Marriage and family -- a hidden casualty of war
By Major General Mastin M. Robeson, U.S. Marine Corps (Retired)
Published June 01, 2012
FoxNews.com
As we celebrated Memorial Day last weekend and remembered those who made the ultimate sacrifice to protect our freedom, many Americans spent the day with their families and friends, perhaps at a backyard barbecue or by a lake or the seashore. For others, the day was one of sadness as people across the country visited cemeteries and honored loved ones laid to rest. But there are those in our military who were, and are, grieving from a different kind of loss, a hidden casualty of war: military marriages.
I saw a lot of family heartache during my 34 years of service in the United States Marine Corps, but the last 10 years have proven to be the most difficult on military marriages and families.
Statistics from the Department of Defense report that since the start of operations in Afghanistan in 2001, the military divorce rate has continued to rise. Last year alone, the marriages of some 30,000 military personnel ended in divorce (USA Today, December 2011).
This has been the longest war in America’s history. We have been hugely successful at preparing our forces for a dynamic battlefield, protecting the individual warrior from an array of complex threats, and providing for the spouse and family left behind.
However, the more subtle challenge that cries for attention is the ever-mounting pressure on the marriages of our military personnel. Post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and traumatic brain injury (TBI) are not new to the battlefield, but multiple lengthy deployments are increasing their impact.
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Friday, June 1, 2012
Soldier's widow wages war against meds she says killed her husband
Soldier's widow wages war against meds she says killed her husband
Posted: May 31, 2012
By Ashlea Surles, Reporter
HATTIESBURG, MS (WDAM)
"We met on Valentine's Day at a Bitter Ball for singles in Mobile, Alabama," said Alicia McElroy, sitting on her couch in her Petal home describing the day she and her husband met. "He was awesome, he was your dream guy. He was too good to be true almost."
Alicia and James McElroy knew they were it for each other from the start.
"Ever since the day we met we never were apart, we were inseparable," said Alicia.
They dated for about a year, were married, and had a son - Dane. James, a Mississippi National Guard soldier who everyone called 'Mac', worked close to home at Camp Shelby.
"We had a good life, we had a happy family," said Alicia. "It was perfect, I mean you couldn't ask for more."
But that was all about to change.
"We got the call on our anniversary in 2009 that he was being deployed." James left in April and came home on leave in October and, Alicia says, he had changed. "Mac was crying all the time, he was depressed, he was anxious, just real agitated and irritable, he couldn't sleep."
"He had been in bed all day and I had been out here with Dane, I didn't want Dane to see his dad like that and I went in the bedroom that afternoon to check on him," said Alicia. "He was in bed sobbing ... He was curled up in the sheets, head, pillow, everything just crying his eyes out," Alicia said. "And after a little while he said 'Please help me, get me some help."
The military sent him to Fort Benning in Georgia to begin receiving treatment for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
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Posted: May 31, 2012
By Ashlea Surles, Reporter
HATTIESBURG, MS (WDAM)
"We met on Valentine's Day at a Bitter Ball for singles in Mobile, Alabama," said Alicia McElroy, sitting on her couch in her Petal home describing the day she and her husband met. "He was awesome, he was your dream guy. He was too good to be true almost."
Alicia and James McElroy knew they were it for each other from the start.
"Ever since the day we met we never were apart, we were inseparable," said Alicia.
They dated for about a year, were married, and had a son - Dane. James, a Mississippi National Guard soldier who everyone called 'Mac', worked close to home at Camp Shelby.
"We had a good life, we had a happy family," said Alicia. "It was perfect, I mean you couldn't ask for more."
But that was all about to change.
"We got the call on our anniversary in 2009 that he was being deployed." James left in April and came home on leave in October and, Alicia says, he had changed. "Mac was crying all the time, he was depressed, he was anxious, just real agitated and irritable, he couldn't sleep."
He had done a tour in Iraq and once before in Afghanistan, and halfway through his third combat deployment he was breaking down.
"He had been in bed all day and I had been out here with Dane, I didn't want Dane to see his dad like that and I went in the bedroom that afternoon to check on him," said Alicia. "He was in bed sobbing ... He was curled up in the sheets, head, pillow, everything just crying his eyes out," Alicia said. "And after a little while he said 'Please help me, get me some help."
The military sent him to Fort Benning in Georgia to begin receiving treatment for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
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Risky RPG Removal from Marine's Leg
UPDATE Marine talks about what happened that day.
You have an RPG in your leg
Risky RPG Removal from Marine's Leg
Posted 2 days ago by Member 26835147 Lt. Cmdr. Gennari talks to CNN's Brooke Baldwin about his risky role in the removal of a live rocket-propelled grenade embedded in a Marine's leg.
UPDATE
You have an RPG in your leg
Risky RPG Removal from Marine's Leg
Posted 2 days ago by Member 26835147 Lt. Cmdr. Gennari talks to CNN's Brooke Baldwin about his risky role in the removal of a live rocket-propelled grenade embedded in a Marine's leg.
UPDATE
Pulling A Live Rocket From A Wounded Marine Is All Part Of The Job For This Navy Sailor
Robert Johnson
Jun. 2, 2012
It's part of the job for American medical teams to care for civilians caught up in the bloody mess of Afghanistan fighting, so when a call came over the radio January 12, to help an injured three-year-old girl, an Army medical team rushed to save her.
The child had a bullet lodged in her back and had been doused by shrapnel, but when the medical unit arrived they found an even more pressing problem — a 22-year-old Marine Lance Corporal named Winder Perez had been hit as well — and the rocket propelled grenade (RPG) that had taken him down lay unexploded in his leg.
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13% of deployed Marines consider suicide 2006-2007
If it was this bad back then, what would a new study show?
Study: 13% of deployed Marines consider suicide
By Gidget Fuentes
Staff writer
Posted : Thursday May 31, 2012
SAN DIEGO — More than one in 10 Marines who deployed overseas reported having suicidal thoughts or plans to attempt suicide, according to a study looking at suicidal predictors.
As part of the study, which was briefed at the Navy-Marine Corps Combat Operational Stress conference here in late May, researchers sought to identify potential links to suicidal behavior that may have been evident within a month before a Marine attempted to take his life. They analyzed variables such as post-traumatic stress symptoms, depression, substance or alcohol abuse, and social support, looking also at “negative life events,” such as trauma prior to deploying, combat exposure and the “mundane” worries of everyday life.
“In our sample, unfortunately, 13 percent of people reported some type of suicidal thoughts or plans,” said Cynthia Thomsen, a research psychologist with the Naval Health Research Center.
The anonymous study of 1,517 active-duty Marines and sailors was conducted in 2006-2007. A wide cross-section of the Corps was represented, including the infantry, aviation and combat support communities.
Most participants were male (93 percent) and from the junior enlisted ranks (E-1 to E-4). Nearly half had done more than one overseas deployment, but 11 percent were not combat-related.
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Sgt. Daniel Angus' family await apology after Air Force mortuary scandal
Tampa Marine's arm sawed off to be "dressed" for funeral?
Family of slain Marine await apology after Air Force mortuary scandal
By Robbyn Mitchell
Times Staff Writer
In Print: Friday, June 1, 2012
TAMPA
Silently, the Angus family waited.
The mother, father and sister of Sgt. Daniel Angus bided seven months to see what punishment would come for the morticians and supervisors responsible for sawing off the arm of the Marine killed in Afghanistan.
Last week, a reporter — not the Pentagon — called the family with the news.
And they grieved for Daniel Angus yet a third time.
This time, they wanted to be heard.
"More than anything, we deserve an apology that doesn't start with 'I'm sorry, but …' " said his mother, Kathy Angus, in a news conference Thursday. "Everyone involved needs real consequences for what they did."
The Air Force said in a statement last week that Dover Air Force Base Port Mortuary supervisors Col. Robert Edmondson and Trevor Dean were punished for retaliating against employees who complained about the way servicemen and servicewomen's bodies were being handled.
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Family of slain Marine await apology after Air Force mortuary scandal
By Robbyn Mitchell
Times Staff Writer
In Print: Friday, June 1, 2012
TAMPA
Silently, the Angus family waited.
The mother, father and sister of Sgt. Daniel Angus bided seven months to see what punishment would come for the morticians and supervisors responsible for sawing off the arm of the Marine killed in Afghanistan.
Last week, a reporter — not the Pentagon — called the family with the news.
And they grieved for Daniel Angus yet a third time.
This time, they wanted to be heard.
"More than anything, we deserve an apology that doesn't start with 'I'm sorry, but …' " said his mother, Kathy Angus, in a news conference Thursday. "Everyone involved needs real consequences for what they did."
The Air Force said in a statement last week that Dover Air Force Base Port Mortuary supervisors Col. Robert Edmondson and Trevor Dean were punished for retaliating against employees who complained about the way servicemen and servicewomen's bodies were being handled.
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Military kids in Germany being "accosted"
Another Child Accosted at Base in Germany
May 31, 2012
Stars and Stripes
by Jennifer H. Svan
KAISERSLAUTERN, Germany -- Despite heightened security on Kaiserslautern-area military bases following two reports of child molestation and an attempted child abduction, Air Force officials said another attempted abduction was reported Wednesday.
In addition, officials at Royal Air Force Lakenheath in the United Kingdom are urging parents there and at nearby bases to be vigilant after an American boy reported an incident while he was walking off base May 2, though officials said there were conflicting accounts of what happened and it was not clear whether it was an attempted abduction.
In Kaiserslautern Wednesday, an 11-year-old boy reported that a man in an Army uniform tried to grab him at about 4:30 p.m. while he was walking alone on the side of Vogelweh that houses Vogelweh Elementary School and Armstrong's Club, said Lt. Gen. Craig Franklin, the commander of the Kaiserslautern Military Community and 3rd Air Force.
Military investigators are treating the incident as an attempted abduction and are seeking additional information and possible eyewitnesses to confirm what happened, Franklin said.
Franklin has called two town hall meetings for Friday to inform parents of the latest incident and to update them on the investigation. The first town hall will take place at 11:30 a.m. at Armstrong's Club on Vogelweh; the second town hall is scheduled for 4:30 p.m. at the Hercules Theater on Ramstein Air Base.
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May 31, 2012
Stars and Stripes
by Jennifer H. Svan
KAISERSLAUTERN, Germany -- Despite heightened security on Kaiserslautern-area military bases following two reports of child molestation and an attempted child abduction, Air Force officials said another attempted abduction was reported Wednesday.
In addition, officials at Royal Air Force Lakenheath in the United Kingdom are urging parents there and at nearby bases to be vigilant after an American boy reported an incident while he was walking off base May 2, though officials said there were conflicting accounts of what happened and it was not clear whether it was an attempted abduction.
In Kaiserslautern Wednesday, an 11-year-old boy reported that a man in an Army uniform tried to grab him at about 4:30 p.m. while he was walking alone on the side of Vogelweh that houses Vogelweh Elementary School and Armstrong's Club, said Lt. Gen. Craig Franklin, the commander of the Kaiserslautern Military Community and 3rd Air Force.
Military investigators are treating the incident as an attempted abduction and are seeking additional information and possible eyewitnesses to confirm what happened, Franklin said.
Franklin has called two town hall meetings for Friday to inform parents of the latest incident and to update them on the investigation. The first town hall will take place at 11:30 a.m. at Armstrong's Club on Vogelweh; the second town hall is scheduled for 4:30 p.m. at the Hercules Theater on Ramstein Air Base.
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Joe Mantegna: Our Returning Troops Need Jobs
Joe Mantegna told the country to hire veterans and he is practicing what he preaches! I just read that he told quadruple amputee veteran Taylor Morris to look him up when he is ready and he'll put Taylor on Criminal Minds.
If you subscribe to this blog, you know I don't have much time for TV anymore but one of the shows I watch all the time, (including reruns) is Criminal Minds. There are times when I think the show could do a better job addressing Combat PTSD veterans coming home instead of showing the harm they can do but at least they do it with compassion.
National Memorial Day Concert: Joe Mantegna and Dennis Franz help give tribute
If you subscribe to this blog, you know I don't have much time for TV anymore but one of the shows I watch all the time, (including reruns) is Criminal Minds. There are times when I think the show could do a better job addressing Combat PTSD veterans coming home instead of showing the harm they can do but at least they do it with compassion.
Criminal Minds' Joe Mantegna: Our Returning Troops Need Jobs
By Adam Bryant
TV GUIDE
May 25, 2012
Criminal Minds star Joe Mantegna has a message for Americans this Memorial Day: Our veterans need jobs.
Mantegna, who will return as co-host of Monday's National Memorial Day Concert on PBS with fellow CBS star Gary Sinise, is also actively working with America Wants You!, a new initiative that encourages corporate America to hire men and women returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. Mantegna and Criminal Minds co-star Thomas Gibson have also filmed PSAs to spread the word.
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National Memorial Day Concert: Joe Mantegna and Dennis Franz help give tribute
Quadruple amputee Taylor Morris says "I chose this path"
Simply remarkable! Taylor Morris lost parts of his limbs but has no regrets for taking on a dangerous job.
Quadruple amputee sailor: ‘I chose this path; I’m doing fine’
By PAT KINNEY
For The Globe Gazette
Taylor Morris remembers and feels everything.
He remembers the explosion that blew him off the ground and took portions of all his limbs.
He still feels his hands — every knuckle, every fingernail — as though they’re knotted up inside him and being crushed, and the stinging where his legs were, as though they’ve fallen asleep.
But he feels other things, too, the recuperating Cedar Falls sailor said Wednesday in an exclusive interview from his hospital room at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesdsa, Md.
He feels the love and support of a family and his girlfriend, Danielle Kelly, who have never left his side; of comrades in arms including fellow amputees; of brothers and sisters who are raising funds for future expenses; and of folks in Northeast Iowa he barely knew or never knew, including people organizing fundraisers or simply sending checks.
“Tell folks back home I chose this path, and I knew it was dangerous going into it,” Morris said from his hospital room at Walter Reed via Skype and telephone. “And it’s unfortunate it happened. But I don’t want them to pity me or to feel bad. I’m doing fine, and I’ll do whatever it takes to get back to 100 percent.”
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Brendan Haas gives Disney to fallen soldier's family
Boy Who Donated Disney Trip to Soldier’s Family Wins Vacation of His Own
By ABC News
May 31, 2012
ABC News’ Linsey Davis and Lauren Sher
Nine-year-old Brendan Haas, who spent three months trading things so he could win a vacation to Disney World and then gave it away to a girl whose father was killed in Afghanistan, was surprised with his own Walt Disney World trip today on “Good Morning America.”
To reward Brendan for his generosity, the Disney Company, the parent company of ABC, awarded Brendan’s family with an all-expense paid trip of their own, and made Brendan an “honorary citizen of Walt Disney World.”
But instead of accepting the trip, Brendan said he wanted to pay it forward yet again and that he’d be able to find another family of a fallen soldier who deserves it.
“We can’t accept a trip to Disney but we have many more people who would like to have an all-expenses paid [trip] …so we can do another raffle,” he said today from his home in Kingston, Mass.
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By ABC News
May 31, 2012
ABC News’ Linsey Davis and Lauren Sher
Nine-year-old Brendan Haas, who spent three months trading things so he could win a vacation to Disney World and then gave it away to a girl whose father was killed in Afghanistan, was surprised with his own Walt Disney World trip today on “Good Morning America.”
To reward Brendan for his generosity, the Disney Company, the parent company of ABC, awarded Brendan’s family with an all-expense paid trip of their own, and made Brendan an “honorary citizen of Walt Disney World.”
But instead of accepting the trip, Brendan said he wanted to pay it forward yet again and that he’d be able to find another family of a fallen soldier who deserves it.
“We can’t accept a trip to Disney but we have many more people who would like to have an all-expenses paid [trip] …so we can do another raffle,” he said today from his home in Kingston, Mass.
read more here
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