Military veteran making steel US flags shows his mettle FOX Alicia Acuna March 29, 2017
That was more than 18 months ago. Today, his company, Iron Mountain Designs, has an 8,000-square-foot production facility in Salt Lake City, where he has a team, and an expanded business, making custom ironwork and furniture for other businesses.
Military veterans can have a tough time re-entering the workforce after serving in war. The special skills honed on the battlefield don't always translate to the civilian world.
Such was the case for retired Air Force pararescueman Josh Vandenbrink. After 14 years of service and 21 deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan, his life back home came with some readjusting.
The Utah man tried multiple jobs in a variety of industries, when one day he, somewhat accidentally, launched his own business. A fellow veteran in the Salt Lake City area who owned a coffee company called Black Rifle Coffee let him set up a work room in the back of his warehouse.
The first thing he did was buy a flag.
On each flag, he puts a reminder from the past. A quote by President George Washington is engraved on a wood plaque, hidden on the back. It reads: "I hope I shall possess the firmness and virtue enough to maintain what I consider the most enviable of all titles. The character of an honest man." read more here
Committee changes bill that would expand benefits to vets with PTSD, brain injuries The Day By Julia Bergman Day staff writer March 03. 2017
"We have enough knowledge to know that there is a problem here and generally I don't think a study is going to be helpful. A study is going to simply flesh out what we already know." Rep. Stephen Harding
Hartford — Supporters of a proposal, which would enable certain veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder or a traumatic brain injury to receive state benefits, are discouraged by changes made to the proposed bill that, they say, effectively kill the bill's chances of being passed this session. House Bill 5580, introduced by state Rep. Stephen Harding, R-Brookfield, in its originally proposed form, would've allowed vets, who received an "other than honorable discharge" as a result of being diagnosed with PTSD or TBI, to qualify for state veterans' benefits. The Veterans Affairs' Committee, to which the bill was assigned, changed the language so that it now calls for a study of how many of these vets exist, how much it would cost to provide benefits to them and how that process would be executed.
Rep. Jack Hennessy, D-Bridgeport, co-chair of the veterans committee, said members were concerned that the original proposal would've put the state in a position of making a connection between a vets' diagnosis of PTSD or TBI and his or her so-called "bad paper" discharge. read more here
Naperville Army veteran feels at home, thanks to students' donations Daily Herald Christopher Placek December 16, 2016
"I never imagined being in a high school full of kids cheering for me and doing something amazing like this for me. I don't know what someone could want more than to be honored like this." Tony Chobanov
"Amazing," is how Army Spc. Tony Chobanov feels about the support he's received from a veterans organization that's building a house for him and his family, and the students who have helped raise funds to pay for it.
Some 2,000 students at John Hersey High School in Arlington Heights stood and applauded Friday as Chobanov and his wife, Abbey, walked into the school gym for an assembly where they were presented with a $16,000 check and an oversized key that represents their new house to be built next spring in Spring Grove.
Chobanov, 32, served two tours of combat duty -- one in Afghanistan and one in Iraq -- that led to his diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder and a traumatic brain injury.
He's worked several jobs in the trades since returning in 2008, putting in long hours to provide for his family, but has struggled as half the family income has gone to pay the rent of their Naperville home.
This year, he learned he, his wife and three children had been chosen by A Soldier's Journey Home, an Arlington Heights-based nonprofit, to receive a new house. He said he's receiving treatment for his war injuries and no doubt has been helped by the support he's receiving.
Senators, Military Specialists Say Army Report On Dismissed Soldiers Is Troubling NPR Heard on Morning Edition Daniel Zwerdling December 1, 2016
The Army's report states that only 3,327 of the more than 22,000 soldiers who had been kicked out met that legal test. As a result, investigators ignored the rest of the soldiers — roughly 19,000 of them — who had mental health problems or brain injuries.
U.S. Secretary of the Army Eric Fanning ordered a review after an NPR
investigation found thousands of soldiers diagnosed with mental health
problems or brain injuries were dismissed for misconduct. But the new
Army report concluded that it treated the soldiers fairly.
Alex Wong/Getty Images
An Army review concludes that commanders did nothing wrong when they kicked out more than 22,000 soldiers for misconduct after they came back from Iraq or Afghanistan – even though all of those troops had been diagnosed with mental health problems or brain injuries.
The Army's report, ordered by Secretary Eric Fanning, seeks to reassure members of Congress that it's treating wounded soldiers fairly. But senators and military specialists say the report troubles them.
"I don't think the Army understands the scope of this problem," says Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn. "And I don't think they've conveyed the seriousness to get it right."
The Army's report is "unbelievable," says psychiatrist Judith Broder. "It's just bizarre." Broder was awarded the Presidential Citizens Medal by President Obama for organizing the Soldiers Project, a network of hundreds of psychotherapists and others who help troops and their families.
read more here
EXCHANGE: Veteran given a new house as he confronts PTSD Belleville News Democrat Marie Wilson November 26, 2016
"I was in shock," Chobanov said, recalling his reaction to the news he'd be getting a debt-free house and a lot fewer financial worries. "I didn't have words for it at first."
ADVANCE FOR USE SATURDAY, NOV. 26, 2016, AND THEREAFTER - In this Oct. 6, 2016 photo, Army Spc.Tony Chobanov, who served two tours of combat duty, one in Afghanistan and one in Iraq, is seen with his wife Abby, right, and their children, from left, Olivia, 6, Milan, 8,and Faith,11, in Lisle, Ill. Chobanov can't wait to get his family into their new home. They will be a recipient of a new house to be built by a charity by an Arlington Heights-based nonprofit called 'A Soldier's Journey Home' with help from District 214 high school students. Daily Herald, via AP Paul Michna
NAPERVILLE, ILL. The burden of spending roughly half his family's income on rent isn't even lifted yet, but Army Spc. Tony Chobanov of Naperville already feels better.
He's been working on getting better for the past two years, and this most recent step is proving a giant help.
An Arlington Heights-based nonprofit called A Soldier's Journey Home chose Chobanov, his wife, Abbey, and their three children as the 2017 recipients of a new house, built free for the family with donated materials and labor. The house, on 1.3 acres in Spring Grove donated by First Midwest Bank, should be complete by next June - just in time for the family's lease on a house near Abbey's parents in Lisle to expire at the end of the month.
Chobanov, 32, has been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and a traumatic brain injury stemming from his four years in the Army, which took him through two tours of combat duty - one in Afghanistan and one in Iraq. read more here
Iraq war veteran receives gift that evokes memories of fallen comrade and snowboarding buddy The Gazette By: Debbie Kelley November 24, 2016
"For a mom, I can't describe the feeling - it was such a wonderful tribute to my son. He loved snowboarding," she said in a phone interview from her home in upstate New York.
A heart-wrenching story has turned heartwarming, and a local Iraq war veteran says he couldn't be more grateful for everyone who had a hand in the unexpected about-face.
Jason McDonald holds the snowboard Burton made for him to replace the stolen one he had as a tribute to his buddy and comrade Chris Simpson who was killed in Iraq Tuesday, Nov. 22, 2016, at his Colorado Springs home.
(The Gazette, Christian Murdock)
"It feels like a big void has been refilled," said Jason McDonald, a civilian contractor who works at Fort Carson's down-range training area.
McDonald claims he was wrongfully evicted from his Colorado Springs apartment in May, and in the process, his military commendation medals, uniforms, breathing machine and other valuables went missing.
The 36-year-old medically retired Army staff sergeant was deployed five times to Iraq and receives treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury.
read more here
Veteran's service dog kicked off UNT campus because it was 'direct threat' Dallas Morning News Claire Z. Cardona
A veteran and student at the University of North Texas is worried about whether he will be able to continue his education there after his service dog was kicked off campus, KTVT-TV (Channel 11) reported. Tawan Throngkumpola, who served in the Navy for 12 years and survived three IED blasts and three traumatic brain injuries, is pursuing a psychology degree at UNT, the station reported. His service dog stays by his side, reminding him to take his anti-seizure medication and keeping him calm.
Recently, Throngkumpola told KTVT the university sent a letter saying his service dog is no longer welcome on campus or in his dorm because she is "a direct threat to the campus community." The university cited several complaints including that the dog barked, lunged at students and staff and bit the Office of Disability Accommodation director on his hand and heels. Two professors also said the dog startled students and disrupted classes. read more here
A General’s New Mission: Leading a Charge Against PTSD New York Times The Saturday Profile By DIONNE SEARCEY OCT. 7, 2016
“The powerful thing is that I can use myself as an example. And thank goodness not everybody can do that. But I’m able to do it, so that has some sort of different type of credibility to it.” Brig. Gen. Donald C. Bolduc
Brig. Gen. Donald C. Bolduc, commander of American Special
Operations Forces in Africa, tells soldiers that it is all
right to get help for brain injuries and mental health problems.
Credit Andrew Harnik/Associated Press
STUTTGART, Germany — It might have been the 2,000-pound bomb that dropped near him in Afghanistan, killing several comrades. Or maybe it was the helicopter crash he managed to survive. It could have been the battlefield explosions that detonated all around him over eight combat tours.
Whatever the cause, the symptoms were clear. Brig. Gen. Donald C. Bolduc suffered frequent headaches. He was moody. He could not sleep. He was out of sorts; even his balance was off. He realized it every time he walked down the street holding hands with his wife, Sharon, leaning into her just a little too close.
Despite all the signs of post-traumatic stress disorder, it took 12 years from his first battlefield trauma for him to seek care. After all, he thought, he was a Green Beret in the Army’s Special Forces. He needed to be tough.
General Bolduc learned that not only did he suffer from PTSD, but he also had a bullet-size spot on his brain, an injury probably dating to his helicopter crash in Afghanistan in 2005.
Other high-ranking officers have come forward to talk about their struggles with post-combat stress and brain injuries. And in recent years, Special Operations commanders have become more open about urging their soldiers to get treatment. read more here
He is not alone in talking about having PTSD. Other Generals came out as well so that they could actually care for the men and women they commanded.
Brig. General Gary S. Patton and Gen. Carter Ham have both sought counseling for the emotional trauma of their time in the Iraq war.
"There's potential to say the brain damage caused by a concussion alters brain chemistry and increases your risk of developing PTSD, but just seeing a blast like that is enough to make someone depressed, and those feelings can cause further anxiety disorders."
Dr. Greg Passey, a Vancouver-based PTSD expert and military veteran, said brain trauma coupled with exposure to battle events could easily lead to PTSD.
As part of its collaborative effort, the Army is participating in a $60 million research study for TBI, sponsored by the National Football League, General Electric and athletic apparel manufacturer Under Armour, he said.
Also, $700 million has been allocated toward both PTSD and TBI as the result of a White House executive order for a renewed effort in collaboration with the Veterans Affairs Department and other organizations.
Studies of troops who deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan have found that service members who have suffered a concussion or mild traumatic brain injury are far more likely to develop PTSD, a condition that can cause flashbacks, nightmares and severe anxiety for years after a traumatic event.
This part really gets me. Do they really think that the troops and veterans are like animals?
And research on both people and animals suggests the reason is that a brain injury can disrupt circuits that normally dampen the response to a frightening event. The result is like "driving a car and the brake's not fully functioning," says Mingxiong Huang, a biomedical physicist at the University of California, San Diego.
Tennessee family raising money to fly deceased veteran’s body from Springfield to Memphis The Register-Guard
By Elon Glucklich
SEPT. 22, 2016
SPRINGFIELD — A mother in Tennessee hopes the public can help raise money to fly her military veteran son’s body home, after he committed suicide in Springfield last weekend.
Taylor Lee Odom
Pfc. Taylor Lee Odom, 23, hanged himself Saturday, his mother, Jenniffer Palazola-Herrin, said. After being injured during training in the U.S. Army, he was medically retired from the military in July 2015. He moved to Springfield five months ago to study automotive technology at Lane Community College under the GI Bill.
Odom had suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder for four years, Palazola-Herrin said, stemming from a traumatic brain injury he received in a training accident at Fort Carson in Colorado.
In the 2012 accident, Odom was thrown from a Humvee and partly crushed as it rolled on him, local news reports said at the time.
Even as he slowly recovered, Odom suffered from symptoms related to his PTSD, Palazola-Herrin said, speaking from her home in Memphis.
He attempted suicide before, she said, and care was subpar at the Memphis-area Veterans Affairs hospitals where they sought help. read more here
Army: 73 soldiers may have been improperly sent home with TBI, PTSD Federal News Radio
Jared Serbu
September 19, 2016
Of those 394, an internal audit identified 73 cases where there was no evidence that commanders even considered whether PTSD or TBI was a factor in the underlying offense that prompted their discharge.
The Army is reexamining the cases of at least 73 soldiers who it kicked out under other-than-honorable circumstances between 2009 and 2015 because it may have run afoul of a federal law intended to help ensure troops aren’t punished for mental health issues that were actually caused by their military service.
At issue is a provision in the 2010 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that requires all the military branches to consider whether service-connected behavioral health might have played a role in whatever misconduct officials are using as their reasoning for separating a military member.
Any service member who’s served in a combat zone in the previous two years and who’s also been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress or traumatic brain injury is supposed to receive additional scrutiny before commanders discharge him or her for a law or rule violation — particularly since a less-than-honorable discharge makes them ineligible for mental health treatment or any other veterans benefits.
Eric Fanning, the secretary of the Army, formally notified Congress in an Aug. 25 letter that the service had identified a total of 394 soldiers who had PTSD or TBI diagnoses in their medical records, were sent home with less-than-honorable discharges and had deployed to serve in contingency operations sometime in the 24 months before they were kicked out. Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) released the letter late last week. read more here
Shift Focus: Wounded Warrior Finds Healing in Competition DVIDS
WEST POINT, NY, UNITED STATES
Story by Petty Officer 1st Class Patrick Gordon
Naval Mobile Construction Battalion Two Five (NMCB-25)
06.18.2016
The Navy Wounded Warrior (NWW)– Safe Harbor program coordinates the non-medical care of seriously wounded, ill, and injured Sailors and Coast Guardsmen, and provides help resources and support to their families and caregivers. Part of their support is through the adaptive sports program.
Photo By Petty Officer 1st Class Patrick Gordon | WEST POINT, N.Y.
(June 17, 2016) -- Navy veteran Joseph Derbak, a retired Hospital
“I was about 20 feet away from a 7-ton when it hit an IED, and kicked me down off this little hill we were on,” said Derbak.
Derbak suffered a traumatic brain injury (TBI) from the explosion, but wouldn’t let it stop him. Refusing to abandon his team, he continued on, enduring further injury the next day.
“I had a grenade come right over my shoulder and hit a Marine right in front of me and cooked off all of his ammo,” he continued. “It ended up injuring six others on top of it.”
Despite his injuries, Derbak would not – could not – leave his Marines.
“They didn’t have anybody to relieve me out there for me to medevac myself back, so it was kind of a choice I had to make whether to abandon my Marines or stay out there to help them,” Derbak explained. “So, kind of flip a coin and see what happens.”
Derbak’s efforts resulted in saved lives and a decoration for valor, but the effects of the deployment took their toll after his return. He began to lose feeling in both legs as a result of the TBI and was showing symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). While getting treatment for his injuries, a chance encounter would change his life dramatically and provide a new goal for the driven Sailor.
“When I got back I was having some serious problems. One of my buddies working at a clinic was part of Safe Harbor said to me, ‘I know you had a combat injury, let me put you in contact with this person,’ so I went to that person and they in turn registered me for Safe Harbor,” said Derbak. read more here
Why the Navy is making a major change in its approach to PTSD PBS News Hour
June 16, 2016
JUDY WOODRUFF: Now to a major change being made by the U.S. Navy that will affect servicemen suffering from one of the unseen wounds of war.
John Yang has that.
JOHN YANG: The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have killed thousands of American servicemen and maimed and injured tens of thousands more, but some wounds are not as easily seen or identified.
Post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD afflicts as much as one-fifth of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans in any given year. Compounding the affliction, personnel who were kicked out of the military because of erratic behavior caused by PTSD, by traumatic brain injury, called TBI, or by other mental health conditions often lose their benefits, including access to veterans health care.
But that will now change for at least one of the services, navy personnel, sailors and Marines, under a new policy enacted by Navy Secretary Ray Mabus.
RAY MABUS: The policy that we had been operating under was, if somebody committed misconduct, the erratic behavior you were talking about, that took preference over everything else in terms of a discharge.
And so people would get discharged with bad paper, with discharges that didn’t give them any benefits when they left. What we have done with policy that I have just signed was to say, if you’re being administratively discharged for some misconduct, we’re going to take a look to see if you have got a diagnosable condition, to see if you have got PTSD, to see if you have got traumatic brain injury, and then that will factor in, so that you may still be discharged, but you will be discharged with benefits, with help that we’re going to recognize the reason for this erratic behavior and give you help after you leave the military.
And it’s not just for combat injuries, combat wounds. It’s also for things like sexual assault that is often followed by PTSD. read more here
VA admits unqualified personnel administered brain injury exam to thousands of veterans WPXI News
Jun 7, 2016
PITTSBURGH
The U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs has admitted that 24,000 veterans nationwide, including 100 in the Pittsburgh area, were examined by personnel who were unqualified to administer the Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) exam.
“It’s always detrimental if somebody is misdiagnosed with something,” said Dr. Edward Kendjelic, a neuropsychologist with the VA Pittsburgh health care system.
Kendjelic told Channel 11 News that a mild traumatic brain injury will likely go away over time, but said a severe traumatic brain injury can lead to more serious effects with symptoms similar to those of post-traumatic stress disorder.
“For vets returning from Iraq or Afghanistan, traumatic brain injuries or concussions are one of the more common injuries,” he said.
According to VA policy, only four types of designated medical specialists are allowed to diagnose veterans, but that didn’t always happen.
The VA announced plans to offer new TBI exams and to reopen benefits claims for veterans affected. read more here
A Navy SEAL's last act of service: A search for the truth about brain disease and the military The Virginian-Pilot By Corinne Reilly Special to The Virginian-Pilot May 28, 2016
On the afternoon of March 12, 2014, Jennifer Collins checked her phone and found a message from her husband, Dave Collins, a retired Navy SEAL. He’d texted to say that she should pick up their son from kindergarten, and then this: “So sorry baby. I love you all.”
Hours later, two police officers showed up at their house in Virginia Beach with news that Dave, 45, had shot himself in his truck a few miles away. Although Jennifer had held out hope for any other explanation, she also knew the moment she read it what the text meant. For months, she’d watched Dave disintegrate into a man she hardly knew. She’d tried everything, but nothing had alleviated his severe insomnia, intense anxiety and worsening cognitive problems.
“I was so frustrated that I couldn’t find the answers he needed,” she remembers.
It was out of that frustration, she says, that the idea came to donate his brain to research. She was still answering a detective’s questions in her living room that night when she blurted it out: Tell the medical examiner to do whatever is needed to preserve Dave’s brain. She hoped the decision might help others struggling with what everyone believed explained Dave’s afflictions – traumatic brain injury and PTSD, the most common wounds of the post-9/11 wars.
“That’s what he’d been diagnosed with,” Jennifer says. “I had no reason to think there was anything else to find.”
In June, three months after Dave died, a letter came from the doctor who examined his brain. It left Jennifer stunned.
What had caused Dave’s unraveling was chronic traumatic encephalopathy, the degenerative brain disease best known for affecting former professional football players. Associated with repeated head trauma, CTE causes neurological decay, has no known treatment and can be diagnosed only at autopsy. It is linked to memory loss, personality changes, depression, impulsivity, dementia and suicide. read more here
VA Secretary Joins Others in Pledge to Donate their Brains to VA-lead TBI Research Program
April 20, 2016
VA Secretary Joins Others in Pledge to Donate their Brains to VA-lead TBI Research Program
WASHINGTON - Today the Secretary of Veterans Affairs Robert A. McDonald announced that he, along with three-time Olympic gold medalist swimmer Nancy Hogshead-Makar and former NFL player and Super Bowl champion Phil Villapiano, have pledged to donate their brains to advance brain research conducted by VA in partnership with the Concussion Legacy Foundation.
The announcement was made at the VA-hosted Brain Trust: Pathways to InnoVAtion, a public-private partner event which builds on the trailblazing efforts of a number of distinguished VA brain researchers and brings together many of the most influential voices in the field of brain health to identify and advance solutions for mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI), and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).
“As I listened to the very powerful personal stories from Veterans and the challenges the world’s top researchers are working to overcome in TBI, I made a decision: I decided to join the hundreds of Veterans and athletes who have already donated their brain to the VA Brain Bank so that I may, in a small way, contribute to the vital research happening to better understand brain trauma,” said Secretary of Veterans Affairs Robert A. McDonald. “This is a very, very serious issue, one that affects Veterans and non-Veterans alike. We don’t know nearly as much as we should about brain health, but if there’s one thing I’ve seen after visiting almost 300 VA facilities in the past two years: our Veterans, particularly those who served in Iraq and Afghanistan are greatly affected by TBI. VA needs to continue leading the coalition of scientists working to improve their lives.
“Building more and stronger strategic partnerships is one of the five strategies of the MyVA transformation. Today, we witnessed a room full of the world’s leading experts coming together under the convening authority of VA to solve one of our most significant challenges, particularly among our younger Veterans. I’m proud to do my part because I know that the researchers at VA are committed to improving lives and they have my full support.”
“Concussions were ignored for a long time and viewed largely as an invisible injury but chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) is something we can see and something we can understand. It reveals that brain trauma can have long-term and devastating consequences,” said Chris Nowinski, former WWE wrester and co-founder and president of the Concussion Legacy Foundation which leads outreach and recruiting for the VA-BU-CLF Brain Bank. “The Concussion Legacy Foundation is working to create a culture of brain donation in America by asking living athletes and Veterans to donate their brains to the Brain Bank to be researched by VA and Boston University researchers. It’s a perfect partnership because the most common victims of CTE are athletes and Veterans and by researching both as a part of one program, the sports community and Veteran community can work together to solve this problem. We all need to work together to solve the concussion crisis.”
The VA-BU-CLF Brain Bank is directed by VA’s own Dr. Ann McKee and is located at the Bedford VA Medical Center. It is now the largest sports mTBI and CTE repository in the world with over 325 brains donated, and over a thousand more pledged.
“The research on CTE all started with VA; it began with a VA patient who was a well-known boxer and from that first case of CTE, it has morphed into a tremendous research effort involving NIH, DoD and many other organizations,” said Dr. Ann McKee. “This is not a problem we can solve in any one lab. It’s going to take medical researchers and scientists working with business to detect where it first starts – on the battlefield and sports field. We will need health assessments going into the future for many years. That will take innovation and real input from industry to stimulate this research. That’s why we need a collective effort and his group of leaders is so important. I’m proud to be here encouraging us all to work together to better care for America’s Veterans and patients.”
Brain Trust: Pathways to InnoVAtion is a two-day public-private partnership event hosted by VA. As the largest, integrated health care system in the country, VA is using its convening authority to bring together many of the most influential voices in the field of brain health – to include the Department of Defense, the sports industry, private sector, federal government, Veterans and community partners - to identify and advance solutions for mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI), and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).
Issues related to brain health and head trauma transcend the Veteran and military community, impacting all Americans. By highlighting the themes of collaborative research, medical technology, and sports innovation for player safety, Brain Trust participants are discussing the prevention, diagnosis, treatment, rehabilitation and reintegration of Veterans, athletes, and Americans in general - suffering from head trauma related injuries. The event will also serve as a showcase for many of the advancements that VA is pioneering to improve brain health for Veterans, the military and for the American public at large.
In addition to many of the world’s most accomplished brain research scientists, Brain Trust attendees include sports commentator Bob Costas, Gen. Peter Chiarelli (CEO of One Mind, and the former Vice Chief of Staff of the Army), Briana Scurry (former U.S. Women’s Soccer Player), Jeanne Marie Laskas (author of the GQ article that inspired the movie “Concussion”), Terry O’Neil (16-time Emmy award winner), representatives from the NFL Players Association, the NFL, the NCAA, DARPA, DOD, NIH, CDC, and many more.
Veteran stops in Pinellas during record paddleboarding trip FOX 13 News
By: Kellie Cowan
POSTED:APR 16 2016
"That was like the lights finally coming on for the first time in a long time in a dark room and it was a wonderful place," said Collins
CLEARWATER (FOX 13) - After 20 years of Special Forces service, which included tours in Afghanistan, Bosnia and Iraq, Josh Collins is now taking on the biggest mission of his life: a 3,500-mile paddleboard trek that will take him from Corpus Christie, TX to the Statue of Liberty on his paddle board.
It's all in the name of bringing awareness to fellow soldiers who, like him, suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and Traumatic Brain Injury.
Collins says Task Dagger Force, a charity dedicated to helping wounded Special Forces veterans and their families, helped save his life.
He's now hoping his recover story will inspire others suffering from TBI and PTSD as well. read more here
Quaker House vigil to draw attention to mental health care for jailed vets Fay Observer
By Drew Brooks Military editor
April 10, 2016
"Approximately one in 10 prison inmates have served in the military," Newsom said. "Many suffer from PTSD and/or traumatic brain injury, which increases the likelihood of violent, aggressive and impulsive behavior and requires a regular regime of therapy and medication."
Activists looking to improve the mental health care for jailed veterans will host a vigil outside the Airborne and Special Operations Museum on Monday.
The event will start at 5 p.m. at the museum, 100 Bragg Blvd.
It's led by the Fayetteville Quaker House, which has circulated a petition in recent weeks aimed at encouraging state leaders to provide better care for service members and veterans behind bars, including Joshua Eisenhauer, a former Fort Bragg staff sergeant who was sentenced to between 10 and 18 years in prison last year for charges related to a 2012 shooting at his apartment.
Lynn Newsom, a Quaker House director, said Eisenhauer suffers from severe combat related post-traumatic stress.
She said he is held in an open room with 30 other prisoners, allowed to see a social worker only about once every two months.
And the prison, she said, abuts a shooting range, which worsens his trauma. read more here
They are running to fund help for PTSD and TBI, which is a good thing. But yet again, they are using "22" as if that is a real number. Will these folks raising awareness ever get the point that it is much more than 'just a number' to use?
PHOTOS: Shepherd's Men run through Lynchburg The News and Advance
The Shepherd's Men group came through Lynchburg Tuesday, March 28, 2016 as part of a 1,500-mile journey between Boston and Atlanta to raise money for the SHARE Military Initiative, a donor-funded 12-week-program that treats the physical and psychological effects of traumatic brain injury and post traumatic stress disorder. read more here
One hundred percent of the donation goes to the IFHF’s mission of building nine Intrepid Spirit centers around the country that diagnose and treat Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) and psychological health conditions in U.S. service members. Currently, Intrepid Spirit Centers are operational at Fort Belvoir, VA; Camp Lejeune, NC; Fort Campbell, KY; Fort Bragg, NC; and Fort Hood, TX. Each Intrepid Spirit center costs approximately $11 million to construct and equip with the latest in brain technology and treatment facilities and spans 25,000 square feet.
In January 2007 the Fund completed construction of the Center for the Intrepid, a $55 million world-class state-of-the-art physical rehabilitation center at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, Texas. The Center serves military personnel who have been catastrophically disabled in operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, and veterans severely injured in other operations and in the normal performance of their duties. The 60,000 square foot Center provides ample space and facilities for the rehabilitation needs of the patients and their caregivers. It includes modern physical rehabilitation equipment and extensive indoor and outdoor facilities.
What's missing? The majority of the veterans in this country, Pre-2001, who fought the wars and carried the scars the same as the newer veterans.
