Veteran in crisis began to heal on Arizona Trail

The Arizona Trail chrysalis for life

Payson Roundup
Micheal Nelson
February 19, 2019

Mike Buckley makes his way from the Roosevelt Marina where he met a very friendly and helpful bar owner.

Mike Buckley stared at the gun on his desk.

“It was the night I started to crack,” he said in front of more than 200 members of the Arizona Trail Association at its annual meeting recently.

The 30-year Army veteran commanded a bomb squad in Afghanistan, but after months of sending his boys home in pieces, he’d reached his breaking point.

Sitting with the gun and his despair, he had no way to know the Arizona Trail would save him.

Little did he know a bartender on a golf cart, an Australian woman with body odor and a Pine winemaker with a bathrobe encountered along the trail would restore his faith in humanity — and heal the wound in his soul.

He ultimately found himself again in a charred burn scar, near the end of the 800-mile-long trail.

“At Telephone Hill, passage 41 runs through a burn scar,” said Buckley. “It incinerated ponderosa pines. Even to go out through the devastation is profound because you see life. I became overwhelmed. It was like a chrysalis of new life and I realized it was who I was.”
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Ret. Marine Captain sues 3M for faulty ear plugs

Retired US Marine captain sues 3M; says deafness caused by faulty combat ear plugs

The Inquirer
Sam Wood
February 15, 2019

A retired U.S. Marine from South Jersey filed a federal suit in Philadelphia on Thursday, claiming that defective earplugs manufactured by 3M were the direct cause of his deafness.

Capt. Matthew Morrison (retired), 35, served in Afghanistan, Iraq and Saudi Arabia between 2007 and 2013. During his deployments, Morrison was exposed to to extensive live-fire training of heavy machine guns, rockets, small arms, explosives and other munitions.

As directed by protocols, Morrison — like hundreds of thousands of other Marines — wore standard issue 3M Dual-Ended Combat Arms earplugs, according to court papers.

The suit alleges fraudulent misrepresentation and negligence. It claims 3M knew the earplugs were faulty.

3M declined to comment on “specific litigation matters at this time.”
read more here

Double amputee OEF OIF veteran driven to inspire!

Double amputee veteran chases truck driving dream

WKRN
By: Adam Snider
Posted: Feb 14, 2019 12:07

CHRISTIANA, Tenn. (WKRN) - A dream decades in the making was nearly taken away from a local veteran.

"There's dark days out there. Depression, I've had to fight through them. But man, lately I've kind of forgotten about them." Erin Schaefer

Outside of Christiana though, for the last several weeks, he's worked to achieve this goal.

"My dad was a trucker so that's all I've known," said Erin Schaefer, an Army veteran who served in both Iraq and Afghanistan. "I just love the open road, being out there with the truck. Just myself and my thoughts."

Those thoughts sometimes take him back to the Army and his final term in Afghanistan.

It was on this trip in 2010, that he was in the wrong truck at the wrong time.

"Was out on a convoy taking supplies from one base to the next. Came to a halt because the other truck in the rear of our convoy had become disabled," he explained. "Started moving again, and the IED blast went off."

Erin is now an amputee, losing both his legs below the knee.

"There's dark days out there," he said. "Depression, I've had to fight through them. But man, lately I've kind of forgotten about them."

He's found new life, thanks in part to an old passion.

Erin is now seeking his CDL, at the Truck Driver Institute (TDI) outside Christiana.
read more here

The War Within, batteling PTSD

If the title sounds familiar, it should. PBS had it! Also reminder, as more and more publicity comes out for our Afghanistan and Iraq veterans, Vietnam veterans are not only responsible for all the research, openness to #BreakTheSilence they are also still suffering but no one is paying attention to the fact that the majority of known veterans committing suicide, are in fact, over the age of 50!

War Within was filmed in 1990
Special | 29m 1s
Documentary consisting of powerful interviews with veterans who returned from Vietnam physically intact but emotionally scarred. Veterans pay tribute to their friends who died in war and fellow soldiers who helped them in wartime battles and continue to help them in battles with PTSD.
Aired: 11/11/10
Rating: NR

Local Marine veteran takes part in documentary series about PTSD

King 5 News
Author: Su Ring, Helen Smith
February 7, 2019

Former Marine Scott Whistler was featured in a Facebook Watch series about veterans dealing with the aftermath of their military service.

SEATTLE — According to the VA, between eleven to twenty percent of veterans who served in Iraq or Afghanistan live with post-traumatic stress and other mental health issues, whether they've seen active combat or not. A new Facebook Watch series "The War Within" profiles three veterans living with PTSD in the aftermath of their Military service. One of those veterans is Scott Whisler, a former US Marine living in Tacoma, Washington. Whisler was diagnosed with PTSD after his deployment to Afghanistan.

However, Whisler was able to find an opportunity for leadership and connection through a running and fitness club Team Red, White and Blue. Whisler joins New Day Northwest to talk about his participation in the documentary and his life after coming home.
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Lance Corporal James Ross committed suicide after being isolated

Why were these troubled soldiers sent to 'isolated' base after horrors of war? Mother's agony that son who lost five comrades in Afghanistan is one of two found hanged in three months

The Daily Mail

Joel Adams and Sophie Law

February 4, 2019

• Lance Corporal James Ross, 30, was found hanged at Army base in Ballykinler
• Mother Linda Ketcher questioned why her son was sent to an 'isolated' base
• She told the inquest how senior Army personnel kept her son's friends away from her at the funeral saying it was 'odd' she was not allowed to have a conversation
• Darren Mitchell, 20, also died from suspected suicide at base three months later

Lance Corporal James Ross (pictured), 30, from Leeds, was found hanged at Abercorn Army base in Ballykinler on December 8 2012

The mother of a soldier found hanged in a suspected suicide at an isolated barracks, where another solder is suspected to have killed himself months later, has spoken of her agony over his death. 

It comes as a Daily Mail investigation found men from their regiment, which took heavy losses in Helmand, are self-harming and taking their own lives at an alarming rate.

Lance Corporal James Ross, 30, from Leeds, who served in Afghanistan, was found hanged at Abercorn Army base in Ballykinler, Northern Ireland, on December 8 2012.

The inquest into his death, and the death by hanging of Rifleman Darren Mitchell, six weeks later at the same base, opened today.

Mrs Ketcher said that army officials prevented her from speaking to soldiers from the barracks at her son's funeral. 

She said: 'A few of them [his friends from the Army] were visibly upset. 

'If any of the guys who served with him [came to speak to me], within minutes, there would be someone ushering them away from me. read more here

Afghanistan veteran left over 4 hour video before suicide

If you listen to any Podcast, take the time for this one. Then maybe you'll want to make a difference before it is too late for someone you love!

The Morning Call Podcast: Carbon County soldier was tormented by wars – abroad and at home

The Morning Call
By Kayla DwyerContact Reporter
January 28, 2019

Michael Wargo's battle was long and extremely well hidden.

Michael Wargo hid his PTSD from everyone, then paid the ultimate price. His parents are working to prevent others from enduring the same tragedy. (Contributed Photo)

He spent 10 months in Afghanistan, then eight years battling PTSD, then four and a half hours explaining his life-altering decision in a video his parents received when it was too late to change anything.

A recent audit of the Veterans Administration shows they had millions of dollars budgeted for veteran suicide awareness that went unspent last year.

This week on The Morning call Podcast, columnist Paul Muschick explains what happened, and the Wargos explain the stakes.
read more here

There has been a lot of great reporting on PTSD over the years. Veterans coming forward, sharing their stories, pieces of their lives to help other veterans falling apart. There has been great reporters taking the time to listen and get it all down so that the stories can be shared with the world.

This is one of them. It was reported back in 2006 and the Boston Globe still has the links working. If you want to know how change the outcome, learn what contributed to all the suffering in the first place. Then help them heal!

The war after the war

Boston Globe
By Thomas Farragher, Globe Staff
October 29, 2006

The squad mates paused for a snapshot before their patrol on the night of the roadside bomb attack in Baghdad. From left to right: Jeremy Regnier, Dustin Jolly, and Andy Wilson.

They were an Army of Three — fun-loving, young, courageous, afraid. And when the bomb went off outside Baghdad, killing New Hampshire's Jeremy Regnier, the survivors of the squad found their lives upended. What they suffer has a name — post-traumatic stress — but a label can't describe it. This is a story of a death and its descendants.

It was circled on his calendar, a day he'd looked forward to for months. But as Andy Wilson stood on the wind-swept airfield and the chartered plane glided out of a leaden Texas sky, he was anything but upbeat.

An unsettling cocktail of emotions swirled inside. The balloons and marching bands, the confetti and welcome-home banners were not for him, though they could have been. Should have been.

As a noncommissioned officer, Wilson had sworn to stick by the men he led in combat, no matter what. And to bring them all home.

But after that night in Baghdad when the bomb went off and his friend and comrade slumped against his shoulder, Wilson's war was over.

He left Iraq on leave in late 2004, his mind and spirit broken, and never returned. Doctor's orders. "It gnaws at me," he said.

Three months later, as the troops he served with stepped off the plane at Fort Hood after a year at war, the emotional torque of it all bore down on him again.

The grapevine had carried the whispers from the war zone: Wilson's lost it. Wilson's a coward. And when some of the returning officers refused his outstretched hand or grabbed it limply with looks of disappointment or disdain, he knew who the whisperers were.

But for now, it didn't matter.

As the troops lined up to return their weapons, their gas masks and the other gadgetry of warfare, Wilson searched the crowd for a single face.

Dustin Jolly was the only other soldier who really knew what happened that night in October 2004 when Jeremy Regnier, the cocksure gunner from Littleton, N.H., died.

Like Wilson, Jolly had felt the blast and seen the unspeakable injury -- and knew how easily that memory reel could unspool.

But unlike Wilson, who sought help and went home, he had bottled up his demons and gone back out on patrol.

And so as Jolly -- near the front of the line -- stepped into view, the reunion sequence was anything but certain. Wilson held his breath.

"I saw him," Wilson said, "and once he gave me that dumb-ass Jolly look, I knew he was OK."

The men hugged and smiled and shook hands. They made promises to drink beer and catch up.

"It made me feel good," Wilson said. "It made me feel proud. It made me still feel loved, I guess."

In the months to come, what the two men shared, the darkness and the love, would come to mean everything.

The war after the war had begun.
read more here

It is a condition with an off-putting, antiseptic name -- post-traumatic stress disorder. It is as old as warfare and as new as yesterday's casualty list. Yet, remarkably little is known of why it afflicts some and exempts others, why its symptoms can be so insidious and so adamant. 

Wilson only knew what he felt -- possessed, immobilized, ashamed. He had left Iraq early, and he believed his superiors now considered him damaged goods. The soldier who ran when others stayed. The commander who swapped places with Regnier minutes before the bomb tore him apart.

"I take nothing away from anybody who has lost limbs -- nothing at all because they deserve more than just a Purple Heart," Wilson would later explain. "Maybe they should come up with something for us crazy guys. I don't know. But we have wounds that we're going to carry with us for the rest of our lives. I sit alone in my house sometimes and I cry like a big baby because of what happened."

read more from Nothing's Wrong With You 

 PART ONE: The war after the war

 PHOTO GALLERY: "Welcome to Hell"

 PART TWO: 'Nothing's wrong with you'

 PHOTO GALLERY: "I should have died."

 PART THREE: A 'select club' struggles on

 AUDIO SLIDESHOW: Isolation, withdrawl, and hope

 PHOTO GALLERY: "A penny for your thoughts"

 PART FOUR: 'I need to blaze my own trail'

 AUDIO SLIDESHOW: In uniform, a sense of family

 PHOTO GALLERY: "The consolation prize"

Remote Controlled: Bodyguard and PTSD

Listen: Richard Madden Breaks Down Playing a ‘Bodyguard’ With PTSD

VARITY
By DANIELLE TURCHIANO
HOME TV FEATURES
NOVEMBER 30, 2018

Welcome to “Remote Controlled,” a podcast from Variety featuring the best and brightest in television, both in front of and behind the camera.

Richard Madden photographed exclusively for the Variety Remote Controlled Podcast DAN DOPERALSKI FOR VARIETY

In this week’s episode, “Bodyguard” star Richard Madden sits down with Variety‘s features editor of TV, Danielle Turchiano, to talk about playing a former soldier with PTSD, who is tasked with protecting Britain’s Home Secretary.

“In a lot of movies and television we see PTSD as someone closes a door too loud or a car backfires and our subject suddenly is transported back to Afghanistan in the middle of this fighting and men are dying,” Madden says. “That does happen sometimes for people with PTSD — they have flashbacks like that — but that’s not the only thing that happens.”

Madden shares that he was most interested in bringing to life the daily struggle of someone in that position — the anxiety and depression that comes with the disorder.
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Marine got apology from publisher for choosing wrong adventure

A Marine's Reaction to a Children's Book Prompts an Apology From the Publisher

New York Times
C. J. Chivers
November 30, 2018

In an article for the Times, a former Marine criticized a “choose your own adventure” children’s book set in Afghanistan. A week later, the book’s publisher wrote to him with an apology.

“The choose-your-adventure format,” he wrote, “felt breezy and cavalier, recklessly presenting a bloody contest between the Taliban and the Marines in a manner largely devoid of consequences. I know what the book did not say. My friends and I killed in Marjah, and Marines in my rifle company lost limbs and lives. No notional exercise in choice will erase the fact that both my battalion and the battalion to our north killed many civilians in the opening days of Operation Moshtarak, when American high-explosive rockets struck occupied Afghan homes. Then, in the end, American plans for the area failed. Today Marjah is again under of the control of the Taliban and warlords.”

At War is a newsletter about the experiences and costs of war with stories from Times reporters and outside voices.

Earlier this month, Zachary Bell, a former Marine rifleman and infantry squad leader, received an unsolicited email from the head of Capstone, a publisher of children’s books in Minnesota.

The New York Times Magazine had just published Bell’s first article for the At War channel, in which he had detailed his reaction this summer to observing his two daughters, ages 8 and 10, reading “War in Afghanistan: An Interactive Modern History Adventure,” a book in Capstone’s You Choose series. The book included a chapter on an operation in 2010 in Marjah, a Taliban stronghold in Helmand Province, in which Bell participated. He watched and listened as they confronted the text’s notional choices, including how to navigate the perilous landscape and whether to fire upon Afghan men who might be snipers — at risk of committing a war crime.
read more here

Sgt. 1st Class Eric M. Emond killed on 7th tour

Sgt. 1st Class Eric Emond, Co-founder of Massachusetts Fallen Heroes, killed in Afghanistan

WCVB 
November 28, 2018

One of the special forces soldiers killed Tuesday in Afghanistan was a co-founder of a Massachusetts organization that provides support for veterans and gold star families. 

Sgt. 1st Class Eric M. Emond, 39, succumbed to wounds sustained when an improvised explosive device struck their vehicle during operations in Ghanzi province, the Department of Defense announced Wednesday. 

Also killed were Captain Andrew P. Ross, 29, and Air Force Staff Sgt. Dylan J. Elchin, 25. Emond and Ross were both members of the 3rd Special Forces Group out of Fort Bragg, North Carolina. 

Emond was a native of Boston who had more than 21 years of military service in the Marine Corps and Army. He was on his seventh overseas tour. read more here

Man convicted of selling fentanyl to veteran with PTSD

Kalamazoo man convicted of selling fentanyl to veteran with PTSD, causing his death

FOX 17 News
BY BOB BRENZING
NOVEMBER 29, 2018

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. – A Kalamazoo man has been convicted in federal court for distributing the drug fentanyl to a veteran with PTSD, causing his death.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office announce that Deondray Abrams, 26, was convicted by a jury Wednesday evening after a two-day trial in the death of Brandon Demko. Abrams is scheduled to be sentenced on April 8 and faces life imprisonment due to prior convictions.

The U.S. Attorney says that Abrams sold fentanyl as heroin to Demko on March 21, 2017. Demko used the drug thinking it was heroin and lost consciousness. Responding officers from Kalamazoo DPS and Life EMS were not able to revive Demko and he died.

Demko was a Marine Corps veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan and suffered from severe post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
go here for more

Indiana changing the conversation from suicide to actually preventing them

Vets helping vets

CNHI News Indiana
By Haley Cawthon
2 hrs ago

Tackling mental health issues, one conversation at a time

“I served in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War, during the Cold War and then during Desert Shield and Desert Storm, so there’s that connection with my fellow veterans in terms of deployments, missions and that sort of thing. In the Army they have this thing called your battle buddy, in the Navy it’s your shipmate, in the Air Force it’s your wingman — it’s the concept of leaving nobody behind and we are all in this together.” Ken Gardner

In a divisive time in the United States, almost all politicians and civilians can find common ground when it comes to supporting the troops. Yet, veterans are still dying daily due to a lack of mental health services.

In 2016, 6,079 veterans died by suicide across the country, according to data released by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. Seventy of those deaths occurred in Indiana, and more than half of those veterans were 55 or older.

As bleak as those statistics are, there is somewhat of a hidden silver lining: Indiana’s veteran suicide rate of 16.7 percent is significantly lower than the national rate of 30.1 percent, and even the Midwestern region suicide rate of 28 percent.

So while there is still room for improvement, the Hoosier state appears to be leaps and bounds ahead of the nation. What sets us apart?

Recognizing the signs

Part of the solution to improving veterans’ mental health lies within another persons’ ability to notice the veteran is struggling before a crisis occurs, said Brandi Christiansen, a Navy veteran and executive director of Mental Health America of North Central Indiana. If no one intervenes, a veteran struggling with mental illness can become dangerous to themselves or others.

“We are waiting too long. We are waiting too long to have difficult conversations, we’re waiting too long to get help and identify those warning signs and symptoms,” Christiansen said. “I think we have become complacent as a society.”

According to the VA, about 11 to 20 out of every 100 Operation Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom veterans have post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). About 12 out of every 100 Gulf War veterans and 15 out of every 100 Vietnam veterans also suffer from PTSD.
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Deployed Apache helicopter pilot's home robbed, by "friend"

This is a soldier deployed in Afghanistan

Deputies in Halifax County received a report of the break-in on Elwyn Drive on Oct. 18. Jeff Foley says his son, CWO2 Brad Foley, flies Apache helicopters and is deployed with the North Carolina National Guard.

And this is the "friend" who took advantage of deployment.

Deployed soldier's home ransacked by childhood friend

read the story here.

Did Burn Pits Kill General?

Vt. Guard general’s death draws attention to burn pit dangers

Providence Journal
Donita Naylor
November 25, 2018

Flags in Vermont are flying at half-staff in honor of a former Rhode Islander, Vermont National Guard Brig. Gen. Michael T. Heston, 58, who died Nov. 14 from an aggressive cancer linked to his three tours of duty in Afghanistan, one with the Rhode Island National Guard.

Flags in Vermont are flying at half-staff in honor of a former Rhode Islander, Vermont National Guard Brig. Gen. Michael T. Heston, 58, who died Nov. 14 from an aggressive cancer linked to his three tours of duty in Afghanistan, one with the Rhode Island National Guard.

Heston was buried with full military honors at the Veterans Cemetery in Randolph, Vermont, on Saturday. An order from Vermont Gov. Philip B. Scott said flags would be flown at half-staff until sunset Monday.

Heston, the oldest son of Thomas and Dorothea Heston, grew up in Cumberland, graduating from Cumberland High School in 1978 and from Roger Williams College in 1982.

During his 34-year military career, he rose to the second-highest rank in the Vermont National Guard. He was also a trooper in the Vermont State Police for 26 years, retiring as a sergeant in 2010.

June Heston, his wife of 30 years, told Fox News that in 2016, four years after returning from his last deployment in Afghanistan, he began having back pain. He was diagnosed 10 months later with stage IV pancreatic cancer. No one had thought of testing for cancer.

She said Sunday night that Mike’s oncologist “did all the genetic and genomic testing” and found that his cancer “was not hereditary in any way.” The doctor wrote to the Veterans Administration with his conclusion that the cancer had an environmental cause.
read more here

Combat to chainsaws, veterans fighting fires

Veterans find community, hard work in rare firefighting crew

Associated Press
November 24, 2018

Of the 25 positions on the crew, 17 are filled by veterans, McGirr said. There are three additional openings, and McGirr said he wants to recruit female veterans, too.

SALEM, Ore. - After being in firefights in Afghanistan and Iraq, members of one of America's newest elite wildfire crews are tasked with fighting fires in rugged country back home.

On the U.S. Bureau of Land Management's only hotshot crew focused on recruiting veterans, members have traded assault rifles and other weapons of war for chainsaws and shovels. But, like in the military, they have camaraderie, structure, and chain of command. And the occasional adrenaline rush.

Crew superintendent Michael McGirr said he and other managers took then-President Barack Obama's initiative to hire veterans to heart."We felt it was important for them to transition back home," McGirr said.

"Being in a firefight is way different than being in a wildland fire, but both are mentally taxing," said Chris Schott, who served two tours in Afghanistan with the Army's 7th Special Forces Group. "In a wildland fire, no one's shooting at you, but conditions can go favorable to unfavorable very quickly."

The Lakeview Veterans Interagency Hotshot Crew, based in Klamath Falls, Oregon, received its hotshot certification after rigorous training and testing, the Bureau of Land Management announced last week. It's now among 112 elite U.S. wildland firefighting teams and the only targeting veterans for recruitment, the agency said.
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New firefighter has a leg to stand on...really!

Disabled veteran graduates fire academy

NBC News
November 19, 2018

(KING) An injured veteran in Washington continued his tradition of serving others with an important graduation ceremony Saturday.

Retired Air Force Tech Sgt. Daniel Fye was serving his fourth tour of duty in Afghanistan in 2011, when he stepped on an IED.

He lost his left leg below the knee, and fought for months of surgery to keep his right leg.

Within two years, he was able to walk without any help.

Today, he's achieved his lifelong dream of becoming a firefighter, after graduating with honors from the South Sound Fire Academy.
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UK: Missing battle buddies beer and remembrance

Soldier buys eight pints for comrades who died in Afghanistan and leaves each untouched and decorated with a poppy in poignant Remembrance Day tribute

The Daily Mail UK

The unnamed veteran accompanied every beer with a photo showing one of his dead friends, and left them neatly assembled on an empty table surrounded by empty chairs. Both where and when the photo was taken is unclear

Netflix on a big venture: a docuseries celebrating Medal of Honor recipients.

Bringing Medal of Honor Heroics to Life

Department of Defense
BY KATIE LANGE
NOV. 13, 2018

This was Netflix’s first partnership with the DOD. We’re glad they decided to aim high for it! You can find the docuseries, aptly titled Medal of Honor, currently streaming on Netflix.

The Defense Department often partners with filmmakers to create accurate military portrayals, which is why we recently collaborated with streaming giant Netflix on a big venture: a docuseries celebrating Medal of Honor recipients.

The series highlights the lives and experiences of eight men who earned the honor since World War II. So naturally, several current and former service members were asked to offer their expertise behind the scenes and on camera.

“[The DOD] sent several active-duty soldiers to be background in an episode, but they also sent Humvees and other vehicles, which are valuable assets to have for authenticity,” said Marine Corps veteran Mike Dowling, who now works in the entertainment industry and did a lot of advising on choreography, tactics and weapons for the show.

Many of those soldiers were from the New York Army National Guard. One of the show’s highlighted recipients, Army Master Sgt. Vito Bertoldo, was a member of the 42nd Infantry Division during World War II, which is now part of the NYARNG. So, it made sense for them to be part of it.

For an episode on Air Force Chief Master Sgt. Richard Etchberger, the Air Force reviewed the script, offered historical Vietnam footage to filmmakers and had historians consult on the reenactment scenes.

The other recipients highlighted are World War II soldiers Army Sgt. Sylvester Antolak and Army Sgt. Edward Carter, Korean War troops Army Cpl. Hiroshi Miyamura and Marine Corps Cpl. Joseph Vittori, and more recent recipients Army Spc. Ty Carter and Army Staff Sgt. Clint Romesha, who fought in Afghanistan.
read more here

Remember the uncounted who could not count on us

There is a question each of us should be answering today. It is the day after the one day of the year we are supposed to honor our veterans. Cannot think of a better day to try to get an answer.

For over a decade the DOD has been talking about how they are making sure that the troops know what PTSD is and are supported to seek help.

Since 2012 an average of 500 a year kill themselves instead of knowing what is making them suffer and getting help to heal it.

The DOD says that most of them were not deployed, yet apparently their programs are not even good enough to prevent the suicides of non-deployed servicemembers. They expected to have us overlook the fact it was not good enough for them, then it would not work on those they sent? 

There as so many questions we will never get answers for as long as people are willing to settle for slogans instead of standing up for what they need from us!

Over 2 million have been discharged without honor and most should have been helped to heal.

Thomas Burke was one of them. He tried to kill himself and ended up with a "less than honorable discharge.

Dillan Tabares was one of them and he was shot by police.

By 2016, OEF and OIF were 300,000 with that less than honorable discharge since 2001.

Peter McRoberts was one of 2 million discharged from Vietnam and his widow fought for 40 years to clear his name.

 Do you want to leave them in the dark, or

light the way for them to heal?

When you wonder why so many are still committing suicide, remember the uncounted who could not count on us keeping the promise made to care for the wounded.

Do you want to keep supporting a slogan that could keep killing them or actually support one that could help them #TakeBackYourLife because the first one will cost you money and their lives. The second one will cost you just your time and save their lives.

They got the number wrong on the last report. They use 22 and mention the rise from 2015 to 2016 of younger veterans. What they did not mention is that the percentages have gone up since "awareness" started.
Military Suicides: Stories of Loss and Hope