Help With PTSD in Battlefield Called Home

Why Choose To Fight PTSD Alone Now?
Combat PTSD Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
November 21, 2017

Combat PTSD Wounded Times is a title I chose very carefully. It means to "fight to heal" because that message seems to be left out of far too many conversations.

If you Google "Veteran Suicide" on the "news" tab, you find 661,000 results. 

If you use the "all" tab, it is a staggering 21,700,000. Most of the results on the first page are links to hope and help. On the other tab with "news" most are about "22 a day" and this group doing this or that, as if they are more newsworthy than the hopeful links. (Sure would be wonderful if someone could explain that one!)

On the flip side, Google "healing PTSD" and you get 38,000 under "news" and with "all" you get 15,600,000. 

If we're ever going to change the outcome from suicide to healing, that would be a great place to start! Flip it around to more about healing and less about giving up.

We've already covered all the real news out there the "awareness" raisers didn't bother to learn but this one is the biggest leftover that could put them out of business.

You may think that there is no point in adding one more day to your life. After all, if all you know is the misery you've been living with, there would not be much of a reason to get up again. Yet, if you know that your life can not just be saved, but changed for the better, then you'd have a better option for today.

As you can tell, there are a lot of people out there doing whatever they can to change the lives they want to save. After all, you are worth every effort. Considering you already survived "IT" the worst of your life's movie was already written. 

Change your thinking of what PTSD is. It actually means you survived and were wounded. Bet you didn't know that one. Post means "after" and Trauma is Greek for "wound." Now you get the other part of your life's story.

Healing is the middle part when the "stress" is worked on and you manage a more balanced life with your body reacting in a calmer way.

As for the "disorder" you shouldn't be offended by that at all. Lets put it this way. I am not the best housekeeper in the world, (not that I have time anyway) and it gets messy in here. Stuff is all over the place and my desk usually looks like a monster that escaped the shredder. Yet, that disorder is only there until I shut down the computer and get busy putting it into a better order than it was.

Bet they didn't tell you that part either! All the stuff I need is still there but I have to get the junk I don't need out of the way before I can find it all.

Same thing with PTSD. Sure it takes a while and patience, especially if you're doing it alone, but it happens a lot faster and comes out better when someone helps you do the work.

You are actually stronger than you think. As a matter of fact, stronger than PTSD is because what is good within you got you wounded in the first place, and in the second place, has been fighting against PTSD taking "who you are" away. It is also the place within you that it hit like an IED or a claymore. 

Still think there is anything weak within you? Then you're not thinking about what you need to know about yourself.

Think of everything you did to get to where you were when "IT" hit. Bet you didn't think of all the training and willingness to sacrifice for other people as coming from an abundance of compassion only equaled to your courage to do it. And that my dear buddy, is exactly what you needed to know at this moment.

Start giving yourself an early Christmas gift by searching for hope and help, since you already know what that is all about. Bet you forgot that is exactly what you did in the military! You searched for a way to do what you had to do, search again. You searched for hope when you were surrounded for more help than you had, search again.

In combat, it wasn't just about your life, but the lives of those around you. At home, it still isn't just about your life. It is about those around you in your family and even beyond that, with all the other veterans searching for help to heal, just like you.

You can find it, but as with anything else in life, you'll find only what you are searching for.

Know that this site isn't going anywhere, no matter what. Top that off with a fabulous group who took what I've been saying to a whole new level with a documentary about healing! 

Battlefield Home: Breaking The Silence

Every warrior, who ever went to battle, is still there. 
Every family that warrior came home to, joined that battle. 

They know that the person who left them to defend our freedoms never returned.

The military family knows this. They maintain the silent dignity of the service. 

It’s part of the unspoken Code for the families of those who serve. 

But for those in the civilian world, that silence goes unnoticed.

BATTLEFIELD: HOME – BREAKING THE SILENCE is an attempt to bridge the gap between those two worlds. It is about the problems they face, the obstacles they endure, and it is also about the hope of the human spirit to return to being whole again.

As the daughter of a combat Marine, the director has the unique perspective to tell that story, and shine a light on the social divide between the families of those who serve and those they protect.

So how about it? Are you ready to work as hard on healing as you did to train for combat? The GAME ON~"IT" lost to you already and this rematch is in your control!!!!!

Start with flipping the results and support the work being done to make it easier for you to fight in this battlefield called home!

"Of Men and War" Film Covers Pathway Home and Healing PTSD

"Of Men and War" film reveals local veteran's trauma
Columbia Tribune
By JACK WITTHAUS
Saturday, March 7, 2015

“I hope this film will continue to help them,” he said, “so they can see where they came from.”

Lt. David Wells wore a pressed U.S. Army military dress and service uniform past a jumble of True/False Film Fest lanyards and T-shirts as he walked into the Tiger Hotel on Friday.

A man with a headset ushered Wells, shined dress shoes clacking on the floor, into an empty, dark screening room. Seeing a man in a red scarf and curly hair, Wells smiled and took off his hat. Wells then bent down and wrapped his arms around the smaller man, filmmaker Laurent Bécue-Renard.

“I owe a lot to Laurent,” Wells said later. “He was a part of my personal war.”

Wells is one of 12 men featured in Bécue-Renard’s “Of Men and War,” which was screened for the first time in Columbia, Wells’ hometown, during True/False on Friday. The documentary film centers around the struggles of men inside Pathway Home, a treatment center in Yountville, Calif., that serves veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder and other post-combat mental health challenges.

Through his treatment, Wells met Bécue-Renard, who was filming the therapy process at Pathway Home.

Wells, who was deployed for multiple tours in Iraq and worked in mortuary affairs, is pictured many times in the documentary. In one scene, Wells talks about his experience seeing the body of a 19-year-old soldier who had just committed suicide.
read more here



This link is from Pathway Home website and is a powerful video on when war does not leave you.
Breakaway Patriot- "The Homecoming" filmed at Travis Air Force Base CA Featuring artist and veteran Bradly James whom served in Afghanistan.

Special thanks to Travis Air Force Base, and to the Men and Women of the Armed Forces for their efforts.

Directed by David Schloss of Inventive Films Napa, CA

The flip side is that even though war doesn't leave you, you can call a truce with PTSD, find a peaceful balance with your memories and live a better quality of life.

Dogs Of War PTSD Service Dogs Begins Veterans Day

A and E to Air 'Dogs of War'
Veterans and Shelter Dogs Pair for Recovery
Premiere Event Airs Tuesday, Nov. 11 at 10 p.m.
Multichannel.com
Jaclyn Tuman
10/10/2014

Dogs of War, a new docuseries where veterans suffering from PTSD are paired with shelter dogs trained to aid in their recoveries, will air this Veterans Day, Nov. 11 at 10 p.m, A and E announced today.

“This series is full of raw, real and intensely emotional moments that don’t often get a spotlight in mainstream media,” said General Manager and Executive Vice President of A and E, David McKillop in a release.

“Each veterans’ story of survival is humbling and we are proud to create a series that captures the light at the end of the tunnel for these heroes.”

After the premiere event, the show will then move to Sundays at 10 p.m., starting Nov. 16.
read more here

Sheriff Randall Liberty Combat PTSD Advocate

Kennebec County sheriff addresses PTSD and treatment of veterans
Randy Liberty, who created a veterans block at his jail, started the presentation with an MPBN documentary on veterans and PTSD in which he, as a returning veteran struggling with PTSD, is the focus.
Kennebec Journal
By Susan McMillan
Staff Writer
February 10, 2014

AUGUSTA — Military culture values toughness, stoicism and self-sufficiency.

When Kennebec County Sheriff Randall Liberty was an Army drill sergeant, it was his job to ensure that new soldiers developed those traits. Sometimes that involved yelling at homesick teenagers.

After dealing with his own post-traumatic stress and seeing the effects of combat trauma on people in the criminal justice system, Liberty has come to appreciate that the coping mechanisms that help troops get through war can become harmful once back at home.

“It serves us well in combat — ‘follow me and away we go,’” Liberty said. “You can’t think about it or feel too much. But when you get out, it all comes back.”

In a discussion Sunday at the Holocaust and Human Rights Center of Maine, Liberty talked about the treatment that helped him and what he’s doing to try to help other veterans.

The event included a screening of “A Matter of Duty: The Continuing War Against PTSD,” the Maine Public Broadcasting Network documentary about the veterans block Liberty has created at the Kennebec County jail and the Veterans Treatment Court overseen by Justice Nancy Mills in Kennebec County Superior Court.
read more here

Battlefield Home

Nadia McCaffrey sent me the link to this film. I am very glad she did. The second title of this blog is Battle Stations Home because if you read this blog, you know the battles are too often much harder back here than there.

Battlefield Home
The Backstory....

Battlefield: Home is a feature-length documentary about the transition home by our troops and families after combat is over.

Each personal story unfolds the challenges that warriors, families and survivors often face in their attempt to "return to normal," amidst the systemic breakdowns faced by each service member. Whether faced by the challenge of medical, judicial or economics, "Battlefield: Home" shares their stories of survival when the war is over.

With a skeleton crew, and the desire to help, we traveled across the United States to hear these stories and give our Veteran and their families a voice.

Our warriors and families recognize that the war is not always the one fought overseas, sometimes the war is at home.

We are now looking for assistance in completing this most important story. Talented friends have contributed their time and skills to assist, but we are still lacking some essentials.

The film will be released on-line so that it will reach those who can help. The focus and goal of this film is to increase awareness, and help support those who have supported us a nation.

This is a film of strength, courage, honesty, heartbreak, and hope...it is the story of us.

'One percent of our population serves in the military, one percent defends this nation, is it too much to ask that we take care of that one percent?'

Thank you.

Anita Holsapple, MS - Director/Producer/Creator (USMC BRAT) read more here

Documentary uncovers scars of Vietnam

Documentary uncovers scars of Vietnam
By Elena Brown
Tuesday, July 10, 2012

Oscar Soliz has produced a documentary called "Deep Scars" that recounts the struggles of four Vietnam veterans on the battlefield and off.
Photo: Helen L. Montoya, San Antonio Express-News / ©SAN ANTONIO EXPRESS-NEWS

It's well after midnight by the time Oscar Soliz clicks off his lamps and shuts down his computer. His brown eyes are strained, his neck and back are stiff, his hands tingle. He rubs his salt-and-pepper beard; it's time for bed.

He's just finished another 13-hour day producing a documentary about four local Vietnam vets and how their powerful memories have barely diminished with the passage of time.

The hour-long documentary, titled "Deep Scars," features retired Staff Sgt. Edward Brown Jr., retired Sgt. Trini Cruz, retired 1st Sgt. William J. Johnson and retired Sgt. 1st Class Dion Soliz III. The veterans, all Purple Heart recipients, recount their struggles on the battlefield and off.

"I'm showing the feelings and fears of being in combat as well as its affect on their lives after returning home," says Soliz, a self-taught videographer and owner of Ozman Visual Media Productions. "There are so many stories. So much had happened to them."

The documentary opens with images and narration explaining the politics of the Vietnam War, the lives lost and the toll it took on men such as Brown.

"Hmm, lemme see, I've been recovering from my injuries for 44 years and counting," Brown, 63, says with a chuckle. "Physically, I spent 32 months in various hospitals."

Brown was injured on May 14, 1968, in Binh Duong Province, Vietnam. In the uncut version of the film, Brown recounted how his fellow soldier Ron E. Clark fell into him after being hit by a grenade from a rocket-propelled launcher. "I looked into his eyes as he died," Brown said. "His death was fast, and his survivors should know he didn't suffer (alone)."
read more here

HBO’s ‘Wartorn’ shows soldiers’ struggles with post-traumatic stress

HBO’s ‘Wartorn’ shows soldiers’ struggles with post-traumatic stress

By FRAZIER MOORE

The Associated Press

I am not so well. I am clear off the hooks,” wrote a soldier who soon would be discharged from the Army as unfit to serve.

Back at home in Pennsylvania, he turned increasingly paranoid and violent. Then he killed himself.

The year was 1864 for this young Civil War veteran.

It would take more than a century, and many more wars, for post-traumatic stress disorder to be recognized as a medical condition and to be acknowledged by the U.S. military as a raging fact of life.

A new HBO documentary, “Wartorn: 1861-2010,” charts this heartbreaking story, from the U.S. invasion of Iraq all the way back to the Civil War, whose veterans, according to the film, accounted for more than half the patients in mental institutions of that era.

James Gandolfini is an executive producer, returning the former “Sopranos” star to veterans affairs after his 2007 HBO documentary, “Alive Day Memories: Home From Iraq.”



Read more: Wartorn shows soldiers’ struggles with post traumatic stress

Al Chang

In this 1950 photo, a corpsman fills out casualty tags as a soldier consoles his friend after the loss of a comrade in Korea. A new documentary, “Wartorn: 1861-2010,” charts post-traumatic stress disorder from the Civil War, whose veterans accounted for more than half the patients in mental institutions in that era, to Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Wartorn: PTSD has been called, it's been called nothing at all

'Wartorn'

James Gandolfini TV special shows war veterans are often 'Wartorn' and their PTSD is brushed aside
DAVID HINCKLEY

Thursday, November 11th 2010, 4:00 AM
"Wartorn," a compelling examination of how combat can cripple the lives of those who survive physically intact, will trouble some viewers. It should.

What we today call posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), executive producer James Gandolfini explains, is really just a more formal medical-sounding term for what over the last 150 years has been called shell shock, combat fatigue or just hysteria.

More often, "Wartorn" points out, it's been called nothing at all. It's been ignored - buried inside by those who suffer from it and brushed aside by those who find the subject uncomfortable.

America, particularly male America, has always been a "buck up and shake it off" kind of culture. The idea that some intangible set of experiences or memories could disrupt a person's subsequent life can make that person seem weak or undisciplined.

"Wartorn" firmly rejects this notion, suggesting denial over time may only compound the debilitation.

Almost everyone knows vets from World War II, Korea, Vietnam or the Gulf who don't want to talk about it. Those on the outside usually take this as admirable stoicism, a sign of doing what had to be done and moving on.

"Wartorn" argues, convincingly, that some veterans can't do that. Whatever they did or saw has changed their lives, perhaps crippled them.

The manifestation can be physical, like screaming nightmares. Equally insidious, it can affect trust and relationships.

"Wartorn" starts with the Civil War, which wasn't the beginning of the problem, but gives us a riveting example through a series of letters written by a Pennsylvania soldier named Angelo Cropsey.



Read more: Wartorn

Veterans United for Truth steps up to support PTSD documentary

Staff Hits the Road to Record Interviews and Footage for PTSD Documentary
Tim King Salem-News.com
The trip precedes the upcoming 500 Mile March for PTSD in September.


(SALEM, Ore.) - For the next ten days, Salem-News.com is on the road as we gather elements for our upcoming documentary on Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

PTSD as it is commonly known, is a serious problem affecting hundreds of thousands of combat veterans and their families. A great deal of education needs to take place for all Americans on this subject.

When you work in this area, you learn that there are many approaches to treating PTSD and there are success stories and absolute horror stories also.

Our goal in this hour long program is to show and evaluate a wide range of treatment and therapy options, and we are going right to the heart of the matter.

The documentary will be formed around a series of interviews that I recorded in Iraq last summer with soldiers and Marines who are still actively engaged in the war.

We are told this is the first time in history that PTSD has been studied in this manner.

It seems clear that part of the education needs to start before troops enter the war. For those who are deploying for the first time, the insight from these combat theater interviews is a particularly valuable aspect of the program.

The group Veterans United for Truth, has already stepped forward with a donation to assist in the production of the documentary.

The group's Vice Chair, Sanford "Sandy" Cook in San Luis Obispo, California, explains that VUFT found our documentary to be the type of project that will benefit many veterans and their families, and VUFT's board made individual donations as well as a contribution from the group itself.
read more here
PTSD Documentary

Veterans will have a chance in September to walk in support of PTSD education

I don't know if this documentary is any good or not. I've only seen clips of it from the site. What I do know is that while the veterans become aware of what PTSD is, usually kicking, denying and screaming they don't have a problem, the general public is even more behind the learning curve. Any documentary to bring this into the public's attention is a worthy effort.

I Would Walk 500 Miles for PTSD- Would You?
Tim King Salem-News.com
Veterans will have a chance in September to walk in support of PTSD education.

(SALEM, Ore.) - I admit that when we first decided


(SALEM, Ore.) - I admit that when we first decided to produce an hour long documentary on Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, I thought it would be so widely supported that the actual production would be a piece of cake. I was wrong.

Companies that make literally billions off the wars overseas, won't so much as return a call to this producer. So I have another, much better idea. I am going to march 500 miles with fellow veterans to raise support for this important program. We don't need big corporate funding anyway, we just need more heart and soul, which is where this whole effort begins anyway.

The goal is to generate enough funding to produce this program at a high standard with all of the required components. The budget we gain from donations will allow us to make the best use of time, instead of everything being stretched and corners cut.
read more here
I Would Walk 500 Miles for PTSD
Tim King is a former U.S. Marine with twenty years of experience on the west coast as a television news producer, photojournalist, reporter and assignment editor. In addition to his role as a war correspondent, this Los Angeles native serves as Salem-News.com's Executive News Editor.
Tim spent the winter of 2006/07 covering the war in Afghanistan, and he was in Iraq over the summer of 2008, reporting from the war while embedded with both the U.S. Army and the Marines. Tim holds numerous awards for reporting, photography, writing and editing, including the Oregon AP Award for Spot News Photographer of the Year (2004), the first place Electronic Media Award in Spot News, Las Vegas, (1998), Oregon AP Cooperation Award (1991); and several other awards including the 2005 Red Cross Good Neighborhood Award for reporting. Serving the community in very real terms, Salem-News.com is the nation's only truly independent high traffic news Website, affiliated with Google News and several other major search engines and news aggregators.
You can send Tim an email at this address: newsroom@salem-news.com