Female Veterans Get Rejuvenated in Nebraska

Female vets in Nebraska paint to relieve stress
ABC News Nebraska
by Rasheeda Kabba
March 24th 2017

Female military veterans in Grand Island have started a fun stress relief group called, Rejuvenate.

The group started back in January and meets every other week for stress relief activities. On Thursday, they met to do some finger painting, and they were painting more than just red, white and blue.

They say activities like this allow for some much needed "me time."

The group Rejuvenate has participated in activities like getting facials, yoga, and acupuncture therapy.

Though the events usually revolve around stress relief, Jennifer Kerkland, a Navy vet, says the group has allowed her to connect with other female vets who have served. She says it’s given her some time to herself.
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Air Force Staff Sgt. Died in Jordan Loading Bomb

UPDATE

Airmen mourn 'mom of the flight line' killed in noncombat incident in Jordan

Air Force announces non-combat death of staff sergeant in Jordan
UPI
By Ed Adamczyk
March 24, 2017

March 24 (UPI) -- The Department of Defense announced the death of Air Force Staff Sgt. Alexandria Mae Gleason Morrow, who died in a non-combat role earlier this week.

Gleason-Morrow, 25, died Wednesday while performing maintenance duties in Jordan in support of combat operations, a Defense Department statement said. The incident is under investigation.

She was a resident of Dansville, N.Y., serving in the Middle East with the 366th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron of Mountain Home Air Base in Idaho. Her mother told WHEC-TV, Rochester, that she died while loading a bomb onto an airplane.
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PTSD Veteran's Suicide Shows Love is Just Not Enough

Love is Just Not Enough
Combat PTSD Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
March 25, 2017

There is not much doubt that Benjamin Kelley loved fellow veterans. He dedicated his life toward helping them with everything he had and that is part of the problem. Wanting to help out of love is just the beginning. Knowing how to do it and being prepared for what it can do to you is vital. Not knowing can turn deadly for you and for those you seek to help.

Local benefit for veterans with PTSD goes on, despite organizer taking own life
FOX 4 News
BY DAVE D'MARKO
MARCH 24, 2017

“We may not be able help everybody but the ones we help that's 100 percent for me, I’m just sad I couldn’t help my best friend," Gunn said.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- A benefit Friday night to help veterans in their fight against PTSD and depression was missing its organizer. Benjamin Kelley, 40, died by suicide March 1.

“This boot here belongs to my best friend Benjamin Kelly,” Damien Gunn said on stage at a packed No. 9 Saloon.

For the past two years Ben Kelley has taken the boot he wore while serving in the U.S. Navy and passed it around to collect money for AmVets and the Foundation for Exceptional Warriors. F.E.W. is an organization helping veterans deal with post traumatic stress disorder and depression.

“We believe the most dangerous place for a warrior right now isn’t down range in Afghanistan or Iraq or anywhere else they might be fighting in the world. It’s at home sitting on their sofa," F.E.W. Board Member Chris Wolfenbarger said.
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I wish I could say that this story is not being repeated all over the country, but wishing does not make it true. After almost 35 years, I can tell you first hand that this work comes with a price to be paid and if you are not prepared for it, it can, and all too often does, shatter your own life.

I did not get into this work for noble reasons. I did so selfishly. When I met my husband, I heard the term "shell shock" from my Dad (a Korean War Veteran) and needed to know what I was getting into before the depth of love I felt grew beyond the walking away point. I already adored him when I went to the library, pulled clinical books and a dictionary to understand the words I was reading.

That was when I learned it was called Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. It turned out that researchers had been studying Vietnam veterans for about a decade. My lack of knowledge on that point did not make the research less real just because I didn't know it was occurring.

After about two years of first hand experience, my own research grabbing everything I could get my hands on, I knew enough to write about it and marry it. I knew enough about PTSD and my veteran to know he was worth doing whatever I could to make his life better. I didn't think it could happen, but the more I learned about PTSD, the deeper in love I felt.

There was a time in the beginning when I thought that love would be enough to help him see what I saw in him. That reality hit me in the head like a sledgehammer. Love can make their lives less lonely but it does not help them heal. 

What is behind you is not as strong as who is beside you!

With all that comes with PTSD, you cannot fight it with just love. You have to do it with open eyes to know what you are getting into and above all else, you have to do with with the knowledge gained by dedicating your life to it with everything you've got. Working with veterans and PTSD must not be limited by what you feel like learning but must be about learning all you can.

When I read about the number being quoted by folks trying to help, I cringe. I know I slam them way too often but there are reasons for that. What you read or watch on a Facebook post may make you aware that veterans are killing themselves, but you do not know the reasons. You certainly don't learn what to do with change the outcome by accepting a headline of a report that had 59 pages of facts, figures, charts and information on it including the fact that the number of "22" came from reports from just 21 states. 

While there is little doubt that folks trying to help do it out of love, there is also little doubt if they quote that number, they do it without knowledge. They settled on what they learned from others basing their own efforts on a headline instead of becoming educated on how to change someone's life at the same time being prepared to help themselves be able to do it when their own heart is being ripped out on a daily basis.

When you are the one others turn to, you pay a price. You have to swallow your own ego and be willing to lead by example. Ask for help when you need it and know who to go to in order to fight for others. How can you expect someone to believe you when you say they should ask for help when you won't?

I used to think that God had an endless supply of matches because whenever I got burnt out, He'd ignite the fire in my soul all over again. It has happened so many times that I am sure he switched to a Bic Lighter and is flicking it all day long. 

This is vital work but it is also heartbreaking, especially reading stories like this one. It didn't have to turn out this way but if you are doing this work, you have to do it with the right training and arm yourself with everything you can learn. 

It is not glamorous. It has to be anonymous. It is driven by ego and you can't talk about what you do or who you do it with in pubic. It has to be up to them to talk about it, share it and pass it on or keep their experience private. You have to know who to send them to as much as you need to know why they need to go. 

You have to know what else to suggest when you can't talk them into going to the VA to take some of the stress out of their lives and at least help them to rediscover something to hope for so they can discover they are able to fight to help. In other words, you have to have many backup plans.

I am begging you! If you want to really help then you have to know that love is just not enough to change the story of their lives. It is not enough to stand by their side if you don't know how to help them out of the darkness or both of you will become lost instead of finding your way toward healing and defeating PTSD.

Alternative Facts Leave Veterans Killing Themselves Without Counting

It is bad enough veterans can't count on being helped to heal but when they don't matter enough to actually read the reports about them, we have reduced "Grateful Nation" down to a slogan we don't live up to.

This is what it was from 2013 to 2015

In the first quarter of 2016, the military services reported the following:
 58 deaths by suicide in the Active Component
 18 deaths by suicide in the Reserves
 34 deaths by suicide in the National Guard

In the second quarter of 2016, the military services reported the following:
 57 deaths by suicide in the Active Component
 23 deaths by suicide in the Reserves
 23 deaths by suicide in the National Guard

In the third quarter of 2016, the military services reported the following:
• 82 deaths by suicide in the Active Component
• 18 deaths by suicide in the Reserves
• 27 deaths by suicide in the National Guard

Take a look at what it was in 2012 compared to 2016 

Then try to figure out when someone on Facebook raising awareness mentioned one word about this? They do a lot of posting about how they are raising awareness but the truth is far from what they say it is.

Those numbers were members of the Armed Forces and did not make it into the Veteran status. You know, the group everyone is talking about. The one where they leave out the facts. Leave out that majority of the veterans committing suicide are over the age of 50. Leave out the fact that it is the same number of released data as it was back in 1999.

My question is, if you support these groups dropping down to do some pushups, what do you think veterans getting out of it?

Answer, they are still getting out of their lives and ending up in a casket.

If you still spread the rumors, then does that make you a liar or you are just using alternative facts?

If the facts are not important enough to learn then how can you expect anyone to think that any of this really matters to you at all?

Veteran Finds Healing PTSD or “moral injuries”, injuries to one’s conscience

Veterans find solace in Israel experience through Heroes to Heroes Foundation 
The Daily Wildcat Arizona 
Rocky Baier 
March 24, 2017

In an effort to spread the word and help other veterans, two soldiers spoke to students at the Hillel Center and the Jewish Medical Student Association about their experiences with post-traumatic stress disorder, a spiritual visit to Israel and the Heroes to Heroes Foundation on March 21.

Heroes to Heroes is a non-profit organization that strives to provide support for veterans suffering from PTSD or “moral injuries”, injuries to one’s conscience. In order to do this, they send veterans of any religion to Israel to visit holy sites for spiritual therapy, and to meet both American and Israeli veterans from the Israeli Defense Force.

Sergio Lopez, one of the veterans who spoke, served as a U.S. Army staff sergeant with the 104 Airborne division from 2003-2010 in Operation Iraqi Freedom. He was injured by an improvised explosive device that exploded underneath the vehicle in which he was riding. From his traumatic experiences during deployment and his injury, he developed PTSD.

According to evidence collected by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, traumatic experiences can lead to diminished faith in religious individuals.

read more here

If Veterans Committing Suicide Really Matter, Then Why Don't the Facts?

What good does it do to act as if something matters, then prove it doesn't matter enough to learn about it before opening your mouth? It is one thing to make a mistake. It is another to portray yourself as being on a mission to create some kind of change, when you didn't even show you care enough to read the rest of the report you are quoting.

An Op Ed on Miami Herald had my head exploding this morning. "Respect America’s volunteer military" by Delbert Spurlock is actually part of the problem.

"No Americans have sacrificed more on the altar of our current undeclared wars than veterans and their families. Their suicide rate is now 20 a day, haunting testimony to their betrayal by our Congress and citizens who send them to war without a declaration that joins all Americans in the commitment to sacrifice for its success." Delbert Spurlock

He should know better and that is the other part of the problem.

GENERAL COUNSEL OF THE U.S. ARMY, FROM 1981-82; ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF THE ARMY, MANPOWER AND RESERVE AFFAIRS FROM 1983-88; AND U.S. DEPUTY SECRETARY OF LABOR FROM 1991-93.

Given the fact that he has the credentials to be trusted, how many trust what he said about OEF and OIF veterans? How many trusted his numbers? Probably almost everyone who read it. Then even more receiving the information passed on via Social Media. So, how many do you think believe that is all there is to know?

Nothing really knew when folks seem fine with pushups, taking walks and pulling other stunts to raise awareness about what really didn't matter to them after all.

Here is the truth that he should have passed on.

Department Veterans Affairs Suicide Report 2012, the one with the quoted "22 a day"

To date, data from twenty-one (21) states have been cleaned and entered into a single integrated file...on page 12

Further, this report contains information from the first 21 states to contribute data for this project and does not include some states, such as California and Texas, with larger Veteran populations. Information from these states has been received and will be included in future reports... on page 15

By page 18 you find this,

The numbers have not changed after over a decade of "awareness" being pushed. Are you waking up yet? Are you angry yet? Good because your friends passing on all the bullshit are part of the problem as well.

These charts are from page 20.

And on page 22, there is this

Specifically, more than 69% of all Veteran suicides were among those aged 50 years and older...

Most states have veterans committing suicide double the civilian rate. Here in Florida, it is triple. California does not track them. Illinois does not track them. So where did these numbers really come from and oh, by the way, it looks like Spurlock forgot about current military at an average of one per day. Their numbers went up too.

By 2016, this story did not change

THE REPORT CONCLUDES: Approximately 65 percent of all Veterans who died from suicide in 2014 were 50 years of age or older. Veterans accounted for 18 percent of all deaths from suicide among U.S. adults. This is a decrease from 22 percent in 2010. Since 2001, U.S. adult civilian suicides increased 23 percent, while Veteran suicides increased 32 percent in the same time period. After controlling for age and gender, this makes the risk of suicide 21 percent greater for Veterans. Since 2001, the rate of suicide among U.S. Veterans who use VA services increased by 8.8 percent, while the rate of suicide among Veterans who do not use VA services increased by 38.6 percent. In the same time period, the rate of suicide among male Veterans who use VA services increased 11 percent, while the rate of suicide increased 35 percent among male Veterans who do not use VA services. In the same time period, the rate of suicide among female Veterans who use VA services increased 4.6 percent while the rate of suicide increased 98 percent among female Veterans who do not use VA services.

Are you disgusted yet? Then get busy and start telling the truth. Lord knows nothing will change until we actually prove that the topic of veterans surviving combat but unable to survive in their "golden years" matters enough TO ACTUALLY READ THE REPORT!!!!

Arkansas Suicide Prevention Hotline Passes House

Bill Instating Arkansas Suicide Prevention Hotline Passes House
Arkansas Matters
By: Jessi Turnure
Posted: Mar 21, 2017

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. - Right now... if you call the National Suicide Prevention hotline, you have no chance of speaking with someone in Arkansas.

We're one of two states without an in-state call center. A bill to change that passed in the House Tuesday afternoon.

The legislation calls on the Health Department to run a 24-hour call center that answers Arkansans' calls to the national hotline.

The Veteran's Coalition and Veteran's Mental Health Council brought the bill to Representative Bob Johnson, (D)-Jacksonville.

He says he's worked out the funding issues opponents have had concerns about.

The call center would cost nearly 700,000 dollars a year to run and evaluate.

Rep. Johnson says the Health Department has money to start program, and once it's up and running, it'll qualify for federal dollars.
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Being Married to PTSD Came with Package Deal--Deal With It and Learn

This was a letter to 

Ms. Vicki: Is PTSD a Forgotten Problem?

"I am married to an Air Force officer who has been active for 15 years. He was diagnosed with PTSD after his last deployment in 2010. I am very disappointed because people don't talk about PTSD anymore. I feel that it's a forgotten illness because there is a draw down of forces and the wars are over....I don't think any of the professionals understand that I am suffering, too. What about the wives or other spouses? What can I do to try and make my marriage last and stand the test of time?"

Honestly, all I can think about is that with all the instant access to what this generation has, how can they know so little? After all, we learned, found support and when we couldn't we created the support for others. We did it without the internet. Shocking for the younger generation, I know, but life did happen before we even had cellphones.

I am sure you remember those days. Having to find a payphone when you were going to be late or needed directions. When you took long rides and actually listened to the radio or a cassette tape, instead of hearing the chimes of a new update about what someone posted on Facebook or Tweet from a friend...or the President. The times when we actually sat and talked over coffee instead of taking selfies.

Sometimes I wonder if the younger spouses think we were always this old! I met my husband when I was just 23! Good Lord! I am old! But it has been one hell of an experience being married this long. Some of it sucked. Most of it, after we left the doorway of hell, has left me wanting to see others make it this long. It was so worth the effort!

Maybe they are used to it...everything coming easy. After all, if they don't find the answers they need in their circle of linkers to their accounts, it must not exist! God forbid they do something like a Google search when we actually had to get into our cars and drive to the library. I don't know about you, but being an Army brat, I had to know what I was getting into. I read clinical books with a dictionary to understand what Vietnam did to my then boyfriend. All they have to do is sit with their laptops in their p-js and get all the answers they need.

So why don't they? Why haven't they discovered that none of this is easy and that is why their lives are a lot harder than they need to be?

Because it is hard work and far from something that can be reduced down to 140 characters. If they really want to save their marriages, or save the lives of their husbands, they need to actually be willing to fight for them.

One of the groups I belong to started just as long ago working on PTSD and offering support in tiny groups for veterans and families. Check out Point Man International Ministries and see what I mean. If you want an eyeopener on what was going on back before the flood (Yes, Noah) then discover what we knew back in the 80's when the best researchers started out and we found our own way our of the abyss.

84 Year old Veteran Evicted--Community Stepped Up!

Groups step in to help 84-year-old Rock Hill veteran who faced evictions
Herald
Andrews Dys
March 20, 2017

The veteran told police money was missing from his bank accounts, a bank card had been stolen, and money from benefits that he had for rent and utilities was missing.
“The police helped him and he may have been swindled out of his money,” Guest said. “There were some choice words used for someone ... who would take an elderly veteran’s money. You can’t print those words in the newspaper.”

Read more here: http://www.heraldonline.com/news/local/news-columns-blogs/andrew-dys/article139668028.html#storylink=cpy

ROCK HILL
Veterans services and veterans advocacy groups worked Monday to get help for an 84-year-old veteran who had faced eviction and homelessness.

The Rock Hill chapter of Rolling Thunder, a veterans advocacy group, had $500 in gift cards and cash for the veteran, and was organizing more to help the man long-term.

The veteran faced homelessness last week in sub freezing temperatures, had it not been for some fast-acting law enforcement officers.

And as people mobilized to help him, some of the veteran’s belongings were thrown in a trash container and hauled away Monday from the house where he lived on Eden Terrace, across the street from Winthrop Coliseum. Court records show the eviction was legal, even if one of the people affected was “too frail to be put out into the cold,” as police put it.

“I drove by the house last week and saw all the stuff thrown in a heap outside and like anybody else, I didn’t know what happened until I read it in The Herald,” said Al Guest, president of Rock Hill’s Rolling Thunder chapter and a Vietnam War combat veteran. “Then when I read that he was a veteran and evicted, and could have frozen outside, I was upset.”

The story published in The Herald spread through social media and has been shared and commented on hundreds of times.
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US Soldier Killed in Germany Car Crash

Soldier killed in car accident when driver raced MP
STARS AND STRIPES
By MARTIN EGNASH
Published: March 20, 2017

GRAFENWOEHR, Germany — Spc. Tyler Vaughan, a 22-year-old soldier stationed in Vilseck, Germany, was killed Saturday in a car accident near the Grafenwoehr Training Area, the military said.

A 22-year-old soldier stationed in Vilseck, Germany, was killed Saturday, March 18, 2017, in a car accident near the Grafenwoehr Training Area. Two other soldiers were seriously injured and the driver of the car, who tested positive for alcohol, suffered minor injuries. COURTESY OF THE FREIHUNG FIRE DEPARTMENT

Vaughan, who served with the U.S. Army’s 2nd Cavalry Regiment as a fire team leader, was a passenger in a vehicle that veered off the road and rolled into a tree near the Grafenwoehr main gate, German media reported. Two other soldiers, 26 and 27 years old, were seriously injured.
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