Leap of faith into Satan's foot

When tragedy strikes or trauma hits, there are two ways to deal with it. One is to offer thanks to God for taking care of you, making sure you got out alive and survived it. You feel as if you were saved for a reason, that your "mission" on earth is not done yet. You can look for signs of miracles. A cup and saucer from a beloved set that was not smashed after a tornado destroyed everything else you had. An icon of Christ untouched by mold from the floods of Katrina while everything else you owned was covered in it. A tree that fell inches from your child's head. We find miracles in the tiniest of things and in the most monumental of events, leaving us to think someone is watching over us, protecting us.

The other way is to feel that you were abandoned by God. That God judged you for something you did in your past and found you worthy of torture. He was not watching over you but attacking you instead. You will look back in your mind for the stories in the Bible you read remembering the judgement of God and the wrath. While your logical mind will confirm your innocence the same way Job defended his own, your spirit will be looking for the sins you committed that caused God's anger. A battle rages within you while the other type of person is joyously on their way to a new beginning.

The traumas of combat strike deeper than anything known to regular people. While other causes, from natural disasters, to crimes committed against us, to being an emergency responder or firefighter, we are not participants in creating the trauma. Law enforcement, from police to DEA agents, they are participants in creating the trauma. They are necessary but they do have to kill as they face being killed. They are involved in high speed chases and they are involved in gun fights. The trauma striking them hits harder than others are hit. They are also involved in traumatic events multiple times. Combat forces deployed face them on a daily basis no matter if a traumatic event occurs directly involving them or if they are simply on edge knowing it could, they are facing trauma everyday they are deployed. They are also participants combined with the rescuer rushing to help, recover the wounded and collect the dead.

One of the most frequent problems veterans face is that of the above, feeling abandoned by God. You cannot witness the carnage of what man does to man and think there is a God involved in any of it. You see evil in all of it while you, as well as your comrades, are forces of good battling against that evil, at the same time you know your actions are creating the same in return. It twists in your brain between logic and spirit. It becomes nearly impossible to make sense out of any of it. You know you have a job to do and this is part of your job. It's what you were trained to do, but no one trained you to deal with what comes after.

We all take a leap of faith, trusting that if our intension is good and honorable, we will be rewarded. The problem is, Satan's foot. When we are about our daily lives, sooner or later you come up against his foot making you stumble, fall, breaking your kneecaps as well as your will. Doubt enters in any hole it can find. While one of Satan's feet are busy tripping you up, his other foot gets into the act kicking things into your way. First it's little things and as you overcome them, they get bigger and bigger. Then we wonder how the leap of faith left us flat on our face.

Soldiers do their duty knowing they could die any day. They believe their intension's are good, honorable and needed. They enter into the military believing their willingness to sacrifice their lives are vital to the security of their nation. Yet once they see what they've been trained to do coming into real life in real time, they also come up against Satan's foot. The things he kicks at soldiers are doubt, sadness, grief, torment, and then he kicks in the smell, the dirty feeling that will not be washed away, the images you've seen and the residue of all of it seeping into your bones. Then it all comes crashing down on you.

PTSD rates are one out of three. It doesn't matter what caused it. A traumatic even will hit one out of three exposed to the same event. This does not necessarily mean the full blown development of PTSD but it is when it begins. Combat forces face traumatic events over and over and over again. This is why so many come out with wounded minds.

While some claim they "got over it" usually it is not the case. For most of them, PTSD has just fallen asleep ready to be awaken by another traumatic event. This is why there are so many Vietnam veterans all these years later coming to terms they brought the war back home with them. Dormant PTSD is the worst. It's almost as if it has been storing up energy while you got on with your life. The secondary stressor Satan kicks in hits you so hard you don't have control over anything anymore.

For my husband, it was the miscarriage of the twins I was carrying. His mild PTSD, along with the nightmares, flashbacks and twitches, were no longer "quirks" of a man who could still get up and go to work everyday, drink casually and cope, but he became a man out of control of his life. It happened so fast, the night I lost the twins, I had to beg him to come back to the hospital to be with me. He couldn't understand what had happened to him and he tried to find excuses for all of it.

I had an inkling of what I was dealing with because of the research into PTSD but I couldn't get him to face any of it. Even then I wanted to "cure" him expecting that I could reverse what damage had been done to him. I couldn't and he got worse until I finally convinced him to go for help.

It is a shock when PTSD awakens because making the connection between traumatic events in your life and the latest kick from Satan is difficult to make. Too often the connection is never made. Even though the flashbacks will be about the event bringing PTSD into their lives, they fail to see the relevance of any of it. This is where the families are vital to all of it. We can see when something is not right about those we love. We can see the changes in them and we witness the stuff Satan is kicking into their lives. It's up to us to either kick Satan in the ass and get them into help or be a barrier until we can.

Put yourself into their place. Remember a time in your life when you too did what you thought was right with the best intension only to find that you had to suffer for doing it. This is what they deal with as well. Most will take the flashbacks as a price they had to pay for doing what they had to do. For most of us, our lives were not on the line when we faced our own problems but for them, it is not just their lives or the lives of their friends, but also the lives of the people they had a part in killing. Multiply the feelings you had at the time by a thousand and you're close, but then you have to multiply that by every time they were exposed to trauma.

If your serviceman or woman comes home fine then take that as the same as the people who walk away from other traumatic events thanking God believing God was watching over them. If they do not then you better look for Satan's foot trying to take them down. You can't help them unless you are aware of what is being kicked at them. Learn the signs and know what to be on watch for. Remember the way they were before they left and how they came back. If you get them to go for help and you were wrong about if they needed it, you lost nothing and they gained some insight to help their friends if they should need it. If you are right in your suspicions you just kicked Satan in his ass.









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

Rate of Traumatic Stress Triples Among U.S. Troops

Rate of Traumatic Stress Triples Among US Troops
Forbes - NY,USA
01.15.08, 12:00 AM ET

TUESDAY, Jan. 15 (HealthDay News) -- The incidence of new cases of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) among combat-exposed U.S. soldiers has risen threefold since 2001, a new study finds.
PTSD is an anxiety disorder involving nightmares, flashbacks and panic attacks linked to event "triggers" that develop after exposure to combat or other extremely disturbing events.

Researchers at the Naval Health Research Center in San Diego analyzed data on more than 50,000 participants in the Millennium Cohort Study, which is tracking the health of U.S. military personnel over 22 years. The researchers compared data collected in July 2001 and June 2003 against data collected from June 2004 to February 2006.

The data included details about combat exposure, new onset PTSD symptoms, cigarette smoking and problem drinking.

Between 2001 and 2006, 40 percent of study participants were deployed, and 24 percent were deployed for the first time in support of the wars in Iraq and in Afghanistan.
click above for the rest

Again the re-deployment of the troops back into the carnage of urban combat with bombs blowing up on a daily basis, needs to be considered in all of this. The Army study of re-deployments increasing the risk of developing PTSD by 50% is a clear indication we have an enormous problem heading into catastrophe category.

121 NY Times veterans had no criminal history before

Iraq Vets Commit PTSD-Fueled Murders in the Wake of Returning Home

Posted by Amanda Marcotte, Pandagon at 12:05 PM on January 15, 2008.


Unlike the majority of civilians who commit murder, the majority of the 121 veterans documented by the Times reporters had no criminal history.

This story about Iraq and Afghanistan veterans who've come back from the war only to commit acts of violence at home is a must-read. The NY Times found 121 cases of murders committed by veterans back from these wars, 1/3 of which were domestic murders, and the reporters suspect this is only a percentage of the actual murders committed, because they got that number by scouring newspapers around the country, not from statistics cultivated by the Pentagon, which, surprise surprise, doesn't collect such data. The numbers are not insignificant.


The Times used the same methods to research homicides involving all active-duty military personnel and new veterans for the six years before and after the present wartime period began with the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001.


This showed an 89 percent increase during the present wartime period, to 349 cases from 184, about three-quarters of which involved Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans. The increase occurred even though there have been fewer troops stationed in the United States in the last six years and the American homicide rate has been, on average, lower.

Unlike the majority of civilians who commit murder, the majority of the 121 veterans documented by the Times reporters had no criminal history. The anecdotal evidence points to a trend of PTSD-fueled overreactions that led to the murders. The opening story of the piece is about a man who shot some guys who confronted him on the street in Las Vegas for violating some gang turf boundaries that the veteran appears not to have cared much about. He shot them with an AK-47, and generally seemed to be confusing the incident with events that he witnessed in Iraq.
go here for the rest
http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/73860/

What will the bloggers who went after the NY Times say now? They just weren't caught? War changes people and it's about time everyone understood this.

UK 6 year study of US troops find 9% have PTSD

Iraq troops return in mental turmoil
By MATTHEW HICKLEY - More by this author »

Last updated at 22:06pm on 15th January 2008

Tens of thousands of troops are returning from Iraq and Afghanistan suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, according to a major study.


Researchers tracked 50,000 U.S. service personnel over six years to measure the impact military operations had on their mental health.


They found that almost one in ten of those exposed to combat developed symptoms of the crippling psychiatric condition.

Tens of thousands of troops are returning from Iraq and Afghanistan suffering from post traumatic stress disorder


If the same pattern is reflected among the 120,000 UK personnel sent to Iraq and Afghanistan over the same period more than 10,000 can be expected to experience problems with PTSD.


Charities dealing with traumatised veterans warned yesterday that many published statistics significantly under-estimate the problem.


They say soldiers often suffer in silence for a long time - waiting an average of 13 years after they leave the military before seeking help.


Post-traumatic stress disorder can shatter soldiers' lives, with symptoms including flashbacks, sleeplessness, depression and severe mood swings wreaking havoc on their family and careers.


The latest study - published in today's British Medical Journal - is the work of academics in San Diego, who tracked 50,000 American military personnel from 2001 onwards, interviewing them repeatedly at intervals.


They found the highest rates of newly-developed PTSD - around 9 per cent - among combat troops from Iraq and Afghanistan.
click post title for the rest

We've had over a million in and out of Iraq and Afghanistan. They had 120,000. Do you think we have a problem yet?

What goes with having PTSD

From a very uninformed individual. I'm so tired of seeing our veterans being attacked, treated as if they are any less worthy, any less patriotic, any less wounded than the others when PTSD is a wound. It comes with a long list of problems associated with it. Read on.

New York Times smears our troops across America, again
By Tim Sumner Suppose that the reporter who proposes to write the article says it will be a searing indictment of the US military’s inadequate attention to post-traumatic stress disorder. Suppose further that you are not a complete idiot. ...9/11 Families for a Safe & Strong... - http://www.911familiesforamerica.org

Now here are the facts.

From National Alliance On Mental Illness
What are the symptoms of PTSD?
Although the symptoms for individuals with PTSD can vary considerably, they generally fall into three categories:


Re-experience - Individuals with PTSD often experience recurrent and intrusive recollections of and/or nightmares about the stressful event. Some may experience flashbacks, hallucinations, or other vivid feelings of the event happening again. Others experience great psychological or physiological distress when certain things (objects, situations, etc.) remind them of the event.
Avoidance - Many with PTSD will persistently avoid things that remind them of the traumatic event. This can result in avoiding everything from thoughts, feelings, or conversations associated with the incident to activities, places, or people that cause them to recall the event. In others there may be a general lack of responsiveness signaled by an inability to recall aspects of the trauma, a decreased interest in formerly important activities, a feeling of detachment from others, a limited range of emotion, and/or feelings of hopelessness about the future.

Increased arousal - Symptoms in this area may include difficulty falling or staying asleep, irritability or outbursts of anger, difficulty concentrating, becoming very alert or watchful, and/or jumpiness or being easily startled.
What are the symptoms of PTSD?

Symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) can be terrifying. They may disrupt your life and make it hard to continue with your daily activities. It may be hard just to get through the day.

PTSD symptoms usually start soon after the traumatic event, but they may not happen until months or years later. They also may come and go over many years. If the symptoms last longer than 4 weeks, cause you great distress, or interfere with your work or home life, you probably have PTSD.

There are four types of symptoms: reliving the event, avoidance, numbing, and feeling keyed up.

Reliving the event (also called re-experiencing symptoms):

Bad memories of the traumatic event can come back at any time. You may feel the same fear and horror you did when the event took place. You may have nightmares. You even may feel like you're going through the event again. This is called a flashback. Sometimes there is a trigger: a sound or sight that causes you to relive the event. Triggers might include:

Hearing a car backfire, which can bring back memories of gunfire and war for a combat veteran
Seeing a car accident, which can remind a crash survivor of his or her own accident
Seeing a news report of a sexual assault, which may bring back memories of assault for a woman who was raped

Avoiding situations that remind you of the event:

You may try to avoid situations or people that trigger memories of the traumatic event. You may even avoid talking or thinking about the event.

A person who was in an earthquake may avoid watching television shows or movies in which there are earthquakes
A person who was robbed at gunpoint while ordering at a hamburger drive-in may avoid fast-food restaurants
Some people may keep very busy or avoid seeking help. This keeps them from having to think or talk about the event.
Feeling numb:

You may find it hard to express your feelings. This is another way to avoid memories.

You may not have positive or loving feelings toward other people and may stay away from relationships
You may not be interested in activities you used to enjoy
You may forget about parts of the traumatic event or not be able to talk about them.
Feeling keyed up (also called hyperarousal):

You may be jittery, or always alert and on the lookout for danger. This is known as hyperarousal. It can cause you to:

Suddenly become angry or irritable
Have a hard time sleeping
Have trouble concentrating
Fear for your safety and always feel on guard
Be very startled when someone surprises you

This area applies to the New York Times piece

What are other common problems?
People with PTSD may also have other problems.
These include:

Drinking or drug problems
Feelings of hopelessness, shame, or despair
Employment problems
Relationships problems including divorce and violence
Physical symptoms
http://www.ncptsd.va.gov/ncmain/ncdocs/fact_shts/fs_what_is_ptsd.html

There are already bloggers out there going after the New York Times for reporting on the violence committed by veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan. While the reporters did a fantastic job on the report, they only scratched the surface. These reports have come out since the beginning. I'm not just talking about the occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq, but since the beginning of wars. They happened to Gulf War veterans. They happened to Vietnam veterans. They happened in every war.

The only difference between history and now is the change in the name and a great understanding of what trauma does to the human mind and soul.


If anyone wants to find someone to blame for these reports coming out then they need to blame the people who have been reporting on and focusing on PTSD since the beginning of time. Blaming the messenger will only take the focus off the problem and prevent the stigma of PTSD from ending.

UK: July 7th terror hit produced many PTSD wounded

255 survivors of July 7 attacks treated for stress
By Judith Duffy, Health Correspondent
‘Good recovery’ for patients
Comment | Read Comments (1)
APIONEERING MENTAL health screening programme set up in the wake of the London bombings has treated more than 200 people for problems such as post-traumatic stress disorder.

The NHS initiative set up a team dedicated to identifying and offering specialist treatment to those suffering from long-term trauma after being caught up in the terrorist attacks in 2005.

The July 7 attack was the largest mass casualty event in the UK since the second world war, with 56 deaths and 775 casualties among the 4000 passengers involved. It is the first time such a screening programme has been used in the UK, and it is hoped it could be used as a model for any major incidents or disasters in the future.

An interim study on the programme, which will be presented at a British Psychological Society meeting this Friday, revealed that 255 people had been referred for treatment by May 2007. The majority - 71% - were suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, with other problems including travel phobia, anxiety disorder and major depression.
click post title for the rest

This above all must be noted whenever looking at treating PTSD

"We were able to identify people who did have significant problems and get them in treatment and so far there is a good recovery rate," he said.

Up to my eyebrows

I haven't been posting much the last few days. I'm doing some research that is coming up with some very odd findings. The search began in an attempt to get people to understand what the troops live through and with in the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, in order to provide some insight as to why there are so many with PTSD. Actually many, many more to come. Again I need to remind everyone that we have only seen the beginning. Remember there was 18 months up until last year when over 140,000 Vietnam veterans sought treatment for PTSD after suffering in silence. This is just the beginning. I should be done sometime tomorrow but not promising anything. I thought I'd be done yesterday. It's going in a whole new direction.

Women Who Stay Religious Less Likely to Have Anxiety Disorder

Women Who Stay Religious Less Likely to Have Anxiety Disorder
Tuesday, January 1, 2008; 12:00 AM

TUESDAY, Jan. 1 (HealthDay News) -- Women who stop being religiously active are three times more likely to suffer generalized anxiety disorder than women who have always been religiously active, researchers report.

In contrast, the researchers found that men who stopped being religiously active were less likely to suffer major depression compared with men who had always been religiously active.

"One's lifetime pattern of religious service attendance can be related to psychiatric illness," study co-author Joanna Maselko said in a prepared statement. She is an assistant professor of public health at Temple University.

Maselko and her team analyzed data from 718 adults who shared details of their religious activity in youth and adulthood. They found that a majority of the respondents changed their level of religious activity between childhood and adulthood. The data is published in the January issue ofSocial Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology.
click post title for the rest

When I was writing my book there were things I had to address but really didn't want to. One of the chapters addressed how I feel about the soul and the connection between us and God. It was hard because faith has always been very personal to me, at least my own faith. I have a hard time talking about it, but I'm fine talking about the Bible, God, Jesus with anyone. After all, you have to remember that is also my job as administrator of Christian Ed.

When it is about my personal relationship with Christ and God, I usually begin to weep if I have to speak of it, so I've been holding off writing about this. I guess I was waiting for someone else to do it.

I keep saying that I don't have PTSD but I never really said why. I've addressed the issue that I believe it is the sensitive people who end up with PTSD especially the people involved with violent trauma instead of natural disasters. I am one of the sensitive people. The choir at church makes me cry at least once a week and sometimes I'm not talking about a trickle running down my cheek. I see so much suffering that it's hard for my family to be able to understand why or how I do what I do. They know how it effects me. It all boils down to my faith.

I know the Bible very well from growing up in a family of believers all the way up to the most compelling reason I had to read the Bible. I went to a Greek church and didn't understand much of the language at all. I was also a very curious person, interested in history, so I read it, and read it, and read it. I came away with my own ideas about the kind of faith Christ was talking about and to me that was the point of the people who wrote the Bible.

I survived growing up with a violent alcoholic father, who stopped drinking when I was 13. I had been beaten, in a terrible car accident and almost died from an infection. This was not the beginning of my survival days because that would have started when I was 4 years old. I was pushed off a slide and fell head first on concrete. Ever since that day, the first time someone said, "she should have died but survived" I haven't been afraid to die. Reading the Bible helped me to understand where that attitude came from. I'm not saying I've never been afraid but I've never been afraid of dying.

Maybe that's the key to all of this. I keep addressing the need to treat the spiritual with the psychological and base it on the faith the person happens to have. There is tremendous healing power linking the two together. We all know scientist know very little about the power of the soul and mostly they attribute what the soul does to what the mind does. They never really put it into its proper placement of importance. They need to first understand the soul of man before they can address the healing of the minds of man. All elements are part of who we are, what we think, our character and past as a determination of our futures.

Given the odds of PTSD as one out of three it can be the only reason I have not developed it. I have all the characteristics of those who have been wounded by it and exposed to more than my share of traumatic events. I have nightmares doing what I do because of the pictures I have to look at and stay up late at night worrying about people who contact me. I also I cry a hell of a lot, yet I don't have PTSD. I say it's by the grace of God I don't because had it not been for my faith, I doubt I'd be here now. I do the work I do because of it. I feel the compassion I do because of it. People find me because they are lead to find me. I fell in love with a Vietnam vet with PTSD and that caused me to do what I do. It's all linked together. It is carried onto our daughter who was raised the way she was because of the way I was raised. It is also a circle.

Don't dismiss the spiritual especially when you are looking at the psychological. They are connected.


UPDATE This came in an alert about 15 minutes after I posted this. God does work in very strange ways.

The (research) question: Is there a God spot in the brain?

Neuroscientists study this question because they want to better understand the neural basis of a phenomenon that plays a central role in the lives of so many.

“These experiences have existed since the dawn of humanity. They have been reported across all cultures,” Mario Beauregard says. “It is as important to study the neural basis of [religious] experience as it is to investigate the neural basis of emotion, memory or language.”

Scientists and scholars have long speculated that religious feeling can be tied to a specific place in the brain.

Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), Beauregard seeks to pinpoint the brain areas that are active while the nuns recall the most powerful religious epiphany of their lives, a time they experienced a profound connection with the divine.

Using fMRI and other tools of modern neuroscience, researchers are attempting to pin down what happens in the brain when people experience mystical awakenings during prayer and meditation or during spontaneous utterances inspired by religious fervor.

Because of the positive effect of such experiences on those who have them, some researchers speculate that the ability to induce them artificially could transform people’s lives by making them happier, healthier and better able to concentrate.

go here for the rest

http://malaysianunplug.blogspot.com/2008/01/searching-for-god-in-human-brain.html

Less Than Honorable When Military Turns Against PTSD

All Things Considered, December 20, 2007 ·
"Our military families deserve better," President Bush declared in October as he sent a proposed bill to Congress. The legislation, he said, would make it easier for our troops to receive care for PTSD, "and it will help affected service members to move forward with their lives."
But veterans advocates say that even if the military and the Department of Veterans Affairs became models for helping troops with mental health problems, it wouldn't help a large category of vets who are already wounded and forgotten. These soldiers and Marines came back from combat, couldn't get adequate help, "flipped out" and misbehaved in some way — and as a result, were kicked out of the military without all the financial and medical benefits that veterans usually receive.
"I think it's an outrage that we have not taken proper care of them," said Sen. Christopher "Kit" Bond (R-MO), one of the most influential voices on veterans' affairs. "Too many of these people have been kicked out because of the results of the stress they've been under."
'Head and Shoulders Above His Peers'
NPR has tracked down dozens of vets across the U.S. to put a face on the problem.
Until he got PTSD, Patrick Uloth was a poster boy for the Marines in Iraq. He enlisted right out of high school, fought two tours and quickly was promoted to lance corporal. His commander hailed him as "head and shoulders above his peers." He received an award for valor, for helping save his unit one night near Fallujah.
But, like just about every Marine and soldier who has fought in Iraq, Uloth saw violence and death in ways that most people can barely imagine. During one patrol, for instance, a suicide bomber's vehicle exploded in front of Uloth's convoy.
Uloth said that the explosion left one of his Marine buddies decapitated. He remembers that he and two other Marines "scooped the Marine into bags, because he was in pieces." When Uloth rushed to another victim, he realized it was one of his best friends. "There was a large hole in the back of his head," Uloth says.

go here for the rest

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=17362654







Uloth says that if he had benefits, he'd check himself into a psychiatric hospital because, although he can seem charming and cheerful on the surface, he says he is in deep emotional trouble.


Uloth's Superior Speaks
Letter from Uloth's Platoon Sergeant

(Requires Adobe Acrobat)

Uloth says that when he went to the mental health center at Camp Pendleton's hospital to ask for help, they were so overwhelmed by returning troops with mental health problems that he couldn't book a therapy appointment for months. The staff eventually gave him sporadic counseling, and prescribed a cocktail of powerful medications, but Uloth complained that the drugs made him feel worse.

So, he took off from Camp Pendleton without permission: Uloth went AWOL, as it's commonly called. (The Marines call it UA for "unauthorized absence.")

But he didn't disappear. Instead, Uloth checked himself into a psychiatric center he had heard about at an Air Force base in Mississippi. He started getting intensive therapy, which he couldn't get at his own base.

When Uloth's commanders learned where he was, they sent two guards to arrest and restrain him with handcuffs and metal shackles. They locked him in a jail cell at Camp Pendleton for almost two months, even though a military medical staff member concluded that he was "unfit for confinement."

Listen: Matt McLauchlen explains to NPR's Daniel Zwerdling how
he has "fallen through the cracks" of the military system.

add



Read Letter to President Bush
Letter: Sen. Bond Calls for Special Discharge Review Program
(Requires Adobe Acrobat)

How many more reports do we have to read to understand these men and women risked their lives for us, were wounded in the process, and then they were betrayed by less than honorable treatment of them? When are we going to get this right for all of them? Are we even really trying? I've heard testimonies for years about PTSD and the way the veterans have been treated and I've heard a lot of promises to change what is wrong but have seen very little evidence of it.

Is anyone in Washington giving these veterans the same sense of urgency they did when they issued the orders to deploy them and get them there? It seems only logical and honorable to take care of them when they are wounded. So what's the problem? It can't be money because in the long run taking care of them now saves a lot of money. Is it still ignorance? After years of testimonies by experts and over 30 years of studies, there isn't that much more they have to know before they figure out they have a serious problem. How many more times do they have to hear the figures of the ever growing number of veterans with PTSD not being taken care of, committing suicide because they are not being taken care of or about the numbers of the wounded being kicked out of the military with dishonorable discharges? Seems like we have a bigger problem with the congress being less than honorable to them than the other way around.

Is The Military Neglecting PTSD Troops?

Is The Military Neglecting PTSD Troops?
Veterans' Advocates Say Ignoring Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Is A Military-Wide Problem

WASHINGTON, Dec. 20, 2007

(CBS) Army Spc. Shawn Saunders was proud of his first two tours in Iraq. But midway through his third tour - he snapped.

"If I hear loud noises, I get, I'm real, real jumpy,” Saunders told CBS News correspondent Kimberly Dozier. “I get paranoid."

"Distraught, lost, confused..." is how Saunders’ father characterizes his behavior.

His parents say his breaking point was watching his best friend die while guarding a checkpoint.

"He kept saying, it should have been me, it should have been me," said his mother, Pam Wilson.

Texas medic Taylor Burke took Saunders’ turn, and the car blew up.

"When he passed, it was like a part of me that's left me, and I haven't been the same since," Saunders said.

During home leave from Iraq, Shawn talked of suicide.
go here for the rest
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/12/20/eveningnews/main3637097.shtml

The War Over PTSD or dealing with a soulless jerk

December 20, 2007, 7:14 PM
The War Over PTSD
Posted by Kimberly Dozier


Kimberly Dozier is a CBS News correspondent based in Washington.
There's a war inside the military over how to treat a not-so-new enemy: Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

"I've never had a guy in my unit develop PTSD," one senior general from Iraq told me. 'It's nonsense."

"You're only scratching the surface," of cases from this war, another senior general told me. "Keep looking."

Simply put, PTSD is what happens when you put a combatant in the pressure cooker of Iraq or Afghanistan, and tell him or her, "No matter what you see or feel, tough it out. Lock it down. Keep it to yourself." After multiple tours living on high boil, with no relief valve, some U.S. troops are breaking. Make that thousands.

The largest military employer, the U.S. Army, has rolled out new programs to teach troops what PTSD is, to try to reduce the stigma. It can be as simple as asking a patrol that saw something traumatic to talk about it out loud. That way, the incident on the battlefield gets tamed by a jawing session with your buddies, instead of becoming a nightmare that wakes you sweating at 4 a.m. with visions of the dead and maimed that won't leave you.
click post title for the rest

When military people claim no one in their unit developed PTSD, it's easy to understand why they say that. No one would tell someone with that kind of attitude about it. You don't share that kind of pain with a soulless jerk. Anyone left in the military dismissing PTSD as a load of crap or trying to trivialize reality, is a soulless jerk or a really stupid fool with no ability to learn anything.

Homeland security official Keith Washington Murder Trial Brings PTSD In News Again

Marnell wrote that Washington didn’t appear to be a risk to others, but a September report in The Washington Post said other assessments disputed that finding. One psychiatrist reportedly wrote that Washington was ‘‘a potential danger because of his impulsivity and generalized fearfulness.” Another report allegedly said he had ‘‘fleeting homicidal and suicidal thoughts.”

Washington's mental records barred from trial
Business Gazette - Gaithersburg,MD,USA
Judge: 12-year-old evalution too old to use in upcoming murder case
by Daniel Valentine Staff Writer

The psychological records of former Prince George’s County homeland security official Keith Washington cannot be used in his upcoming murder trial, a Circuit Court judge has ruled.

Washington, 46, shot two deliverymen – Oxon Hill resident Brandon Clark 22, and District resident Robert White, 36 – while they were apparently delivering furniture to his Accokeek home. Washington has claimed self-defense; White said they were shot without provocation. Clark died a week after the shooting without making a public statement.

Washington, who is also a former county police officer, was indicted in July on 12 counts, including second-degree murder, attempted second-degree murder, using a handgun in commission of a felony and first-degree assault.

The report said Washington had previously been diagnosed with depression; post-traumatic stress disorder; paranoid state and adjustment disorder, a condition caused when stress triggers short-term depression; anxiety; and other symptoms.

Suicide by cop in Canada

Ex-soldier had pellet gun when shot by police: report
Taser used but ineffective in incident

Bruce Owen, Winnipeg Free Press
Published: Wednesday, December 19, 2007


WINNIPEG -- A man shot to death by Winnipeg police this week spent two decades with the Canadian military, but was discharged in 2004 because of anger management issues, the Winnipeg Free Press learned Wednesday.

Roy Thomas Bell, 42, was shot and killed behind a city apartment building Monday night in an incident some residents have described as "suicide by cop."

A family acquaintance told the Free Press the distraught man confronted police carrying a pellet gun that closely resembled a real firearm.

Witnesses say Mr. Bell ignored repeated demands from two officers to drop the replica pistol and, at one point, dared officers to shoot him.

Mr. Bell served more than 23 years in the 17 Wing post office at CFB Winnipeg, but was discharged three years ago when the military deemed he was unfit for active duty overseas, a family acquaintance said Wednesday.

There have been several reports of disturbing incidents involving Winnipeg soldiers recently.

In August, a Winnipeg soldier who served in Kandahar for two months last year was charged in with seriously assaulting his six-month old triplet sons.
One of the babies suffered fractured ribs, a punctured lung and contusions to his liver.
The 24-year-old soldier cannot be named because Child and Family Services has removed the children.

Another former Canadian soldier is still behind bars after allegedly trying to contact a teenage girl he was accused of sexually assaulting.
Roger Borsch, 35, made national headlines last year after becoming the first soldier to successfully use post-traumatic stress disorder as a defence.
Mr. Borsch admitted to breaking into a co-worker's home in 2004 and sexually assaulting her 13-year-old daughter at knifepoint.
He claimed his mind had been affected by horrific killings he said he witnessed a decade earlier in Bosnia.
However the not-guilty verdict was later overturned on appeal and a new trial has been ordered.

Winnipeg Free Press


go here for the rest
http://www.nationalpost.com/story.html?id=184101

Galloway: Disgraceful treatment of veterans stains America's honor

Galloway: Disgraceful treatment of veterans stains America's honor
Joseph Galloway
Article Last Updated: 12/14/2007 07:22:13 PM MST


As you do your holiday shopping this year and think about a big turkey dinner and piles of gifts and the good life that most Americans enjoy, please spare a thought for those who made it all possible: those who serve in our military and the veterans who've worn the uniform. There are some new statistics that give us reason to be ashamed for the way that our country has treated those who've served and sacrificed for us. Those statistics damn the politicians who start every speech by thanking the troops and veterans and blessing them. They indict our national leaders who turn up at military bases and the annual conventions of veteran's organizations and use troops and veterans as a backdrop for their photo-ops.

Consider this:
* An average of 18 veterans commit suicide each and every day of the year, according to recent statistics from the Veterans Administration. That's 126 veterans who kill themselves every week. Or some 6,552 who take their own lives each year. Our veterans are killing themselves at twice the rate of other Americans.
* One quarter of the homeless people in America are military veterans. That's one in every four. Is that ragged man huddled on the steam grate in a brutal winter wind a Vietnam vet? Did that younger man panhandling for pocket change on the street corner fight in Kandahar or Fallujah?

go here for the rest
http://www.sltrib.com/opinion/ci_7725456

Fort Carson Commander wants a network of caregivers

Commander wants a network of caregivers
By TOM ROEDER
THE GAZETTE
December 17, 2007 - 12:00AM


Fort Carson’s top general says his post is ready for the growth ahead and is focusing on caring for soldiers coming home now.

Maj. Gen. Mark Graham, who took command of the post this fall, has set his top priority as building a network of Army and civilian caregivers who can address the needs of soldiers and their families as the post deals with continued wartime deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan.

With the post expecting 4,000 soldiers back from Iraq combat in the next month, Graham said he recognizes that all of his soldiers will come home changed men and women and that some of them will have what is becoming the signature disease of this war: post-traumatic stress disorder.

“PTSD is like a hurricane,” Graham said. “If you’re in the path, it doesn’t matter who you are, it hits you.”
http://www.gazette.com/articles/soldiers_30975___article.html/graham_post.html

Veterans with injuries physical and mental, struggle to adapt and get care

Derek Gee/Buffalo News
“ One night in bed I woke and had my wife in a headlock. She said ‘ What are you doing? It’s me, babe.’ ” — EDDY DELMONTE, 21, IRAQ WAR VETERAN

Veterans with injuries physical and mental, struggle to adapt and get care
By Lou Michel NEWS STAFF REPORTER Updated: 12/16/07 8:52 AM

You can see the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in their empty shirt sleeves, the scars on their heads, in their eyes so weary from sleepless nights.

They return to their homes, trying to fit in again. Most will. Too many will not.

At least 25 local soldiers, four Marines and one sailor have been killed overseas since the war on terror began. Less known are the local veterans returning home with broken bodies or troubled souls.

Some 30,434 men and women in uniform have been wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan, but the Pentagon does not say where they are from, so it’s unclear exactly how many of the wounded hail from Western New York.

Almost 1,700 of those veterans have sought medical treatment at the Veteran Affairs Medical Center in Buffalo since 2003, with a majority seeking help for war-related injuries.
There are probably many more local veterans seeking medical treatment who are not counted in VA enrollment figures because of their status as citizen soldiers. Reservists and National Guard members often have access to private health insurance provided by from their civilian employers, according to VA officials in Washington, D.C.

But for the veterans who are trying to adjust while under the care of the local VA, the navigation of a sometimes unresponsive bureaucracy adds to the pain of life beyond the combat zone.
More than 600 of the 1,659 veterans treated here sought assistance for posttraumatic stress and other psychological readjustment troubles, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs.

go here for the rest
http://www.buffalonews.com/cityregion/buffaloerie/story/230124.html

Building a life after escaping death

Staff Sgt. Ian Newland

“After I was wounded, I had nowhere to turn,” he said. No one told him about the Wounded Warriors program. He had been booted out of Landstuhl Army Medical Center in Germany, still heavily medicated and with no instructions about future treatment. And no one bothered to tell him he had been diagnosed with a traumatic brain injury. he fought for benefits and treatment; he worked to make sure the other wounded soldiers living in the barracks made their appointments and got what they needed. And he started to fall apart. So did his marriage as he tried to deal with his problems with alcohol.

Building a life after escaping death

Ian Newland gets help as he struggles to plan his future

Posted : Saturday Dec 15, 2007 15:52:51 EST

Staff Sgt. Ian Newland promised after Pfc. Ross McGinnis died to save his life that he would never waste the gift.

“I very easily could have died that day,” Newland said. “But my children still have a father. I try to live each day to its fullest potential because of what he did for me.”

On Dec. 4, 2006, an insurgent tossed a hand grenade through the turret of the Humvee in which McGinnis, 19, was manning the .50-caliber machine gun. McGinnis could have followed training procedures and jumped from the turret and saved himself. Instead, he threw himself on the grenade and absorbed the blast, saving four men, including Newland. For his heroic actions, McGinnis has been nominated for the Medal of Honor.

But Newland said that though his friend’s sacrifice allowed him to live, he does so with guilt and pain that have made it difficult to honor his promise.

“I thought I could have done more,” Newland said during an interview at his Colorado home. “Every second, I was reliving it. All of a sudden, I’m in the Humvee again and the grenade goes off.”

He traveled to Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia outside Washington, D.C., for McGinnis’ funeral services, and there he met McGinnis’ family.

“They were so loving and so compassionate,” Newland said. “I thought it was hard losing my soldier — this was just too much. But his dad grabbed me and said, ‘You don’t owe my son anything.’”

Pay close attention to this part from his wife

“I said, ‘I can’t handle this,’” his wife, Erin Newland, said. “‘I’m done. I just can’t take this anymore.’”

Instead, she went online and did some research, and she talked to the family therapist who had been assigned to take care of her husband’s post-traumatic stress disorder.

“I learned to not get into it with him and not get mad,” she said. “Instead, I’d just need to let him do his ranting and raving.”

go here for the rest
http://www.armytimes.com/news/2007/12/bloodbrothersside4/

Emails come in all the time from wives and girlfriends, even a few husbands and boyfriends dealing with their GI coming home. Without the tools, the knowledge of what's going on, there is little reason to stay in a marriage or relationship. Most relationships are hard anyway but when you add in PTSD, it is damn near impossible unless you have the support and gain the understanding of what this is and where all of these thoughts are coming from. When you understand you are not looking at a normal person, but a person who has been through a very abnormal time in their life, you can cope without putting yourself through hell. You can keep a marriage together and even save their lives.

I'm not going to gloss over any of this now with you. We cannot save all of them but we can get a lot closer to it than we are right now. There is no reason for them to lose all hope and take their own life. There is no reason for marriages to end when most will be able to function and start living again. We learn to adapt when there is love there. We learn to deal with the changes that cannot be overcome with therapy and medication. We learn that we can find a "normal" we can live with but only when we truly know what we are dealing with.

I cannot imagine the pain and confusion in partners of trauma survivors when they have no clue what it is. Honestly I damn near fell apart even knowing what it was from the start. I can assure you that once you have all the facts, learn the signs and come to grips with it, you can make it together. I'm not guaranteeing anything other than the simple fact no relationship has to end because of PTSD. The only thing that has to end is the way it was before because this is a whole new life together. It's relearning about who the other person is. Deep down inside their character is still there. You just have to search beneath the pain to find them there. All the love that was there before is still there and for some, it is even stronger because they survived the worst kind of events man has ever known. Most will cherish what they have more even while they deal with the ravages going on inside of them.

Ian Newland and his wife are off to a great future together because as he is healing, she is learning. Changes happen in every marriage. Add PTSD into a marriage and it becomes a roller coaster. It's a ride I've been on for 25 years and there hasn't been one dull moment in all of them. It's a price we pay for the ride he started in 1970 and never managed to get off of. At least with help, he is riding a lot higher than straight down on his own.

Iraq conflict rekindles local Vietnam Vets' trauma

Iraq conflict rekindles local Vietnam Vets' trauma

By ROBERT M. COOK
Staff Writer
bcook@fosters.com


Article Date: Sunday, December 16, 2007
While many Americans may find daily television news coverage of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan disturbing, Joe Carroll finds it especially difficult.

"This war that we got now has brought everything back to me, especially the roadside bombs," said the Rochester resident, who is a Vietnam veteran.

The war on terror has sparked a resurgence of his post traumatic stress disorder symptoms, sparking a flare-up in the condition he's battled since returning from Southeast Asia 40 years ago.

He said he's started to have the same nightmares he had several years ago, nightmares that would make him wake up in a cold sweat and feel disoriented.

Carroll worked in a transportation unit that operated convoys. The trucks faced the threat of mined roads and often came under attack from snipers, he said.

"Getting hit in the convoys," is one dream Carroll often has, "or being shot from the side of the road on rice paddies."

One of his worst nightmares is related to one of the worst days he had in Vietnam. One night, members of his Army unit, the 573rd Transportation Co., were ordered to do a nighttime convoy run at high speed to reduce the risk of attack, Carroll said.

The soldiers were told that if anything or anyone got in their way they were to ignore it and keep driving. That proved tragic — Carroll said he hit and killed a Vietnamese man and child, but didn't realize it until after they'd reached their destination and saw body parts underneath the truck.

"I can still see them there," Carroll said.
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Dear America: Letters Home from Vietnam is an Emmy award winning 1987 documentary directed by Bill Couturié. Using real letters written by US soldiers and archive footage, the film creates a highly personal experience of the Vietnam War.
Roger Ebert commented, "There have been many great movies about Vietnam. This is the one that completes the story."
For my husband, it was watching Dear America, over and over and over again. He'd sit on the sofa, beer in on hand and the other holding a cigarette, both hands shaking. It came out in 1987 a year after that horrible day when I miscarried the twins. The only war back then was the one he was still fighting in his mind, Vietnam. I was fighting my own battles for him and against him, trying to get him to go for help. It didn't matter how much I knew about PTSD or Vietnam or what was happening to him. Nothing could get him to go for help. Yet even knowing what I knew about PTSD, I thought he would be willing to go for help if I had been a better wife, if I had a healthy baby, anything and everything ran through my mind because no matter what the facts were, I refused to think that it was all hopeless for us. I refused to think that his love for me was too weak to fight against Vietnam. I was wrong.

It took three more years to get him to just go to a psychologist, then to the Veterans center, then another three years to get him to go to the VA. All in all it took 14 years of watching him die a slow death for him to really begin to heal. He came home with signs of PTSD in 1971. All the issues he was dealing with, he was dealing with them. He coped. He covered up. He dealt with the flashbacks and nightmares. We dealt with the mood swings and his need to get away from crowds and his back needing to be against the wall instead of out in the middle of a restaurant. It took the secondary stressor of losing the twins to send him over the edge so extremely that I had to beg him to come back to the hospital that very night. All that was going on inside of him were no longer quirks. They were destroying him.

By the time Dear America came out, I was living with a stranger. My father passed away in 1987 but by then my best friend was cold, angry and ambivalent. When I discovered I was pregnant again, I was pretty shocked. Sex was a rarity but it was enough to begin the next chapter of our lives. Our daughter will be 20 next month. Looking back on those days, it astonishes me that we made it through all of those times. He is living proof that with therapy and medication, there is always hope. He is the reason why I keep drilling it into heads that it is never too late for healing to begin.

He is also the reason why I push so hard for help to be delivered as soon as possible. Had he been helped when he came home from Vietnam, we would not have spent so much of our lives dealing with the horrors, stress on our relationship, financial hardships or anything else that came with the lack of help. Instead of being retired early, he would still be doing the job he loved and still making a good living. I would be able to work full time again and financially we would be a lot better off as well as our marriage would be healthier, because of how close we had been in the beginning. The lost years ate away at him. We can never get those years back and no matter how much I have tried, there is still much more to overcome as far as my own painful memories.

It saddens me beyond belief when I hear of today's veterans heading into the same altered reality as he did knowing how much is possible right now. Things that were never even envisioned back then are possible today because of the work the Vietnam veterans did to make it all possible. Yet the delays, the backlog of claims, the sporadic help available to these veterans is basically killing off their futures as well as eliminating hope in them. You would think that with a mountain of studies the people in charge would be mobilizing every mental health professional in the nation to get every veteran dealing with PTSD into treatment as soon as they show the slightest sign of needing help, but they don't. They talk about doing it instead of doing it. They hold hearings as if they are going to hear anything new. They waste time as lives slip away. If they have not heard all the facts by now, they have not been listening. We need such a loud voice, they can never say they did not hear us again. Our veterans need our help today so they won't need help 20 years from now. How much time are we going to waste? How many lives are we going to let suffer with PTSD needlessly? How many more people will look back at lost years and wonder what could have been done to spare them the pain they had to go through? How many more veterans will be beyond reach next year? kc

Suspected Army suicides set record

Suspected Army suicides set record
By Gregg Zoroya, USA TODAY
WASHINGTON — A record number of soldiers — 109 — have killed themselves this year, according to Army statistics showing confirmed or suspected suicides.
The deaths occur as soldiers serve longer combat deployments and the Army spends $100 million on support programs.


ON DEADLINE: Vets' suicides also being scrutinized

"Soldiers, families and equipment are stretched and stressed," Gen. George Casey, Army chief of staff, told Congress last month.

The Army provided suicide statistics to Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash. Her staff shared them with USA TODAY.

FIND MORE STORIES IN: Iraq Afghanistan Army Sen. Patty Murray
Those numbers show 77 confirmed suicides Army-wide this year through Nov. 27 and 32 other deaths pending final determination as suicides.

The Army updated those statistics Wednesday, confirming 85 suicides, including 27 in Iraq and four in Afghanistan.
go here for the rest
http://www.usatoday.com/news/military/2007-12-12-Army-suicides_N.htm

Southwestern Oregon Veteran's Outreach

Area veterans cope with post traumatic stress
By Azenith Smith
North Bend - It's a disorder that affects millions of veterans nationwide, and here in Coos County, a local veteran's outreach program is seeing more and more clients dealing with it.

According to Vic Diaz, founder and president of the Southwestern Oregon Veteran's Outreach, or SOVO, in the past three months, they've had a significant increase of combat veterans, returning from the Iraq War, who have post traumatic stress disorder or PTSD.

Common symptoms include thoughts of depression and suicide, as well as isolation and withdrawal.

It's a problem that's affecting their way of life, as many of them tend to lose their jobs and have issues with their families.

"If the husband or the wife, who have been to war, come home, after time the rest of the family starts suffering from post traumatic stress disorder," says Diaz.

But he says, it can be treated and SOVO does offer resources like licensed psychiatrists and peer counselors to help veterans with PTSD and to let them know that they're not alone.

"The one thing in military is that they understand that we don't leave our dead or wounded out on the battlefield," says Diaz. "That doesn't stop once they come home, we still believe it and still live it.

If you are a veteran dealing with the disorder, or know someone who is, SOVO's open five days a week and welcome walk-ins.

For more information, call (541) 756-8718.