Caregivers emphasize: No stigma in getting post-combat stress help
By Erik Slavin, Stars and Stripes
Pacific edition, Tuesday, October 30, 2007
CAMP CASEY, South Korea — A perception that seeking help for post-combat stress could harm a servicemember’s career is preventing many from dealing with problems that could balloon into greater ones.
But care providers throughout the Pacific say that seeking treatment alone will not jeopardize a security clearance — and therefore military jobs.
Most say they can keep treatment confidential and out of service records, with exceptions possible when serious harm to self or others is involved.
Capt. Christopher Perry, Area I support psychiatrist at Camp Casey, South Korea, has managed medications and conducted psychotherapy for several hundred returning vets.
Senior NCOs and junior officers do perceive a stigma with getting treatment, he said. But that stigma doesn’t exist, Perry said: “You don’t lose your clearance because of seeking help [for combat-related stress].”
go here for the rest
http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=49875
Monday, October 29, 2007
Iraqi war veteran heals trauma through pastels at UMSL
Iraqi war veteran heals trauma through pastels at UMSL
By Aisha Sultan
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
10/29/2007
NORMANDY — Randy Johnson remembers standing at the edge of a bridge waiting for a train to pass so he could jump and kill himself. Johnson, 23, waited for hours, but no train came by.The next day, the former Iraq war veteran checked himself into a Veterans Affairs hospital in Sheridan, Wyo. During his four-month stay earlier this year at the facility, he learned that he was suffering from post traumatic stress disorder."I thought I was stronger than that," Johnson said. "I thought I could handle it."
click post title for the rest
By Aisha Sultan
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
10/29/2007
NORMANDY — Randy Johnson remembers standing at the edge of a bridge waiting for a train to pass so he could jump and kill himself. Johnson, 23, waited for hours, but no train came by.The next day, the former Iraq war veteran checked himself into a Veterans Affairs hospital in Sheridan, Wyo. During his four-month stay earlier this year at the facility, he learned that he was suffering from post traumatic stress disorder."I thought I was stronger than that," Johnson said. "I thought I could handle it."
click post title for the rest
Sunday, October 28, 2007
Canadian soldiers suffering mental-health problems after Afghanistan
It's not clear how many serving members are being treated for mental-health issues, but an official with Veterans Affairs said that since the Afghan mission began five years ago, the number of clients receiving care for PTSD at the department's clinics has risen to 6,500 from 1,800.
Cdn soldiers suffering mental-health problems after Afghanistan
By Alison Auld, THE CANADIAN PRESS
HALIFAX - Hundreds of Canadian soldiers returning from Afghanistan are suffering from a range of mental-health problems linked to their deployment, according to new data.
But even with this latest information, the military admits it still has little understanding of how many troops might be affected by the rigours of war and operational stress over the long haul.
About 28 per cent of the 2,700 Canadian Forces soldiers who were screened after serving in the war-torn country were found to have symptoms of one or more mental-health problems, including depression, panic disorders and suicidal tendencies.
go here for the rest
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Canada/2007/10/28/4612584-cp.html
Linked from
Memories of lost friends follow soldier through therapy
Memories of lost friends follow soldier through therapy
By Erik Slavin, Stars and Stripes
Pacific edition, Monday, October 29, 2007
CAMP CASEY, South Korea — “John” didn’t really notice how much he had changed until five months after he watched his first friend die in Iraq.
On Dec. 26, 2005, John and others in the 5th Engineer Battalion were looking for roadside bombs near Baghdad when a rocket-propelled grenade caromed off a Humvee turret and ended Sgt. Dominic Coles’ life.
“I didn’t even know how to react to what I saw,” John said. “But I knew what to do. I stood up on the gun.”
John still sees Coles in his dreams. Sometimes he looks as healthy as when they played spades together in their barracks.
Other times, Coles and two other dead friends look as they did when they died; sometimes they slowly disintegrate in front of him. One dream was so bad John pushed himself off his bed and cracked his ribs on a chair.
The nightmares began in Iraq, before he arrived home in May 2006 for his mid-tour leave. At the airport, most welcomed him and other troops home. But one man began shouting at the servicemembers, calling them baby-killers.
“That didn’t make me feel too happy,” John said during a recent interview at Camp Casey.
go here for the rest
http://www.estripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=49858
Before you go to the link to read the rest, I still have no clue what gets into people when they say things like "baby killers" as if those things don't happen in combat. In Iraq, babies get killed, kids get killed, so do mothers and fathers and grandparents. Innocent people die. They end up in the wrong place at the wrong time. In Iraq, it is the civil war causing more innocents to die that even the contractors. It is not as if the troops target innocent people. One the rare times when it does happen, they go on trial. Pig headed people call them "baby killers" just like pig headed people join Westborough Baptist Church and protest at the funerals of the fallen. Taking out anything against the troops does not make sense at all. They are not the ones making the choices. Bush is. The generals are. The congress is.
By Erik Slavin, Stars and Stripes
Pacific edition, Monday, October 29, 2007
CAMP CASEY, South Korea — “John” didn’t really notice how much he had changed until five months after he watched his first friend die in Iraq.
On Dec. 26, 2005, John and others in the 5th Engineer Battalion were looking for roadside bombs near Baghdad when a rocket-propelled grenade caromed off a Humvee turret and ended Sgt. Dominic Coles’ life.
“I didn’t even know how to react to what I saw,” John said. “But I knew what to do. I stood up on the gun.”
John still sees Coles in his dreams. Sometimes he looks as healthy as when they played spades together in their barracks.
Other times, Coles and two other dead friends look as they did when they died; sometimes they slowly disintegrate in front of him. One dream was so bad John pushed himself off his bed and cracked his ribs on a chair.
The nightmares began in Iraq, before he arrived home in May 2006 for his mid-tour leave. At the airport, most welcomed him and other troops home. But one man began shouting at the servicemembers, calling them baby-killers.
“That didn’t make me feel too happy,” John said during a recent interview at Camp Casey.
go here for the rest
http://www.estripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=49858
Before you go to the link to read the rest, I still have no clue what gets into people when they say things like "baby killers" as if those things don't happen in combat. In Iraq, babies get killed, kids get killed, so do mothers and fathers and grandparents. Innocent people die. They end up in the wrong place at the wrong time. In Iraq, it is the civil war causing more innocents to die that even the contractors. It is not as if the troops target innocent people. One the rare times when it does happen, they go on trial. Pig headed people call them "baby killers" just like pig headed people join Westborough Baptist Church and protest at the funerals of the fallen. Taking out anything against the troops does not make sense at all. They are not the ones making the choices. Bush is. The generals are. The congress is.
N.J. center to aid assaulted female vets
N.J. center to aid assaulted female vets
NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. (UPI) -- A Veterans Administration treatment center is set to open in Bernards Township, N.J., to help female veterans who have been sexually assaulted.
The Newark (N.J.) Star-Ledger said Sunday that with the number of assault and harassment cases involving female soldiers increasing dramatically, the new center will provide treatment to those suffering from a condition known as military sexual trauma.
The healthcare facility, which opens its doors in December, will be the first residential VA center that focuses on the increasingly prevalent condition.
The center was created following the findings of an ongoing VA screening process that found 20 percent of female soldiers leaving the military encountered a form of sexual trauma during their service, the report said.
go here for the rest
NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. (UPI) -- A Veterans Administration treatment center is set to open in Bernards Township, N.J., to help female veterans who have been sexually assaulted.
The Newark (N.J.) Star-Ledger said Sunday that with the number of assault and harassment cases involving female soldiers increasing dramatically, the new center will provide treatment to those suffering from a condition known as military sexual trauma.
The healthcare facility, which opens its doors in December, will be the first residential VA center that focuses on the increasingly prevalent condition.
The center was created following the findings of an ongoing VA screening process that found 20 percent of female soldiers leaving the military encountered a form of sexual trauma during their service, the report said.
go here for the rest
From Africa to America with trauma and after
Double Life: The Public Face and Private Pain of Torture Victims in Minnesota
by: Abdi Aynte
Sat Oct 27, 2007 at 5:44:46 PM
Like many other torture victims, Iftu has a dual identity: In public, she's a happy and hard-working immigrant whose gregarious outlook doesn't give a hint of the horrors she suffered in her native Ethiopia. In private, she's a rape victim and a patient at a local psychological treatment center.
"It's getting harder and harder to keep up with my two identities," said Iftu, who didn't want to give her last name.
She's one of an estimated half million torture victims in the United States. Minnesota has an estimated 30,000. That number is too high for the state because of higher immigration rate per capita, said Rosa Garcia-Peltoniemi, a senior consulting clinician with The Center for Victims of Torture, or CVT. The Minneapolis-based center is a national leader in the field.
Speaking at an immigrant roundtable Friday, Garcia-Peltoniemi said "the stigma associated with torture is a barrier to treatment," but is common.
click above for the rest
by: Abdi Aynte
Sat Oct 27, 2007 at 5:44:46 PM
Like many other torture victims, Iftu has a dual identity: In public, she's a happy and hard-working immigrant whose gregarious outlook doesn't give a hint of the horrors she suffered in her native Ethiopia. In private, she's a rape victim and a patient at a local psychological treatment center.
"It's getting harder and harder to keep up with my two identities," said Iftu, who didn't want to give her last name.
She's one of an estimated half million torture victims in the United States. Minnesota has an estimated 30,000. That number is too high for the state because of higher immigration rate per capita, said Rosa Garcia-Peltoniemi, a senior consulting clinician with The Center for Victims of Torture, or CVT. The Minneapolis-based center is a national leader in the field.
Speaking at an immigrant roundtable Friday, Garcia-Peltoniemi said "the stigma associated with torture is a barrier to treatment," but is common.
click above for the rest
Back from Iraq:Mental scars of war still fresh 2 years later
"Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is no longer a rare diagnosis for combat veterans, but it is almost never discussed publicly. Why is that? Amputees are commonly seen in the media, as are family members and friends of soldiers who have died. It is hard to imagine that mental scars can be as difficult to deal with as physical ones, but they can be. The biggest difference between the two is that physical injuries are more noticeable, often even obvious. PTSD leaves no marks, nothing that signifies trauma to the naked eye."
Guest Columnist: Mental scars of war still fresh 2 years later
Two incidents with IEDs while vet was in Iraq, have taken a toll on her life, her dreams and her psyche.
Elizabeth Ricci
Last update: October 27, 2007 – 4:19 PM
When people talk about the war in Iraq, discussion almost always focuses on topics related to the physical survival of soldiers. As a veteran of this war, I believe more attention needs to be paid to the mental scars soldiers are suffering.
Homemade bombs called IEDs -- improvised explosive devices -- are what have claimed the most lives in Iraq, by far. These devices can range in force from causing mild annoyance to instantaneous death. Early in my deployment, I had my first of several personal encounters with an IED.
go here for the rest
http://www.startribune.com/10240/story/1501645.html
There is more outrage among veterans right now on the web over the speeches people can give in the flag folding ceremony at a military funeral. You would think there would be more outrage over the veterans like Ricci, but there isn't. They come home as they have done from all other wars, carrying the combat with them and the horrors they see. What causes the outrage? A flag folding ceremony for the fallen.
Yesterday I attended one of the protest marches across the country. It was raining in Orlando but still they came to voice their outrage over Bush's delusion in Iraq. No one protested being in Afghanistan, which has all but been forgotten. Swarms of peace marchers walked in front of a small group of pro-war people. Sitting across the street so that I could get a good film of it, as I waited for them to come, it stuck me that both groups were taking a stand for the same reason. Both groups care deeply about the soldiers in Iraq but they cannot come together on the right way to support them.
How can they? Those who have researched how and why the troops ended up in Iraq blame Bush for what he is doing to the military and the people of Iraq. The other side sees it as their duty to support Bush because he is the Commander-in-Chief. They feel it is a betrayal to the men and women in Iraq to go against Bush. Their commonality is the passion they feel for those serving. Both groups feel outrage. Where is the outrage for the wounded coming back? Bush and those who support him have turned those who support just the troops and not him, into the enemy of pro-war groups. Why can't they see that no one is protesting the action taken in Afghanistan?
Still, as I read what outrages people, when apathy does not have them focusing on trivial nonsense, I can't help but wonder who is behind all of this. The bloggers go nuts when someone on the other side says something they can sharpen their teeth on. I'm guilty of that too. Yet I also sharpen my teeth when I see more outrage over trivial than I do over what matters in the lives of the men and women coming back from what we fight over. I care deeply about how they were sent into Iraq and how no one in Washington has done their job while expecting the military to pull off all of it, but I care more about the state of their lives when they come home to live with what they survived.
Go and read the rest of what Ricci wrote and then ask yourself why you can't be so moved as you were yesterday across the country for the sake of the wounded. They need all of us to help them today, not when the occupation is over. The sooner the better, but until it is over, we will have more wounded needing help today. Can't both groups at least come together on this for them?
Kathie Costos
www.Namguardianangel.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
Saturday, October 27, 2007
PTSD no one sees it coming, till it's here
Spouse Calls: PTSD spouses should seek support
Shortly after my husband and I were married, he was deployed for his third tour of Iraq. We had been together going on ten years and had seen two tours, so I didn't expect this to be much different...Stars and Stripes - http://www.stripes.com/
This is one example out of hundreds of thousands. No one ever sees it coming, unless they know what they are looking for, but you never really know for sure if it will show up now, or years later. It comes when it comes. They know it, they feel it and they try to deal with it, hiding it from everyone. At least they think they are hiding it. If they come into contact with people who know what PTSD, great, the signs are noticed and help is a hand away. Yet if they don't know what it is, you just don't see what the changes mean.
Friday, October 26, 2007
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.
go here for the rest
http://www.berkshireeagle.com/headlines/ci_7296449
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.
go here for the rest
http://www.berkshireeagle.com/headlines/ci_7296449
VA needs to treat PTSD with what works
VA agrees with study that some PTSD studies are bias
October 27th, 2007
by Richard Brassaw
A recent Institute of Medicine (IOM) exposed much of the studies for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) as self-serving and biased. The report concluded that exposure-based therapy and cognitive processing therapy were the only proven treatments that were effective for PTSD. The report also concluded that pharmacotherapy requires additional research to prove its effectiveness.
The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) agrees with the IOM findings that exposure-based therapies are effective treatments for PTSD. Prolonged exposure therapy utilizes techniques to promote confrontation with feared objects, situations, memories, and images. It involves use of psycho-education, breathing retraining, prolonged exposure to the memory of the trauma through imaginary reliving, and repeated exposure to safe situations being avoided because of traumatic fear.
click above for the rest
It's time to get this right! I can fight until I'm blue in the face to get them to go for help, but if the help is not working, if it is not the best and if it is not working, then what good will it do? What's the point of still doing what does not work?
If my husband received help when he came back from Vietnam, if he knew what it was in 1971, then all indications are he would have recovered and not turned chronic. Back then there was ignorance as the excuse of the military and of the veterans dealing with PTSD. It was the excuse of the family to not see the signs and expect them to just get over it. We no longer have that excuse. We haven't had that excuse since the 90's! With so many Vietnam veterans coming back from their tours and experience of research providing in detail what PTSD is, it is a disgrace this nation never mobilized to address it. I still can't figure out why they are still emailing me wondering what PTSD is after all these years.
The exposure this has been given by the media is wonderful and things will happen, but what took them so long to put the spotlight on this so that the government was forced to address it?
October 27th, 2007
by Richard Brassaw
A recent Institute of Medicine (IOM) exposed much of the studies for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) as self-serving and biased. The report concluded that exposure-based therapy and cognitive processing therapy were the only proven treatments that were effective for PTSD. The report also concluded that pharmacotherapy requires additional research to prove its effectiveness.
The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) agrees with the IOM findings that exposure-based therapies are effective treatments for PTSD. Prolonged exposure therapy utilizes techniques to promote confrontation with feared objects, situations, memories, and images. It involves use of psycho-education, breathing retraining, prolonged exposure to the memory of the trauma through imaginary reliving, and repeated exposure to safe situations being avoided because of traumatic fear.
click above for the rest
It's time to get this right! I can fight until I'm blue in the face to get them to go for help, but if the help is not working, if it is not the best and if it is not working, then what good will it do? What's the point of still doing what does not work?
If my husband received help when he came back from Vietnam, if he knew what it was in 1971, then all indications are he would have recovered and not turned chronic. Back then there was ignorance as the excuse of the military and of the veterans dealing with PTSD. It was the excuse of the family to not see the signs and expect them to just get over it. We no longer have that excuse. We haven't had that excuse since the 90's! With so many Vietnam veterans coming back from their tours and experience of research providing in detail what PTSD is, it is a disgrace this nation never mobilized to address it. I still can't figure out why they are still emailing me wondering what PTSD is after all these years.
The exposure this has been given by the media is wonderful and things will happen, but what took them so long to put the spotlight on this so that the government was forced to address it?
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