states. They are expected to simply return to their "normal" lives just as veterans are expected to return to their lives as citizens instead of soldier. What is it they are coming back to?

After the welcome home banners have come down, after the parties and the parades, what exactly is it we are willing to do for them after asking every kind of sacrifice out of them? The great news has been posted here on this blog with service groups, churches and veterans groups stepping up to help. Charity organizations formed to take care of the dire need. This is all good news, but the truth is, too many in this country remain with their heads buried in the latest political scandal, reality TV show or their own problems to notice what has been happening for far too long.

We are nowhere near ready to take care of the veterans we already have needing help. The biggest issue is that families are the first ones to know when something is wrong but if they don't know what PTSD is, they will not know what to do.

Families should watch for signs a veteran is repressing emotions
Queens Chronicle - Rego Park,NY,USA
by Victor Epstein, Chronicle Contributor
07/02/2009

Our servicemen and women in Iraq and Afghanistan are no strangers to hardship. Yet one challenge they might not expect — but most probably look forward to — is the challenge of coming home.

Returning home from combat is a lot more then tearful reunions and heartfelt embraces. Many veterans find it a difficult challenge, one they are entirely unprepared for.


“When I came home it took a while to adjust,” said veteran Ed Diez, who works in Woodside. “You’re used to being always alert, every day, all the time. And you come home; everybody is very relaxed, telling you ‘Calm down,’ and you can’t seem to fit in properly, in the beginning at least.”

Diez served in Afghanistan in 2003 and 2004 as a specialist and at various times a squad leader with the 10th Mountain Division, 2nd Battalion, 87th Infantry. Now he takes history classes at Queens College and works for the Vietnam Veterans of America as a service officer, counseling veterans about their benefits at the QVC in Woodhaven.

When he returned from combat, Diez said he personally experienced stress, social anxiety and trouble finding work or readjusting to his old life. These problems are common for returning veterans, and for some can be more serious. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, an anxiety disorder that can develop after traumatic experiences, is fairly common among returning veterans. “I would say probably close to 100 percent of those returning from combat would have some level of PTSD, though what level differs,” said retired Sgt. First Class Marvin Jeffcoat.

PTSD came to the public attention in the 1970s as Vietnam veterans returned and was formally recognized in 1980.

Jeffcoat, 44, was a soldier for 22 years and served in the Persian Gulf War. Born in South Jamiaca and now living in Woodside, he was recently elected to oversee the 26 Veterans of Foreign Wars posts in Queens. Jeffcoat said PTSD is not limited to veterans who have been in combat, mentioning accidental shootings, car crashes and a number of other traumatic scenarios as possible catalysts for the disorder.

“I had a roommate commit suicide,” he said. “His death was more disturbing to me than any number of dead Iraqis I saw.”

Dr. Paulette Peterson, who has worked for 24 years at the QVC, described PTSD as a great burden. “You don’t feel safe, you want to avoid thinking about the war, but it’s always on your mind,” she said. The QVC is a federally funded program started in 1979 by the Department of Veteran Affairs to help veterans deal with psychological issues.
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Harvard professor deploys to Afghanistan with 10th Mountain Div.

Harvard professor deploys to Afghanistan

By Fisnik Abrashi - The Associated Press
Posted : Sunday Jun 21, 2009 8:38:24 EDT

FORWARD OPERATING BASE AIRBORNE, Afghanistan — Last year, Kit Parker was a Harvard professor. Today, he is a U.S. Army major in Afghanistan.

Parker has spent his career juggling two unlikely professions: Teaching and fighting. He returned in December to Afghanistan, where he has been involved in firefights and roadside bomb attacks on his convoys.

His unusual career path has put the 43-year-old in what he calls “the two extremes of human condition.”

“You have Afghanistan, where you have ... 90 percent illiteracy, people living in mud huts, roughly the 12th century,” says Parker, a towering man with a shaved head, darting blue eyes, a southern drawl and an apparently strong command of just about any subject he talks about. “And then you got people at Harvard, where supposedly we are all literate and have all kinds of education available to us. How more different can these two environments be?”

And yet, he says, one thing is the same — the relentless pace of the work. Nothing prepared him better for Harvard than his first deployment.
go here for more
http://www.armytimes.com/news/2009/06/ap_army_professor_afghanistan_062109/

10th Mountain soldier's death in Iraq under investigation

DoD Identifies Army Casualty


The Department of Defense announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom.



Spc. Marko M. Samson, 30, of Columbus, Ohio, died May 31 in Tikrit, Iraq, of injuries suffered from a non-combat related incident. He was assigned to the 277th Aviation Support Battalion, 10th Combat Aviation Brigade, 10th Mountain Division (Light Infantry), Fort Drum, N.Y.



The circumstances surrounding the incident are under investigation.

http://icasualties.org/Iraq/index.aspx

PTSD:An outsider in your own life

"PTSD should be "normalized" as a routine reaction, shared by all sorts of people to traumatic events. "If we normalize PTSD, people can gain the skills and the tools they need."

An outsider in your own life
Stars and Stripes - Washington,DC,USA
After the ceremonies and celebrations, troops returning from war face an entirely new battle: Living at home
By Nancy Montgomery, Stars and Stripes
Mideast edition, Thursday, February 19, 2009
In the beginning, it’s easy.

"Beer, sex and pizza — that’s the first order of business," when troops return home from combat, said social worker Susan Watkins.

"The first week or so is like the honeymoon. That’s a normal part of coming home. But then you start noticing … so many things," said Watkins, who works with returning Afghanistan and Iraq veterans at the Mid-Atlantic Mental Illness Research, Education & Clinical Center, or MIRECC, at the Durham, N.C., Veterans’ Affair Medical Center. "That picture you had — it’s just not the same.

"Everyone has some difficulty with adjustment. Coming home is harder than going."

For soldiers of Company B, 2nd Battalion, 22nd Infantry Regiment, 1st Brigade, 10th Mountain Division who spent 14 months in Iraq, life does not magically pick up where it left off when they return home, experts say. Instead, there are changes to deal with — physical, psychological, relational — in the family and in the soldier. There is often grief, loss, survivors’ guilt, changes in the family dynamic and idealized family images shattered by reality.

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DOD names soldiers from Kiowa Warrior helicopeters that crashed

Latest Coalition Fatalities
ICasualties.org
DOD names soldiers from Kiowa Warrior helicopeters that crashed
01/29/09 DoD Identifies Army Casualties (4 of 4)
Chief Warrant Officer Benjamin H. Todd, 29, of Colville, Wash...assigned to the 6th Squadron, 6th Cavalry Reg, 10th Combat Aviation Brigade, 10th Mountain Division...died from wounds suffered when two OH-58D Kiowa Warrior helicopters crashed...
01/29/09 DoD Identifies Army Casualties (3 of 4)
Chief Warrant Officer Joshua M. Tillery, 31, of Beaverton, Ore...assigned to the 6th Squadron, 6th Cavalry Reg, 10th Combat Aviation Brigade, 10th Mountain Division...died from wounds suffered when two OH-58D Kiowa Warrior helicopters crashed...
01/29/09 DoD Identifies Army Casualties (2 of 4)
Chief Warrant Officer Matthew G. Kelley, 30, of Cameron, Mo...assigned to the 6th Squadron, 6th Cavalry Reg, 10th Combat Aviation Brigade, 10th Mountain Division...died from wounds suffered when two OH-58D Kiowa Warrior helicopters crashed...
01/29/09 DoD Identifies Army Casualties (1 of 4)
Chief Warrant Officer Philip E. Windorski, Jr., 35, of Bovey, Minn...assigned to the 6th Squadron, 6th Cavalry Reg, 10th Combat Aviation Brigade, 10th Mountain Division...died from wounds suffered when two OH-58D Kiowa Warrior helicopters crashed...
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10th Mountain Soldier passes away at Fort Drum

Soldier found deceased at Fort Drum
Newswatch 50 - Watertown,NY,USA
Last Update: 1/26 2:41 pm
A Fort Drum soldier was found dead at his on-post residence last week, officials said Monday.


According to the Fort Drum Public Affairs Office, Specialist Brian Johnson, 32, was found dead at his home in the early evening hours of January 20th.


Johnson, of Hanford, California, was an infantryman with C Company, 1 Battalion, 32 Infantry Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team of the 10th Mountain Division.

The circumstances of Spc. Johnson’s death remain under investigation officials said in a release from the PAO.

Johnson is survived by his wife.
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War-bound single mom reaches out to troops, and gets help herself

Brad Vest / P-IJoy Mack shares a moment with her daughter, Megan Fitzgerald, 6, at the Crossroad Economy Studios Extended Stay America hotel in Puyallup. The American Legion is paying for their stay because their home's heater isn't working properly.

War-bound single mom reaches out to troops, and gets help herself
Seattle Post Intelligencer - USA
By MIKE BARBER
P-I REPORTER

Like a lot of people, Joy Mack is struggling.

A single mom with two young daughters, at times Mack sometimes nets only $78 every two weeks after the bills are paid and the family needs met. She owns an older car that barely functions and is working to bring her house in Puyallup out of bankruptcy and fix some serious problems with it.

"A good house but with idiosyncrasies," Mack, 39, says of the home, which has old wiring and a faulty furnace that causes her children to wrap themselves in blankets to eat breakfast before setting off to school.

Getting the house repaired takes on more urgency for Mack than for most. After the New Year, Mack, 39, heads off to war.

A member of the Washington National Guard's 741st Explosives Ordnance Disposal Battalion, Mack leaves for training Jan. 3, then to Afghanistan sometime in February. She won't be home until 2010.

But Mack, who previously served in the Army from 1987 to 1991 with the 10th Mountain Division, is not complaining. She has sought no special treatment, no hardship exemptions.
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Another non-combat death in Iraq

DoD Identifies Army Casualty


The Department of Defense announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Pfc. Patrick W. May, 22, of Jamestown, N.Y., died Sept. 2 in Baghdad, Iraq, of injuries sufferedfrom a non-combat related incident. He was assigned to the Division Special Troops Battalion, 10th Mountain Division (Light Infantry), Fort Drum, N.Y.

The incident is under investigation.

Linked from ICasualties.org

U.S. military confronts unprecedented emotional war wounds

U.S. military confronts unprecedented emotional war wounds
BY MIKE THARP • MCCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS • July 27, 2008


KIRKUK, Iraq -- Sgt. Seth (Doc) Musikant could be a recruiting poster for the Army's new approach to post-traumatic stress disorder.

Last April, Musikant and his team were driving around a traffic circle in the city of Tuz. It was their second time through the roundabout that day, and between trips somebody had planted a homemade bomb. It blew up their Humvee.

One of his comrades was killed, three were wounded. In the frenzy that followed, Musikant handed his M4 rifle to the Iraqi interpreter, screaming, "Pull security!" Then Doc, a medic, scrambled to treat the wounded.

Musikant, with the 10th Mountain Division's 1st Combat Brigade, was on his second tour in Iraq. Although he felt that he'd proved he had guts during his first tour in Baghdad in 2005, the incident in Tuz bothered him. "It's like there's an invisible wall," Musikant said about the anxiety that temporarily troubled him.

He went to see the brigade's main mental health officer, Maj. Kyle Bourque.

"I told him it was bothering me," the 23-year-old former art student recalled. "I literally walked away with scratches. He said not to keep it inside, gave me some Ambien (a sleep aid). I still don't talk about it with anybody I don't know."

Never has the U.S. military been forced to confront so much of the psychological and emotional wounds of war. What's more, infantry soldiers no longer bear the brunt of such attacks; thanks to suicide bombers and homemade bombs, drivers, cooks and other rear-echelon troops also have been killed and wounded.
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I really hope to anyone who still does not get how these occpations are different than any other war, they pay attention to this part if nothing else.

Col. David Paschal 10th Mountain treating PTSD in field. Bravo!

When trauma strikes here in the US, an emergency call goes out to hit it head on right away. That's what works best. It's what police and fire departments across the nation do. They did it after 9-11, after Katrina. Chaplains are not just in the military, but factor into all of this as the first person called in after the trauma. When it comes to the troops, it doesn't matter if it's a chaplain or mental health professional, or they talk to a trusted friend. As long as they start to deal with it instead of stuffing it, PTSD has a harder time digging in. This is a great thing to do.

Army begins treating PTSD in the field
More on this Story
By Mike Tharp McClatchy Newspapers

KIRKUK, Iraq — Sgt. Seth "Doc" Musikant could be a recruiting poster for the Army's new approach to PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder.

Last April, Musikant and his team were driving around a traffic circle in the city of Tuz. It was their second time through the roundabout that day, and between trips somebody had planted a homemade bomb. It blew up their Humvee.

One of his comrades was killed, and three were wounded. In the frenzy that followed, Musikant handed his M-4 rifle to the Iraqi interpreter, screaming, "Pull security!" Then Doc, a medic, scrambled to treat the wounded.

Musikant, with the 3rd Battalion, 6th Field Artillery of the 10th Mountain Division's 1st Combat Brigade, was on his second tour in Iraq. Although he felt that he'd proved he had guts during his first tour, in Baghdad in 2005, the incident in Tuz bothered him. "It's like there's an invisible wall," Musikant said about the anxiety that temporarily troubled him.

He went to see the brigade's main mental health officer, Maj. Kyle Bourque.

"I told him it was bothering me," the 23-year-old former art student recalled. "I literally walked away with scratches. He said not to keep it inside, gave me some Ambien (a sleep aid). I still don't talk about it with anybody I don't know."

Never has the U.S. military been forced to confront so much of "the battle behind the battle" — the psychic and emotional wounds of war. What's more, grunts no longer bear the brunt of such attacks; thanks to suicide bombers and homemade bombs, drivers, cooks and other rear-echelon troops have also been killed and wounded.

A recent Rand Corp. study (criticized by the military for relying on too small a sample), calculated that some 300,000 out of 1.6 million veterans of these two wars have suffered some sort of PTSD or TBI, traumatic brain injury, which used to be called a concussion.

Nor has the military ever faced such sharp criticism for its handling, or mishandling, of the mental well-being of its troops, but never before have commanders and their troops dealt with the problems and the stigma of PTSD more directly than they've begun doing in Iraq and Afghanistan.

For one thing, it's cheaper to treat PTSD than it is to train a new recruit. For another, said Bourque: "The healthier their personnel, the better off the Army is."

Now the Army identifies a condition called Acute Stress Reaction (ASR) — the immediate aftermath of a traumatic incident in a combat zone. Since PTSD takes months, sometimes years, to manifest itself, military doctors and counselors prefer the new term to describe what they regard as normal reactions among troops confronted by abnormal situations.

Last year, the Army launched a mandatory training program to identify and treat the causes and symptoms of PTSD. The Pentagon no longer treats visits to a counselor as an adverse factor in giving security clearances.

What the 10th Mountain's 1st Brigade Combat Team has been doing for the past 11 months in Kirkuk province offers an inside look at how a gung-ho gun-slinging outfit is dealing with the toll its troops cannot see.

Because its commander, Col. David Paschal, one month into this tour, had to deal with the deaths of four of his personal security detail, the 3,500-strong 1st Brigade is probably more proactive about the problems posed by PTSD than many of its Army counterparts are.

Its troops generally agree that during this tour, much more is being done for soldiers gripped by nightmares, flashbacks, survivor's guilt, apprehension and thoughts of suicide.

"The command has zero tolerance for blowing off a soldier's concerns," said Sgt. 1st Class Keven Duncan, himself wounded in Baghdad during his unit's 2005 tour. (It was Musikant who pulled him out of a burning Humvee.)
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Syracuse Airport making room for military travelers

Military travelers get room at New York airport
By WILLIAM KATES
The Associated Press
Tuesday, July 15, 2008; 4:29 AM

SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- Weary soldiers traveling through Syracuse's airport will soon have a special room to pass the time while waiting for rides and flights _ thanks to some local veterans.

Hancock International Airport officials will establish a special hospitality room at the airport, which is frequently used by soldiers from the U.S. Army's 10th Mountain Division who are stationed 75 miles to the north at Fort Drum.

"These guys put their lives on the line, and they sometimes find themselves stuck here for hours and hours, with nothing to do, no place to go. We just didn't think that's how our military men and women should be treated," said Loren Davies, a former Marine who spent nearly nine years working at the airport.


The "Gregory J. Harris Military Courtesy Room " _ named to honor a Marine listed as missing in action in Vietnam _ will open July 29.
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