Heroes of Hurricane Sandy

When politicians talk about cutting the debt and public employees, we all need to remember what kind of people we are "getting rid of" because when you needed them, they showed up. When you don't need them, you don't care if they are there or not. Take a look at what they did when Hurricane Sandy hit. Remember what they did on 9-11. Remember what they did every time they showed up after storms, in all kinds of emergencies and remember how they made the terrible easier to get through.

Team Rubicon making a difference for all

When you take a bunch of veterans, many like Clay Hunt trying to carry on with PTSD eating them alive, put them to work for others, it is the best medicine. Doing for others feeds the gift they were born with. There is not a selfish bone in their body. They have to be unselfish to be willing to serve in the military and be willing to die in the process. Clay's death after combat by suicide was a very hard story to post on because he had done everything experts say needs to be done to heal.

Marine Loses Battle with PTSD: MyFoxHOUSTON.com

After the shock of his death subsided it occurred to me, and many more, that getting involved with Team Rubicon may have added to his days on earth because he was giving so much back to others. Volunteer work for these veterans is a blessing to them giving them an emotional jolt but it also wears on their souls being exposed to more and more suffering.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

When they show up to do this kind of work, there needs to be more emotional support for them just as with other emergency responders. Crisis intervention teams need to be ready and able to help them after especially when they are already carrying the burden of combat inside. Team Rubicon's efforts are spot on considering veterans volunteering are happier than an isolated veteran but there is only so much they can do. If you are trained in Crisis Intervention, please be there for them so more like Clay Hunt will be here tomorrow.

Team Rubicon
Mission Statement
Team Rubicon bridges the critical time gap between large humanitarian disasters and conventional aid response. We provide vanguard medical care by fielding small, self-sustaining, mobile teams of specially skilled first-responders. To deploy rapidly, we rely heavily on a horizontal command structure, social networking technology, and the employment of local nationals.

Brattleboro Retreat's mission on PTSD

New initiatives at Brattleboro Retreat will mean many more jobs for region
By BOB AUDETTE, Reformer Staff



Monday, March 23
BRATTLEBORO -- For the past two years, the Brattleboro Retreat's chief executive officer has been ushering in a new era at the 175-year-old institution. At the same time, Rob Simpson is also bringing back what made the Retreat so special.

One of the simplest things -- and one of the most effective -- that he has implemented was a change in the name, from Retreat Healthcare to the Brattleboro Retreat.

"That's who we are. It's important to go back and be who we are," said Simpson.

Later this year, the Retreat is hosting its 175th anniversary.

This year, Simpson is introducing three new programs to the Retreat that will create new jobs and bring new patients to the facility.

"We will be bringing new jobs to Brattleboro," said Simpson, who wouldn't say exactly how many. "If these programs work, there will be a significant number of new employees added."

While he will be looking for those with highly specialized skills -- such as social workers, psychiatrists, counselors and nurses -- he will also be looking for new support staff.

The first program is for uniformed service workers, such as police, firefighters and emergency responders.

People in those career fields have a 300 percent higher incidence of post traumatic stress disorder than the general population, he said, and have a higher incidence of domestic violence, substance abuse, divorce and depression.
go here for more
http://www.reformer.com/ci_11975681

First responders may get benefit for PTSD

First responders may get benefit
The Casper Star Tribune - Casper,WY,USA
By DUSTIN BLEIZEFFER
Star-Tribune energy reporter
Saturday, January 24, 2009 2:05 AM MST


After several months of hand-wringing about the possibility of misuse, several state lawmakers have warmed to an amendment that would limit an expansion of state workers' compensation coverage of mental "injuries" to emergency first responders.

Sen. John Hastert, D-Green River, is sponsor of Senate File 18, the "mental-injury, workers' compensation" bill. Hastert said to alleviate concerns of misuse, he is proposing an amendment narrowing the extended coverage to only first responders who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder.

It would not change existing law, which covers mental injuries that are direct results of work-related physical injuries.

"There were a lot of concerns about opening the 'mental-mental' (coverage) too broadly, so we're going to focus it," Hastert said. "It's a first step, a small step in expanding coverage. And post-traumatic stress disorder is absolutely diagnosable."

Hastert said Gov. Dave Freudenthal's office and leaders of the Labor, Health and Social Services Committee seem to be on board with the amendment. Currently, coverage of a workplace mental injury under the Wyoming Worker Safety and Compensation Division is only compensable if it is the direct result of a physical injury.

That leaves Wyoming's law enforcement, firefighters and other first responders uncovered should they suffer from PTSD. Hastert and others have said that during the past year and a half, the division has turned away at least six first responders suffering from PTSD.
click link for more

UK takes a look at paramedics and PTSD

Now ambulance workers fall victim to battlefield stress
Independent - London,England,UK

Crippling condition remains taboo among paramedic colleagues

By Terri Judd
Friday, 7 November 2008


During a 20-year career in which he was among the first to reach casualties in the 1996 Manchester IRA bombings, paramedic Jon Bradshaw routinely walked into scenes most people could not comprehend.


When colleagues discovered he had developed post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), they left a letter pinned to the station noticeboard addressed to Jonathan Bradshaw, Chief Ambulance Skiver, c/o The Padded Cell, Rampton Secure Mental Institution (sic). Inside they had inscribed a series of jokes. One read simply "Sick!! RIP".

Although PTSD is now taken seriously by the armed forces, the crippling condition remains taboo among many sectors of the ambulance service, so much so that researchers at King's College London, are about to begin a new research project into the illness.

The Healthcare Commission's annual staff survey found that 34 per cent of ambulance workers had suffered work-related stress last year.

An assessment of Oxfordshire Ambulance Service staff in 1999 estimated that 20 per cent of workers were suffering from PTSD, with cot death rated as the most traumatic event they had to deal with.

With the introduction of stricter response times this year, more ambulance workers are being sent out alone and have less opportunity to talk through traumatic events with colleagues.

"People in this profession are resilient but nobody is totally immune and extreme stress can get to anybody," said Professor Anke Ehlers, the clinical psychologist leading the study into different predictive factors which might help identify and minimise PTSD among ambulance workers. New staff will be interviewed at intervals.

The long-term aim is to develop a prevention programme where paramedics will be taught how to recognise the symptoms as part of their standard training.

Mr Bradshaw, 39, said that suffering from stress carried a stigma: "There is a culture that if you say you have PTSD, depression or anxiety, they think you are nutty. I know of several people who are suffering but they are all being treated abysmally."
click link for more

Military, civilian leaders faulted for Iraq aftermath

While we should be concerned for the welfare of all the men and women deployed into Iraq and Afghanistan, we need to pay more attention to the National Guard forces and Reservists.

It also reports that Army National Guard and Reserve soldiers have demonstrated in Iraq and Afghanistan that they "are a fully capable, and indeed, an absolutely essential part of the Army." But it warns that "the price paid by reservists and communities to sustain the long and repetitive mobilizations, however, may not be sustainable in the future."

Army's History of Iraq After Hussein Faults Pentagon
By Josh White
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, June 29, 2008; Page A03

A new Army history of the service's performance in Iraq immediately after the fall of Saddam Hussein faults military and civilian leaders for their planning for the war's aftermath, and it suggests that the Pentagon's current way of using troops is breaking the Army National Guard and Army Reserve.


The study, "On Point II: Transition to the New Campaign," is an unclassified and unhindered look at U.S. Army operations in Iraq from May 2003 to January 2005. That critical era of the war has drawn widespread criticism because of a failure to anticipate the rise of an Iraqi insurgency and because policymakers provided too few U.S. troops and no strategy to maintain order after Iraq's decades-old regime was overthrown.

Donald P. Wright and Col. Timothy R. Reese, who authored the report along with the Army's Contemporary Operations Study Team, conclude that U.S. commanders and civilian leaders were too focused on only the military victory and lacked a realistic vision of what Iraq would look like following that triumph.
go here for more of this
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/28/AR2008062802427.html

What they thought they were getting into when most of them joined.

National Guard helps shore up Ottumwa sub-station
With water levels rising rapidly in Ottumwa by the hour, one of the city’s power sub-stations was in danger of being overrun. However, thanks to nearly 100 National Guard Soldiers, this central power supply was rescued through the construction of a three-foot tall levee...June 19, 2008

Air National Guard works to corral Mississippi
The men and women of the 185th Air Refueling Squadron from Sioux City, Iowa, are teaming with local farmers to maintain the 20 miles of levees, keeping the flooded Mississippi from inundating the 14 thousand acres of homes and farmland here...June 19, 2008

Guard ratchets up Missouri mission; tackles floods in five states
Missouri was the latest Midwest state to see increasing numbers of National Guard Citizen-Soldiers and –Airmen on duty in the face of the region’s worst flooding in 15 years...June 20, 2008

Guard aircraft, aircrews battling California wildfires
Army and Air National Guardmembers from California and North Carolina were supporting firefighting efforts in Northern California today following a state active duty call up by Gov. Arnold Schwarznegger and a request for airborne firefighting assets by the Interagency Fire Center...June 24, 2008

North Carolina Air National Guard fights California wildfires
The North Carolina Air National Guard deployed four C-130 Hercules cargo aircraft with flight crews and support personnel to Northern California June 23 to assist the U.S. Forest Service and the governor in firefighting efforts to contain, control, and extinguish wildfires...June 25, 2008

Fighting floods and fires, National Guard on duty from coast-to-coast
National Guard Citizen-Soldiers and –Airmen fought Midwest flooding and California fires Thursday...June 26, 2008

National Guard Bureau chief: Firefighting and flood efforts “outstanding”
Assessing the National Guard’s California fire and Midwest flood-fighting efforts first-hand Thursday and Friday, the chief of the National Guard Bureau visited adjutants general and troops in impacted states....June 27, 2008

These reports are just from the this month. When they are helping the nation deal with natural disasters, they are able to still do their other jobs. Their jobs are what they base their personal budgets on. Often their incomes do not come close to taking care of their financial needs when they are deployed. This adds to the stress they are under when they are deployed into foreign lands. While it may be true they are highly trained to do their assigned jobs while deployed, they are not trained as fully as the regular military for the rest of what they have to go through.

When they come home, they return to family and friends, jobs they had (provided the jobs are still there) and are expected to pick up where they left off. Some return to businesses as craftsmen, offices, laborers, while others return to law enforcement positions and fire departments. They are expected to return the same way as they would if they were simply doing the same kinds of duties they carry out on our own soil, not unlike the reports above. Yet when they come back from Iraq and Afghanistan, the long absences, they also carry with them the traumas of combat.

We have neglected their needs even more than we have neglected the needs of the regular military. At least when their deployment is over, they return with their brothers in arms by their side and have a watchful eye on them if there should be readjustment problems. The citizen soldiers however return to the lives they had before, the extra strain on their finances, families unaware of the wounds they carry within and no one around them able to understand.

Too often they return with PTSD, but as hard as it is to understand what they went through deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan, it is nearly impossible for others to understand the signs of wounds they cannot see. VA clinics and hospitals are too far away to get to on a regular basis for many of these soldiers. Civilian mental health providers do not all understand PTSD. Civilian doctors are also lacking knowledge of this wound and the physical illnesses spawned by PTSD. Local clergy are unaware of the wound, the strain on marriages as well as the spiritual wound that needs to be addressed. This is where the communities need to step up for the sake of the citizen soldiers. Why isn't this happening?

Local providers are trained to focus on all the problems civilians endure. While they can address some of the issues these citizen soldiers face, they cannot address the central issue to all of the problems, which is the horrors of war. We cannot keep neglecting their needs. We cannot keep treating them like the rest of the citizens.

This report on the mistakes made regarding Iraq and the increase of the Taliban's capabilities in Afghanistan should raise a red flag warning these occupations will go on much longer than civilians planned on requiring the more deployments of the citizen soldiers as well as their families. National Guard forces are reporting rates of PTSD at around 50%, yet they receive less help than regular military men and women receive. The citizen soldiers only have their communities to depend on in return for us depending upon them.

Even when they are returning to jobs usually associated with traumatic events, law enforcement and emergency responders, often their own commanders are unaware of PTSD at the levels deployments raise the risk of and depth of this wound. Again, they need more attention than civilian forces never deployed receive.

If we do not address the additional needs of the citizen soldiers, they will suffer needlessly. This is a moral duty for all of us as well as a financial one for every community across the nation.

Un-addressed PTSD leads to the break up of families, drug and alcohol use as self-medication, crimes, homelessness and suicides. This puts a strain on the finances of the local governments as they must deal with arrests, drunk driving, accidents, crimes, violence, domestic violence, child abuse and neglect, growing need for health services in mental health care as well as the physical illnesses extreme stress causes. Reliance on social services are increased. This also leads to reduced incomes as all too often the citizen soldier's wound is neglected to the point they can no longer function on their jobs. We've already seen evidence of all of this because we still have not come to the awareness of PTSD in the citizen soldiers.

When are we going to do it? When will local officials put out an emergency call to all the people in their communities to address this? When will programs be in place across the nation to take care of them? When will the local clergy and physicians be educated to deal with the burdens the citizen soldiers carry? While the plans for the aftermath of the invasion of Iraq found fault with the military and civilian planners, what is happening to the citizen soldiers is also caused by the same officials and lack of planning.


Senior Chaplain Kathie Costos
International Fellowship of Chaplains
Namguardianangel@aol.com
http://www.namguardianangel.org/
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

Emergency Negotiators Train For Returning Warrior Issues

Should be repeated all over the country.

Riverside County - Emergency Negotiators Train For Returning Warrior Issues

Riverside, CA – Riverside Police Department hosted a training session Thursday, June 5, for nearly 50 officers from six Inland law enforcement agencies dealing with post-traumatic stress issues pertaining to return veterans of war.

“Early in my career, in the 1980s, we encountered a lot of these issues of stress, addiction and violence, with Vietnam veterans. We want to be prepared as these issues arise with returning Iraq war veterans,” said RPD Emergency Negotiations Team Sgt. George Masson.

Nearly 40 percent of returning combat veterans will suffer some sort of post-traumatic stress disorder upon returning home, which can result in extreme and dangerous behavior, domestic violence and crisis situations police will be first responders to, said William Rider, co-founder and president of American Combat Veterans of War, a nonprofit support group working with vets at Camp Pendleton.

ACVOW volunteers, themselves Vietnam combat veterans, and five young Iraq war veterans, worked with police officers from Riverside, San Bernardino, Corona, Chino, Murrieta and deputies from the Riverside County Sheriff, on combat-related stresses and scenario training on how negotiators can respond to vets in crisis.

The training — initiated by Masson and Riverside Officer Phil Fernandez, who is a former U.S. Marine — was ACVOW’s first collaboration with law enforcement agencies. The Riverside County Department of Mental Health - Emergency Treatment Services (ETS) coordinated the training.

ACVOW volunteers called the initiative “refreshing.” Veterans with post-traumatic stress often put family members and innocent bystanders at risk, Rider said. “This (training) goes right to the heart of what needs to happen,” helping first responders deal more safely and successfully with returning combat veterans in crisis.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Date: Thursday, June 5, 2008
Contact: Steven Frasher, Press Information Officer
Phone: (951) 826-5147

http://www.mymurrieta.com/wordpress/?p=1552

Big toe on cell phone saves trapped man in Florida

Florida Man With Arms Stuck in Machine Dials 911 on Cell Phone With Big Toe
Friday, May 02, 2008



MARY ESTHER, Fla. — Even with his arms stuck in a piece of machinery, one northwest Florida man was able to call 911 using his big toe.

Police say the unidentified man was at the DRS Technologies building early Thursday morning when he became trapped in a press-like machine that resembles an elevator. The employee was alone.

He shook his cell phone off his belt, kicked off one shoe and used his toe to dial 911. Rescuers used a thick metal bar to pry the machinery off his arms.

He was airlifted to a Pensacola hospital where his condition is not immediately known.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,353965,00.html

Massachusetts First Responders Trained To Help Veterans

1st responders trained to spot troubled vets

By Stephanie Reitz - The Associated Press
Posted : Saturday Feb 2, 2008 14:04:38 EST

HOLYOKE, Mass. — For many returning troops, lifesaving combat instincts can complicate life at home: constant vigilance, agitation in confined places, bolting from loud noises and other behaviors that can be misinterpreted by police.

Concerned that some may wind up in the criminal justice system instead of counseling, some police and other emergency responders are learning how to recognize and cope with unique behaviors of troubled combat veterans.

“Our law enforcement community has really become the safety net. If they can get to the root of what’s happening with these guys, they’ll get helped instead of getting criminalized,” said John Downing, president of Soldier On, a western Massachusetts service organization known until recently as United Veterans of America.

His group and other veterans’ advocates, mental health experts and prosecutors recently launched a training program for police, dispatchers and other emergency workers. Organizers believe it is the first of its kind in the nation, and hope it other regions copy it as more veterans come home from wartime deployments.
go here for the rest
http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/02/ap_troubledvets_080202/

Makes me proud I was born there.

After trauma touches life

Several veterans told me that if they ever opened up with what is going on in their heads, they would be locked up in the "loony bin" for the rest of their lives. They talk about feeling as if they let everyone down. They talk about a lot of things but hope. As they try to understand what PTSD is, hope is the furthest thing from their reach. Once they understand what it is and what caused it, hope is within reach. They realize they can be happy, or at least happier again. To live out days with life being sucked out of them is a slow, torturous death. Medication and therapy bring them back to living a life again instead of just existing.


After trauma comes stress that will not let go. It is not just participants in combat.
It is when you watch someone you love die.

Improving Communication With Families Of Dying Patients Reduces ...
By admin Hospitals that use a simple strategy of enhancing communication with family members of patients dying in the intensive care unit can greatly reduce post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety and depression after their loved one dies,

It is being a police officer with your life on the line.

The Effects of post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) on the officer and the family
© 2003, 1998 by Hal Brown, LICSW
The following letter is from an officer who wrote it in the Guestbook and kindly gave me permission to use it in an article in the hope that his experience will help others. He describes many of the classic symptoms of police PTSD, or post traumatic stress disorder. In fact, every distressing thought, feeling and behavior he relates below is a symptom of PTSD.
I am a (10 plus)-- year police veteran and (30 plus)-- years of age. I have become seriously concerned with some of the events that have been taking place in my life for the past two years. I have started having nightmares frequently and have great difficulty going to sleep at night. There is always a feeling of uneasiness at night and I have started to develop some unnatural habits associated with these uneasy feelings. At the slightest sound, I have to get out of the bed and check every room in the house.
http://www.geocities.com/stressline_com/ptsd-family.html

Arizona State Trooper WinsPrecedent-Setting Court Caseon PTSD Claim
An Arizona state trooper has won a precedent-setting court case that affects police officers, firefighters, and other emergency services workers throughout the United States.On January 20, 2000, Department of Public Safety Officer David D. Mogel killed a shotgun-toting car thief wanted for bank robbery after the suspect attempted to shoot him.Because of the trauma in taking a human life, Mr. Mogel was diagnosed with Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, and could no longer function as a police officer. When he applied for Workers' Compensation benefits, he was denied. The Arizona Department of Public Safety and Workers' Compensation (State of Arizona, DOA Risk Management) claimed that shooting suspects was part of the job, and not an "unexpected" event as required by Arizona law.Mr. Mogel's attorney, Robert E. Wisniewski, says, "The state raised the defense that working in police work everyday was not a substantial contributing cause of my client's post traumatic stress disorder because police are exposed to such hazards everyday so that is routine."In her Findings and Award of December 19, 2002 awarding Mr. Mogel Workers' Compensation benefits, Administrative Law Judge Karen Calderon states, "I find that shooting and killing another human being in the line of duty is an extraordinary stress related to the employment."
http://www.copshock.com/lawsuit.html

Police, fireman and emergency responders

A number of research articles have looked at the rates of PTSD in high-risk occupations. They found:
Law Enforcement Officers who agreed to be in these studies had rates of PTSD ranging between 3% - 17%. A recent research study found that 45% of officers were having sleep difficulties typical of patients seen in insomnia clinics. In this study, stresses related to their work environment were strongly associated with sleep quality; sleep disturbances were associated with symptoms of PTSD. "These high rates of insomnia are particularly alarming, because sleep deprivation can drastically hinder mental and physical performance" (Thomas Neylan, MD, 2002).
In a study by Corneil, et. al., (1999), which compared 203 U.S. Fire Fighters in urban departments with 625 Canadian fire fighters, twenty-two percent of fire fighters in U.S. urban departments were experiencing PTSD compared to 17% of Canadian fire fighters. (The U.S. sample had 9% women and 13% paramedics, not found in the Canadian sample). Other researchers have found 33-41 % of fire fighters were experiencing emotional distress. Rates of PTSD in U.S. fire fighters are similar to those found in a study of German fire fighters, 18.2% and are higher than those generally found in wounded combat veterans, i.e., 20%. These researchers concluded that the high level of PTSD A suggests that this is a serious mental health problem of epidemic proportions in urban professional firefighters in the U.S."
Twenty percent of Emergency Ambulance Personnel have been found to have PTSD. Rates of symptoms, such as depression, anxiety, sleep problems and undue worry rage from 20% - 60%.
Nineteen percent of Rescue Workers serving 9-11 sites have been diagnosed with PTSD in the two years following this tragedy.
http://www.rescue-workers.com/1.html

And it is kids

Bereaved Children of 9/11 Victims Suffered High Rates of Psychiatric Illness
Children's Neurological "Stress-Response System" Also Stayed Highly Active Long After They Lost a Parent, Study Finds
White Plains, NY (Mar 19, 2007)
The rate of psychiatric illness among children who lost a parent in the Sept. 11, 2001, World Trade Center attack doubled – from about 32 to nearly 73 percent – in the years following the event, according to a new study from researchers at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center.
More than half (56.8 percent) of the young children studied suffered from some sort of anxiety disorder, including post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which affected nearly three in 10 bereaved children.

http://www.nyp.org/news/hospital/1107.html

PTSD comes at different levels. From mild cases where they are able to function or "deal with it" to the point where every part of their life is consumed by it.

Understanding, educating the public is life to them and their futures.

To put a monetary price on this we need only look at "success" stories to gauge what the outcome of early intervention would look like.

Instead of being unable to work but receiving therapy and medication, it saves workman's comp and VA disability payments. If they are able to work, even on a part-time basis, they are holding down a job, receiving pay for that job, paying taxes on that income and paying into the Social Security System.

But it does not stop there. Early intervention can prevent a lot of divorces. Living with someone who has PTSD is one of the hardest types of marriages. (I can testify to that personally.) The emotional roller-coaster ride with mood swings, isolation, ambivalence, emotional numbing, short term memory loss, irrational thinking and reactions along with the flashbacks they have and the nightmares, puts an even greater strain on a marriage than what is considered normal. Two incomes in one household contribute to the economy. If you have separation and divorce, you have two people struggling to support themselves. That leaves less extra money to spend on non-essential items.

But it does not stop there either. When you intervene early and eliminate PTSD divorces, you also have people watching over each other. They eat better, see the doctor more often for check ups and enjoy a support structure with people they trust.

It does not even stop there. Then you have the children of a PTSD parent. They grow up knowing that the PTSD parent is acting or reacting the way they are because of PTSD and not because of them. They learn to adapt to things they learn will cause a "strange" reaction from their parent. Like, as most kids do, hiding and popping out to scare their parent or sneaking up on them from behind.

With all of this, please tell me why anyone in this country or other nations, would not be doing everything possible to treat PTSD as soon as symptoms present themselves? Why would anyone not be doing everything humanly possible to educate the public on PTSD so that no one would ever say "what's that" when they hear the term? Public education made everyone aware of AIDS, cancer, ADD. So why is it people still don't know what PTSD is? They surely know what trauma is. Why isn't there a massive TV campaign about PTSD? Why isn't every news station doing documentaries on this?

As you read in the previous post today, a five year old came out with "they forget to be happy" when asked what he thought PTSD was. So why is it a five year old can come to grips with this but the adults of this country are still not understanding this?

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