Tuesday, June 24, 2014

You Can Make A Difference On PTSD Awareness Day

Guest Post by Gabriela Acosta

 
PTSD Awareness Day:
How You Can Make A Difference

As PTSD Awareness Day (June 27) approaches, I hope you will join us in educating yourself and your community about what post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) really means. According to Dr. Matthew Friedman, Former Executive Director of the National Center for PTSD, “Greater public awareness of PTSD can help reduce the stigma of this mental health problem and overcome negative stereotypes that may keep many people from pursuing treatment.

Below are four ways you can make a difference starting today!


1. Get Informed About PTSD and Other Mental Health Issues

The Military Family Mental Health Resource Guide is a great place to start for a list of sources on anxiety, depression, Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) and PTSD. Identifying the differences between these mental health issues can be the first step to getting yourself or someone you love the help that they need.

2. Talk to a Friend
Keeping your feelings bottled up isn’t healthy. If you believe you may be struggling with PTSD or any other mental health issue, tell a friend. Likewise, encourage a friend to share what they are going through with you. Once you identify the problem, it will be much easier to seek support.

Another option is to write in a public forum or blog. By sharing your story, you may help someone else struggling with similar feelings to know that they are not alone. If you prefer a less public method of sharing your feelings, consider starting a journal to track your feelings and reactions to triggers. 

3. Seek Treatment for Yourself or a Loved One

If you or a loved one has experienced nightmares, flashbacks, heightened sensitivity, or notice a disruption to your every day life for a period longer than three months after a traumatic event, it may be time to seek treatment. If you suspect that you might suffer from PTSD, an online PTSD screening is a great place to start. All you have to do is answer a series of questions and print out your results and share them with your health care professional. Your physician will be able to guide you to your best treatment options and next steps.

Raising awareness about PTSD is important every day of the year, but I hope that you will join the military community is rallying together on Friday June 27 to help raise awareness. I encourage you to print and share a PTSD Awareness Day flyerand share it around your community and workplace. Remember that you can help prevent misinformation by sharing official research about symptoms and treatment.

Everyone can help raise PTSD Awareness! Join the national conversation at www.facebook.com/VAPTSD and share your voice by using #PTSD on Facebook and Twitter.






Gabriela Acosta  | Community Manager, MSW@USC 
University of Southern California School of Social Work

This is usually why soldiers end up with PTSD

This is not the only way people end up with PTSD.
Most of the time, this is.
This is not the only way people end up with PTSD
Most of the time, this is. While some people run from danger, others run toward it because some needs help.  No one knew if other bombs would blow up.  All these folks cared about was someone was suffering.
This is usually why soldiers end up with PTSD.
Yuri Kozyrev / Noor for TIME. #6. Protection U.S. soldiers shield a wounded comrade from debris kicked up by a rescue helicopter during fighting in Qubah,
They care so much for each other, they are will to die. They expose themselves to the prospect of death on a daily basis while deployed. That can cause PTSD. The deepest wounds come because they care more about the others they are with, than for themselves.

U.S. Navy sailor dies after parachute jump accident

U.S. Navy sailor dies after parachute jump accident in California
CNN
By Gabe Lamonica and Jethro Mullen
updated 5:11 AM EDT, Tue June 24, 2014

STORY HIGHLIGHTS
The accident took place during routine training, an official says
Authorities are investigating what caused it

(CNN) -- A U.S. Navy sailor died Monday after a parachute training jump went wrong in the Southern California desert, an official said.

Authorities are investigating the cause of the accident during routine training near El Centro, said Deputy Public Affairs Officer Chief Brandon Raile.

The sailor, whose identity wasn't disclosed, was a member of a West Coast-based Naval Special Warfare Command, Raile said in a statement.
read more here

Korean War Veteran Gets Justice from VA

VA comes through with funding to prevent local veteran from being evicted
Daily Commercial
Theresa Campbell
Staff Writer
Posted: Monday, June 23, 2014

After a year and a half of issues with the Veterans Administration and concerns about being evicted, Korean War veteran Harold Wulf, 81, can now unpack his belongings and stay at his assisted living facility.

“It is excellent news for me. I am pleased by it and in knowing that I am going to be living here,” said Wulf, who was featured in a Daily Commercial story on June 9 about his struggles with the VA. The next day, the veteran received official approval, via a phone call from a VA representative in St. Petersburg, that his funds were forthcoming.

Wulf had been waiting for an “aid and attendance” pension benefit of $1,758 for assistance in his everyday living needs at Grand Court in Tavares, while incurring debt as he waited for the funds.

“We were led to believe that it was a slam dunk case and that it would be no time at all that it would be approved,” Wulf said of the paperwork filed in January 2013. A few months after he applied, some of the program guidelines were changed.

“I fell through the cracks,” Wulf said, which forced him to reapply and go through more paperwork and a doctor’s approval in order to qualify.

Wulf received three months’ back pay from the VA last week, and he was even more pleased to work out financial arrangements with Grand Court’s management that will allow him to stay at the assisted living facility.

“They are just going all out to help. I’m really happy,” he said.

Paul Wulf is glad that his father doesn’t have to worry about being evicted, yet he believes the VA gave his father a bum deal. He said his father had to move into an assisted living facility before he could apply for the VA aid and attendance benefit.

“The unfortunate part to this whole thing is the fact that the VA just washed its hands and says, ‘Here’s three months (back pay),’” Paul said. “He only got the three months out of 16 months. In dollars, Dad is in the hole. He got a little over $5,000, so he is left $23,000 in debt.”
read more here

Troubles for veterans went on for years at VA

VA rule changes eliminated thousands of veterans from waiting lists
Tampa Bay Times
William R. Levesque Times Staff Writer
Sunday, June 22, 2014

The computer scheduling program created in 2002 was supposed to allow the Department of Veterans Affairs to identify veterans who had waited the longest for medical care.

Officials called it the Electronic Wait List, or EWL. VA employees were told to put new patients with severe medical disabilities linked to their military service on the list after they had waited more than 30 days for an appointment. That way, these veterans could be identified for faster medical care.

Eventually, most new VA patients, service-connected disability or not, went on the waiting list after 30 days.

But about 2010, the VA allowed its hospitals to lengthen to 120 days the time veterans must wait without an appointment before they are put on the waiting list, potentially cutting thousands of veterans across the nation from the list, according to a Tampa Bay Times review of VA records and interviews.

The time frame is now 90 days.

Some critics say the changes were a deliberate ploy by VA leaders to make this much-watched measure of hospital performance look better than it actually was.

"This looks to me like just one more of the VA's gaming strategies that have been identified in the last year," said Anthony Hardie, a Bradenton resident who is on the board of directors of Veterans for Common Sense, a nonprofit advocacy group. "It looks like VA leaders simply gave up on trying to fix the problem."
read more here


Veterans Affairs Watchdog Downplayed Medical Care Problems, Probe Finds
Report Claims Legitimate Whistleblowers' Critiques Were Ignored
Wall Street Journal
Michael M. Phillips and Ben Kesling
June 23, 2014

WASHINGTON—A Department of Veterans Affairs internal watchdog created to safeguard the medical care provided to former service members instead routinely played down the effect of treatment errors and appointment delays, a federal special counsel alleged Monday.

In a letter to President Barack Obama, U.S. Special Counsel Carolyn Lerner said the VA Office of the Medical Inspector has repeatedly undermined legitimate whistleblowers by confirming their allegations of wrongdoing, but dismissing them as having no impact on patient care.

The strongly worded critique adds a new layer to the veterans-care scandal that has rocked the VA and the Obama administration in recent months.

Among the cases that whistleblowers reported to the special counsel:

A veteran wasn't given his first comprehensive psychiatric evaluation until he had spent eight years as a resident of a Brockton, Mass., VA psychiatric unit, in 2011.

Drinking water at the VA facility in Grand Junction, Colo., was tainted with elevated levels of Legionella bacteria, which can cause a form of pneumonia, and standard maintenance and cleaning procedures weren't performed.
read more here

Monday, June 23, 2014

Veterans, blame Congress!

If you read Wounded Times you'll know exactly what this is all about. If you don't read Wounded Times and don't get it, then you're reading the wrong news.

Everyone is blaming everyone else for how bad it has been for veterans.


Lincoln tried to tell Congress what you guys should have done.


How many Presidents are going to get blamed for what you guys didn't do?



Stop blaming everyone else for what you guys failed to do for the last 60 years!

You can start wars really quick.  Send troops just as fast but no one ever thinks to plan for what veterans need afterwards!

Veteran in VA Mental Health "care?" for 8 years with no care

Reminder, none of this is new and that is the part that should get to you the most. Countdown top VA scandals from 2008
Eight years for psych eval a “harmless error,” VA says
Stars and Stripes
By Travis J. Tritten
Published: June 23, 2014
6 minutes ago

WASHINGTON — A veteran admitted to a long-term VA mental health care facility in Massachusetts waited eight years for his first comprehensive psychiatric evaluation by staff.

Another patient with a 100 percent service-connected psychiatric condition was committed at the same Brockton facility for seven years before a single psychiatric note was placed on his medical chart.

The cases are among dozens of incidents whistleblowers in the Department of Veterans Affairs have reported out of concern for patients’ safety but the VA has failed to take the incidents seriously, or admit they might affect the quality of treatment in its nationwide system of hospitals and clinics, according to a letter sent to President Barack Obama on Monday by the U.S. Office of Special Counsel.

The VA has instead claimed such incidents were “harmless errors,” according to the OSC, an independent federal watchdog charged with protecting whistleblowers and fielding complaints.
read more here
Now consider this. The House Veterans Affairs Committee has been in operation since 1946. They have had that long to fix the VA and take care of our veterans. Anyone ask why they didn't?

Next Medal of Honor says "We were a family"

Lowell native to receive Medal of Honor for Afghanistan actions
Boston Globe
By Bryan Bender
GLOBE STAFF
JUNE 23, 2014
Looking back, Pitts said, as he struggled to maintain his composure, “We were a family.”

NASHUA, N.H. — Some of the 200 enemy fighters were hidden in the trees. The Americans heard nothing. All seemed quiet until the pre-dawn darkness exploded into the deadliest single firefight involving US troops in the war in Afghanistan.

Nine soldiers died and 27 were wounded when a remote outpost was assaulted by a much larger Taliban force on July 13, 2008. But it could have been a lot worse had it not been for Ryan Pitts, a Lowell native who grew up just over the border in Mount Vernon, New Hampshire.

On Monday, President Obama announced he will bestow upon Pitts the Medal of Honor - the nation’s highest award for valor - for his role in the Battle of Wanat, one of the most analyzed engagements of the 12-year-old war.

“When I think of that day, I think of the valor that was displayed by everyone who was there,” Pitts, a business development consultant at Oracle Corporation in Burlington, Mass., recalled in a interview in his home here. “Guys who came home and especially the guys who didn’t.”

His is a story of an emotionally difficult childhood in Massachusetts and New Hampshire, a horrific scene in a remote valley near the Pakistan border, and the continuing struggle to heal.
“No one man carried the day,” he said. “We did it as a team. I remember looking around seeing other guys fighting so hard that I had to do my part, too. Everybody risked their lives for each other and some of them paid for it with their lives. But they saved other people.”
read more here

PTSD Fakers need to be charged, not publicized

Here we go again! Another article came out about PTSD fakes abusing VA benefits. There are some people in the article who need to be charged and should face serious jail time. Does it happen? Sure it does but it is rare.

The truth is, too many don't go to the VA and that makes it worse when fakers do.

This article is on the Denver Post under "opinion" written by Mark McVay. It makes serious accusations against veterans. It is also harmful to real veterans suffering from PTSD. Normally I wouldn't bother with something like this but it is out of Colorado and there are far too many with PTSD avoiding getting help.

If you read it and you are upset understand that accusations like this have been around for decades. There is nothing new in it. If you have PTSD, get help to heal. If you want to stay away from the VA itself then at least go to the nearest Veterans Center for help without having to file a claim. You can also seek help with many of the groups in Colorado.

There are also members of Point Man International Ministries ready willing and able to help you heal.

Special Forces learn horsemanship

New horsepower for war zones: Special Forces saddle up
USA TODAY
Jim Michaels
June 22, 2014

BRIDGEPORT, Calif. — The men emerged over the crest of a ridge and guided their horses along a tree line, skirting a wide meadow. They picked their way along narrow trails, climbing higher into the Sierra until a panorama of snowcapped peaks and a broad green valley unfolded beneath them.

The men, Special Forces soldiers dressed in jeans and other civilian clothes, led their horses into a thick stand of pine trees, where they dismounted and let the horses drink from a clear mountain stream before breaking out their own rations.

At this remote training area high in the Sierra, the U.S. Marine Corps is reviving the horsemanship skills that were once a key part of the nation's armed forces but were cast aside when tanks and armored vehicles replaced them. The need to bring these skills back was driven home in Afghanistan in 2001, when the first Special Forces soldiers to arrive found themselves fighting on horseback alongside tribesmen in rugged terrain without roads. Many had never ridden a horse before.

"We don't want to reinvent anything," said Marine Capt. Seth Miller, the officer in charge of formal schools at the Marine Corps Mountain Warfare Training Center. "These are skills that were lost."

Marine instructors are teaching the students, most of them Army Special Forces soldiers, how to control horses, care for them and load packs. The students are taught how to calculate routes and distances for rides and what to look for when purchasing horses from locals. For example, checking teeth is a good way to determine age and avoid getting ripped off by a farmer trying to pass off an ancient mule or horse.

In a throwback to the old Wild West days, instructors are considering training soldiers in how to shoot from a moving horse.
read more here