Kerry, veterans blast current state of care

Kerry, veterans blast current state of care
By Jack Dew, Berkshire Eagle Staff
Article Last Updated: 10/27/2007 07:47:22 AM EDT
Saturday, October 27

PITTSFIELD — About 50 veterans — most of them formerly homeless, many of them recovering addicts — sat on folding chairs in a common room of the United Veterans of America facility on West Housatonic Street, waiting for a chance to tell U.S. Sen. John F. Kerry what they need and are not getting from their government.

In a dark blue suit and pastel tie and ringed by TV cameras and reporters, Kerry looked little like his fellow veterans. He told them that the fight for benefits and proper care of the men and women returning from war is a battle that has been waged since the end of Vietnam. There have been some victories, he said, and some defeats.

"Supporting the troops is not just supporting them when they are in another country and they are in harm's way. Supporting the troops means keeping faith with people who wore the uniform when they come home," Kerry said. "That means we have got to make these lessons we have learned mean something.
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http://www.berkshireeagle.com/headlines/ci_7296449

Military Suicides: A Treatment Issue

Suicides: A Treatment Issue
By LISA CHEDEKEL Courant Staff Writer
October 3, 2007
In recent months, the military has scrambled to hire additional mental health workers to treat troubled troops, hoping to allay concerns raised by a Pentagon task force and soldiers' advocates about inadequate access to care.But a new Army report suggests that the quality of care, as much as the quantity of providers, may be a factor in the rising incidence of suicides among active-duty service members.A recently released, first-ever analysis of Army suicides shows that more than half the 948 soldiers who attempted suicide in 2006 had been seen by mental health providers before the attempt - 36 percent within just 30 days of the event. Of those who committed suicide in 2006, a third had an outpatient mental health visit within three months of killing themselves, and 42 percent had been seen at a military medical facility within three months.

Among soldiers who were deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan when they attempted suicide in 2005 and 2006, a full 60 percent had been seen by outpatient mental health workers before the attempts. Forty-three percent of the deployed troops who attempted suicide had been prescribed psychotropic medications, the report shows.

The report offers no details on the type or duration of mental health care that troops received before they tried to kill themselves. But it is prompting calls from some soldiers' advocates for better training of medical and behavioral health specialists in recognizing and treating service members in distress."It's the patient care, the quality of care, that's the issue," said Andrew Pogany, an investigator for the advocacy group Veterans for America. "A lot of the soldiers I talk to, they say [the military] doesn't provide anything except for group therapy and meds. Some places, you can't even get near a psychiatrist.
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Group threapy does not work for all. In some cases, it makes PTSD worse. It's a bad practice to force them into group before they are ready. Are they still using badaid?

Keith Roberts sits in jail for seeking the VA's help

8/15/2007
Jailed Wis Vet Files Reply Brief, Calls DoJ Prosecution Unconstitutional
Madison, Wisconsin—A Vietnam-era veteran filed his reply brief Monday in his benefits-turned-criminal case before the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.

Keith Roberts, an honorably discharged Navy veteran (1969-71) from Gillett, Wisconsin, filed his brief arguing that “his constitutional rights were violated in this case, and that he was unjustly convicted and sentenced.”

Since March of this year, Roberts, a veteran with no criminal record, has been serving a 48-month sentence (and his family financially hit with associated costs of some $300,000) for federal wire fraud purportedly committed in his benefits application process with the VA, in a criminal-charges/VA benefits case now simultaneously before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit and the Court of Appeals for Veteran Claims (CAVC), where Roberts is pursing his benefits claim.

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Why hasn't congress gotten involved in this? With all the problems the veterans have trying to get treated for their wounds, you would think they would care about one of them sitting in jail because he was forced to fight for what his service to the country did to him!

Returning veterans ending up on streets

Returning veterans ending up on streets
Many Iraq, Afghanistan GIs already homeless, suffering
mcclatchy newspapers
Tucson, Arizona | Published: 08.13.2007

ORLANDO, Fla. — Often, when Ryan Svolto manages to sleep, he finds himself back in Iraq, preparing for triage, awash in blood and bodies. But he can't find his medical kit, and, helpless, he thrashes awake, damp with sweat.

As an infantry medic, he patched up soldiers wounded in combat in Iraq. Now, Svolto, 24, is trying to fix his own wounded life after a recent stint at a Daytona Beach, Fla., homeless shelter.

Svolto is one of a growing number of Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans who joined the ranks of the homeless after returning home. Experts say a system already buckling under one of the nation's largest homeless populations might collapse under the weight of a new wave of veterans, many saddled with mental-health issues and crippling brain injuries.

For Svolto, it's yet another battle — one he believes he won't be fighting alone.
"That's the scary part, when they get out of the Army and realize they're not who they used to be," he said. "It seems easier to disappear in the woods and live that way. A lot of these kids aren't going to be prepared. I wasn't prepared."

Nearly half of all homeless veterans served in Vietnam. Hamstrung by a lack of job skills, drug addictions and psychological issues, they became homeless 12 to 15 years after discharge.

But veterans of the latest war are hitting the streets much sooner.

Vets center healing invisible wounds from different wars

East Valley Tribune
August 10, 2007
New Mesa Vets center healing invisible wounds
Mary K. Reinhart, Tribune

For Mike Saye and Daryl Cox, it was the Iraq War that unearthed the horrors of combat. The Vietnam veterans struggled for nearly 30 years with symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, but never sought help until young Americans started fighting, and dying, in the Middle East.

They were gathered Thursday at a new Veterans Readjustment Center near Fiesta Mall in Mesa, getting help for their own demons and hoping to give younger veterans the benefit of their experience.

“It triggered everything in me. I started dreaming about it again,” Saye, of Mesa, said of the Iraq War.

“I was a candidate for PTSD for years and years, but I thought I could handle it,” he said, even as he struggled through four marriages and some 30 jobs.

“But I can’t, and they can’t either. I don’t want them to wait as long as I did to get help.”

Though a trickle of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans are finding their way to the new center, team leader Patrick Ryan knows many more are out there.

“We’re certainly trying to do outreach, but we’d like to see more of them,” Ryan said. “The stigma is not what it used to be, but it’s still there.”

New PTSD blog

Wounded Times Blog There are so many reports coming out on Post Traumatic Stress from all over the world, so I decided to put up a blog just for them.

If you want to read the reports about the occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq, veterans and the way they are treated along with other military news, Nam Guardian Angel blog spot is still up and I will be posting there as well. This is strictly for PTSD. It will not be only from military causes, but I tend to focus more on that.

As I go along I will move some of the posts from the other blog. There are over seven thousand post to go through so that will take a lot of time.




Kathie Costos DiCesare