Staff Sgt. Doug Szczepanski face and the doctors who saved it

"It was far worse than he realized. He was rushed to Balad Air Base with his right ear torn off, his jaw broken, and the flesh on the right side of his face rent from the bone. Shrapnel blinded his left eye and lodged in his brain. Swollen and yellow-tinged, he scarcely looked as if he could still be alive."

Saving face
Doctors performing reconstructive surgery in theater help wounded troops heal, look better
By Kelly Kennedy - kellykennedy@militarytimes.com

Posted : Saturday Feb 2, 2008 13:54:33 EST

As Staff Sgt. Doug Szczepanski drove his commander out of Rustimiya, Iraq, on Sept. 15, 2005, his mind was on the new Taco Bell that had just opened at their destination, Forward Operating Base Taji.

“That’s all I was thinking about,” said Szczepanski, who was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 182nd Field Artillery Regiment, of the Michigan National Guard.

He never made it to his tacos; a suicide car bomber attacked his Humvee with an improvised explosive device made up of seven artillery rounds.

Somehow, no one in the vehicle was killed. But Szczepanski suffered horrific wounds — half his face was blown away.

“I went out for two minutes, and when I came to, I thought we were still going to Taji,” Szczepanski said. “I’m saying, ‘Let’s go, guys.’”

But when he reached for his M-16, he realized his thumb was gone. And his eye hurt; a piece of shrapnel had blown through it. He recalls being angry that his protective goggles hadn’t worked and were no longer on his face.
go here for the rest
http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/02/army_reconstruct_080204w/

Get This Out to all Viet Nam Veterans

Pass this on. Sent from email.

Got this through several friends - have not been able to verify it but thought best to forward FYI. As usual, check with your Doctor and the VA.

Subject: Get This Out to all Viet Nam Veterans
All:
Forwarded for your information. Please consider forwarding to those on you E-Mail list who may be impacted by this information. ~~ Semper Fidelis!!! . . .

-------------"Therefore I say; know the enemy and know yourself; in a hundred battles you will never be in peril. When you are ignorant of the enemy but know yourself, your chances of winning or losing are equal. If ignorant both of your enemy and of yourself, you are certain in every battle to be in peril." ~~ Sun Tzu


http://www.vva.org/veteran/0807/letters.html

PARASITE WARNINGI am writing to inform all Vietnam veterans about a potential health risk that they may have been exposed to while serving in Vietnam: the little-known danger from parasites.

My husband, who was otherwise healthy, passed away on January 20, 2006, from cholangiocarcinoma, cancer of the bile duct of the liver. It is very rare in the United States, but it is very prevalent in Vietnam and surrounding countries. There are two (2) known causes of this type of cancer: from contracting hepatitis C and from ingesting a parasite from the water supply in Vietnam. My husband did not have hepatitis C; therefore, it was determined that his cancer derived from a parasite. I have received official notification from the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) that his death was service related, which is not something the VA determines without an overwhelming amount of evidence.This cancer does not manifest itself until later in life, when you are between 60 and 70 years old.

Once the symptoms occur, which usually include jaundice, it is very difficult to treat or beat. My husband was 58 years old when he passed away. If he had been informed that there was a possibility that he could have ingested a parasite while serving in Vietnam, he would have taken precautions to have his bile ducts examined, possibly extending his life. The parasite is long gone, but it left behind damaged cells, which developed into cancerous tumors in the bile ducts.If you spent time in Southeast Asia and are having gastrointestinal issues for no apparent reason, please have your physician check for damage within the bile ducts. It may save your life.

Mrs. Edward S. (Pete) Harrison

Horseheads, New York

There is a long list of problems Vietnam veterans faced and still deal with today. They were joined by Gulf War veterans and to this day, they still fight. Wonder when the Iraq and Afghanistan veterans will be able to say they don't have to fight to have their wounds treated and their illnesses taken care of because the government did in fact honor them?

Pittsburgh Homeless man critical after clothes catch fire

Homeless man critical after clothes catch fire
Saturday, February 02, 2008
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
A homeless man camped underneath the Veteran's Bridge was taken to the hospital in critical condition last night after suffering burns over 70 to 75 percent of his body, police said.
Firefighters responded to an area not far from where Interstate 279 crosses underneath East Ohio Street on the North Side for a report of a debris fire.
When they arrived on scene a little after 8:30 p.m., they found the man on the ground with most of his clothes stripped off, police said.
The man, who was not identified, was taken to Mercy Hospital.
Authorities believe the man's clothing caught on fire from a burning barrel he was using to keep warm in below-freezing weather.
First published on February 2, 2008 at 12:00 am
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/08033/854254-53.stm

Marines left behind Lance Cpl. James Jenkins

Denial in the Corps
By Kathy Dobie
The Nation

18 February 2008 Issue

Marine Lance Cpl. James Jenkins is buried in the same New Jersey cemetery that he used to run through on his way to high school, stopping at the Eat Good Bakery to get two glazed doughnuts and an orange juice before heading off to class. When his mother, Cynthia Fleming, visits his grave, she looks over the low cemetery wall at not only the bakery but the used-car lot where James used to sell Christmas trees during the winter and the nursing home where he worked every summer and says, "Lord, son, you're on your own turf." James, who died at 23, is buried in Greenwood Cemetery; the owners told Cynthia they're proud to have him there.

During his short career as a marine, Corporal Jenkins received many commendations recognizing his "intense desire to excel," "unbridled enthusiasm" and "unswerving devotion to duty." It was for heroic actions performed during a fifty-five-hour battle with the Mahdi militia in Najaf that Jenkins was awarded a Bronze Star for valor. The fighting, which began on the city streets in August 2004 and moved into the Wadi al Salam Cemetery, was ferociously personal. Marines and militiamen were often only yards apart, killing one another at close range. When the battle was over, eight Americans and hundreds of militiamen were dead.

After that tour, his second in Iraq, Jenkins could barely sleep. When he did, the nightmares were horrible. He was plagued by remorse and depression, unable to be intimate with his fiancée, run ragged by an adrenaline surge he couldn't turn off.

Back at San Diego's Camp Pendleton the following January, Jenkins took to gambling, or gambling took to him; he became addicted to blackjack and pai gow, a fast-moving card game where you can lose your shirt in a minute. The knife-edge excitement felt comfortingly familiar. Jenkins went into debt, borrowing thousands of dollars from payday loan companies. Busted for writing bad checks, he was locked up in the Camp Pendleton brig that spring pending court-martial. In the months that followed, he was released, locked up and released again. He spoke often of suicide. The Marines never diagnosed his post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). When his mother called his command seeking help, Jenkins's first sergeant, who had not served in Iraq, told Fleming he thought James was using his suicidal feelings to his advantage. "I have 130 marines to worry about other than your son," she recalls the sergeant saying. When his command decided to lock him up a third time, James Jenkins ran.

On September 28, 2005, eight months after returning from Iraq, Jenkins found himself cornered in the Oceanside apartment he shared with his fiancée. A deputy sheriff pounded on the front door, while a US Marshal covered the back. The young man with the "intense desire to excel" decided he could not go back to the brig or get an other-than-honorable discharge. He would not shame his family or have his hard-won achievements and his pride stripped away. And he was in pain. "He said, 'I can't even shut my eyes,'" his mother says, recalling one of his calls home that month. "He said, 'I killed 213 people, Mom.' He said, 'I can't live like this.' He said, 'Everything I worked for is down the drain,' and he was crying like a baby." While the officers waited for his fiancée to open the door, Jenkins shot himself in the right temple.

In the wake of Jenkins's suicide, the Marine Corps attempted to deny death benefits to his mother by claiming he'd died a deserter; but in a report based on that eligibility investigation, Thomas Ferguson, a special agent from the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, described the young man as a "salvageable marine" whose untreated PTSD had led to his suicide.

go here for the rest

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/020208Z.shtml

The motto "leave no man behind" didn't hold true for Jenkins and a lot of other Marines. The leadership in the Marines needed to take the lead on watching out for them when they returned from combat and needed help. Marines like Jenkins were left behind to wage their own battle against the enemy they brought home with them. They didn't fight alone in Iraq or in Afghanistan, but they were left alone to fight in the USA.

Presidential Candidates: Stop telling us what to value when you don't value us.

Presidential Candidates: Stop telling us what to value when you don't value us.


In 2006 did you value the soldiers or their families when this came out?

Repeat Iraq Tours Raise Risk of PTSD, Army Finds

By Ann Scott Tyson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, December 20, 2006; Page A19

U.S. soldiers serving repeated Iraq deployments are 50 percent more likely than those with one tour to suffer from acute combat stress, raising their risk of post-traumatic stress disorder, according to the Army's first survey exploring how today's multiple war-zone rotations affect soldiers' mental health.

More than 650,000 soldiers have deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan since 2001 -- including more than 170,000 now in the Army who have served multiple tours -- so the survey's finding of increased risk from repeated exposure to combat has potentially widespread implications for the all-volunteer force. Earlier Army studies have shown that up to 30 percent of troops deployed to Iraq suffer from depression, anxiety or post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), with the latter accounting for about 10 percent.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/
article/2006/12/19/AR2006121901659.html

Did you value the troops who had already developed PTSD and were forced to go back into combat when these came out?

NAMI honors
Investigative Reporting:

The Hartford Courant, Lisa Chedekel and Matthew Kauffman


Four-part series on soldiers being sent to front-lines taking psychiatric medication without counseling or monitoring and troops diagnosed with PTSD being sent back into combat. Finalist for 2007 Pulitzer Prize.

“Jeffrey Was Really Messed Up” (May 14, 2006)
“Mentally Unfit, Forced to Fight” (May 14, 2006)
“Slipping Through the System” (May 15, 2006)
“Still Suffering, But Redeployed” (May 17, 2006)

http://www.nami.org/Template.cfm?
Section=Top_Story&Template=/ContentManagement/
ContentDisplay.cfm&ContentID=47626

When the claims began to get so out of control they reached over 600,000 deep, did you value the men and women putting in those claims for wounds they suffered? For every claim filed there is a human who was willing to lay down their lives for this nation but by the grace of God they returned home to what they thought would be a grateful nation. Grateful enough to take care of them because they were wounded. Grateful enough that they would make sure they didn't have to suffer for the rest of their lives financially because they were wounded.

When PTSD soldiers were being discharged under "personality disorders" which would mean they had a condition before they entered into the military but the tests never showed any signs when they enlisted and their families never saw any problems, did you value them then?

When they were committing suicide because of PTSD or stress back home, did you value their lives enough to make sure you did everything possible to save the lives of the rest of them? No, it took the heartbreaking stories of families left behind to do that. It also took the outrage of the American people before anything was done.

When National Guardsmen and Reservists returned to find their jobs gone and their business closed, did you value them and their families enough to take action and stop redeploying them so that they could make a living to survive?

I hear a lot of talk from some of the candidates on how we should make sure we raise our kids to know before they have a baby they should be married. I hear a lot about how abortion is so evil that it should take a congressional act to stop it. Yet how many hearings and speeches were given on the fact so many women were suffering after being raped by other soldiers or gang raped?


I hear a lot of talk about how it should be a value issue regarding the rights gay people are seeking. Yet no one was talking about them being kicked out of the military because they were gay even though they were needed to translate and even though they were great at their jobs.

Congress spent years on hearings about steroid abuse by sports players but spent no time on how veterans were seeking relief for their flashbacks and nightmares with self-medicating using drugs and alcohol. There were no hearings on homeless veterans or on their suicides. That is up until the last two years.

When the VA was under-funded and Nicholson was returning funds unused, did you take emergency action to fix the problem and hold him accountable? When you were told about the deplorable conditions at Walter Reed, did you take it seriously enough to notice that while you were visiting there, having your picture taken with the wounded soldiers, there was an entire building in worse condition than a prison?

When the VA was so overloaded with the newer veterans seeking medical care and the older veterans were pushed back and told they had to wait longer to be seen, did you put in for emergency funding so this could be made right? No, you let them be cast aside as if they should be lucky to still be alive. PTSD veterans were pushed from having monthly appointments to waiting three months to be seen again.

When the reports came in how the veterans centers were vital for veterans with PTSD, did you make sure they were opened across the country, especially in rural areas so the veterans could get the help they needed while trapped in a mountain of claims and appeals filed for denials that should have been honored?

When families started to ask for support groups for them so they could support the veterans and understand what they were dealing with, did you make sure you refunded the programs that worked when Vietnam veterans came home?

These are the men and women and their families, the rest of the nation is told to support when it comes to the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan. It is clear the only support required is to keep our mouths shut and support the orders given, the mission they are sent on, no matter how long it takes, no matter how many mistakes were made, no matter how much of a hardship this places on any of them. When it came to really supporting the troops and the veterans, there were excuses.

This does not even begin to address the problems the rest of the citizens of this nation face on a daily basis some of you are still totally ignoring.



Candidates, you can say whatever you want but you prove you do not value what is important. You only value what you think will get you votes you don't deserve because you don't value us.





Kathie Costos
Namguardianangel@aol.com
http://www.namguardianangel.org/
http://www.namguardianangel.blogspot.com/
http://www.woundedtimes.blogspot.com/


"The willingness with which our young people are likely to serve in any war, no matter how justified, shall be directly proportional to how they perceive veterans of early wars were treated and appreciated by our nation."

- George Washington

Antonio Pierce "He got his legs blown off...All we had to do was play a football game"

Just a heart warming story.



Wounded Veteran Brings Out Giants' Best

By DOM AMORE | Courant Staff Writer
January 31, 2008

CHANDLER, Ariz. — The playoffs hadn't begun yet, and already the Giants could see a major victory. They began filing into their hotel in Tampa on Jan. 4 and they saw Lt. Col. Greg Gadson standing to greet them.

Standing, just as Lt. Col. Gadson, who had lost both legs to a roadside bomb in Iraq, had told them he would several weeks before.

"It was shocking," said Giants linebacker Antonio Pierce. "We knew the ordeal this man was going through. He got his legs blown off, he's fighting for his life. All we had to do was play a football game. That's easy."

Gadson, a linebacker at West Point in the late 1980s, was introduced to the Giants by receivers coach Mike Sullivan, who had been his teammate at the academy. They stayed in touch on and off through the years, then Sullivan got an e-mail last April with the awful news. Gadson, who had served in the Gulf War and in Bosnia, was seriously injured by an improvised explosive device. The soldiers of the 2nd Battalion, 32nd Field Artillery, whom he had helped train, had performed courageously to save his life, but back at Walter Reed Hospital in Maryland, the infections forced doctors to amputate his legs.
click post title for the rest

Lt. Terry Dugas Hanged Himself Near Sicily

Third death in a week shakes Sigonella
By Sandra Jontz, Stars and Stripes
European edition, Friday, February 2, 2008

A third death stunned an already shaken and grieving Navy community in Sigonella this week. The Navy on Friday identified a sailor found dead late Wednesday in a small town about an hour’s drive from Naval Air Station Sigonella, Sicily.

Lt. j.g. Terry Dugas, 37, who hanged himself in a semi-populated area in the small town of Sant’Alfio, was found by base security personnel who had been searching for him, said Lt. Jon Groveman, a base spokesman.
go here for the rest
http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=52133

The Death of Marine Carmelo Rodriguez

I found the link to the video posted on VAWatchdog.org.

From CBS Evening News with Katie Couric, Thursday, January 31, 2008.
Length of video is 8:20.
Posted on YouTube here...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5l7BObKkb5Q

A Question Of Care: Military Malpractice?
One Marine Served His Country With Care. Was His Cancer Misdiagnosed, Leading To His Death?

ELLENVILLE, N.Y., Jan. 31, 2007
(CBS) Carmelo Rodriguez was dancing with his niece just last year. By all accounts Rodriguez, a 29-year old, loved life, his family and the Marine Corps. He was also an artist, a father, and a part-time actor. He once appeared with Katie Holmes in a scene on the TV series Dawson's Creek.

An image of Sgt. Rodriguez with his Marine buddies in Iraq in 2005 shows him as a fit, gung-ho platoon leader.

CBS News correspondent Byron Pitts met Rodriguez two months ago. That once-buff physique had been whittled down to less than 80 pounds in 18 months by stage 4 melanoma. He was surrounded by family, including his 7-year-old son holding his hand. It was Rodriguez's idea we meet.

When Sgt. Rodriguez was in Iraq, military doctors, he says, misdiagnosed his skin cancer. They called it "a wart."

Eight minutes after Pitts met Sgt. Carmelo Rodriguez, and CBS News was preparing to interview him, he died.
for more of this go here
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/01/31/eveningnews/main3776580.shtml

But he's not the only one.

Friday, January 25, 2008

VA Red Flag turned away veteran with tumor
Sick Redmond veteran says he's getting run-aroundJan 24, 2008 10:35 PM ESTVA denies 'red-flagging' means care is deniedBy Nina Mehlhaf, KTVZ.COMA Redmond veteran says he was refused medical treatment at the Bend VA Clinic, red-flagged and now can't get the treatment he needs for advanced cancer.Now he's pleading with officials to fix the system, while they say he was a disturbance.

Pill bottles in the dozens line the bedside 52-year-old Jeffery Severns sleeps in in his Redmond living room.The veteran was a combat nurse all over the world and served in Operation Desert Storm.But cancer has spread into his shoulder, tailbone, spine, ribs and gall bladder.Last spring, it was his throat that hurt him the most, so he went to the VA Clinic in Bend without an appointment and begged to be seen, but it didn't happen."Since [my vocal cords] were paralyzed, there was too much air going in and out," Severns explained Thursday. "I couldn't speak, so I would have to take in huge amounts of air to take in a few words. So they thought I was weird.

They thought because I was anxious, because I thought I was going to die, they thought I was a threat."Severns says he was red-flagged, a process the Department of Veterans Affairs uses when someone is disruptive, threatening or violent.He says the Bend clinic refused him service, so he got a ride to Portland's VA Medical Center. He says doctors there were ready to help - until they looked at his file and saw the red flag.He says he was escorted right out of the building and continues to be banned from the Bend office.It wasn't until a private doctor at a Washington hospital scanned him and found what was wrong. He had a tumor the size of his heart, wrapped around his aorta.
http://woundedtimes.blogspot.com/2008/01/va-red-flag-turned-away-veteran-with.html

Veterans Helping Hands Give Help to PTSD Veterans

Reporter: Andrew Del Greco
Local Soldiers Can Find Help For Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

Posted: Jan 31, 2008 11:37 PM EST


According to the U.S. Army, suicides among active-duty soldiers in 2007 hit the highest level since the Army began keeping track in 1980.

The president of "Veterans Helping Hands" says many of our soldiers come back home with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. He says he wants them to know they're not alone in any feelings of depression, and that there is help available.

These are numbers from the U.S. Army: In 2007, 121 soldiers took their own lives, which is an increase of about 20% over 2006. Also in 2007, about 2,100 soldiers attempted suicide. In 2002, prior to the Iraq war, that number was 350. Jerry Schmidt and others helps veterans and their widows file claims with the V.A. and get benefits and other services.

He says the soldiers' Post-Tramautic Stress Disorder stems from the horrors of warfare that many of us will never know. And there are 'new' horrors in Iraq where suicide bombs explode suddenly and kill innocent people.

Schmidt says in East Idaho, there should be more psychiatrists or pyschologists trained in military P.T.S.D., with just two doctors in Pocatello and one in Idaho Falls. But those kinds of counselors are available for our local soldiers - and veterans like Jerry are available too.
go here for the rest
http://www.kpvi.com/Global/story.asp?S=7806641

PTSD:Suicides and stress, the world is watching

Lt. Elizabeth Whiteside, attempted suicide again, but failed and is still here. Thank God!

US military suicides reach record level


Roxanne Escobales and agencies
Friday February 1, 2008
The Guardian


The suicide rate among US soldiers has reached its highest level since records began almost 30 years ago. Last year, 121 active members of the army took their own lives, up 20% on the previous year. Thirty-four of last year's deaths were in Iraq, compared with 27 in 2006.
Also on the rise are attempted suicides and self-harm. The number of US soldiers who tried but failed to kill themselves or who deliberately injured themselves rose to 2,100 in 2007, up from 500 in 2002.
go here for the rest
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,2250400,00.html

When the Washington Post reported on the suicides and the attempted suicides of US forces, the world was watching as they have since the beginning of deaths following the Vietnam War. The entire world has been watching and waiting for America to take this seriously and take action. While our healthcare as a whole is sorely lacking, our doctors, scientist and psychologists have been leading the way in many treatments. So why not this one?

While the military has been focusing on "winning" the "war" which is really two occupations producing higher and higher deaths, they fail miserably at focusing on what these two occupations are doing to the US forces they sent to risk their lives. In the silent suffering of the American military families, we also fail to see how this is all effecting them. Has anyone tracked how many divorces or suicides or suicide attempts they have made since this began?

Why "silent suffering" term is used? Because no one is paying attention to them. They are key to the survival and healing of the wounded when they come home. They are key to the families they are raising. Why are they forgotten?

When my husband came home from Vietnam, his father, a WWII veteran, told him to get over it. His mother opted to ignore it. By the time we met, he had been home for 10 years. The signs of PTSD were there to the point where my father, a Korean War veteran, said Jack had shell shock. The hunt for the invisible killer inside of him began. What I didn't know was that Jack had mild PTSD to the point where he could function enough to go to work, be sociable enough that he was willing to enter into movies and clubs, but not enough to stay. He was able to talk a lot more to me, but still had a hard time talking to others. His nightmares, flashbacks and physical symptoms left him drained but not to the point where he was unable to do things during the day. I accepted the oddities of him as "quirks" finding some of them cute. Even with all of this the day we got married 23 years ago, I married my best friend.

It was not until a secondary stressor hit that our world took a nosedive and I was suddenly married to a man I no longer knew.

This is happening all across the country today. Some come home with PTSD in a mild form and function but their family members can see the changes. They can see the times when the veteran has a flashback but if they don't know what it is, the connection between combat and the zone out are not made. They can see the odd reactions to sudden moves or noises, they can become shocked with the mood swings and wonder what they did to set it off. They notice it all but if they don't know what they are witnessing first hand, they are helpless to do anything about it.

It is damn near impossible to get them to go for help. Even knowing what I did back then it took years to get Jack to go for help. They go into a denial stage where they know there is something wrong with them but refuse to come to the conclusion they need help to get back to "normal" and seek to deal with it in their own way. They turn to self-medicating to kill off feelings they don't want to feel.

This is only the PTSD part of all of this. The families need support to go through the stress of separations and being a single parent over and over again. They have to deal with the loneliness as well as the constant worry while their spouse is deployed, risking their lives and facing death or serious wounds. This adds to the stress of the families. When the spouse, son or daughter comes home, there is a euphoria epidemic taking over the entire family. The relief that they returned covers the problems that are there. Then they enter into their own state of denial that with time, they will get over what they went through and everything will go back to normal. The family cannot see that there is nothing normal about combat.

There needs to be a nation wide emergency alert to address all the issues the soldiers face along with their families. We know the redeployments increase the risk of PTSD and increase the pressure on the families at home. We know financial problems associated with the Reservists and Guardsmen make all of this worse for them. We know that early intervention for PTSD works best. We also know that medications need to be monitored and there has to be therapy included in on addressing PTSD for it to work. We know all of this because of our researchers but we do none of it. When will this nation take the lead on this? The rest of the world is watching our troops and their families suffer. Do we really want to be considered leaders in needless suffering instead of healing?

Kathie Costos
Namguardianangel@aol.com
www.Namguardianangel.org
www.Namguardianangel.blogspot.com
www.Woundedtimes.blogspot.com
"The willingness with which our young people are likely to serve in any war, no matter how justified, shall be directly proportional to how they perceive veterans of early wars were treated and appreciated by our nation." - George Washington