Jacksonville Home Donated to Disabled Veteran's Family
Roger Weeder Ann Butler
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- A local family found out what it means to live in a city that prides itself on being military-friendly.
The Shield Foundation Home for Veterans program selected Jacksonville and a Jacksonville family to receive a home.
Louis and Loyda Hamilton and their five children got the keys to their home on Myrtle Avenue during a presentation at City Hall.
The Shield Foundation is associated with Pinnacle Property Solutions, which specializes in the sale of foreclosed property. The home being donated is in foreclosure and was renovated for the Hamilton family.
read more here
Jacksonville Home Donated to Disabled Veteran
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Heaven Knows They Need You
When someone in your family returns from war, what do you expect? Do you expect them to come home the same way they were when they left? Do you think to yourself, they are home and they are safe so there is no need to worry about them anymore?
Too many times what happens is they come home, cover the scars they carry easily while they are treated to their favorite meals, welcome home parties and spending time with the people in their lives they care about the most. Young soldiers want to hang out with their buddies. Servicemen/women want to spend time with their kids and spouses. They want to get back into the "normal" world they always knew. The problem is, for some, that normal world is feeling as foreign as the world they just left.
Sometimes it just takes time to recover but other times, time is not their friend. You may notice days, weeks or months after their return, they are doing things, saying things totally out of character for them. You may notice they seem to zone out while you are talking to them, they drink more, talk less and suffer from nightmares. Somehow we manage to forget where they were and what their lives were like away from us. So we make excuses.
Parents, after knowing them all their lives, being there since their first step, will look at their veteran son/daughter, and wonder why they are acting the way they are. They will see the changes and get angry, feeling frustrated, Jack and Jill came back from the "hill" with buckets filled with woes. They want them back the way they were but as they wait, as they get into arguments, if they are dealing with a PTSD veteran, that kind of response only adds to the problem.
A spouse has the same issue going on. They want them back the way they were. They wish, hope, wait, wonder what magic words to use to get their husband or wife to return to the way they were before. Time is now the enemy. Frustration builds. If the issue is PTSD, it is also time lost when they could be healing, waiting allows PTSD to gain more control over them.
If they come home with drastic changes in their personality, you will be the first to notice, but if you don't understand what PTSD is, you don't know what you're looking at.
You need to understand what they dealing with. The sooner they get help, the better. If you love them, if you don't want them to leave then help them heal. With any other illness, you'd make sure they go to the doctors for help. This is not just an illness, it is a wound. It is a wound to their soul and can claim every part of them. Fight for them. If you watch the following video and suspect they have PTSD, then get them to go for help. If you are wrong, you have one less thing to worry about but if you are right, you may have just saved their life. Understand that changes after trauma are something to worry about. Be their advocate as you have been with everything else in their life.
PTSD is a wound. They may wish to be the way they were before. You may wish they were the way they were before. All of what they were is still there behind a wall of pain searching for a way to come out from behind it. Help break that wall down so they can get out. Stop wanting and start doing. Learn what PTSD. Heaven knows they need you now!
Too many times what happens is they come home, cover the scars they carry easily while they are treated to their favorite meals, welcome home parties and spending time with the people in their lives they care about the most. Young soldiers want to hang out with their buddies. Servicemen/women want to spend time with their kids and spouses. They want to get back into the "normal" world they always knew. The problem is, for some, that normal world is feeling as foreign as the world they just left.
Sometimes it just takes time to recover but other times, time is not their friend. You may notice days, weeks or months after their return, they are doing things, saying things totally out of character for them. You may notice they seem to zone out while you are talking to them, they drink more, talk less and suffer from nightmares. Somehow we manage to forget where they were and what their lives were like away from us. So we make excuses.
Parents, after knowing them all their lives, being there since their first step, will look at their veteran son/daughter, and wonder why they are acting the way they are. They will see the changes and get angry, feeling frustrated, Jack and Jill came back from the "hill" with buckets filled with woes. They want them back the way they were but as they wait, as they get into arguments, if they are dealing with a PTSD veteran, that kind of response only adds to the problem.
A spouse has the same issue going on. They want them back the way they were. They wish, hope, wait, wonder what magic words to use to get their husband or wife to return to the way they were before. Time is now the enemy. Frustration builds. If the issue is PTSD, it is also time lost when they could be healing, waiting allows PTSD to gain more control over them.
If they come home with drastic changes in their personality, you will be the first to notice, but if you don't understand what PTSD is, you don't know what you're looking at.
Posted to Great Americans by NamGuardianAngel on December 14, 2009
You need to understand what they dealing with. The sooner they get help, the better. If you love them, if you don't want them to leave then help them heal. With any other illness, you'd make sure they go to the doctors for help. This is not just an illness, it is a wound. It is a wound to their soul and can claim every part of them. Fight for them. If you watch the following video and suspect they have PTSD, then get them to go for help. If you are wrong, you have one less thing to worry about but if you are right, you may have just saved their life. Understand that changes after trauma are something to worry about. Be their advocate as you have been with everything else in their life.
Posted to Great Americans by NamGuardianAngel on September 11, 2009
PTSD is a wound. They may wish to be the way they were before. You may wish they were the way they were before. All of what they were is still there behind a wall of pain searching for a way to come out from behind it. Help break that wall down so they can get out. Stop wanting and start doing. Learn what PTSD. Heaven knows they need you now!
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Why I give back to veterans
The reason I do what I do has been attacked recently so I thought it was a good time to clarify why I do what I do. I've been there. I know what it's like for the families to feel lost and alone, struggling to make sense out of what is happening in their lives, but above all, what it is like to watch someone you love suffer.
When Vietnam veterans came home, no one was talking about PTSD. There were no news reports other than when they were arrested and the headline made sure to include the words "Vietnam Veteran" supporting the image of "yet another crazy Nam Vet" jeopardizing polite society. VV wives knew better and we learned by living. Each day was a challenge to hang onto hope when each day we watched them die a little bit more inside. Everyday we never knew if it would be a good day when we saw more of the husband we loved smile again, or if it would be a day of having to get out of the house with our kids because Dad was having a bad day.
We learned that when the nightmares came, they were not really there in the bed, if they slept in the bed at all instead of on the sofa. We learned you do not yell to wake them up or touch them in striking distance because we could end up with a black eye or bloody nose. We learned sudden moves, like walking up behind them too quietly could cause yet another bad reaction from them. A broken glass, a kid crying because they got hurt playing, all could cause an over reaction from them, adding to the event, and our reaction could either ease it or make it worse. We also learned how to help our kids understand it was not their fault.
We learned how to go shopping alone; parent virtually alone; make decisions; go to movies with friends instead of our husbands; adjust to the fact when we did manage to get them to go to a restaurant, we would have to wait until there was a booth open instead of sitting at a perfectly good table in the center of the room. We also learned how to deal with our own families refusing to understand what we were trying to tell them because they were too busy talking, telling us to get divorced because "you don't deserve to live this way" never once able to understand our husband didn't deserve to live "this" way either.
We learned how to deal with the financial problems because they were spending money we didn't have so they could self-medicate. We dealt with the fact it was easier for them to be considered a drunk or druggie instead of crazy. Yes, crazy. Most of them said they didn't want to go for help because the VA would end up locking them up and tossing away the key if they knew what was going on inside of their minds because they managed somehow to decide they had turned evil. We dealt with the bad decisions they made on a whim buying a motorcycle when the car was falling apart, buying lobsters when the kids needed new shoes, the stack of bills that couldn't be paid because they couldn't hold onto a job very long and refused to go to the VA.
Even when we could get them to finally understand they needed help and we needed hope given back, the VA was "out to get them" in their own minds and it was a daily struggle to get them to keep trying. Each denial letter came in the mail and we watched the knife dig deeper into their backs as we also saw shreds of hope evaporate before our eyes. We held it all together, and then someone managed to take on the VA, fighting with doctors that wouldn't talk to us or include us in on the way they treated our husbands. We knew when they were not telling the doctors the truth about what was going on because they tried to hide it instead of being honest, again, with the fear hanging over their heads that they would be locked up, and we'd be able to help the doctors discover the truth. Why? Because we knew the sooner the doctors knew exactly what was going on, the sooner we'd be able to get our husband's back in our lives again. At least we hoped that would be the case.
Some of us just couldn't do it anymore and some of us reached the point where the world crashed so hard on our shoulders, we just kept giving up until the day came when they were having a good day again and we'd remember we loved them. My husband and I separated several times, but we never stopped talking to each other. I had the luxury of understanding why he was the way he was and even with that, there were times when it was just too much, too long for me to stay strong.
In all the years I managed somehow to get other veterans to listen to me more than my own husband did. I knew what it was like to be inside their head and for most, they hated the fact I could get in there. Stunned was replaced by hope because some got what they were trying to hide and why they tried to hide it. I still had to hold down a job, so I did accounting, worked as assistant manager of an ice cream shop at night so I could be home with our daughter during the day and did whatever I could to help make ends meet. I also had to hang onto some hope.
First it was a battle to get him to go for help. Then the diagnosis. Then to the Vet's Center. Then to the VA. Then to the DAV because his claim was turned down at the same time experts were telling us he needed the VA experts so that he could begin to heal. Then it was a six year battle to have his claim approved and each denial dug the knife deeper into his soul. They were billing us for his treatment. The insurance we had because he managed to keep his job wouldn't pay, because they said it was the responsibility of the government. The PTSD was linked to Vietnam by VA doctors leaving the private insurance off the hook but the VA wouldn't honor his claim. The media didn't give a crap and told me reporting the story on what was happening to our veterans was just "sour grapes" instead of opening their ears and hearing what was happening, not just to my husband, but to veterans all over the country. The net was filled with veterans screaming for help but the reporters were oblivious to all of them.
With an approved claim finally, we had a check for some of the years we had to fight. By then I was an expert on PTSD. I read more clinical books than a PHD, talked to more veterans and their families than any therapist but above all, I lived with it everyday. At this point I could have said, "I got mine, screw you" and just got on with my life but I was compelled to help others get to where I was. My own husband said he wished I could just be "normal" and drop all of this. I had to keep reminding him what it was like when no one would help us.
So here I am 27 years later, doing blog posts so that veterans and their families can read about others across the country, PTSD can stay with a huge spotlight on it and no one will suffer feeling alone. I also do it so that the next time some reporter figures out there is a huge secret going on with our veterans suffering, they have most reports all in one place. I do it so that wives like me won't have to do this alone without someone understanding and helping them avoid the same mistakes I made. So that parents and partners of the newer veterans can get to where I am on the fast track. Above all, so that they do not have to watch them die a slow death.
None of what we're seeing has to happen. I used the technology of today and came up with videos because people want to be entertained. I figured if they were ever going to stop being afraid of the words Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, they would have to hear it from someone on their level and someone who made it work. It's why I wrote the book I did but it's a lot easier to get thru a video than over a hundred pages of a book.
Yes, I could have walked away, gave up this extra stress and thought about just me and my family but I couldn't. God wouldn't let me. Every time I wanted to walk away, He pulled me back in by an email begging for help or yet another email telling me I made a difference and then my heart would be broken all over again when an email came from someone finding me too late to save the life of someone they knew, too late to keep a family together, too late to provide a means to forgive.
So I sit here today, ignored by the media unless they want an easy way to find a story to do on a veteran or find easy facts. Ignored by the people with the power to really do something to help the veterans heal and forgotten about when I need help from other organizations using my work. In all of this I also had to figure out how the hell to begin a tax exempt so that I could finally get some donations to cover the huge expense of becoming a chaplain and carrying insurance, plus the training and the travel. I used to pay for the expense of traveling around the country, but when I said I needed trips funded, well, then I wasn't worth it.
We're suffering financially for what I do. No one seems to really care. Each day, I wonder how to pay the bills, suffer with the usual problems every family does and then wonder why I still do it when no matter what I do, people will refuse to help me. One high ranking person actually said that if I were any good at what I did, I wouldn't need to ask for help. Imagine that! He never stopped to consider he never offered to help me either. Then again, he doesn't believe there is such a huge problem with PTSD. The fact is, the veterans I help can't afford to help me. I won't publicize what I do for them or what they say to me because it's a promise I made to them a long time ago. I only post about what is available online from the media. From time to time I tell my own story and put in my two cents coming from tracking all of this and talking to the veterans for all these years, plus living with it.
I offered to help more organizations than I can remember when they first started but when I asked them to help me help veterans more, I was ignored. I sent out videos but never heard back even though I had a huge file from veterans telling me they needed them and they helped their families understand what they were trying to tell them.
Knowing what works in this world doesn't seem to matter unless you have someone helping. Someone to support you and help you do what you know how to do because they know what you don't. I know PTSD. I don't know how to do everything else that they know but they won't share. What goes around comes around and just as I share what I've learned about PTSD to make life easier, they won't share to make my life easier even though I've been proven right sooner or later. I knew PTSD would explode in 2001 and spent my own money to get my book published in 2002. Did this matter? No.
Congress didn't listen, the media didn't listen, service groups didn't listen and now, they are still not listening while I feel like John the Baptist screaming in the wilderness getting my neck ready for the chopping block. If I don't get some financial help soon, I will have to stop because I won't be able to afford the Internet or the roof over my head. I've been out of work for almost two years, in other words, without a paycheck, but working for free doing this work. If you can't afford to donate, believe me, I understand. Most of the charities I used to donate to haven't received donations from me this year either. What you can do is offer a prayer for me and my work. You can pass on my work to others on your email list and spread the word. The more hits I get, the less I am ignored.
There has to be someone out there somewhere able and willing to help me but I have yet to find them. I've been blessed with a few that have reached out to help as much as they can, but "the harvest is plenty and the workers are few" leaving me out here pretty much alone.
If you trust me, believe in an "average person" like you trying to make a difference, then please help me so that I can keep helping them heal.
When Vietnam veterans came home, no one was talking about PTSD. There were no news reports other than when they were arrested and the headline made sure to include the words "Vietnam Veteran" supporting the image of "yet another crazy Nam Vet" jeopardizing polite society. VV wives knew better and we learned by living. Each day was a challenge to hang onto hope when each day we watched them die a little bit more inside. Everyday we never knew if it would be a good day when we saw more of the husband we loved smile again, or if it would be a day of having to get out of the house with our kids because Dad was having a bad day.
We learned that when the nightmares came, they were not really there in the bed, if they slept in the bed at all instead of on the sofa. We learned you do not yell to wake them up or touch them in striking distance because we could end up with a black eye or bloody nose. We learned sudden moves, like walking up behind them too quietly could cause yet another bad reaction from them. A broken glass, a kid crying because they got hurt playing, all could cause an over reaction from them, adding to the event, and our reaction could either ease it or make it worse. We also learned how to help our kids understand it was not their fault.
We learned how to go shopping alone; parent virtually alone; make decisions; go to movies with friends instead of our husbands; adjust to the fact when we did manage to get them to go to a restaurant, we would have to wait until there was a booth open instead of sitting at a perfectly good table in the center of the room. We also learned how to deal with our own families refusing to understand what we were trying to tell them because they were too busy talking, telling us to get divorced because "you don't deserve to live this way" never once able to understand our husband didn't deserve to live "this" way either.
We learned how to deal with the financial problems because they were spending money we didn't have so they could self-medicate. We dealt with the fact it was easier for them to be considered a drunk or druggie instead of crazy. Yes, crazy. Most of them said they didn't want to go for help because the VA would end up locking them up and tossing away the key if they knew what was going on inside of their minds because they managed somehow to decide they had turned evil. We dealt with the bad decisions they made on a whim buying a motorcycle when the car was falling apart, buying lobsters when the kids needed new shoes, the stack of bills that couldn't be paid because they couldn't hold onto a job very long and refused to go to the VA.
Even when we could get them to finally understand they needed help and we needed hope given back, the VA was "out to get them" in their own minds and it was a daily struggle to get them to keep trying. Each denial letter came in the mail and we watched the knife dig deeper into their backs as we also saw shreds of hope evaporate before our eyes. We held it all together, and then someone managed to take on the VA, fighting with doctors that wouldn't talk to us or include us in on the way they treated our husbands. We knew when they were not telling the doctors the truth about what was going on because they tried to hide it instead of being honest, again, with the fear hanging over their heads that they would be locked up, and we'd be able to help the doctors discover the truth. Why? Because we knew the sooner the doctors knew exactly what was going on, the sooner we'd be able to get our husband's back in our lives again. At least we hoped that would be the case.
Some of us just couldn't do it anymore and some of us reached the point where the world crashed so hard on our shoulders, we just kept giving up until the day came when they were having a good day again and we'd remember we loved them. My husband and I separated several times, but we never stopped talking to each other. I had the luxury of understanding why he was the way he was and even with that, there were times when it was just too much, too long for me to stay strong.
In all the years I managed somehow to get other veterans to listen to me more than my own husband did. I knew what it was like to be inside their head and for most, they hated the fact I could get in there. Stunned was replaced by hope because some got what they were trying to hide and why they tried to hide it. I still had to hold down a job, so I did accounting, worked as assistant manager of an ice cream shop at night so I could be home with our daughter during the day and did whatever I could to help make ends meet. I also had to hang onto some hope.
First it was a battle to get him to go for help. Then the diagnosis. Then to the Vet's Center. Then to the VA. Then to the DAV because his claim was turned down at the same time experts were telling us he needed the VA experts so that he could begin to heal. Then it was a six year battle to have his claim approved and each denial dug the knife deeper into his soul. They were billing us for his treatment. The insurance we had because he managed to keep his job wouldn't pay, because they said it was the responsibility of the government. The PTSD was linked to Vietnam by VA doctors leaving the private insurance off the hook but the VA wouldn't honor his claim. The media didn't give a crap and told me reporting the story on what was happening to our veterans was just "sour grapes" instead of opening their ears and hearing what was happening, not just to my husband, but to veterans all over the country. The net was filled with veterans screaming for help but the reporters were oblivious to all of them.
With an approved claim finally, we had a check for some of the years we had to fight. By then I was an expert on PTSD. I read more clinical books than a PHD, talked to more veterans and their families than any therapist but above all, I lived with it everyday. At this point I could have said, "I got mine, screw you" and just got on with my life but I was compelled to help others get to where I was. My own husband said he wished I could just be "normal" and drop all of this. I had to keep reminding him what it was like when no one would help us.
So here I am 27 years later, doing blog posts so that veterans and their families can read about others across the country, PTSD can stay with a huge spotlight on it and no one will suffer feeling alone. I also do it so that the next time some reporter figures out there is a huge secret going on with our veterans suffering, they have most reports all in one place. I do it so that wives like me won't have to do this alone without someone understanding and helping them avoid the same mistakes I made. So that parents and partners of the newer veterans can get to where I am on the fast track. Above all, so that they do not have to watch them die a slow death.
None of what we're seeing has to happen. I used the technology of today and came up with videos because people want to be entertained. I figured if they were ever going to stop being afraid of the words Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, they would have to hear it from someone on their level and someone who made it work. It's why I wrote the book I did but it's a lot easier to get thru a video than over a hundred pages of a book.
Yes, I could have walked away, gave up this extra stress and thought about just me and my family but I couldn't. God wouldn't let me. Every time I wanted to walk away, He pulled me back in by an email begging for help or yet another email telling me I made a difference and then my heart would be broken all over again when an email came from someone finding me too late to save the life of someone they knew, too late to keep a family together, too late to provide a means to forgive.
So I sit here today, ignored by the media unless they want an easy way to find a story to do on a veteran or find easy facts. Ignored by the people with the power to really do something to help the veterans heal and forgotten about when I need help from other organizations using my work. In all of this I also had to figure out how the hell to begin a tax exempt so that I could finally get some donations to cover the huge expense of becoming a chaplain and carrying insurance, plus the training and the travel. I used to pay for the expense of traveling around the country, but when I said I needed trips funded, well, then I wasn't worth it.
We're suffering financially for what I do. No one seems to really care. Each day, I wonder how to pay the bills, suffer with the usual problems every family does and then wonder why I still do it when no matter what I do, people will refuse to help me. One high ranking person actually said that if I were any good at what I did, I wouldn't need to ask for help. Imagine that! He never stopped to consider he never offered to help me either. Then again, he doesn't believe there is such a huge problem with PTSD. The fact is, the veterans I help can't afford to help me. I won't publicize what I do for them or what they say to me because it's a promise I made to them a long time ago. I only post about what is available online from the media. From time to time I tell my own story and put in my two cents coming from tracking all of this and talking to the veterans for all these years, plus living with it.
I offered to help more organizations than I can remember when they first started but when I asked them to help me help veterans more, I was ignored. I sent out videos but never heard back even though I had a huge file from veterans telling me they needed them and they helped their families understand what they were trying to tell them.
Knowing what works in this world doesn't seem to matter unless you have someone helping. Someone to support you and help you do what you know how to do because they know what you don't. I know PTSD. I don't know how to do everything else that they know but they won't share. What goes around comes around and just as I share what I've learned about PTSD to make life easier, they won't share to make my life easier even though I've been proven right sooner or later. I knew PTSD would explode in 2001 and spent my own money to get my book published in 2002. Did this matter? No.
Congress didn't listen, the media didn't listen, service groups didn't listen and now, they are still not listening while I feel like John the Baptist screaming in the wilderness getting my neck ready for the chopping block. If I don't get some financial help soon, I will have to stop because I won't be able to afford the Internet or the roof over my head. I've been out of work for almost two years, in other words, without a paycheck, but working for free doing this work. If you can't afford to donate, believe me, I understand. Most of the charities I used to donate to haven't received donations from me this year either. What you can do is offer a prayer for me and my work. You can pass on my work to others on your email list and spread the word. The more hits I get, the less I am ignored.
There has to be someone out there somewhere able and willing to help me but I have yet to find them. I've been blessed with a few that have reached out to help as much as they can, but "the harvest is plenty and the workers are few" leaving me out here pretty much alone.
If you trust me, believe in an "average person" like you trying to make a difference, then please help me so that I can keep helping them heal.
Monday, December 14, 2009
Stolen Valor:Steven Douglas Burton
Military Impostors Are Neither Few Nor Proud
Richard C. Paddock
San Francisco Correspondent
(Dec. 14) -- Steven Douglas Burton wore the Marine Corps uniform proudly. He had rows of medals, including a prestigious Navy Cross, a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star.
He posted a photo of himself in uniform and blogged about serving one tour of duty in Afghanistan and four in Iraq. He was at the Battle of Fallujah, he said, and praised the doctors who "patched us up."
But Burton wasn't a hero. He was a fraud who purchased medals online.
A scam that began two years ago when Burton wore a Marine Corps uniform as a Halloween party costume ended Monday with a guilty plea in federal court in Riverside, Calif.
Burton, a 39-year-old bank employee from Palm Springs, was unmasked after he wore the uniform of a Marine lieutenant colonel to his 20-year high school reunion. A classmate who was a Navy commander became suspicious of his story, got him to pose for a photo and handed it over to the FBI.
Burton pleaded guilty to a single count of the unauthorized wearing of a military medal. He faces up to a year in prison and a $100,000 fine for violating the Stolen Valor Act, which prohibits wearing an unearned medal or falsely claiming to have earned one.
"The defendant was wearing some of the highest military honors given in this country for valor," said Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph Akrotirianakis, who prosecuted the case. "He never served in the military."
read more here
Military Impostors Are Neither Few Nor Proud
Richard C. Paddock
San Francisco Correspondent
(Dec. 14) -- Steven Douglas Burton wore the Marine Corps uniform proudly. He had rows of medals, including a prestigious Navy Cross, a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star.
He posted a photo of himself in uniform and blogged about serving one tour of duty in Afghanistan and four in Iraq. He was at the Battle of Fallujah, he said, and praised the doctors who "patched us up."
But Burton wasn't a hero. He was a fraud who purchased medals online.
A scam that began two years ago when Burton wore a Marine Corps uniform as a Halloween party costume ended Monday with a guilty plea in federal court in Riverside, Calif.
Burton, a 39-year-old bank employee from Palm Springs, was unmasked after he wore the uniform of a Marine lieutenant colonel to his 20-year high school reunion. A classmate who was a Navy commander became suspicious of his story, got him to pose for a photo and handed it over to the FBI.
Burton pleaded guilty to a single count of the unauthorized wearing of a military medal. He faces up to a year in prison and a $100,000 fine for violating the Stolen Valor Act, which prohibits wearing an unearned medal or falsely claiming to have earned one.
"The defendant was wearing some of the highest military honors given in this country for valor," said Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph Akrotirianakis, who prosecuted the case. "He never served in the military."
read more here
Military Impostors Are Neither Few Nor Proud
Back from combat, women struggle for acceptance
Back from combat, women struggle for acceptance
By KIMBERLY HEFLING (AP)
WASHINGTON — Nobody wants to buy them a beer.
Even near military bases, female veterans who served in Iraq and Afghanistan aren't often offered a drink on the house as a welcome home.
More than 230,000 American women have fought in those recent wars and at least 120 have died doing so, yet the public still doesn't completely understand their contributions on the modern battlefield.
For some, it's a lonely transition as they struggle to find their place.
Aimee Sherrod, an Air Force veteran who did three war tours, said years went by when she didn't tell people she was a veteran. After facing sexual harassment during two tours and mortar attacks in Iraq, the 29-year-old mother of two from Bells, Tenn., was medically discharged in 2005 with post-traumatic stress disorder.
She's haunted by nightmares and wakes up some nights thinking she's under attack. She's moody as a result of PTSD and can't function enough to work or attend college. Like some other veterans, she felt she improperly received a low disability rating by the Department of Veterans Affairs that left her with a token monthly payment. She was frustrated that her paperwork mentioned she was pregnant, a factor she thought was irrelevant.
"I just gave up on it and I didn't tell anyone about ever being in the military because I was so ashamed over everything," Sherrod said.
read more here
Back from combat, women struggle for acceptance
By KIMBERLY HEFLING (AP)
WASHINGTON — Nobody wants to buy them a beer.
Even near military bases, female veterans who served in Iraq and Afghanistan aren't often offered a drink on the house as a welcome home.
More than 230,000 American women have fought in those recent wars and at least 120 have died doing so, yet the public still doesn't completely understand their contributions on the modern battlefield.
For some, it's a lonely transition as they struggle to find their place.
Aimee Sherrod, an Air Force veteran who did three war tours, said years went by when she didn't tell people she was a veteran. After facing sexual harassment during two tours and mortar attacks in Iraq, the 29-year-old mother of two from Bells, Tenn., was medically discharged in 2005 with post-traumatic stress disorder.
She's haunted by nightmares and wakes up some nights thinking she's under attack. She's moody as a result of PTSD and can't function enough to work or attend college. Like some other veterans, she felt she improperly received a low disability rating by the Department of Veterans Affairs that left her with a token monthly payment. She was frustrated that her paperwork mentioned she was pregnant, a factor she thought was irrelevant.
"I just gave up on it and I didn't tell anyone about ever being in the military because I was so ashamed over everything," Sherrod said.
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Back from combat, women struggle for acceptance
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