Chaplains: Fort Hood traumatized us, too

The question chaplains get most is "Why did God let this happen?" just as you will read later in the posted article regarding Fort Hood and the aftermath. It has been more helpful to answer this question with another question. "What would you have had God do?" Usually this leads to having God stop it but they can't think of how or when it's supposed to be stopped. When does it stop? Before this one is hurt or killed or after that one? Can you justify someone living thru it instead of another person? Were they less worthy? No they were not and they were loved just as much. God didn't decide to put the guns in Major Hasan's hands. Hasan did. God does not force anyone to do anything but He does ask us, guides us, opens our eyes and our hearts so that we do not turn into people like Hasan, able to kill others for no reason other than he could.

There are many times when people say "God only gives us what we can handle." which is the most perplexing statement I have ever heard in my life. Is it they think a loving God sends them pain and suffering, heartache and misery? Why would He do such a thing? It is not that He sends what is bad but He sends the good surrounding us to help us through it. In times of crisis, there is goodness and compassion surrounding those who suffer. When they act out of care for someone else, God is there. When they act out of bravery to save someone else, God is there. The very fact humans can survive something that seems straight out of hell and still care about someone else proves God is there.

People either do things to others or for them. Do we blame God when they do bad things to us? Do we thank God every time someone comes to help us? Do we ever wonder who God could see us there in need just as we wonder where He was when evil unleashed a wrath upon us? The very fact that all that is from our better angels lives on after traumatic events indicates the love that God has for us and that He sent it to live within each of us because it was good. Some people just decide to kill off what is good inside of them, block out cries for help, ignore the calling of their souls to think of others and seek to take what is not their's to have. They become bitter and angry and live off hurting others. These people did not change like this on orders from God but from the selfishness of our ego.

Better angels were more in number that day at Fort Hood than the worst mankind had to offer. The soldiers who helped the wounded, the police officers responding and then the entire base caring about everyone else there, leaning on each other like family and the prayers of an entire nation with them in the days that followed. Just as funerals are still going on and communities line the street to honor the fallen's return and prayers go out for the wounded. These are our better angels and considering how much we outnumber the bad, it's easy to see that God did not allow any of it but most likely grieved as He had to watch too.

Chaplains: Fort Hood traumatized us, too

By Rick Jervis - USA Today
Posted : Monday Nov 16, 2009 15:23:53 EST

FORT HOOD, Texas — They were supposed to be spending a day leading Mass, talking to soldiers about love and marriage, readying for their own deployment. Instead, the military chaplains of Fort Hood found themselves on the afternoon of Nov. 5 scrambling to the front lines of the worst shooting massacre on a military base in U.S. history.

Thirteen people were killed and more than 30 wounded. Authorities charged Maj. Nidal Hasan with murder.

As some of the first to arrive on the chaotic scene that day, the chaplains counseled dazed, injured soldiers, comforted witnesses and prayed over the bullet-ridden bodies of the slain.

Now they are being asked to lead the healing process. The pace and success at which they counsel the wounded and their families will determine how quickly the post returns to normalcy, said Ralph Gauer, past president of the local chapter of the Association of the United States Army, a group that counsels military families through tragedy.

“Chaplains right now represent the glue that holds an awful lot of units together,” Gauer said. “But they have to come to grip(s) with it themselves. They have to try to understand what they saw themselves as they explain it others.”

There are 75 chaplains at Fort Hood, most of them assigned to units, said Lt. Col. Keith Goode, deputy 3rd Corps chaplain. Ten more chaplains have been flown into Fort Hood, including an imam and a rabbi, to help with the counseling.
read more here
http://www.armytimes.com/news/2009/11/ap_hood_chaplains_111609/

Vietnam Veteran receives retroactive PTSD benefits

“It’s unfair to make a man who has sacrificed for his country go through decades of fighting through the bureaucratic red tape,” he said.

Vietnam Veteran receives retroactive PTSD benefits

CHESTER – Edward Kehoe, a local Vietnam Veteran, received retroactive disability benefits for injuries he received from Agent Orange during the Vietnam War.

Kehoe, of Chester, served in Vietnam from 1966 until 1971 and during his service was awarded the Bronze Star among other honors. Exposure to Agent Orange, an herbicide contaminant used in the war, the loss of friends and heavy combat, left Kehoe with post traumatic stress disorder. The disorder hindered his transition back to civilian life

read more here

Vietnam Veteran receives retroactive PTSD benefits

Agent Orange Balloon release to remember the fallen from deadly killer

Over the years I've come into contact with so many people working on making the lives better for our veterans. Shelia and Henry have dedicated their work to keeping the veterans exposed to Agent Orange from being forgotten. They are an amazing couple. Please click on their links to see pictures from around the country on this balloon launch they did with orange balloons.

Agent Orange Balloon release

Links to Various slideshows & Pictures

Pictures & Slideshow from Gibson City, Illinois

Delaware Valley Vietnam Veterans Slideshow

REDHORSE Association, Tim Teney
Littleton, Colorado

Links to News & Media Coverage
WCIA TV station in Champaign, Illinois
(Gibson City)
Reno, Nevada Local News Video

KTVN News Channel 2 Reno, Nevada
(Video includes Veterans Story)

Toledo, Ohio ABC News Coverage

Fox News Channel 12 Toledo, Ohio

Agent Orange Victims & Widows Support Network
Home Of The Agent Orange Quilt Of Tearshttp://www.agentorangequiltoftears.com/

Sacrifice is meaningless without remembrance

Wasn’t the Bad Man a Soldier? child asks after Fort Hood

“Wasn’t the Bad Man a Soldier?”
Posted on November 15th, 2009
by Carissa Picard in Op-ed, Texas News, US Government News, US News, crime, military

I live in a housing village on Fort Hood. On November 4th, at approximately 1:30 PM, the emergency alarms went off. I was expecting to hear that this was a test of the “Emergency Alert System.” Instead, I heard, “Attention. Seek shelter immediately. Close all doors and windows. Turn off all ventilation systems. Seek shelter immediately. Close all doors and windows. Turn off all ventilation systems.” Then the alarms went off again. And again. Every fifteen minutes.
A great deal of confusion followed For the next two hours there were many rumors about what was happening, including a shooting at the PX and in one of the villages. My husband, who was off-post with our children (who thankfully got out of school at 1 PM that day and were with him) was unable to come on post as it was on lock down. He called me and insisted that I not only stay in the house but that I stay on the second floor and away from the windows.
Around 6:30 PM, Fort Hood lifted the lock down that had prevented anyone from entering or leaving. From CNN, I learned the details of the mass murder that had occurred less than 15 minutes away from our home at the place my husband had visited on numerous occasions in preparation for his tour to Iraq and as part of his reintegration upon his unit’s return.
As soon as the news began covering the shooting, I started receiving emails and phone calls from people who were worried about me. People I barely know have extended their thoughts and prayers to me and my family. I have not responded to 99 percent of these people, including family. I have not talked about the shooting since it occurred. I have talked about the shooter, Major Hasan, but not about the shooting itself.
Today, ten days later, I went to the shoppette with another spouse who lives about six houses down the street from me. The first thing I saw when I entered the store was two racks of this week’s TIME magazine with Major Hasan’s military photo on the cover, life-sized and large. It was like being punched in the stomach. My first reaction was disgust. Then anger. I turned to my friend and told her, “I don’t even talk about what happened! Who the hell are they to talk about it?” So naturally I had to buy the magazine and find out what they had to say.
(You know what? If no magazine was making the shooting an issue, that probably would have upset me, too. It is all very confusing.)
This got me thinking about why I don’t talk about the shooting. People keep asking me if I am okay. I don’t know how to answer that question. Yes? No? Maybe? This is a loaded question for those of us who have to answer it.
click link for more

PTSD, unlock so you can unload

PTSD, unlock so you can unload
by
Chaplain Kathie

First know who were and why you were that way.

As a kid your Mom told you "you're a good kid" and she said that for a reason. You were the type to always help her and your dad, the younger brothers and sisters and usually even your cousins.
You helped out the elderly neighbor when no one else wanted to bother at all.
You were the first one friends told their troubles to because they knew you cared and would not attack them for telling you what they would tell no one else.
Everyone you came into contact with, you cared about. You may not have agreed with them or even liked them but you cared about them. The "good kid" your mom saw in you was because of the compassion you were born with.

That pull inside of you to help out when someone was in need came from your soul and you were always doing things to make someone happy or feel better because it made you feel happy just to help.

As you grew older, your compassion fueled great courage. You joined the military, the National Guards and said "send me" to go where few others were willing to. After September 11th when this nation was attacked, you said you wanted to go and defend this country so that it would not happen again. Just as generations before went because their country decided to get involved in wars, most enlisted willingly. Even the soldiers drafted into service found it within them to use their compassion and their courage to take care of someone else.

It is this same compassion where your caring nature came from that PTSD found a way in to wound the part of your brain where your emotions live. When you walked away as a survivor, you walked away with the pain from others on top of your own. You walked away with guilt wondering why you did not die or what you should have done to save someone you believe you could have.

Some veterans are not done serving and they use their skills, courage and compassion to take care of others by their careers. They enter into law enforcement, fire departments as employees or volunteers and emergency services. Some veterans have mild PTSD and if treated, it does not get worse, they can go on with their lives, working, keeping families and learning how to cope with what cannot be healed, finding peace with it.

For others, working is impossible because the wound cut them too deeply or there were traumatic events followed by more traumatic events crushing them. Their families fall apart because no one understands what changed and they assume the worst that the veteran has gone from "good kid" to uncaring monster. They ended up doing more harm to the veteran when they may have wanted to help but just didn't know how to.

When you know what is at the root of PTSD, you begin to understand the fact you can heal with help. When you have help from your family and friends because they understand the pain you came home with, you can share the load to make it easier to carry instead of everything in your life falling apart. It's not that you want to share graphic stories with them and it is not that you have to talk to them about that aspect at all. That's what the professionals are there for. What you can talk about is what you are feeling inside so they understand the "good kid" they always knew is alive still but now needs their help to surface again.

You were there when they needed you because you cared about them. Give them the chance to do the same for you. You saw no shame in them needing help, and they will see no shame in you needing it from them. Help them to understand and stop trying to hide it acting like "normal" when they can see right through you. The only thing you are hiding from them is the reason for the changes in the way you act.